Arts 102 Conceptual Art of Photoshop


George Legrady




Layers
Thursday, January 22, 2009

Appel

Layers are a way to have multiple images of the same size kept in one image for the purpose of easy storage, presentation sequence, holding on to variations until a choice is made, or synthesis where all the images interact with the ones beneath them through various blending functions.

With layers, the top image is the one visible. When the let eye icon is cllicked, the current layer is turned off, reveling images beneath it.

Designers use layers as a way to prototype. Multiple variations of an image are layered on top of each other and then cycled through to compare results. Many times, layers are also used during concept presentation by turning each layer on or off to show various solutions.

Create a narrative by stacking about 10 images using the LAYERS tool. The intent is to develop skills in weaving a story through image sequencing viewing one image at a time, and then to acquire technical skills in assembling multiple images: cutting, resizing, image correcting techiques.

The top image should represent that start of the story and the bottom becomes the end of the story.

The narrative for this project is the "occasion" to create the sequence. You are free to choose your narrative. You can use a "known" story we are all familiar with such as "Little Red Riding Hood" so that you can concentrate on the assembly of the story, the sequencing, etc. Or else you can invent your own story. Think of the process as editing a film, where each still image is a scene and the sequence of scenes becomes the story.

The story can be a sequence, for instance the way Joachim Schmid organizes similar found images: http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/wwwart/archiv/

Assemble a narrative by stacking images. Explore how images in sequences create meaning. Study the way Baldessari creates meaning through juxtaposition, sequence, association, etc.

John Baldessari [1][2]| Joachim Shmid

The technical goals are to get skills in assembling images that are constrained by size, and other properties.

For this project we will use the basic functions of LAYERS
Begin with an image around 640x480 pixels, or 800x600 at 72 dpi.
In WINDOW open Layers (F7)

To place another on top of your current image, do command-A, or cltr-A on the image to be copied, then copy the image, and then click on your background image, and then do ctrl, or command v to paste your image on top of the first image. In the layers window you should see that there are now 2 layers.

You can experiment with the layers to see how the various blend functions will affeect how the top image mixes with the bottom image.

You can also determine the transparencey between layers with the OPACITY percentage.

To remove a layer, you can drag it into the trash icon at the bottom right. TO do so, you must first click on the layer, so that it is highlighted in blue.

There are many possibilities with the LAYERS function such as adding masks, texts, etc. You can also merge layers and you can move layers by clicking on them and pulling them up or down the stack to re-organize the sequence.

In the end, our goal for now is to use it to get the narrative organized.