Photoshop secrets of the pros

20Top Artists andDesigners Face Off

Mark Clarkson

Secretsof theProsTM

San Francisco London

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File AttachmentC1.jpg

Photoshop Secrets of the Pros

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Photoshop

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20Top Artists andDesigners Face Off

Mark Clarkson

Secretsof theProsTM

San Francisco London

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Associate Publisher: Dan Brodnitz

Acquisitions Editor: Bonnie Bills

Developmental Editor: Pete Gaughan

Production Editor: Dennis Fitzgerald

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Director, Print Design and Composition: Amy Changar

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Front Cover Images: Isaac Epp and Matt Riddle (top left); Bas Hijmans and Evan Alexander (cen-ter); Christine Smart (bottom left); Bob Gundu and Farhez Rayani (bottomcenter); Richard Llewellyn and John Henry Donovan (bottom right)

Copyright 2004 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. World rights reserved. No partof this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but notlimited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic, or other record, without the prior agreement and written permis-sion of the publisher.

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For Dad, who always took the time to explain.

AcknowledgmentsThanks to Bonnie Bills for believing in this book, and to Pete Gaughan for helping me

keep track of the thousands of pieces that went into it. Thanks to Jim Coudal and the folks

at Coudal Partners for formalizing Photoshop Tennis and thrusting it into the spotlight.

Thanks to Thomas Knoll for inventing the worlds greatest piece of software, and to

Thomas Edison for inventing the electricity that makes my computers go. Hugs to my fam-

ily for their phenomenal forbearance and support during the difficult birthing process.

And a big shout out to everybody at Were Here (www.were-here.com) and 12Stone

(www.12stone.com), where I learned to play Photoshop Tennis and still do. (Phantom, its

still your turn to volley.)

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Mark Clarkson has been a professional writer since

1987, when he and the corporate world decided

theyd had just about enough of each other. The

state of PC graphics was almost unbelievably grim

back then, but he patiently waited the six years nec-

essary for Adobe Photoshop to arrive. He has used

it almost daily ever since.

Clarksons books span a wide range of sub-

jects including artificial life, animated cartoons,

BattleBots, and Photoshop. He lives with his wife

and two children in Wichita, Kansas, and rarely

leaves the basement. He is a cartoonist, a 3D ani-

mator, and, despite an unseemly penchant for

semicolons, a pretty good writer.

www.markclarkson.com

About the Author

Mark ClarksonYears as a Photoshop designer: Depends onwhos keeping score.

First version of Photoshop: 2.5

Area of specialty: Generalization

Non-digital art medium: Lego Duplos

Favorite non-Photoshop software: MacromediaFlash, LightWave 3D, Microsoft Word.

How has Photoshop changed the design field:Are you kidding me? At this point, Photoshop is thedesign field.

Height: 18,288,702,003 angstroms. More or less.

Favorite color: Radio

If I were a kitchen implement, Id be: A Mouli

Favorite TV shows: King of the Hill, Egg

Dance: Not if Im sober.

Favorite Photoshop filter/effect: Layers,layers, layers

Comfort food: Barbeque potato chips

Favorite motion picture: Lawrence ofArabia

Favorite read: Science fiction

Web site I visit too often:news.google.com

if the Mona Lisa is hanging in theforest and no ones around to see it,is it still art?

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viii

Contents

The Secret Life of Photoshop Designers 1The History of Photoshop Tennis 2

Everybody Plays 4Photoshop Tennis Rules (Such as They Are) 6The Matches in This Book 9

About the CD 12Keyboard Conventions 13

Match 1: Isaac Epp vs. Matt Riddle 14

Match 2: Shaun Inman vs. Leslie Cabarga 38

Match 3: Eric Jordan vs. Benoit Falardeau 62

Match 4: Roddy Llewellyn vs. John Henry Donovan 86

Match 5: Audrey Mantey vs. Joen Asmussen 110

Match 6: Bas Hijmans vs. Evan Alexander 134

Match 7: Christine Smart vs. Manuel Clement 158

Match 8: Bob Gundu vs. Farhez Rayani 182

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Match 9: Michelle Kwajafa vs. Nate Smith 206

Match 10: Dave Bedingfield vs. Walt Dietrich 230

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Photoshop Tennis 254

Real Designers Do Less, Get Paid More 254Master the Basics 256Three Words: Layers, Layers, Layers 256Blend to Win 257Preserve Your Elements 259You Can Never Have Too Many Brushes 260Add Some Texture 261Filter in Moderation 262Dont Think 262

Index 264

Whats on the Companion CD 278

ix

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The Secret Life of Photoshop Designers

I read an anecdote once, about a man and his son playing Frisbee in Europe. A passerby,

who had never seen a Frisbee before, came up and asked, How do you tell whos win-

ning? Thats exactly how I felt when I first stumbled onto Photoshop Tennis in 2001 at a

forum at the Were Here website (www.were-here.com) where the sport was played.

Photoshop Tennis? said I. Just what the hell is Photoshop Tennis? Even after

watching for a while, I wasnt entirely certain what I was looking at. I browsed through the

images being produced, and I was hooked immediately. This stuff was great! But how were

they doing it? Why were they doing it? What were the rules? Who was winning?

And, you may be asking yourself, what does it have to do with Photoshop Secrets of the

Pros? Hang on, and Ill tell ya.

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Photoshop Tennis (PT), defined most broadly, is two or more Photoshop artists trad-

ing images back and forth. As you watch the images in a PT match evolve, it is often far

from clear exactly how a particular image has been arrived at, and the artists rarely say.

The point is the result, not the process. But as a Photoshop aficionado myself, I do won-

der, howd they do that? How did they build those great photo collages? How did they

composite those photos so seamlessly? Where did they get the ideas? Do professional

designers use Photoshop the same way as the rest of us? Or do they know of special tech-

niques, accessible only by the initiated? That, my friends, is what this book is all about.

Photoshop Tennis, it occurred to me, was the perfect vehicle for peering inside

designers intricate little heads. What better way to gain insight into their creative

processes than to accelerate them to nearlight speed, slam them into each other, and

watch the pixels fly off? Metaphorically, at least.

I realized I could use Photoshop Tennis to bring together talented, creative people

in a collision of differing tastes, tools, backgrounds, and expectations. Pitting men

against women, web designers against illustrators, Holland against New York. A series

of Photoshop Tennis matches would provide the rare opportunity to watch designers at

work; to see which tools they reach for most often and how they use them; to eavesdrop

The Secret Life of Photoshop Designers | 1

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on their interior monologues as they make creative decisions, unfettered by client tastes

and business exigencies.

For this book, Ive brought together 20 talented artists and designers to face off, two

at a time. You get to watch as they build, battle, and collaborate, slamming pieces of high-

resolution art back and forth for your edification and, sometimes, amusement. Everybody

wins. What could be more fun?

The History of Photoshop TennisHow often, I wonder, in the history of humankind, has a sport been invented on purpose?

How often did someone sit down and say, Im going to invent a new sport something

involving a ball and maybe some sticks, and then do so? Knowing nothing whatsoever

about the history of sports, Ill offer the expert opinion that it was very seldom.

Usually, people were playing for a while before they realized they had a sport on

their hands: Hey Ugg, this throwing a rock back and forth is kind of cool. Lets play again

tomorrow.

Before long, the rules, vague at first, are codified:

Smooth rocks are better than pointy rocks.

Whoever throws the rock into the bears cave has to retrieve it.

No throwing the rock directly at your opponents head.

No cavegirls allowed.

Thats exactly how it happened with

Photoshop Tennis well, except for the

part about the cavegirls. And the rocks. But

nobody set out to create a game called Pho-

toshop Tennis. In fact, the exact origins of

the sport are obscure; we can never know

when the first two designers started passing

Photoshop files back and forth for fun.

Australian designer Justin Fox may

have been the first person to put such a

project online (www.bloop.org/choco/versus/) when he began the Versus Project in early

1999. In the Versus Project, two Photoshop designers took turns reinterpreting each

others art, taking no more than one hour. The process repeated until one or the other

designer got tired or gave up. Fox also created Visual Dialoguea conversation between

2 | The Secret Life of Photoshop Designers


two or more creatives [] conversing with

imageson Australian INfront (www.aus-

tralianinfront.com.au) later in 1999.

Photoshop Tennis, in the format I

employ in this book, was invented by acci-

dent at the Chicago-based design firm

Coudal Partners (www.coudal.com), one

lazy Friday afternoon in the summer of

2001. We were just goofing around on a

Friday, recalls Jim Coudal, trying to avoid

work. I made a Photoshop image and sent

it over the LAN to [Creative Director] Susan Everett. I said add a layer and send it back.

She added a layer to it and sent it back to me, and I added a layer and sent it back to her,

and that was very fun, and we didnt do anything but that for a while.

We said it was like tennis, says Coudal. We laughed at that: Photoshop Tennis.

The activity caught on throughout Coudal Partners, and they hosted their first official

live Photoshop Tennis match, on their site, August 10, 2001 (Figure 1). It featured

Michael Schmidt from K10K and author/artist Michelangelo Capraro from hopbot in San

Francisco, with play-by-play commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin.

To give the matches a context, Coudal Partners invented the RGB Cup Photoshop

Tennis Championship (Figure 2). They create a unique promotional poster for each match.


1. Volley 8 fromthe first officialPhotoshop Ten-nis match.Michael Schmidtslams the imageback with awicked, multi-color backspin.

Michael Schm

idt and Michelangelo C

apraro


Everybody PlaysThe word is definitely out about Photoshop Tennis, and designers all over the world are

anxious to throw down the gauntlet and show off their chops. A search of the web turns

up dozens of places where designers are engaged in a little of the old back-and-forth,

whether its personal matches between two designers or an active community of players

inhabiting a public forum or newsgroup.

Coudals Photoshop Tennis site and INfronts Visual Dialogue site are still up and

active; coudal.com is conducting an invitational tournament that continues its status as

the biggest PT event site. Designer Shaun Inmans Designologue (www.designologue.com)

offers various spins on the Photoshop Tennis idea. Inman, who appears in Match 2 in this

book, defines a designologue as a conversation between two designers in the medium they

understand best: design.

Youll also find them swapping PSDsand other image formatsat plenty of

forums, including these:

Digikitten www.digikitten.com

The Flashkit Arena www.flashkit.com

Worth1000 www.worth1000.com


2.To help pro-mote PhotoshopTennis, CoudalPartnersinvented theRGB Cup.

Jim C

oudal,coudal.com

X-ray provided and

Victor M

icallef,unusualxrays.com


Baseboard www.baseboard.net

Were Here www.were-here.com

12Stone www.12stone.com

We're Over There www.were-over-there.com

Graphic Forums www.graphic-forums.com

Creative Flight Club www.bd4d.com

YayHorray! yayhooray.com

Newstoday www.newstoday.com


Historical Co-op Play

Collaborative graphic art is nothing new, of course. It has ancient roots, stretching back, at least, to a collaborative char-coal-on-limestone project that started on a lazy Friday afternoon in Chauvet, France, back in the summer of 29,892 B.C.Check out the results on the web at www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html.

More than 30,000 years later, surrealists, who favored suggestive and ambiguous titles, enjoyed a game called TheExquisite Corpse.The idea of the game is for two or more artists to collaboratewithout benefit of actually seeing theothers work. Sometimes the game is played by adding words, one by one, to build up phrases, sentences, and storieswithout, of course, being able to see the words that have come before. Sometimes the game is played with drawingsand paintings on paper, folded so that the previous artists work, or most of it, is hidden.

The Exquisite Corpse is alive and well in the digital age. Applications such as Photoshop and e-mail make it easierthan ever for artists to collaborate and to stitch everything together again at the end. For some interesting examples,check out the Digital Exquisite Corpse project at www.corpse.org/issue_7/gallery/yow2.htm. The artists ofthe Digital Exquisite Corpse have been collaborating since 1997 and still have never met.

Copyright D

avid Walters,

Burnell Yow!,

and Lawrence R

.Parkes

Copyright D

avid Walters,

Burnell Yow!,

and Lawrence R

.Parkes


As Photoshop Tennis popularity has spread,

the number of variants has grown as well. Ive seen

matches with tall skinny images; matches with

short wide images; and matches in which the size

and aspect ratio of the images changes from volley

to volley; matches with huge images, tiny, icon-sized

images (Figure 3), and even one-pixel images;

matches in which every volley comes from a different

designer; and even team battles between different communities of

designers.

Perhaps the most popular derivative of Photoshop Tennis is the

Photoshop mural, or quilt. In these large, collaborative projects,

like the one in Figure 4, everyones work is preserved; rather than

placing new layers over previous layers, players add them to the side

of previous layers, building sideways or sometimes up and down.

Youll likely find murals anywhere you find an active community of

Photoshop Tennis players. For an excellent example of the genre,

visit the Versus Project (at cubadust.com), run by Photoshop Tennis

veteran Jonas Ring.

Cave drawings notwithstanding, theres never been a better

time, in the history of the world, for collaborative art. The possibili-

ties are quite literally limitless. PowerPoint Tennis? Been done. Flash

Football? Somebodys playing a game right now. Go out and get you

some.

Photoshop Tennis Rules (Such as They Are)It turns out that the rules of Photoshop Tennis, like the rules of Fris-

bee, are whatever you want them to be. Players pass images back and

forth, making changes as they go; beyond that, theres really no say-

ing what a match might be like, although players usually agree to a

set of house rules before starting: number of rounds, black-and-

white, use (or prohibition) of typography, or whatever.

If youre a quick study, thats all you need to know. Feel free to

skip ahead to the next chapter and start enjoying the matches.


4.This Photoshop mural was created espe-cially for this book by these fine artists.

3.This tiny image isfrom a 6464-pixelthumbnail bout.

Mark C

larksonW

alt Dietrich

Jorge Villanueva

Lawrence R

.ParkesM

at BastianM

ichelle Kwajafa


Still here? Okay, a few more details, just for you.

Photoshop Tennis matches are not limited to images

and effects created entirely within Photoshop. Photoshop

is a near-universal tool for 21st century artists, bringing

together elements from every digital (and digitizable)

medium: scanned artwork, type, illustration, photography

(Figure 5), or 3D software such as Maya, 3DS Max, and

LightWave 3D (Figure 6).

The typical match is between two designers and lasts

for 10 volleys, 5 per player, but individual matches can be

longer or shorter. Designers having a really good time may

agree to extend the match by a few volleys, or a player who

feels they have been sufficiently humiliated may choose to

drop out early.

Everyone agrees on the number of volleys before-

hand, as well as on image size, color space, theme (images

of war, images of food, images of bugssuch as Figure 7),

and so forth, in advance.


5. (left)Outside images such as digital photography can provide the raw mate-rial for a Photoshop Tennis volley.6. (above) Some players build elements in other apps, such as Poser, Illustrator,or (here) LightWave 3D.

Jim C

oudal,coudal.com


One player is chosen to create the first image. This first volley, called the serve (Fig-

ure 8), will more often than not set the tone for the entire match.

The next player has a number of options. They might just throw a new layer on top

of the previous layer, completely obscuring the other designers work (like the volley in

Figure 9) but, hopefully, continuing or expanding on some element or elements in that

image.


9. Now you cant see Gram and Gran at all.8.Will this be a drab match? An old-fashioned fight? Or a familygame?

7.You can do alot with somesimple bugs.


Or they may decide to blend a new layer (Figure 10) into the previous image, obscur-

ing some parts while revealing or even enhancing others, combining the two images into

one with the countless methods available with Photoshop. These include darkening, light-

ening, and multiplying, transferring color, saturation, or luminance, casting shadows, and

so forth, but leaving some measure of transparency. The resulting image retains at least

some aspects of the underlying image: colors, bright or dark spots, and so forth, depend-

ing on the blending mode(s) used.

In actual play, a designer rarely slips a single layer on top of the previous layer.

Rather, the volleys are often surprisingly complex and may contain a dozen or more lay-

ers, which are folded together with each other and the previous image(s) to create some-

thing new and unexpected. Figure 12 shows an example of such depth.

The Matches in This BookThis book is not version-specific; some of the participating artists used the latest version of

Photoshop, and others are variously out of date. Most of the techniques they employed


11.The result of Figure 10 blended with Figure 9.10.This new layer will be blended with Figure 9 to create anew volley.


have been available in Photoshop for many

years.

The book is divided into 10 chapters,

each detailing one hard-fought match

between two Photoshop artists. Each match

consists of 10 volleys, 5 per player.

After introductions have been made,

each new imageeach volleyis fea-

tured and dissected in its own two-page

spread. Simply turn the pages to watch the

pretty pictures evolve. Or tarry a bit at each

volley and read about what that artist was

thinking and what tools and techniques

they used to create their striking work.

Photoshop Tennis is especially exhila-

rating because the players make themselves more vulnerable than traditional artists by

working in public. Picasso could spend days, months, or years working on a painting if he

wanted to, and, if it didnt suit him, he could always burn it or paint over it. No one would

be the wiser. But a Photoshop Tennis player, like an X Games athlete, has to hang it all

out, right now, in front of the world; and if they trip, everyone gets to watch them fall.

We worked hard to preserve that atmosphere of possibility and risk in the prepara-

tion of this book. Each match played out in real time, over the course of about 24 hours,

with the artists getting one to two hours to create each volleyand, of course, to take

extensive notes on tools and techniques for my further edification and yours.

There were no take-backs. No do-overs. We didnt let each designer drop their least

attractive image. We didnt re-create the

images in a studio later, using advanced

computer technology. This is real art, done

on the fly. Everything happened just as you

see it here.

The idea was to maximize the artists

creativity and inventiveness. We asked

them to avoid copyright violations, misap-

propriation of corporate logos, and

needlessly shocking imagery, but other

than that we gave them complete free rein.


12.This volleyuses no fewerthan 16 layers toachieve its effect.


Consequently, you might see something a little edgy from time to time (depending on

where your personal edgy-meter is set). If thats cool with you, youre welcome. If that

makes you a little nervous, I hope youll bear with me. I trust youll find it worthwhile,

because these folks are good.

Anybody can run a few stock filters on an image and make something. But it takes

much more than that to make a piece of art or even to aspire to make a piece of art, in an

hourespecially with the understanding that everybody gets to see the results, no matter

what they are.

For the 10-volley matches in this book, artists worked in RGB color space at either

19001250 pixels (landscape), 15751575 pixels (square), or 12501900 (portrait). These

relatively large file sizes assured that the final images would look all sexy when printed in

this book.

The rules are simple. The results speak for themselves.

Questions? Comments? Want to learn more? Want to send me some fan mail (or

hate mail?) Drop by www.photoshoptennisthebook.com.

Enjoy!



About the CDOn the companion CD-ROM, Ive included these bonus tools to help you grow your skill

set:

Volley images Ive provided flat, full-resolution versions of all 100 volley images from

these matches. (These images are for readers personal viewing only and may not be redis-

tributed in any way.)

Adobe Illustrator

Macromedia Flash

Macromedia FreeHand

Signwave Auto-Illustrator




Keyboard ConventionsPhotoshop is popular on both the Macintosh and

Windows operating systems. This book always gives

shortcuts for both so that users on either platform

can successfully follow along. Ill give the shortcuts

for both Mac and Windows keys at the same time.

Macintosh Windows Example

Shift Shift Shift+X

Option Alt Option/Alt+X

Command Ctrl Command/Ctrl+X

Control-click Right-click Control/right-click

For example, the shortcut to open a file in

PhotoshopCommand+O on the Mac and

Ctrl+O in Windowswould be given as Com-

mand/Ctrl+O.

Mark C

larksonJason Pratt

Audrey M

anteyD

avid BlanchetIsaac Epp

Ian Rogers


14

No Strangers: Sonus vs. Tha Riddla

These contestants are no strangers to Photoshop

Tennis or to each other. Both are past residents of

Bloomington, Indiana, where they attended Indi-

ana University and, later, worked in the web devel-

opment division of the Hirons and Company

advertising agency.

Both Isaac Sonus Epp and Matt Tha Rid-

dla Riddle wanted very much to get into Photo-

shop Tennis, but they were new and shy and hesi-

tant about challenging others to a competition

they werent sure they understood. Instead, they

began by battling each other and still do so regu-

larly. In fact, during one holiday visit, the two had

an in-house battle at Riddles Chicago apartment.

At a maximum of 10 minutes per volley, that match

pushed the time factor to the extreme and added

the unusual factor of placing both players in the

same room at the same time. I was really sur-

prised, says Epp. Once we were actually right in

front of each other designing, the camaraderie

level jumped right up. Ten minutes was probably

too much pressure, but having the other guy right

there while youre working went really, really well.

Now the two are talking about putting

together a gallery show to exhibit the highlights

and processes of different really cool battles and, at

the same time, feature rotating artists throwing

down live in front of everybody.

Turning to our battle here, expect no nasty

slams and trash talking from these two guys. But

expect a great match, nonethelessfamiliarity

breeds contentand one that serves as an excel-

lent example of the format, style, and intensity of

Photoshop Tennis.

Match 1

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Spectator commentary is a big part of Photo-

shop Tennis as it is played online. To give you a

little taste, weve invited Walt Dietrich, whose own

match appears in chapter 10, to sit in as a guest

commentator for this first match. Walt lends his

insight into the tasty treats offered up by Epp and

Riddle, in the style of Iron Chef. Allez Cuisine!

15

No Strangers


Match 1: Sonus vs. Tha Riddla

Isaac Sonus Epp Years as a Photoshop designer: About six

Specialty:Typography

Photoshop Tennis really keeps your design skillssharp and keeps you abreast of design trends.

Nondigital art medium: Music

Favorite non-Photoshop software: Flash

Favorite Photoshop filter: Anything but Emboss

Photoshop is to designers what a hammer is to acarpenter.

If I were a kitchen implement, Id be a foodprocessor. Without it, there would be no pesto.With-out pesto, what is life?

Music to play Photoshop Tennis by: My own, MilesDavis, Portishead, Massive Attack,Tricky, Mozart, Bjrk,PJHarvey, Radiohead

Comfort food:Taco Bell Hardshell Taco Supremewith no meat. Mmmmmm

Best work I ever lost in a computer crash:About 50 tracks I recorded over a span of about 3months. It still hurts.

Favorite read: James Clavells Asia saga

Political bent: San Francisco liberal

If I didnt have Photoshop, Id be a person withmore free time and less money

Theyll identify my body by the small birthmarkon my [behind], inherited from my Native Americanforebears

San Franciscobased web designer Isaac Epp works

mostly in Flash animation and ActionScript, but he

finds Photoshop an essential piece of the puzzle:

Anybody doing digital design or artwork has to be

adept at Photoshop.

His co-workers at e-learning company Vitesse

Learning tend to have Flash, programming, and

instructional design backgrounds, says Epp. With

my Photoshop and advertising background, Im a

different-colored egg.

Epp is also a former philosophy major and a

classically trained violinist and composes music he

describes as jazz-influenced, laid-back, down-

tempo trip-hop.

Although Epp has taken part in dozens of

online Photoshop Tennis matches, he found that

working at print resolution changed the rules. You

cant fudge and get away with the things you can

get away with online, at low resolution. I was so

worried about artifacts, and making sure every-

thing was going to look good in print, that I was

printing my work every few minutes.

www.fluidformdesign.com

Designers

a different-colored egg


Matt Tha Riddla Riddle Years as a Photoshop designer: 6

Area of specialty:Web layout

Favorite aspect of Photoshop Tennis: Expandingcreativity, pushing my limits

Nondigital art medium: Photography

Favorite non-Photoshop software: Quake 3,Urban Terror Mod

Favorite Photoshop filter: Layer blending modes

Photoshop has grayed the line between the realand the created in design/photography.

If I were a kitchen implement, Id be a cheesegraterI love me some Parmesan

Comfort food: Oreos

Favorite TV show: Good Eats

Best work I ever lost in a computer crash: Ayears worth of Photoshop Tennis matches

Favorite motion picture: Raising Arizona

Favorite read: Photography books

Favorite sport: Soccer (both playing and watching)

Political bent: San Francisco liberal

If I didnt have Photoshop, Id be playing StreetFighter

Theyll identify my body by my soul patch

Matt Riddle has been a Photoshop maven for six

years, since he encountered the program in a digi-

tal photography class at Indiana University. With

digital photography you can really take control of

your photographs, he says. In a traditional photo-

graph, accidental elements or plain happenstance

can combine to make the image magical. But there

has to be a purpose for everything in a digital

image. Why is this element in the picture? Why

here instead of there? Do I want that leaf falling off

the tree?

He landed an internship at Hirons and Com-

pany, where he did web design and development.

That job started my education in design, he says.

Isaac got me that job. He also introduced me to

the design elements of art. He was the first person I

ever talked to about design sense. I owe him a lot.

Riddle recently moved to Chicago, where he

is doing freelance web design. But hes not com-

pletely a Lone Ranger; the strength of his Photo-

shop Tennis work demonstrates his ability to create

in a group environment.

www.mattriddle.com

No Strangers

a purpose for everything


In Photoshop Tennis, having the serve can be seen

as either an advantage or a disadvantage; since

there is no previous image to build on, the

designer is starting with a blank canvas er a

blank screen. I started out with a photograph I took

of power lines with a Minolta Dimage X digital

camera, Epp says. I felt the blue gradient of the

sky was really striking and would be a nice starting

off point. I was playing with the idea of mimicking

the gradient of the photo to fill the background,

cutting out the power lines, and then duplicating

them for a texture across the canvas. But not every

idea works out, and Epp couldnt get a texture he

was happy with: I tried to liquify the ends of the

lines to create organic interest, but that failed too.

In the end, all I kept of this effort was the back-

ground gradient.

Now it was time for a little foreground text to

add interest to the image. I love playing with

fonts, says Epp. Chalet is my favorite and most

versatile modern font family, so I chose that. I

wanted to keep the battle openthis was only a

serve after allso I kept the text to the point.

Epp conceived of the bracket and bent line as

a way to give the text a connection to the rest of the

image. He wanted the bracket large enough to

enclose the text, but simply dialing up the font size

resulted in a line weight that was too thick. To keep

the line weight thin, he started with a smaller

bracket and rendered the type (Layer Rasterize

Type). Next, he cut the bracket in half and

pulled the two halves apart. Last, he stretched the

vertical line to extend all the way between the two

halves, resulting in a tall, thin bracket.

Epp copied the brackets inner line, pasted it

on a new layer, and then used the Free Transform

command (Edit Free Transform) to rotate and

stretch it to make the horizontal line. He used a

mask to hide part of the horizontal line, and then

he copied a portion and tilted it at a 45-degree

angle to help imply visual motion across the gradi-

ent. I used a mask, he says, because I wasnt sure

that the 45-degree angle would work, and I wanted

to be able to go back with little effort.

That done, Epp wanted to give the image

more life. I had the idea to wear away a few cor-

ners. I used the Eraser tool in Paintbrush mode.

Epp selected a stock Adobe brush that he calls

bristle star because its shape resembles a marine

bristle star. When used in rough, uneven strokes,

this brush can give a nice worn, streaky, or torn

look to edges. It was at 100% opacity in most cases.

Next, he applied the Liquify filter (Filter

Liquify) to create the cloud-flame effect. I was

really happy with the clean result, says Epp.

18

Volley 1: Isaac Epp

From Battle Dome Stadium,todays theme ingredient is sky blue! Announcer: Mas-ter of Photoshop cuisine Sonus-san serves up a dish ofsky blue, delicately balanced with just a touch of vec-tor line. Reporter: It is said that Sonus-san learnedto draw fine omelets at the age of eight. CelebrityGuest #1: These are clouds with crab claws, hmm?Interesting.

this was only a serve after all


Match 1 | Volley 1 | Isaac Epp | 19

1. Epp started with a digital pho-tograph of some power lines.

2. He played around with thelines

3. but failed to liquify theminto something pleasing.

4.All that remained was thebackground gradient.

5. Stretching a square bracket toa new height

6.The Photoshop bristle starbrush

7. Rough strokes give a torn lookto the edges.

8.The Liquify filter turns tornedges into clouds.


I liked Sonuss image and composition, says Matt

Riddle. It was very minimal. A minimal image is a

good thing this early in the match, Riddle believes.

It is often hard to work off a highly complex

image.

Riddle duplicated Epps serve several times,

on different layers, and combined them with differ-

ent blend modesExclusion, Darken, and Nor-

mal. Newcomers to Photoshop often overlook this

technique, but it can yield interesting and unex-

pected results.

Riddle next looked for a theme on which to

base his volley. He found Sonuss serve evocative

of the clouds and sky; that became his theme.

He nabbed an appropriate image of crepuscular

rays streaming from the clouds at Inertia

STOCK.XCHNG (http://stock.d2.hu/) and

dropped it in to see how it looked.

After I find an image that I want to use, says

Riddle, the first thing that I usually do is run

through all the blend modes and move it around

in the layer stack to see if anything catches my eye

or sparks a new idea. It pays to experiment; even

Photoshop veterans who use the program daily can

still be surprised at the results of different blend

modes and combinations of blend modes. In this

case, Riddle felt that the Hard Light mode pre-

sented his added clouds to their best advantage.

Riddle wasnt content to simply stack layers;

he masked out parts of the image, in effect erasing

them from the final composited image, choosing

which details to accent. I use a mask instead of

erasing, says Epp, because you cant restore an

erased image. With a mask, on the other hand,

erased portions can be restored or expanded

upon with a simple swipe of the Paintbrush tool.

About halfway through, I decided that I did-

nt like my color palette any more, so I added a

Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer New

Adjustment Layer Hue/Saturation) to create the

aqua coloration.

He played around with several unsatisfactory

ideas for the volley number text before deciding to

place the volley number on a newly created field of

white. That field of white looked just a little too

plain for Riddles taste, so he added a stock texture

via Hard Light mode. Finally, he used a color over-

lay (Layer Layer Style Cover Overlay) to bring

the text in line with the aquamarine color palette.

20

Volley 2: Matt Riddle

1. Initial experimen-tation duplicatingthe original imageand testing differentblend modes

2.A stock image ofclouds fromSTOCK.XCHNG

3.The stock cloudphoto blended inwith Hard Light

4. Riddle played around with several ideas for incorporating the pre-vious volleys text before starting anew on a field of white.


Match 1 | Volley 2 | Matt Riddle | 21

I didnt like my color palette

5.Adding a little texture, via a stock photo, to the white field, in Hard Light mode 6. Riddle used a Color Overlay layer style tomatch the text area with the rest of theimage.


Isaac Epp admits that Riddles volley left him a bit

stumped. His image was really beautiful, he says.

But I wanted to move away from the cloud/sky

theme, at least a little, because I was worried we

might end up in a pigeonhole later.

Epp began by adjusting the hue and satura-

tion of the image (Command/Ctrl+U), deepening

the colors and bringing the palette back toward

pure blue. He replaced the word Round from his

original serve above the horizontal line.

Next, it was back to the digital camera. Epp

printed his work so far, held it up to the window,

and took a digital photograph of it.

Volley numbers have played a significant

part in the designs so far, he says. I wanted to do a

really creative treatment on the number for this

volley. I took a STABILO watercolor pencil, scrib-

bled a 3 onto some sketch paper, and then ran

water over it for a few seconds. Next, I crumpled

up the paper to give it texture, stuck it to the back

of a wet, clear shower curtain, and took a picture.

Epp imported both photos into Photoshop.

I wanted to create a really wide widescreen

look, he says. To accomplish this he scaled the

photo down and then copied it five times onto five

separate layers. He repositioned each layer to the

right of the last and made each progressively

lighter by 25% (Hue/Saturation/Lightness, Com-

mand/Ctrl+U). This created a sort of visual echo

of the image across the canvas.

Next, he wore away at the area after the word

round in the most dominant image, using the bris-

tle star brush again. Its really nice for rough,

streaky edges, he says. He color-balanced the

photo of the wet and runny number 3 and placed it

behind the photos, in the newly worn hole.

Finally, he completed the widescreen effect

by adding simple blocks of white at the top and

bottom of the picture.

Epp next added new text elements to the

theme: his and Riddles hometowns (San Francisco

and Chicago, respectively) and the words Doin It

and Widescreen.

At the last minute, Epp realized that he had

neglected to delete Riddles Round 2 text from

the image: I used the Poly-Select tool to select a

healthy area around the text and used the Stamp

tool to fill the selected area. When used well, the

Stamp tool can be the best photo manipulation

tool in Photoshop.

22

Volley 3: Isaac Epp

1. Epp first changed the hue and saturation,moving the palette away from green andback to pure blue.

2. He printed an interim image, held it atarms length, and snapped a digital photo.

3.A digital photo of a soggy number 3



4.A progression of images, each 25% lighterthan the last

5. Using the Stamp tool to erase the last vol-leys text

In the bowl, cloud pieces, thumb,garlic, sesame oil, black pepper, soy sauce,chicken oil, cornstarch, and lots of whitespace. Guest #2: Is he holding slices of vol-ley 2? Reporter: Yes, yes thin slices ofvolley 2, balanced in white space.

might end up in a pigeonhole


When Matt Riddle saw Epps volley, he was imme-

diately hit with the idea of somehow using the

Golden Gate Bridge to connect the skylines of the

two cities, San Francisco and Chicago. I had this

idea, he says, but I was unable to find images that

I wanted to use. I started working, but it wasnt

coming out as I had hoped. I began to get frus-

trated, which led to indecision. But this is Photo-

shop Tennis. The clock was running, and there was

no choice but to go forward.

In keeping with his inspiration, Riddle

started by adding a stock photo of the Golden Gate

Bridge to the mix. He eventually stacked three

duplicate copies of the bridge, each using the Hard

Light blend mode to drastically alter the look of

the original photo.

Next came an image of the Chicago skyline.

I wanted to blend the two halves of the image at

the bottom, says Riddle, where the bridge and

the water both go black. But a successful blending

process eluded him. I made about ten failed

attempts at blending the two images, he says. I

tried duplicating the Chicago side and fading it out

on the other end and several other things, but

none came out looking even

halfway decent.

I ended up masking off

the sky from most of the Chicago

image to let the old image show

through. I liked the way the sky

faded in the original image of

Chicago, but I didnt know how I

was going to use it. Ironically, in the end he used

the fading sky by erasingor maskingmost of it

from view.

Riddle felt he needed more compositional

elements to fill in the space and balance the overall

image. He sampled the red from his hard-lit bridge

image and used that for accents such as the hori-

zontal line and text at the top of the page and the

large dingbat below the bridge.

Riddle used masks to insert a block of pure

black beneath the Chicago waters, to erase the

Chicago sky and part of the previous volley, and to

create the red horizontal line at top. A little text

finishes off the volley.

24


1. Multiple copies and the Hard Light blend mode add color and texture to the bridge.

2.A stock photo of the Chicago skyline

3.The Chicago skyline, blended into place


This was a difficult volley for me, says Rid-

dle. I was frustrated with this image throughout

the entire creation, he admits, yet, somehow, at

the end I am happy with it.

Sometimes things just fall into your lap

when you are working, he says. Example?

The way the circular object from the previous

image alights perfectly on the crossbeam of the

bridge. I didnt even realize it, but when I showed

it to Isaac Epp, it was one of the first things that he

noticed. Sometimes you get happy accidents.


A second-course cityscapeblend with fennel, red vectors, giblet, and alittle added olive oil. Guest #2: Riddla-sanuses kani abura (crab oil)a rare seasoningfor sure. Guest #1: Ginger, scallion, GoldenGate Bridge, and just a visible portion ofvolley 3.

things fall into your lap


I was inspired by Matt Riddles last image, says

Isaac Epp. Its intense. The rough edges felt heavy

and stressful. I decided to take the next round into

the expressively stressful and surreal.

He started by completely desaturating the

image. I wanted to create a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

feel to the piece, he says, so I had to start with

some black and white.

Next, Epp saved the desaturated image as a

bitmap and imported it into Macromedia Flash

MX. I do quite a bit of Flash design, he says. I

wanted to play with Flashs native toolset for a while

to achieve a distorted, surreal look.

Epp used Flashs Trace Bitmap command to

turn the imported bitmap into a piece of vector art;

he then transformed and stretched elements to

exaggerate details of the Chicago skyline. I really

was enjoying the circle/dial element Riddla added

to the Golden Gate Bridge element and wanted to

accentuate it, so I selected the area around it and

blew it up. As I did this, it started looking more and

more like a giant clock tower. I went with that.

When he was satisfied with the distorted results, he

exported the image as an EPS file and then

imported that into Photoshop.

Epp wrote the number 5 on a fogged-up win-

dow with the tip of his finger and took a digital

photograph. He desaturated the photo (Image

Adjust Hue/Saturation), played with the curves

a bit (Image Adjust Curves), and then

blended the photos edges with a masked gradient.

Masked gradients are a really cool way to get pho-

tos to cooperate with each other in tough design

situations, he says.

The surreal skyline image went on top of that

photo. I still had a lot of white space in the

image, says Epp. It was killing the mood a bit, so I

brought in another moody digital photograph to

fill it in with.

I wanted to accentuate the fact that the

Golden Gate Bridge element resembled a clock, so

I built some really exaggerated clock dial arms in

Flash. I made them a super-saturated red to draw a

lot of attention to them and set them to 5 oclock

since this was volley number 5. The addition of

some numbers completes the transformation of

Golden Gate Bridge into a clock tower.

I saw a really interesting curve in the top of

the skyline, says Epp. I wanted to add another

element to the image to accentuate it. I took a digi-

tal photograph of my eye, imported it into Photo-

shop, and duplicated the layer. On one layer I

desaturated the eye and used the Stamp tool to get

rid of the iris and pupil. On the second layer, I left

the color but knocked back the opacity to 40% and

changed the scale relative to the black-and-white

version to give an eerie, cataract look. A shade of

The Twilight Zone enters The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

This volley was the most fun for me so far!

says Epp. I was buzzing when I was done.

26

Volley 5: Isaac Epp

Pan-blackened cityscape, bill-board, [yes] red vectors with an added eye-ball. Guest #3: Sonus-san makes a subtlechange to the dark palette. Guest #2: Ah,the eyeball! A favorite ingredient of artisticchefs. Guest #3: I think it will be steamed.

The Twilight Zone enters



1. Epp begins by recasting theimage in black and white.

2. Converted into vector formatin Flash MX, the image getsdistorted.

3.A digital photo of the numberfive, drawn on a fogged-upwindow

4.A gradient mask helps blendthe photo into the background.

5. Some foggy black-and-whiteimagery adds to the mood.

6.The redclock hands,made in Flash,are set to 5oclockbecause itsvolley 5.

7.The artists own eye entersthe fray.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari


Coming into volley 6, Matt Riddle is confronted

with an image turned almost completely vector.

This was fine with me, says Riddle. I wanted to

go the vector route at some point anyway.

He liked the contrast of the sky and build-

ings, but felt the need to change the overall look of

the picture, to move away from the skyline theme

and to add color back in.

To add color, Riddle created a copy of the

main image and placed a green color overlay

(Layer Layer Style Color Overlay) on it, at

76% transparency. This green contrasts with the

striking, saturated red color of the clock hands,

which Riddle planned to use later.

Next, he created a fine grid pattern and used

the Paint Bucket to fill a new layer with it. The new

layer was blended into the mix in Lighten mode.

He next copied the original image onto a

new layer and applied the Hard Light blend mode

to it. It created a white, blown-out look to the eye

that I liked, he says.

Riddle still wanted to drastically change the

look of the image, moving away from the skyline

motif. He selected a square area of the skyline with

the Marquee tool and copied and pasted into a

new file. He used the Polar Coordinates filter (Fil-

ters Distort Polar Coordinates) to create a dis-

torted version of the skyline.

He then copied this new image and pasted it

back into his volley multiple times, on multiple

new layers with different blend modes, to alter vari-

ous sections of the skyline. He partially masked

these layers to help blend them in.

Last, I selected and copied the hands of the

clock from the original image, pasted them on top

of everything, and added some accents to finish off

the piece.

28


Layer Masks

A layer mask selectively hides part of the image on thelayer with which it is associated.You can create a layermask in several ways.

You can highlight a layer in the Layers palette andchoose Layer Add Layer Mask Reveal/Hide All.Reveal All creates a completely transparent mask; HideAll creates an opaque mask. Black areas of a mask aretransparent, white areas are opaque (masked), andgray areas are translucent. (You can also create a newlayer mask by clicking the Add Layer Mask button atthe bottom of the Layers palette.)

A second thumbnail appears on your Layerspalette beside the image it is masking. Click the maskthumbnail, and you can use the Paintbrush,Airbrush,Pencil, Paint Bucket, or any drawing or painting tool tomodify your mask and hide or reveal parts of its asso-ciated image.

You can use layers to blend pictures together, bycreating a mask on one of the pictures and airbrushingthe mask with the feathered brushes or custombrushes to create a smooth blended look. Blends canbe seamless, since you have total control over what isvisible and what is not.

The original image is never touched. If you erasetoo much, you can simply paint the mask back in.

Riddle created a layer mask by selecting all theblack pixels (Select Color Range) and then choos-ing Layer Add Layer Mask Reveal Selection.Thismasked off all the nonblack areas of the image, leavingonly the black portion visible.



a white, blown-out look to the eye

1.A green coloroverlay brings colorback into thepicture.

3.A second copy ofthe original image,applied in HardLight mode, blowsout the highlights.

4.A section of theskyline, distortedwith the PolarCoordinates filter

5.The partiallyaltered skyline

2. Riddle filled a layer with a fine grid andadded it in Lighten mode.


This round Epp felt like taking the image out of

the screen again, so he started by, once again,

printing Riddlas image. He used red paint to put

on the text Round and the # character to cross out

the previous round number. He threw the image

down in the tub, ran some water over it, and took

its picture.

After importing the photo into Photoshop,

he cranked the saturation way up (Image Adjust

Hue/Saturation). This had the effect of render-

ing the text completely illegible. To compensate,

he created a second copy of the photo on a new

layer above the first and turned the saturation all

the way down in this one. I masked out the under-

saturated photo and used damaged and organic-

looking brushes to eat away at the mask, leaving

the area around the text visible.

The saturated version was just too blown out

to be read clearly, he says. Stacking the two

images gave a nice, lasting impression of vivid color

while remaining perfectly legible.

Epp continued with the distressed brushes,

painting black around the photo to create a dirty

border to frame the image.

He used segments of different letters from

the overflourished Edwardian Script font to create

a tentacle form. He placed the result emerging

from the bath tub drain in the image.

I included an image of a light bulb, says

Epp, but the treatment of the light bulb wasnt

quite right. It didnt come to me until later how to

fix it.

For the volley number, Epp had taken a digi-

tal photograph of a length of rope in the form of a

7 but didnt think it worked in the image. Instead,

he opted to use a type 7 in the Edwardian Script

typeface. I played around with different colors

and effects before deciding on a nice vivid red,

playing off the immense vividness of Riddlas past

images red.

I added an image of a real frame to the out-

line of the canvas and encased the interior of the

frame with a rich blood-red color, catering to the

rough occult feel of the image.

Finally, it came to me what to do with the

light bulb: it needed to be within the added frame,

and it needed more dirt to fit in with the rounds

30

Volley 7: Isaac Epp

Custom Brushes

Ragged, torn, or dirty brushes are essentialto producing organic or grungy effects.Forall the grunge and dirt in this volley, saysEpp,I used some of my own custom brushesas well as a fantastic collection from anotherdesign battle champion, Jerkstore (thanks forthe brushes!)

Photoshop ships with lots of brushes, andthousands more are available for downloadfrom the Internet. Better yet, its easy to cre-ate your own custom brushes in Photoshop.You can turn any image or any portion of anyimage into a new brush. Simply select an areawith any of Photoshops selection tools andchoose Edit Define Brush. Voil! A newbrush.

Photoshop offers a positively stupefyingarray of options to further refine how thebrush works when applied: its size, rotation,scattering, roundness, hardness, brushdynamics, spacing, and more.

I was feeling really visceral


theme. I hid it beneath the layer of filth and ate

away at the dirts edge.

I was feeling really visceral this round, and I

think it shows. The image ended up being rather

intense and gritty. It is kind of funny that in this

battle I used a lot more grime and complexity than

I usually use. In fact, Im typically known for more

modern, minimal designs, but Im never one to

turn down inspiration when it strikes.


1. Red paint, water, andoversaturation renderthe words hard to read.

2. Figure 1, desaturatedand masked

3.A distressed, dirtyframe, painted with dis-tressed brushes

4. Parts of different let-ters from a flourishy font result in writhingtentacles.

5.All elements of theimage are running downthe drain.

6. Epp added in a digital photo of a bare light bulb, butwasnt happy with the final effect until he dirtied it up.


I loved the image from volley 7, says Matt Riddle.

I was especially inspired by the shape that was

made by the large text on the left of the image. It

was portions of letters in some script font. I

decided to make that the focus of my new image.

Riddle first selected all the black areas of the

image (Select Color Range). He created a new

layer and added a layer mask based on that selec-

tion (Layer Add Layer Mask Reveal Selection).

Next, he began exploring his fonts until he

found one that was highly decorative and included

ligatures, ornamentals, and special characters for

first and last letters with extensive decoration

Poetica Supp Ligatures.

Riddle tried using selections to create new

masks and overlays in the image. He first selected

the text, and then he saved the selection as a new

channel (Select Save Selection). He then dis-

torted the new channel with filters, while leaving

the Red, Green, and Blue channels untouched. He

also created new layer masks using these distorted

channels.

You can produce some interesting, and often

unpredictable, effects with this technique, he says.

In fact, on a flattened image (that is, a file with only

one layer), you can use filters and other tools to

distort individual channelsdistorting the red

channel, for example, while leaving the green and

blue channels unaffected.

I pared down my layers and channels to

make the image a little less busy and chaotic,

although it is still highly chaotic, which I really

enjoyed.

He duplicated the original tentacle shape

and put it in the upper corner. I started feeling

that the background of the original image was too

distracting, says Riddle, so I made a layer of sim-

ply white to put focus on the textual elements and

make it a bit more graphic. I also added a band of

tan color to break up the background and high-

light the round number.

32


When working with symbol fonts or decorative fonts,says Riddle,I generally make a new layercontaining every character on the keyboardin that font.That way I can see what I have towork with. I also use that layer as resourcematerial for creating more type: I can simplyduplicate the layer and then subtract what Idont want. But in this instance, Riddledecided that he liked the abstract nature ofall the decorative characters runningtogether and kept it as a primary design ele-ment for the final image.

1. Riddle selected the black areas of the pre-vious volley and created a new layer maskfrom those.

2. He liked the abstract look of decorativecharacters run together.

3. New masks and overlays based on dis-torted selections



The sauce for thismain dish contains redand black vector shapes, type,papaya, fennel, tomato, lemonjuice, olive oil, sea salt, and, ofcourse, white space. Guest #2:Vector shapes and papaya, won-derful. Guest #1: How do weeat it?

4. Even after paring down the layers, theimage remains chaotic.

5.A copy of the tentacle, placed in theupper-right corner

I can see what I haveto work with


I wanted to finish strong, says Epp. I was initially

stumped by Riddlas previous volley. It was really

intense and graphically exaggerated. I couldnt just

add more elements. That would have created a

mess of details, with no focus.

After puzzling for a while, Epp decided to

turn the whole design problem on its head: to start

afresh with a new canvas and a new color palette.

Then, he would add the previous volley back as a

design element in the new image.

For the source material for his new canvas,

Epp went back to digital photographs. He

searched through photos taken for earlier rounds

but never used. I found a

really strong set of black and

white photos involving a window, fog, power lines,

and geometry.

Epp laid out a symmetrical grid of six squares

with rounded edges. He imported his photos onto

separate layers, arranged them, and masked them

with the rounded squares.

Epp picked what he considered the weakest

of the six images, the one at the lower right, to lay

type and other design elements over. I wanted to

leave the stronger images untouched, as part of the

purity, refinement, and serenity of the image, he

says. I took the previous volley, masked it, and used

the Soft Light blend on top of the photograph.

Next, I began laying out some type. In fact,

he added a lot of type. I went a little overboard

with the text layout. He used a temporary black

layer to provide a nice contrasty background to

work against. When he was done, he hid the black

layer and painted in some white areas on a new

layer beneath the text, helping the text stand out

against the somewhat cluttered background.

The other photos had a soft quality to

them, he says, so I used the Blur tool with an

asymmetrical brush to soften the edges of some of

the design details. I also added some shading

within the curved mask.

After 16 hours, Epp is done with the match.

What an amazing day. I feel creatively drained.

Typically a battle this epic would take days and

probably weeks. I can look back and see the pro-

gression of the battle thus far and really smile. The

evolution of the images was absolutely amazing.

34

Volley 9: Isaac Epp

1. Epp selected a set of black-and-white digital photos as the basis for his volley.



leave the stronger imagesuntouched

2.This grid of rounded squareswill serve as a mask for thephotos.

3.The photos laid out within thegrid

4.The previous image and thevolley number blended in withSoft Light

5.A temporary black back-ground makes type easier tosee.


Riddle decided to continue with Epps movement

away from chaos and toward simplicity. I wanted

to keep this last volley nice and minimal, he says,

yet still pay attention and homage to the previous

image.

He started by shrinking, rotating, and dupli-

cating the original image to create a grid on the

right. He inverted the colors of the original image

(Image Adjustments Invert) to make a nega-

tive, and he bumped up the contrast with an adjust-

ment layer (Layer New Adjustment Layer

Hue/Saturation).

I was originally going to take elements of the

image and stretch them across the canvas, he says,

making multiple stretches and

matching elements in the two

copies of the original image.

Needless to say, this attempt

failed.

Epp wanted to add color

back into the image. The photo-

graphs, with all of their windows

and condensation, reminded me

of being trapped inside on a

rainy day and longing to go outside. I chose a blue

to go with that. He added the blue color by creat-

ing color overlays on the layers with the grid of

small images (Layer Layer Style Color

Overlay).

I decided to use water as my linking element

between old and new, so I found an image on a

stock photography site of droplets of water on a tar-

paulin. I wanted a contrasting color to make it

stand out, thus the red, orange and yellow. I accom-

plished this by placing a new Hue/Saturation layer

(Layer New Adjustment Layer Hue/Satura-

tion) over the droplets of water. I changed the hue

by +160, converting the blues into reds and

oranges, and increased the saturation slightly.

Then I masked off portions of the image to ease

the transition and give me space to add more

elements.

To finish, I added a line element, text, and

color accents on opposite corners of the image to

balance and tie the two colors together.

And thats it for match 1, a stunning match

thats taken us full circle, from clean and simple to

wild and chaotic and back again.

36


Guest #1: I enjoyed all 10 dishes!Guest #2: This was a very stylish battle. Idont believe we will be able to declare adecisive victory by either chef. Guest #3: Iagree. Simple but complex. Guest #2: Asuperb fusion of so many tasty colors. Guest#1: My first tasting challenge was a lot moredifficult than I expected. I wish to name bothas winners. Must not the rules allow this?

1.Volley 9 shrunk and rotated 90 degrees 2.A failed attempt to create something inter-esting by stretching elements from the previ-ous volley

trapped inside on a rainy day



3. Riddle changedthe color to blue, tomatch the feeling ofa rainy day.

4.A stock photo of water drops on a tarp 5.A Hue/Saturation Adjustment layerchanges the water from blue to orange andred.


38

Grow Up!: Shaun Inman vs. Leslie Cabarga

Next up, weve got a couple of designers

who couldnt be more different. On your

left, warming up for the serve, youthful,

and full of beans: web designer and experi-

enced Photoshop warrior Shaun Inman.

And on your right, sadder but wiser:

designer, fontographer, and Betty Boop

fanatic, Leslie Cabarga.

Although Cabarga has been a

designer and an author for longer than he

likes to admit, this is his first time to face

off on the field of honor with another

designer. Inman, on the other hand, has

been here many times before and is anx-

ious to teach the old man a few new tricks.

Get ready to watch the sparks fly.

Match 2

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39

Grow Up!


Match 2: Inman vs. Cabarga

Shaun InmanYears using Photoshop: 5

First version of Photoshop I used: 5.5

Area of specialty: Web design/development

Nondigital art medium:Acoustic guitar/songwriting

Favorite non-Photoshop software: BBEdit,although Microsoft PowerPoint is a close second. No,no, I jest.

Favorite Photoshop filter/effect: The Outer Glowlayer style on 8-pixel type with the blend mode set toNormal, spread set to 100%, size set to 1px, using acolor that has good contrast with the type but lesscontrast with the background. It creates a 1px aliasedline around the type (not the anti-aliased line you getwith a 1px stroke layer effect) and makes the text popoff the background without having to increase thecontrast of the text or background color.

Height: 4" shorter than my girlfriend.

Music I listen to while playing Photoshop Ten-nis: Roni Size,New Forms; DJ Shadow,Endtroduc-ing...; Radiohead,Kid A and Amnesiac; Boards ofCanada,Geogaddi; Nathaniel Merriweather a.k.a.Dan the Automator,Loveage: Songs to Make Love toyour Old Lady By; I, Cactus.

Favorite TV show:The Simpsons

Favorite motion picture:TRON

Website I visit too often:www.k10k.net andwww.designologue.com

Shaun Inman became a graphic designer thanks to

a little misunderstanding.

One day in junior high, Inman recalls, my

art teacher was critiquing a charcoal rendering.

She said, Your work is very graphic. The next day

we had a presentation from a woman representing

the Savannah College of Art and Design, and she

mentioned that one of her majors was graphic

design. I thought, well, my art is graphic; maybe Ill

do graphic design. Just a stupid connection, but

then I found out what graphic design was all about,

and I rode it. Then, when I discovered web design,

I just clicked with the whole coding aspect, under-

neath the design.

Now a graduate of Savannah College, Inman

currently does web design at Baltimore-based Sil-

verpoint (www.silverpoint.net). He also built and

operates Designologue, a site for artists to face off

in Photoshop Tennislike design dialogues. Drop

by and show off your chops.

www.shauninman.com

Designers

my art is graphic;maybe Ill do graphic design


Leslie CabargaYears as a Photoshop designer: 13

Area of specialty: Illustration

Favorite aspect of Photoshop Tennis:The chal-lenge of the time constraint

Least favorite aspect of Photoshop Tennis:Doesnt pay

Nondigital art medium:Woodworking

Favorite non-Photoshop software: Fontographer

Favorite Photoshop filter/effect: Unsharp Mask

How Photoshop has changed the design field: Ithas put stripping (formerly of negatives!) into thehands of the designer, instead of the disinterestedprinters assistant, so the quality and complexity of ourlayouts have increased dramatically.

Height:Variable

Astrological sign: Librarian

Comfort food: Ben and Jerrys

Best work I ever lost in a computer crash: Halfof my biggest-selling book, Designers Guide to ColorCombinations. I had to pay $1000 to retrieve (part of it)from the hard drive.

Dance: Roller disco

Favorite read: A Peoples History of the United Statesby Howard Zinn

Political bent: Left of Left

If I didnt have Photoshop, Id be on eBay look-ing for a copy.

Website I visit too often: eBay

Leslie Cabarga is a designer of logos, fonts, and

websites and the author of more than two dozen

books, including The Fleischer Story, Dynamic Black

and White Illustrations, and the absolutely indispen-

sable Designers Guide to Color Combinations. Mr.

Cabarga is a self-described plant psychic and

greatest authority in the world on Betty Boop.

I must admit to mixed emotions, says

Cabarga, when I see my Boop paintings being

reused over and over again by other licensees with-

out paying me again. But after all, isnt plagiarism

the sincerest form of flattery? And really, money

isnt everything when it comes to flying the Betty

Boop banner high above everything.

www.flashfonts.com

Grow Up!

plagiarismthe sincerestform offlattery?


I started with this question in my head, says

Shaun Inman. If you create something in a vac-

uum, does it suck? I developed that into White On

White: Creation and the vacuum.

Inman began by creating a lighter-than-light

base layer. On a white background, he placed some

vector artwork he had created in Auto-Illustrator, a

program that specializes in generating random vec-

tor shapes or distorting existing ones. I used Auto-

Illustrator for interpolating two shapes, created in

Adobe Illustrator, says Inman. The graphics that I

used were created over a year ago, while the appli-

cation was still in public beta. He imported one of

these graphics, exported from Auto-Illustrator as

an EPS, into a new background layer in his Photo-

shop composition.

He added the white text White on White and

Creation and the vacuum. Go., at the bottom left, in

the Pakt typeface from YouWorkForThem

(www.youworkforthem.com). To break the white-on-

white text out from the background, he added a

very light 15% drop shadow to the text, using layer

effects (Layer Layer Style Drop Shadow).

Inman wanted to add some contrasting pho-

tographic texture to the mix. Using a digital cam-

era borrowed from a friend, he took a photo of his

bedroom door. He imported the photo into Photo-

shop on a new layer and positioned the dark wood

to cover the right side of the canvas. He then cre-

ated a new layer beneath the door, used the Poly-

gon Lasso tool to select a block slightly larger than

the door above, and filled the selection with a solid

maroon color, which appears as a broad line sepa-

rating the wood from the white.

To join the two sides of the composition,

Inman created a single large plus sign, centered

within the composition. He converted the charac-

ter to a shape (Layer Type Convert To Shape)

and gave it a subtle drop shadow to keep it from

disappearing into the white background entirely.

Inman felt the right side of the composition

still needed more texture. To create the diagonal

stripes there, he started with a dark-brown capital

U, again in the Pakt typeface. He converted the let-

ter to a shape and used the Direct Selection tool to

stretch the letter, extending it vertically. He rotated

it 45 degrees (Edit Free Transform + Shift) and

duplicated the layer several times, stretching and

resizing the duplicates, to create a pattern of

stretched lines. When he was happy with the

results, he flattened the layers.

He repeated the process twice more, creating

slightly different arrangements. He set these diago-

nal layers in Overlay mode, which darkens the

wood texture underneath while remaining invisi-

ble over the white background.

Finally, he added the words Origin 001

again in white in the Pakt typefaceto the very

center of the plus sign. He gave them the familiar,

faint 15% drop shadow.

42

Volley 1: Shaun Inman

Inmans soundtrackfor this volley: BT, Move-ment in Still Life.

something in a vacuum


Match 2 | Volley 1 | Shaun Inman | 43

1.Auto-Illustrator interpolatesbetween shapes.

2.A white-on-white background,created in Auto-Illustrator

3.A piece of Inmans bedroomdoor provides texture andcontrast.

4. Inman converted a U to ashape and rotated it 45 degrees.

5. Inman placed diagonalarrangements, built up from Us,over the dark wood in Overlaymode.

6. He used plenty of Guide linesto keep things properlyoriented.

7. Inman tried out and discardedvarious ideas

including this ladder.


The open white-on-white area at the left of Inmans

volley seemed to beg to be filled with something.

But what? I used cigar box art, says Leslie

Cabarga, because I had it, and it was original art so

I knew it would scan well. Also, I love contrasting

textures in art: the rich painterly effect of the cigar

art contrasted with the clean simple lines of my

competitors contribution.

He scanned the art into a new Photoshop

document and then cropped it to the area immedi-

ately surrounding the face. He copied and pasted

the face into his working document and slid it to

the left to cover the white part of the background.

Cabarga wanted to create the impression that

the face was in the process of being painted and

still unfinished. He created a layer mask (Layer

Add Layer Mask Hide All), which masked out

the entire layer, and then he used the Paintbrush

tool to paint in white on the mask, revealing parts

of the head. To keep the paint-

ing beneath the brown half of the

background, Cabarga duplicated

Inmans volley and placed the

duplicate layer above the painted

face. He selected the white and

near white parts of the duplicate

level (Select Color Range) and

deleted them to reveal the paint-

ing beneath.

If the face was being painted, someone

needed to be painting it. The hand is mine, says

Cabarga. I simply grabbed a paintbrush and

placed my hand on my four-year-old Epson

Expression 636 scanner. He placed the scan on a

new layer in his composition, used the Pen tool to

select the hand and brush, and then deleted the

background from around them. He repositioned

the hand so that the brush appeared to be paint-

ing the cigar label portrait. The brush needed

some paint, so he created a new layer above the

hand and brush and used Photoshops Airbrush

tool to paint in a blob of paint over the tip of the

brush bristles.

Finally, he used his Wacom digitizing tablet

and Photoshops Paintbrush tool to write I take it,

this is my side to work? by hand.

The perspective of the finished piece

seems odd. Are we looking down on the hand

from above? Is it upside down? I see the art being

a window into another world, says Cabarga. What

were seeing is a papers eye view, looking up from

beneath the drawing board at whats going on out-

side the sheet of drawing paper.

44

Volley 2: Leslie Cabarga

The cigar box art is originalart, given to me by the late Clarence Hor-nung, an illustrator, who had it in his collec-tion.The art was a presentation sample thatwould have been shown to a client prior toprinting. It is over 100 years old.

papers eye view

1. Cigar box art from the 1800s 2.The cigar portrait placed in thecomposition


Match 2 | Volley 2 | Leslie Cabarga | 45

A flatbed scanner can scan 3Dobjects, says Cabarga,but its hard to pre-dict what the angle will look like. Ive doneanimated Flash sequences on my website,using my hand in two positions. I flip back andforth between the two as the hand seems todraw. Again its those contrasts between therealism and the line art that I love.

3. Cabarga scanned in his own hand, holdinga brush.

4. Cabarga gave the brush a little requisitepaint

with the Photoshop Airbrush tool.


I felt that Leslies direction was far too literal, says

Shaun Inman. Im not one for literal visual dialogue;

I feel it limits the conversationnot to mention

being more difficult to do well in the short amount of

time that we had to complete each image.

Inman began by selecting the left half of the

face from Cabargas volley, using the Marquee tool.

He copied and pasted the selection onto a new

layer and then slid it to the right so that the left eye

in the new layer overlapped the right eye in the

background. He set the new layer in Screen mode

and created a slightly blurred layer mask to soften

the sharp edge. The new layer didnt show

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