(Re)touching lives through photos

Posted on October 10, 2012 by VertusHQ

You know how photos and albums are always at the top of any list of ‘what would you grab from your home in the event of a fire?’, well imagine that on a national scale.

Here’s a TED talk worth 10 minutes of anybodys time. Becci Manson is a professional photo retoucher based in NYC. She tells the story of how volunteering in the clean up after the 2011 Japanese earthquake and Tsunami, led to her and local volunteers, together with a global army of over 500 colleagues she recruited online, cleaning and fixing lost and damaged photos found in the wreckage, restoring those memories to their owners.

“[Photos are] our memory-keepers and our histories, the last thing we would grab [in a crisis], and the first thing you’d go back to look for.” (Becci Manson)

Truly inspirational.

Best of the web – Digital Artists

Posted on September 28, 2012 by VertusHQ

We’re back, with the first in an occasional but regular look at digital image makers and artists who inspire us.

Natalie Dybisz is better know as her alter-ego Miss Aniela, a self taught fine art photographer based in London, England. With over 5.5 million views and counting of her Flickr Site, she is testament to the power of the internet to bring fresh talent to the worlds notice. In the tradition of the artist turning their gaze inwards, she started her career concentrating on self portraiture but with a modern twist – using composite images, with post production and image manipulation an integral part of the process, to create often surreal, always interesting and arresting self portraits -

“Self-portraiture has been my passion in photography and is the reason why I got into the art”

Reverie (2008). “Resembles how I felt the other day, when I let the events of the 24 hours glide past me in a day-long reverie.”

Tentilla (2011). “I wanted to shoot something in my garden before the electric autumn colours of the plants subside, but little did I know I would become my own electric plant. I knew the picture was going in a surreal direction, and it took on many forms as I worked on it. On a whim I masked out the top half of my body, and it became a much more powerful shape, the tentacles spoke to me and that was it.”

Imaging software and masking is just another tool, (like a camera), in the creation of Miss Aniela’s work, but it’s integral to her creative process -

“I like the complete independence and control you get with using a digital camera, Photoshop and yourself as a model.”

Their evening banter (2008). “This composite, more than ever, epitomises my general boredom with single shots, here being a complexly-woven society of six clones (five full bodies, but also the ‘one that got away’) trying to emulate the dinner scene in the painting on the wall…. definitely of one my proudest, if not the proudest, composite of mine..”

“I am an ‘amateur’ who became pro, not through formal training but through sheer curiosity and passion alone. It is a great reward to be able to inspire other people to try the same.”

Miss Aniela is now teaching others, offering workshops in the UK for fashion orientated photography, here’s an image reminiscent of her previous work, and see a video from the day.

You can see more of Miss Aniela’s images on her website and flickr site. We hope that her work will inspire Fluid Mask users, with their creative hats on, to explore the limitless possibilities that digital post production allows.

All images © Miss Aniela, reproduced with kind permission.

Vertus HQ

Danielle Skerman testifies for Fluid Mask

Posted on June 4, 2011 by VertusHQ

Danielle Skerman is a professional photographer based in Australia. She creates artistic photographs of horses with beautiful lighting. Here she tells us why she uses Fluid Mask.

“I first came across Fluid Mask in 2008 at the Photo Imaging conference in Brisbane Australia. I, like many in the crowd watched in amazement at a seemingly effortless demonstration of masking. I was suitably impressed – however ever skeptical as many like to claim greats but perform in the averages. I went home and thought about it, and decided ‘What the heck I’ll give it a go!’ Three years later and literally hundreds, if not thousands of edits, have involved Fluid Mask. Hence to say [sic], I have a great love for Fluid Mask; It’s fantastic and saves me so much time.

“This shot with the white stallion cantering towards the camera was shot in the stallions’ paddock. I used Fluid mask to separate him from his background and create a black background.” As you can see Danielle has cut out the horse’s hair beautifully. Says Skerman, “This stunning 22 yr old stallion was so striking in person; I wanted to create the same charisma in the photo that he is in life. Masking all that fine hair would have been painful and time consuming normally but with fluid mask it literally took about 1 minute to do so.”

Skerman doesn’t only photograph horses as you can see in the image below…“To shoot at this time of day to get it lit correctly just isn’t possible, as it would take so long to get the lighting right and the light continually changes. With fluid mask I was able to use a shot with a darker exposure for the sunset, going that extra mile in a professional image without the stress and time taken normally to create such a look.”

She says of the image of a black stallion in a blue background, “The original shot was unexciting and normal; I wanted to create an artistic image - something to put on a wall. I had this great background and only took seconds to mask the stallion out, enabling me to spend more time in the process and editing of the new image as a whole.”

“I had taken this shot of the white stallion being ridden but just wasn’t that happy with the existing background and I had this other great image that would work better. So all I had to do was to cut the rider and stallion from original shot and carefully place into alternate background I know I take on more technical work knowing the time fluid mask saves me, allowing me to keep to being creative and to worry less about the tedious job of masking!”

This is a beautiful image, which like all of Skerman’s work, highlights her ability to create magical imagery with the use of light and tone. The girl on the white horse gives a fairy-tale feel to the image as they travel through the brilliant patch of light breaking through the forest canopy.

Woman bowing with Friesian stallion The original image of the stallion actually had the owner standing behind the stallion assisting him in bowing, which you can see below. As this can be a very brief moment, and to gain the best results, it’s better to shoot images such as this, separately, bringing them together seamlessly using Fluid Mask. (See below for finished image).

“I just about use Fluid Mask on a daily basis. I use it from simple masking, to altering a background, add blur or colour effect, as well as major manipulations, which involve wild hair strands of a horse and design work. Fluid Mask is without a doubt a piece of software that I could not do without.”

Danielle Skerman is a member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photographers and her work can be found at www.directshots.com.au/

Fluid Mask on Flickr

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Steve

Here’s a quick look at some of the creations people have been making with Fluid Mask 3. Recently we trawled through Flickr to find that these images were all made in part with the help of Fluid Mask 3. A number of the images we found were produced by those experimenting with the Fluid Mask Trial and keen to show off the results. We think that’s a great testament to the ease of use and versatility of Fluid Mask 3, but more importantly we love seeing the amazing work people have been creating.

Here are five we thought were pretty great and worth bringing to your attention, but there are many more on Flickr for you to find yourself.

This is a subtle but fun image, as the balloon rises out of the frame bringing it and it’s spectators to life. A simple enough concept, but achieved beautifully.

Credit: Lutz-R. Frank

This one I love, as it looks like a real-life scene from a Hayao Miyazaki movie. The HDR effect is exceptional, and the lines in the sky mirror the length of the dirt pathway and it’s tire tracks, giving the image real depth.

‘Steel Vertorama’ by Marty.FM

Both of these next two images are by the same artist, of which we are a fan. I like the first for it’s imaginative collaboration of images to compose a very surreal subway scene in striking detail.

‘Ny subway 1 am friday’ by ed7929

Hot Rods have always been cool and this second image from ed7929 seems to prove it. The vibrant colors are electrifying against a sky-scape and stylized stretch of Tarmac that help give a classic style and a little sense of awe.

‘HotRoded HDR’ by ed7929

Below, szeke’s image of Vienna is regal, utilizing Fluid Mask to join two differrent exposures, plus some additional treatments as he goes on to discuss on Flickr. Clearly a gifted photographer, and his first attempt in Fluid Mask 3, we hope Szeke find many more uses for it in his work.

‘Hofburg, Vienna’ by szeke

In all of these, the eye catching imagery is a result of some great photography work to start with, but also the additional effects, like the HDR treatment, produced through Photoshop and in some cases some additional plug-ins. Meanwhile, Fluid Mask 3 goes unnoticed if not for the admission of the artists themselves, which is exactly as it should be – a great mask maintains the illusion no matter how contradictory or unlikely the composition might seem.

We continue to enjoy the images shared on Flickr. So, if you’d like to share any of you own images created with Fluid Mask, we suggest you post to Flickr and tag your creations with Fluid Mask to share with us all.

If you haven’t used Fluid Mask, please do, a trial version can be downloaded on our website.

Vertus HQ

Fluid Mask and a Humming Bird

Posted on March 22, 2010 by VertusHQ

So here is a photo of a humming bird taking nectar from a flower. This is a lovely image and you can tell the photographer used a high shutter speed to capture as sharp as they could, helped by the contrasting colours in the foreground and colour blending in the background. As you can see this was shot outdoors on a bright sunny day, which means that some light reflections and colouring may make it tricky to cut the flower and bird from their background. By increasing the amount of edges and reducing the edge width in Fluid Mask, this problem is easily resolved.

The next image (below) shows how the photograph should look once the background is masked out. The background colour was created using the swatch in Fluid Mask. The use of colour here prevents any visual confustion regarding the reflections, which creep on to the subject matter.

If you can achieve these great results, just think what else you can do when you start incorporating more interesting backgrounds and creating complicated cut outs!

Our Top Retouched Images

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Steve

Sometimes they can be funny, sometimes thought provoking, other times they just mess with your mind. They’ll always take your breath away though and make you wonder at the skills of the people that created them. The following images are our favourite manipulated images. If you’ve seen better we’d love to hear from you.

Credits

Worth1000
Fark
Kjun
Photoshop Talent
Artist-3d
Devotion Graphics
Adegen
Benoit.P

Understanding Edge Blending – A Feather vs. Smart Blend

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Steve

One of the crucial components of producing realistic cut-outs is how well the extracted object (cut-out) blends into the new background. Tools in Photoshop, for example, allow you extraction images with the extract tool or quick select tool but it’s when you drop in new backgrounds you see the cut-out sticking out like a sore thumb! Then is hours spent of your time trying to feather / soften / blend that hard edge – who needs that? Exactly!

So let us introduce to you yet another time saving function in Fluid Mask 3. Users of Fluid Mask 3 are already benefiting from Smart Blending – this tutorial will show you how to set parameters within Fluid Mask 3 that will automatically recognise and react to soft and hard edges within the same image!

Make a few adjustments, analyse the image and let Fluid Mask 3 do the work for you! Too good to be true? Nope! just watch the video, all will be revealed.

Click on image to watch the video

Worst Examples of Photoshop in Print

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Steve

1- Fingerlicious…

I think I much preferred Christina when she was a plain-old genie in a bottle. That finger right there looks like it’s about to fulfil its God-given right and morph into the pigtail it was born to be.

Meanwhile, piggy finger’s ribbing the poor little doggie who feels it has no option but to leave a little brown surprise in Christina’s other hand in its desperate plea for help.

photoshop disaster
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2- Got Milk?

1st possibility: Drink lots of milk and you too will not only have a hard body like mine plus a free swimsuit to boot, but your eyes will clear up so much that you actually get to see the ghost that’s been following me around for the past couple of years. Admittedly, it’s a shy ghost as all you can see is its 3 digits, but it’s a ghost nonetheless dammit.

2nd possibility: the mannequin-looking athlete in the middle won 2 gold medals in the ‘Stretchy Arms’ sports category.

3rd possibility: the designer’s an incompetent fool.

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3- Beyonce, the Trapeze Artist…

Erm, Beyonce, babes, you’re drop-dead gorgeous and all and I’m sure you’re mad mad flexible (yoga seems to have nothing on you, sistah) – but come on now, there’s showing how supple you are and there’s showing off …and this is just downright uncalled-for showing off.

There’s a time and a place for that (like if you’re trying to get rid of the paparazzi), but this photo shoot ain’t it. Remember, you’re trying to SELL the perfume.

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4- Boo Yaa…

Women have always smugly felt that they have the monopoly on multitasking. Well, men can be pretty good multi-taskers too when they set their minds to it.

And here’s a picture to prove it.

Do you know of any women out there who can throw down a mean slam dunk and decapitate their fellow team member at the same time?

I didn’t think so.

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5- FHM…

Hmmm…looks like some FHM staff need to pop into their local Specsavers, perhaps.

Ok, arguably, the model was, erm, somewhat of a ‘hot babe’ – but I kind of drew the line when her belly button ate her finger.

Hurrah to her for putting on a brave face, gritting her teeth (as you can evidently see) and finishing the rest of the shoot.

What a woman.

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6- A Maze of Legs…

Yes. The FHM model’s bellybutton is at it again. One of Leah Wood’s legs is gone (and half of Peaches Geldof’s brain. The jury’s still out on Kimberly.)

On a serious’ish note, this photo shoot probably got way too ambitious for the poor designer’s IQ. Probably tried his/her bestest best, then sent the boat out, crossed fingers and hoped that amongst the maze of legs and nudity, no-one would notice.

Couldn’t have picked a better mag.

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7-I Came, I Jaw…

What happens when you try to cut corners in these crazy credit-crunching times by paying 99 cents for a teeth-whitening job at the shabby dentist’s place that just opened round the corner?

Her friend doesn’t quite know what to say to her, so she just smiles and says ‘Uh huh’. While her other friend’s pouting self-assuredly into the camera, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the prettiest one of them all’.

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8- Who’s That Girl…

Our Material Girl has tried many looks in her time and I admire her for it. She definitely doesn’t need to come back in a next lifetime as she’s just about tried every look in the book…

…apart from this one.

This is what she looks like when she takes off all her makeup.

Guy Ritchie. You missed out. Big time.

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Recent Update for Photoshop CS4

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Steve

The new 35.2MB multiple language update, 11.0.1, was released on February 24 and includes a number of fixes for the performance issues that have long been plaguing users. In addition Wacom pen users my now find life easier with corrections to pen barrel rotation problems when using their digital tablets. Also included in the list is a fix for the long standing bug which would cause Photoshop to crash when attempting to preview a corrupted font as well as another bug that would cause Photoshop to crash when pasting formatted text from a word processing document or web site. Here is a list of the most significant fixes in this update:

Some performance issues have been corrected
Wacom pen integration has been improved
Photoshop now recognizes 3D textures from add-ins
Some layer quality issues have been resolved
Crashes resulting from corrupt fonts have been addressed
Crashes while pasting pre-formatted text from an outside source have been addressed

Unfortunately, this update does not address issues with older video cards lacking OpenGL 2.0 compatibility. These computers are unable to make use of several of Photoshop’s new key features, so hopefully the next update will fix this issue.

This patch can be directly downloaded from the Adobe site here.

Worst Photoshopped Celebrity Pictures

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Steve

Ok, so we all know that most celebrity photos are touched up, but come on, this takes the biscuit (wafer-thin water biscuit, I might add. God forbid some are allowed to eat a butter shortcake).

1) Faith Hill – Redbook magazine (2007)

Faith Hill has left the building.

In her place is Faithazoid v1.0, complete with mannequin-thin arms, non-existent wrinkles and a perfect neckline and shoulder blades.

Oh, and the real Faith Hill didn’t have a right arm, but ‘Zoid does. ‘Zoid’s arms are also the same girth from shoulder to wrist.

Over-sized head. On a skinny body. Not a good look. No matter what the Photoshop demigods might say.

So much for that tagline under the mag: ‘Love your life’.

Yeah. Right.

worst edited celebrity pics- Faith Hill
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2) Kate Winslet – GQ magazine (2003)

Nice legs, but, erm, don’t they belong to the wrong Kate? I’m thinking more Moss than Winslet.

Ok, so admittedly, Winslet has lost some ‘for-Hollywood’ weight over the years, but not THAT much.

“I can tell you they’ve reduced the size of my legs by about a third”, she said. It turns out that, apparently, she’d seen the original photos (pre touch-up) and had liked how her legs looked there, but hadn’t been consulted when the digital changes took place.

I think she should have sued GQ to the tune of “a third” of all copies of the magazine sold for that particular issue.

Kate Winslet worst edited picture
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3) Andy Roddick – Men’s Fitness (2007)

Yes, male celebrities aren’t immune to the digital Frankensteinism going on with some mags. Even sports people can’t escape their clutches. Roddick’s biceps got more than a buffing up in Men’s Fitness magazine.

Maybe the mag was missing Popeye and tried to recreate him.

And, ahem, it’s absolutely no coincidence that there’s the title ‘How to Build Big Arms in 5 Easy Moves’ right next to Andy’s pic.

The thought never crossed their minds. Uh-uh. Not in the least.

worst edited celebrity pictures- Andy Roddick
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4) Jennifer Aniston – Star Magazine (2007)

So Jen-Jen’s minding her own business, doing whatever celebrities called Jennifer Aniston do, which this time round was her making her way to an auction. In her hand is the auction catalogue.

But uh-uh, this scenario isn’t juicy enough for Star magazine. So they make one up. According to them, Jennifer’s on her way to see her book publisher to hand in a draft copy of her tell-all book about her life with Brad Pitt. Ta da!

But wait – what about the auction catalogue?

Oh that’s easy, Star thinks. Nothing a little bit of Photoshop can’t handle in its sleep. They simply airbrush the image in front of the catalogue away to make it look like a book manuscript and hey presto, Lisa Minelli’s your uncle.

worst edited celebrity pics- Jennifer Aniston
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5) Katie Couric – Watch Magazine (2006)

At the time, Katie was about to become the new news anchor for America’s CBS evening news. Someone decided that she looked a bit too big-boned for the cover of CBS’s ‘Watch!’ magazine and decided to give her the Weight-Watchers treatment.

So, a little snip here and little snip there and voila, Katie became a shadow of her former self.

“I liked the first picture better because there’s more of me to love.”

Atta, girl!

worst edited celebrity images- Katie Couric
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6) Harry Potter promotional poster (2007)

Wow, Emily – my, my, my, look how you’ve grown.

For the most recent Harry Potter release, Emily Watson’s chest was altered in one of the promotional posters, while it was left unaltered in another.

There is some speculation on several blogs as to which came first – whether her chest was flattened from the original or whether it was enlarged, but that’s really beside the point. It’s bad enough that a need is felt to physically alter pictures of women (and men – but it’s mostly women) – sometimes drastically. But to use the same formula on younger individuals is very worrying.

worst edited celebrity images- harry potter
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7) Keira Knightley – King Arthur poster (2004)

What is up with people? Keira is a good-looking young woman and a great actress who I admit needs a bit more meat on her bones, but this is NOT the way to do it, guys.

In the 2004 film, King Arthur, Keira was digitally pumped up from a 32 whatever-she-is cup to at least a 34B.

If they didn’t like how she looked in the outfit, an idea might have been to alter the costume or something, not her.

In more recent times, she’s taken more of a stand and is plain refusing to have her breasts digitally altered in the future.

worst edited celebrity images- Keira Knightly
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Nicolas Sarkozy – Match magazine (2007)

Oooh, it must be all that rowing, innit?

Not.

The original version of the photo (warts and all) was shown in most mags, but the Parisian mag, Match, seemed to have a problem with it and gave the French president a bit of in-house liposuction.

Actually, the French president didn’t look that bad in the first place, but in the retouched version, notice his love handle’s gone AWOL and his side looks unnaturally straight?

worst edited celebrity images- Nicolas Sarkozy
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Vertus Blog

news, reviews, special offers

(Re)touching lives through photos

Best of the web – Digital Artists

Reverie (2008). “Resembles how I felt the other day, when I let the events of the 24 hours glide past me in a day-long reverie.”

All images © Miss Aniela, reproduced with kind permission.

Danielle Skerman testifies for Fluid Mask

Fluid Mask on Flickr

Fluid Mask and a Humming Bird

Our Top Retouched Images

Understanding Edge Blending – A Feather vs. Smart Blend

Worst Examples of Photoshop in Print

Recent Update for Photoshop CS4

Worst Photoshopped Celebrity Pictures