11-23-11 – Triptych Portraits

At this point I’m just going with what I shot and if it’s ruled it doesn’t fit the theme then fark it.

I’m having no trouble with what my three parts should look like. I have two subjects that I think could be fairly good. My problem is getting the triptych to come together on Photoshop. Am I just damn stupid or what? I have printed out 2 websites and viewed a couple of tutorial videos and I still don’t get it. I have done HDR and stitched panoramas without much difficulty. What the h*ll is wrong with me that I can’t do this. I have Adobe Photoshop 2.

Yep! And I’ll laugh when I get this thing figured out!

I’m having no trouble with what my three parts should look like. I have two subjects that I think could be fairly good. My problem is getting the triptych to come together on Photoshop. Am I just damn stupid or what? I have printed out 2 websites and viewed a couple of tutorial videos and I still don’t get it. I have done HDR and stitched panoramas without much difficulty. What the h*ll is wrong with me that I can’t do this. I have Adobe Photoshop 2.

FIRST – Click “New” and make a new empty image 2000x2000px
SECOND – Open the folder you’ve got your shots in
THIRD – Drag the three images into Phosotshop
FOURTH – Copy the sections you want in the triptych (Ctrl-A if you want the entire image)
FIFTH – Resize each layer as you insert into the 2000x2000px image and arrange into your triptych.
SIXTH – Once you get an arrangement you like use the Crop tool to get the rectangular shape that best fits your layout.
SEVENTH – Use “Save For Web” to resize to Fark size before uploading.

Hope this helps.

What I did was this:

1. Open the three pictures you want to use and crop to the image you want
2. Create a new document at 640 x 1100 (or 640×700 if you want it to fit entirely in a small monitor on the contest page)
3. Decide how you want to arrange your triptych and resize the three pictures accordingly – for example, I did three horizontal bars at height of 340 pixels each bar. (1100 – 60 pixels for borders / 3) Or a horizontal section that is half the image I resized to 310 wide. (640 / 2 minus 10 pixels for border = 310)
4. Copy and paste your pictures into the new document and arrange
5. Use the paintbucket to fill the lowest layer’s blank space with desired background color

Mopsy, don’t feel bad.I’m struggling with it too. 🙁

Yikes, if you and Mopsy are having problems, that does not bode well for me. I’m going to give it my first shot shortly…

Rav; I disagree about the (non-participating) voters knowing what’s best for fitting in the theme, especially if there’s a certain difficulty and there are many entries. A lot probably just vote for what they like, without really thinking about the theme details. But, they do get the final say, so there’s that. 😉 I think it’s more important, as part of the challenge, to make sure we fit the theme, rather than a voter who only read ‘Triptych’ and moved on to start looking at the (sure to be) awesome pictures.

I hate posting my stuff early and I hate bothering people by asking in advance but U-Man would you mind telling me if any of these would be illegal, because I’m totally confuzzled what’s actually the determination now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6366285647/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6366286117/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6374488845/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kestrana/6374489557/in/photostream

Rav; I disagree about the (non-participating) voters knowing what’s best for fitting in the theme, especially if there’s a certain difficulty and there are many entries. A lot probably just vote for what they like, without really thinking about the theme details. But, they do get the final say, so there’s that. 😉 I think it’s more important, as part of the challenge, to make sure we fit the theme, rather than a voter who only read ‘Triptych’ and moved on to start looking at the (sure to be) awesome pictures.

The reason I play is so I can improve my skills by being given a subject, and going after it, and comparing my own results with those of others given the same subject so I can grow as a photographer. The only way to compare is by the votes, most of the time. It’s not a ‘ruling’–audience is the major consideration.

So I ‘shoot’ to learn and grow, but I select to ‘post’ what I hope will do well with an audience such as we have here. Lately, it’s been working out for me, but I don’t plan on taking that for granted–it’s a mad, mad world.

As a voter, however, I’m compelled to consider the theme suggestor’s intentions, which is what we go into in this forum. Depending on the theme, either the base farktography community will determine the victor, or the teeming masses of GFarkers will. Usually it seems it’s a composite of both–so I long ago gave up on predicting how such things will go.