My Process

My process for this project - like most projects - was to dive right in!   I was very excited for this project, but in retrospect, it was (surprisingly) pretty difficult for me!  
I say 'surprisingly' because I love working in Photoshop, I love taking pictures and I love what little I know about Flash animation! However, this is harder than it looks!

 

I thought about what pictures I could take that would show something happening over time.  My dogs came naturally to mind, and I did try to capture them a few different times.  Dogs (sadly) make very difficult subjects.  they don't move, or move too fast, or get bored and just leave the scene all together!

 

However, the practice and experience I received from taking these pictures (the trial pictures of my dogs) told me that this was going to be hard!

 

I set up a "stage" with clamp lights at 45 deg. angles, white backgrounds and base (foam core) .. and a steady tripod. I moved ahead and took more sets of images.

 

What was hard  & what I learned from it

I had a hard time getting used to keeping my camera lens at a consistent focal length. It's a long lens and tends to "creep".   Also, I had issues with lighting both outside and inside.  I've found my weak area  - and where I need to learn more, take more time etc.  Balanced lighting, good lighting and good color correction.   Skills I need to perfect.

 

Images & Issues

Besides the images of my dogs, I took a series of images of an Apple being eaten and a Turkey Sandwich being made and eaten (I must have been hungry!)

 

In the shots on the "stage" (the Apple and the Sandwch) I found that the color balance was off on both sets of photos. And as the food was "eaten" the camera picked up different colors, which changed the overall color feel of images.     I had a very, very hard time making the photos color match.

 

I also found, that since my lens is long, not only does it "creep" (mentioned above) it also makes it much harder to take the picture. I push the camera hard, and when I did, I would move the camera ever so slightly.   So these images moved around a bit.

 

I set up the Turkey Sandwich and snapped and ate away. Building the sandwich slowly and then unbuilding it by eating it.  I thought this time (from my experience from the dogs and the apple images) that I was very, very careful. Both in setting up the stage (with lots of light - albeit not natural light), being careful with the lens focal length and not moving the camera.  But c'est la vive... when I brought the images into Photoshop I was so surprised to see how "Orange most of them were".   

 

Fixing the Images

I used photoshop to "fix" the images. I used Auto Tone, Auto contrast and Auto color. 

Many of the images were fixed to "normal" very easily, however others were not. I suppose the type of food, and color of the food on the plate were the main causes of the when and why the colors were different.    Again, I found color matching was difficult if not impossible. 

 

Final Projects(s)

 

Apple

I wanted to use the Apple image, but I did not have enough "shots"  In the end I have nine photos instead of ten.  I also found that the color balance was hard to match so I changed each color to Black  & White but then through a layer mask, I brought back in the red color of the apple's skin.    I was pretty happy with the result.

 

Turkey Sandwich

For the Turkey Sandwich images, I decided to add a layer mask to each image. In effect removing the background of each image (but not destroying the original image)

In hindsight I'm not sure if this was the best choice, but 2/3's into it, I could not turn back.  Working with shadows was very difficult with the layer mask. 

 

I was however happy to work with Layer Masks and found that these are great because you can add pixels back in if you need to!  I certainly did learn how to use this tool in Photoshop via this project!  

 

I also had issues with lining up the sandwich frames.  I'm not sure why they moved so much and think they look like they move more than they do since I removed the background.  If and where I was not exactly consistent on my background removal, it appears that the images change size, when they really don't.   

 

Again, maybe not the best choice to remove the background, but I felt that anything was better than having some orange some not overtones. 

 

To finish up this animation I added a vector image to start the animation with some added text and added some text at the end as well.    

 

Mydog

I included a set of photos / animation that I took of my dog.  I figured "why not". I did not spend too much time on this set of photos (hence the 'red eye') but since I made the animation, I figured I'd post it!.