Photoshop CS2 is really beginning to p*ss me off. No matter how exactly I attempt to follow the instructions, I don't get the result that they promise. Or it works differently from how it is supposed to, because presumably I didn't choose the proper setting or put things in the right order. Not only that, the version of Photoshop which is used in the tutorial CD is not the one I have, so some of the controls are different.

I have tried to work with the "layers" process, which the tutorials pass over very quickly. I will try to work it out again with the help of the massive CS2 "Bible." But I can't seem to get the layers in order so that one will lie transparently across another, or will be superimposed without conflicting with the previous layer. Some of the commands which I find in CS2 are not there, or not used, in the instructions.

I created a simple scribble for me to try out Photoshop coloring techniques on. My intention with all this is to add color to my black and white drawings, just as current comic book artists do. I found that I could color this drawing using a much simpler process that didn't involve either "layers" or "channels." It came out fine using a single layer and the area selection devices that are already available in the program. So why do the big guy pro's use so many layers and complexities? There must be a reason, but I don't get it. Fortunately, I'm not going to be doing this professionally, at least not in the comic book world. I'd really like to sit down with someone who knew it well and figure out what I am not doing right.

I am not sure that Photoshop is the best medium for a digital artist. It is excellent for photographic manipulations, which is what it was originally designed for. The big fat manual shows you how to do all sorts of photo trickery and glitzy graphics which are irrelevant for what I need. Yet I have seen "awesum" artwork created entirely on Photoshop by commercial artists in the film and videogame industry. Are they using all those layers to do this? How and why?

There is another digital art program, "Painter," which is up to version 10 now. It was created specifically for artists, and it simulates artistic media rather than photography. I have version 9, which I can upgrade to 10. In the past I have used it with much success for both graphics and artistic work. Right now I'm not using it because I want to learn to use Photoshop which is what the graphics pro's all use. But since I have so much trouble with CS2, I'll be re-loading Painter onto my machine, so I can work with what I know best and with what gets the best results.

Trigonometric Translations

What with all this distraction, I haven't had much time to do the math. As you may have noted from my last few postings, I am concentrating much more on art. I have just finished the penciling on an important piece that I should have done years ago, but am just now getting to. You'll see it when it's done. But the math book is still in my studio. I have been doing some of the elementary trigonometry problems provided, such as translating degrees to radians or vice versa. I need to have the same facility with radian-numbers, with their fractions or multiples of Pi, that I do with the more familiar degree system. And now I have to express the sines, cosines, and tangents in that number system too, complete with its irrational square roots; the book is not interested in calculator-generated long decimal numbers. I am not sure just how much of this trigonometry I'll need to continue with calculus, but I better do some of it to recover my trig knowledge. It would take me quite a lot of reviewing to do vector calculations again, but that doesn't seem to be what they're asking for. Problems are always available.

Posted at 3:13 am | link