Digital Darkroom Assignment #9

cletus · July 2, 2004

Your Assignment: Adding Text to Images

There are any number of reasons you might want to add text to an image. Some of the more obvious ones are adding photo credits, adding copyright information, preparing an image for use as part of a website design. You can also use text in an image to have fun!

Use the photo editing program of your choice to add text to an image. Be as creative as you want! Feel free to post as many images as you like.

Note: Even if you don't post anything, try to get some practice working with text. Some of the upcoming assignments will provide you with a chance to put what you learn into use.

Ideas

Try making selections using text
Try distorting text (bending, stretching, etc.)
Try adding effects to your text (drop shadows, fills, strokes, etc.)

Examples

Here is an example of text added to provide copyright information (and no my real name is not Cletus Delroy

) as well as add to an image.

Here is something I created from scratch in Photoshop. Something like this might be usefull as part of a brochure or a website.

wxwax · July 2, 2004

Alright, we're back in action!

cletus · July 6, 2004

Text on a path
Photoshop CS (and I believe PS7) lets you place text along a path. Type on a path opens up some creative options.

Andy · July 6, 2004

cletus delroy ....
is that your porn name?

lynnma · July 6, 2004

andy wrote:

is that your porn name?

lynnma · July 6, 2004

time is everything... there's never enough.... or so it seems.

cletus · July 6, 2004

Very nice Lynn!!!

wxwax · July 10, 2004

So I'm trying to learn how to shoot bands in low-light concert settings without using a flash. It ain't easy. Last night I shot a group in which a friend/co-worker plays bass. The bar never turned on the lights for 'em, so I was forced to shoot at high ISO, and cheated on exposure compensation (lowered it two stops) to get a reasonable shutter speed.

After the show, the friend said he wanted to make a poster for the band. So I'm testing ideas using the shots I got last night. They're so grainy and desaturated, I decided to make 'em B&W. They've been run through Noise Ninja, I fear too-soft photos if I remove any more noise.

Anyway, on to the poster. Never done one. Figured I'd start with something simple first. Anyone who stumbles across this have any feedback?

lynnma · July 10, 2004

wxwax wrote:

So I'm trying to learn how to shoot bands in low-light concert settings without using a flash. It ain't easy. Last night I shot a group in which a friend/co-worker plays bass. The bar never turned on the lights for 'em, so I was forced to shoot at high ISO, and cheated on exposure compensation (lowered it two stops) to get a reasonable shutter speed.

After the show, the friend said he wanted to make a poster for the band. So I'm testing ideas using the shots I got last night. They're so grainy and desaturated, I decided to make 'em B&W. They've been run through Noise Ninja, I fear too-soft photos if I remove any more noise.

Anyway, on to the poster. Never done one. Figured I'd start with something simple first. Anyone who stumbles across this have any feedback?

Hi sid, I like it actually. The only thing I might have played with (I'm addicted) would be to mess with the channel mixer in black and white and maybe add some dramatic side lighting in ps.. but I probably would have ruined it. So I"ll take all that back and say again that I like it.

wxwax · July 10, 2004

Another idea.

wxwax · July 10, 2004

lynnma wrote:

Hi sid, I like it actually. The only thing I might have played with (I'm addicted) would be to mess with the channel mixer in black and white and maybe add some dramatic side lighting in ps.. but I probably would have ruined it. So I"ll take all that back and say again that I like it.

Thanks Lynn. I too like the dramatic effects of high contrast using channel mixer. Unfortunately, what I'v discovered is that it doesn't work with low-light, high noise images. They get horribly splotchy and generally unusable when I try it. So the B&W conversion needs to be done with a gentle hand, I'm afraid.

ginger_55 · July 10, 2004

re poster

lynnma wrote:

Hi sid, I like it actually. The only thing I might have played with (I'm addicted) would be to mess with the channel mixer in black and white and maybe add some dramatic side lighting in ps.. but I probably would have ruined it. So I"ll take all that back and say again that I like it.

hehe, I just would have changed his shirt, possibly the haircut, but the poster is great, IMO.

ginger

wxwax · July 10, 2004

ginger_55 wrote:

hehe, I just would have changed his shirt, possibly the haircut, but the poster is great, IMO.

ginger

You're bad, Ginger.

And thanks!

Here's another version - I think this one would really need some tweaking, if the concept were approved.

wxwax · July 10, 2004

Hey Lynn, if you want to play with the color image and try your own B&W conversion, maybe you'll do better than I did. Let me give you a link to the smugmug gallery where it's sitting. You can grab the original and play with it, if you'd like.

Here's the link.

lynnma · July 10, 2004

wxwax wrote:

Another idea.

I like the first one more.. this one is a bit hard to read..

lynnma · July 10, 2004

wxwax wrote:

You're bad, Ginger. And thanks!

Here's another version - I think this one would really need some tweaking, if the concept were approved.

thanks sid for the link, I don't think I'd do as well as you but I'll go look at it.. I really like this one.. I thinks its very cool indeed. This one has my vote..

DavidTO · July 11, 2004

I gave it a shot, what do you think?

pathfinder · July 11, 2004

DavidTO wrote:

I gave it a shot, what do you think?

I think you are on the right track - if it were me, I would isolate the singer and darken the background substantially and get rid of the whitish background - but that is just me....

The color noise issue can be reduced substantially by a technique described in S Kelby's Photoshop CS for Digital Photographers on p82. He converts the original color image to lab mode and then Gaussian blurs the a and b channel quite strongly anywhere from 6 - 20- pixels worth - the same amt in each channel. Then sharpen in lightness and convert to B&W as per your routine.

This is an attempt of mine via this route .....

Playing with image size in PS, I think this would tolerate an 18 x 24 image size for a poster.

wxwax · July 11, 2004

David, Pathfinder, thanks for the great ideas. Path, I'll go look up that Kelby technique, I could sorely use it. David, I like how the blue and the blur smooth things out, very nice.

DavidTO · July 11, 2004

wxwax wrote:

David, Pathfinder, thanks for the great ideas. Path, I'll go look up that Kelby technique, I could sorely use it. David, I like how the blue and the blur smooth things out, very nice.

I applied heavy noise reduction in Nik's Dfine. It blurred the image, but I liked that. A lighter touch on the noise reduction would have yielded a sharper image. I then added a guassian blur with a layer maske, eliptical shape with a lot of feathering.

The other thing I did that I liked was to mess with the curves to bring up the contrast on his forehead a bit, to emphasize his being in the spotlight, so to speak.

Oh, and the b/w conversion was the lightness channel in LAB, converted to grayscale, then to RGB.

It would be interesting to spend more time on isolating him, making him pop more against the background.

Also, I like the blue I picked, but the hardest part truly is the type. Finding an artful, eyecatching and not stupid way to integrate type is tough.

Digital Darkroom Assignment #9

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