• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

Need Montage Idea's

Tony Panzica

New member
I am looking for a cool new Montage that I can create a template for. I have realized how much I do not know of PhotoShop after all these years. I am basically self taught. I have created a pretty basic
Monage for a sequence of eigth images. Check out my front page at: http://www.actionphotos.net
I am interested in all ideas and suggestions. Remember, I am not a PS guru by any means.
Please post samples and workflow suggestions.
 

Tim Smith

New member
There are some wonderful shots in there. Well done.

As for the montage, my humble suggestion would be to do a little research into design and composition when grouping elements. The montage might want to appear as a finished "single" image--a whole thing greater than the sum of its parts. Something that tells a story and directs the viewer's eye to the punch line. I'm rambling a bit here, but what I'm trying to say is that at least one element of success for a montage effort might be how you combine the images which has less to do with how you process them (and your PS skills seem quite good by the way).

Using some very tight close-ups along with medium and long shots would break up the symmetry that can induce a static feel. Admittedly, this is not something that can be done with a template since each collection of images is unique. But, there are some simple rules of basic design that might be fun for you to experiment with.

Hope you don't mind the suggestion, but it's easy for us to get lost in the technical aspects of photography and lose sight of the fact that we are also creating something with which we hope to elicit an emotional response. Good design can be an asset in that sense.

Cheers! Tim
 

Tony Panzica

New member
Thanks, I do understand what your saying and I appreciate being reminded of what we are trying to accomplish. The series of shots I have on my site was a college buddies son playing at Alfred U, a small college in NY. He got a sack that day, so i made this for him. I have to crop each one, resize them, cause it was rainy, I boosted the brightness, contrast and saturation.
I have done some other collages or montages that were a wider variety of images and I layered them over each other. I hated the time waisted using the magnet cut out tool. It took too long. I am trying to can something, making it easier to drop photos into, I think! I dont want to have to spend three hours doing each montage, it wont be worth it for me to spend all that time. I think I will try
using one file for the main image, then resize the others using shadow borders.
 

Tim Smith

New member
I can see how the time involved might become a factor. My thought was that with just a little exploration into basic graphic design principles might actually make it easier to make decisions about what to put where and how to arrange things on the "page".

For instance, there's something of a "rule" that humans have a hard time sorting the relationships between a group of images when it contains more than 5 objects. In the case of a photo montage, the background (in your case the American Flag) would be considered an object. Also, an understanding of the principles of symmetry and asymmetry, positive and negative space, grids, etc., could get you to a more dynamic end product. This is all especially relevant when combining images.

Sorry for beating a dead horse, but I do it for a living (design that is, not beating dead horses!).

Tim
 

Nill Toulme

New member
Here's a really simple one that, printed at 16x24, was very well received by the customer. Were I to redo it now, I would replace the repeated pic at left bottom with the team logo.

poster091506.jpg

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 

Nill Toulme

New member
Tim Smith said:
I can see how the time involved might become a factor. My thought was that with just a little exploration into basic graphic design principles might actually make it easier to make decisions about what to put where and how to arrange things on the "page".
Tim I could certainly benefit from that. Are there any references at the "Graphic Design for Dummies" level that you could recommend to us?

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 

Tim Smith

New member
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there was in fact a real "Graphic Design for Dummies" book available since they seem to have one for almost everything. As you can imagine, like any topic, there are thousands of reference books and training courses on Graphic Design. Most of it would be counter-productive in terms of your application.

I did a quick google of "basic principles of Graphic Design" and the search generated lots of stuff. Some good, some not so good. But here's a link to a bare bones explanation of some basics that might give you some insight: Design Principles It's aimed at desktop publishing, but the rules apply for almost any type of visual communication.

And for a slightly loftier vantage point, you might scan some of the pages of the AIGA's (American Institute for Graphic Arts) website. Link to AIGA

Have fun!
Tim
 

Tony Panzica

New member
Nill, I like your effort, if you have a ton of one particular player, this solves the probelm of deciding which ones to add. I have some great ideas, but just seem to come up short when I get going in PS. I went to the Austin IAPEP convention last year and got the Fundamental and Advance DVD by Julia Dean. I just dont have the time to sit down. I need to put a day aside and go throught this DVD.
 

Deborah Kolt

New member
For basics of design, there are some excellent books by Robin Williams (not to be confused with the comedian!), such as The Non-Designer's Design Book. She also has one or two aimed specifically at web design. Her stuff is written in clear English without technical jargon, well organized and she hits just the major principles you need to keep in mind. If you have trouble finding any of her work, check with Peachpit Press - they have published most of her stuff. Occasionally, you can find articles by her online on graphic design sites.
 

Jim Kenny

New member
Tony - I did the following

seinors.jpg


The final version had different fonts and i put the players names on ... but not for posting

I had a parent cry when I presented it to her.

it was my first attempt .. it was fun !

Jim
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jim, I like that.

When did you do it and where did the design come from?

How do you know which kids to put together?

Are these your kids and their friends?

Asher
 

Nill Toulme

New member
Jim that's really nice. My first kneejerk reaction was that it would be improved by getting the color balance closer on the head shots, but on reflection I think it's just fine as it is.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jim and Nill,

If this is commercial, without a template and an action, how can one afford to do this for clients?

Asher
 

Jim Kenny

New member
This was my first season my son was on this team ... He is a 10 grader and earned a starting spot on this varsity team as a defender. (can you tell I am just a little bit proud of his accomplishment ?)

Anyway I attended 23 of the 25 games to watch and support my son and what do you know ... all these other kids kept showing up : ) That is how I got to know the who is who.

As for where did I get the idea ? As a parent first, I like a head and shoulder shot as well as an action shot.. And then I just picked the shots and I just tried different things it was a great learning experience.

One thing about the color balance, the kid 2nd from left, this shot was taken in August, around 100 degrees ... this kid is soaking wet from the sweat ... you can see it pasted to his skin ... and his face is beat red from the heat ! But that is one thing i learned when doing this again try to get the shots from the same shoot ... of bring in a flash ... which is my 2007 resolution to get better with one.

Asher ... your right this was a lot of work !

BTW - the kid 2nd from the right, # 9, The coach announced last night that he was voted on to the High School All-American team !

Getting back to Tony's op I guess the idea that i used on this that may help is to overlap layers and adjust the opacity - but one thing tony is get the kids NAME on the poster (again, in this case I posted a version with out the kids names ... ) ALSO consider trying to capture a image specifically for fitting into what ever template you end up with .. good luck tony !

Jim
 
Top