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T454 Week 2 - Spring 2006 Agenda:
Short Homework/Classroom assignment review
Burrows & Wood reading (Chapter 10 from Television Production Disciplines and Techniques) Three fundamental aspects of pictorial design:
Balance and Mass: Understand difference between symmetrical balanceand asymmetrical balance.
Symmetrical balance is rigid and formal Asymmetrical balance usually is more interesting and dynamic- resulting
in a more fluid and creative mood, while just as balanced aesthetically (The parallel in music is the V7 chord wanting to resolve to a I or tonic chord. In terms of animation, this might be the start of movement to a balanced layout) Heavy weight in the bottom tends to give more stability and security. Lines and Angles Horizontal lines are restful, inactive and stable. Vertical lines suggest solemnity, dignity and dominance. Diagonal lines represent action, movement and impermanence. Curved lines imply change, beauty, grace and flowing movement. An upward flowing curve suggests freedom and openness. A downward, open curve has more of a feeling of pressure and restriction. Tone and Color Light tones result in a delicate, cheerful, happy or trivial feeling. Tone also affects balance A dark tone carries more mass, weighs more and can be used to balance a larger mass that is light in color or tone. A dark mass at the top of a picture tends to induce a heavy unnatural feeling of entrapment and depression, while a darker tone at the bottom gives it a more stable base. A lighter tone or color at the top gives more of a feeling of solidarity and normalcy. Color: Hues are subjectively classified as warm (reds and yellows) or cool (blues and greens) Warmer colors tend to be heavier than cool colors. 1. Texture Both of these imply 3-dimensional characteristics. Color Systems Review additive & subtractive color systems: Additive Color (RGB) The RGB system can reproduce almost all visible colors by adding varying
amounts of Red, Green and Blue light. Because the system uses combined
quantities of light to make colors, it is called the additive color system.
This is the system used by television, computer monitors and lighting
designers. Subtractive Color (CMYK) In the subtractive color system, colors are determined or created by varying amounts of inks or pigment. A little physics: The color of an object is determined by the colors of light it absorbs and the colors of light it reflects. When white light falls on a red object, the object appears red because its surface subtracts (absorbs) all colors of light except red. The light that is absorbed (subtracted) is transformed into heat. This explains why a black object, which absorbs all of the colors of light hitting it, gets much hotter in sunlight than a white object, which reflects all colors. In theory, if you were to mix equal amounts of Cyan, Magtenta and Yellow ink you would get black. But because of the impurities in the ink we'd end up with something resembling mud. That's why black ink is used. (The letter K is used for black because B could be confused for blue.) So in the subtractive color system, the primary colors (think inks) are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. The two systems together The two color systems work in opposite ways, but are connected. If you look at a color wheel, you’ll see that Cyan, Magenta & Yellow can be found directly between Red, Green and Blue. Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel are said to be complimentary. If you look directly opposite R, G or B, you’ll find a complimentary C, M or Y. On-line color examples: http://www.bbso.njit.edu/Documentations/gimpdoc-html/color.html Color Bars Color Bars contain the primary colors of both the additive and subtractive color systems. On-line color bars: http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm
(Hal Landen’s site) Photoshop tour (continued) Be sure you know how to do the following:
Aspect Ratios - Square pixels vs. non-square pixels One job of the graphic artist is to be able to create and transform graphics for a variety of different video editing systems. Most displays for PCs and Macs are based on square pixels. If you make a circle or square in Photoshop or some other drawing program, and rotate it 90° you still have a circle or square. However most of today’s digital video systems use codecs with non-square file formats. How does this impact graphics? Assume you are editing DV footage in Final Cut Pro (the DV codec uses the non-square pixel dimensions of 720 x 480). If you were to output a frame from your video and view it on a computer monitor, it would look squished.
Similarly, if you create a graphic in Photoshop at 720 x 480 of say a square and a circle, (Note that the aspect ratio of your graphic isn’t quite 4:3.) and then import it into Final Cut Pro, you’ll find that the objects are elongated.
So given that information, what is the best way to make a graphic in Photoshop for use in a digital video editing system? If you have Photoshop CS, you can work directly in non-square pixel dimensions letting the software re-size the image so it displays correctly on your computer monitor. However, many times you don't know what video system the graphic might be used with. For 4:3 graphics, it’s usually safe to begin by using pixel dimensions of 720 x 540. This is more than adequate resolution for standard, (non hi-definition) editing systems and it won’t create a file that’s too big and wasting memory. Oftentimes this is enough and you can simply make your graphic with the right aspect ratio and not worry about it. Most video editing software is smart enough to import your graphic into the right dimensions. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. As professionals it’s your job to make sure your graphics are the right format and size for the job. If you need to make graphics for a video, try to find out what type of editing system is being used. If it’s for DV, the pixel dimensions will eventually need to be 720 x 480. If it’s for Avid Xpress or most other D1 systems, your graphic will end up being 720 x 486. What to do for 4x3 graphics: Make your original graphics at 720 x 540. Save a copy and keep it in a safe place. Then use the “image size” feature (with "constrain proportion" unchecked) to resize a copy of your graphic to the required size for the editing application. This copy will look distorted on your computer monitor, but will look fine once it's imported into the editing system. DV & D1 (ITU 601) Digital video editing systems often use the DV codec or some form of the D1 (ITU 601) standard. Both use non-square pixels.
Aspect Ratios
For 4:3 TV, make graphics in 640 x 480, 648 x 486, 720 x 540 etc. You can then resize to either 720 x 486 (ITU 601 or D1) or 720 x 480 (DV). Then import them into your nonlinear editing application, conforming them into non-square pixels. 16 x 9 (anamorphic) TV: For ITU 601 systems, make graphics at 864 x 540 pixels, and then resize them to 720 x 486. For DV systems start with 864 x 540, then resize to 720 x 480. You can start the slightly smaller pixel dimensions of 720 x 405 or 800 x 450 and still get good results. In-class exercise (5 points):
----------- Thursday: Channels and Alphas and Bits, Oh My First let’s start with channels. Video graphics are typically defined in three colors: Red, Blue and Green. In Photoshop you can easily see this in the channels window. In fact if you toggle the three channels on and off you may even come to understand that they are in essence three separate black and white images. Color channels are created automagically when you select a color mode in Photoshop. The color mode determines the number of channels. When you start a new RGB image, it creates three channels, one for each color plus a composite RGB channel. If you make a new file in a CMYK color space, Photoshop creates four channels (Cyan Yellow Magenta & Black) plus a composite CMYK channel. You can view your channels in your image by looking at the channel window in the lower right hand corner of your screen. If you can't see it select "Windows -> show channels" Masks let you isolate and protect areas of an image. They work like stencils. When you select part of an image (say with the magic wand tool) the area that is not selected is masked, or protected from editing. Quick Mask mode lets you create, view and edit a temporary mask for an image. The good thing about editing your selection as a mask is that you can use any paint tool to modify your selection. You can enter Quick Mask Mode by clicking on the button near the bottom of the toolbar. When you paint with black, you are adding to the mask. When you paint with white, you subtract from your mask. Masks and selections can be permanently stored with your artwork by saving them as alpha channels. Alpha channels Alpha channels can define parts of an image to be transparent. To understand this, it helps to quickly review bit depth. Bit depth or pixel depth refers to how much color information is in a particular image. 8-bit images contain up to 256 colors or shades of gray (like a GIF graphic). 16-bit images can have thousands of colors and 24-bit images more than 16 million. The RGB files you create in Photoshop have three 8-bit channels. (3 x 8-bit = 24-bit). An alpha channel is another 8-bit channel. Think of it as an extra black and white image stored along with your graphic. To make one simply save a selection or a mask as an alpha channel. In Photoshop you can save selections as alpha channels by looking under "select" -> "save selection". Or you can go to the channel palette and click on the "save selection as a channel" button. Look at an example of a lower third graphic with an alpha channel.
Since it's an 8-bit channel (think grayscale image), you have 256 steps from black to white. That's 256 varying stages from opaque to transparent. Adding this additional 8-bit information to your 24-bit image creates a 32-bit image. An image can have up to 24 channels. (Color or alpha channels) So it’s possible to save multiple alpha channels for varying applications. But while you can have multiple alpha channels, you can only save one of the Alphas into a PICT file. In-class exercise (5 pts):
If you want more practice/help making graphics to import into an editing system, you can use Jim's how to alpha article. Vocabulary
Homework: Note: In this exercise you will need to use part of an image from a scanned or digitized image (ie photo). Part of the grading will be based on how good a job you did removing a portion of the image and seamleesly merging it into a TV graphic. Create two different 4:3 TV graphics for a fictitious show. The two graphics should have the same objective (message). At least one of them should contain two images seamlessly merged together. You could make two different versions of a promo or title. You can use the same images in both if you'd like, or choose entrirely different images altogether.
Read Sitter: Chapter 3
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