Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
disadvantages. First, you can't see details. Second, all sense of scale disappears.
Murals, sculptures, and environmental design projects become indistinguishable from
brochures. The ideal is to shoot the artwork in pieces, and then reassemble them into
one image. To minimize distortion, shoot standing at the center of the work and use a
tripod. Try not to set up too close to the work, or you will need too many “tiles” to
avoid distortion.
Many digital cameras have a panorama function that makes it relatively easy to
shoot your images in visual tiles of overlapping segments. Leave plenty of overlap—at
least a third of each image should overlap the one before—so the software can figure
out where to position each puzzle piece. However, you should use Photoshop to merge
these and adjust for distortions, rather than using the stitching software that proba-
bly comes with the camera and that is optimized for landscapes, not flat artwork.
I encourage you to use a good-quality scanner for your digital portfolio, even
though the cheapest scanner on the market scans at an optical resolution better than
you'll probably need for onscreen display.
Why? Color, features, and time. A good scanner will faithfully read and repro-
duce more colors than a cheap one. It will have software with features that can save
you lots of Photoshop work. In addition, on a cheap scanner, you'll wait for an image
preview and even longer for the scan itself. The time difference isn't significant for
one or two scans, but you'll come to dread it for a larger batch.
Be sure to scan line art in
grayscale mode, not in
bitmap. Otherwise, your
result will be pixelated, as
this image is.
Then, adjust the Brightness/
Contrast slider in Photoshop
until you get the line thick-
ness that most closely
resembles your original art.
Use the Sharpen Edges filter
to reinforce the changes you
made in your line weight and
make the line edges feel
crisper. When you're done,
scale down the image to
your preferred size.
