Posts Tagged ‘Digital Fine Art’

An artist will generally spend a great deal of time in their art studio. When reading an inventory list of the contents of an artist’s studio you might expect to find a list of brushes, paint tubes and various papers. But revealing the true inventory of a studio can become quite personal.

As a digital artist I continue to work on canvas but a lot of work takes place on my computer. Since I work on a laptop that I carry with me my art studio is technically a laptop bag and its contents. With that being true it makes sense that a portable studio would be easier to keep organized. I like to make sure I have things that I might need with me.

But even though my laptop bag is really just a laptop bag- I was amazed at the amount of stuff I managed to cram in there.

As I was going through my bag I had to smile at the neuroticisms that I must admit belong to me. There is nothing more intimate than revealing your studio’s true contents. Here is what I pulled out of there:

Contents:
1 Toshiba Satellite laptop
1 USB retractable mouse
1 Power Cord
1 Ear piece with microphone
1 Digital Camera (substandard but it takes pictures for the web just fine)
1 SD Elite Pro 2 gig memory card (goes with camera)
1 USB cord for camera
4 Rechargable AA Batteries
1 USB cell phone charger
1 Cell phone head set
1 Digipro 4×3 USB Pen tablet and Stylus pen
1 pack of Juicy fruit. 3 sticks left.
1 Tylenol (or rather half of one)
1 8 1/2 x 11 sketch book
1 Bottle of multi-vitamins
1 5 subject notebook- yellow (for jotting down ideas and taking various notes)
1 1 subject notebook- green (I don’t remember what I intended to use this for)
1 Walmart receipt (from when I bought the notebook)
1 Highlighter pen
2 #2 Mechanical pencils
1 Ball point pen
1 Red pen
30 or so post cards and business cards collected from various art shows and businesses
1 Nature Valley Granola Bar wrapper -peanut butter- (don’t know how long I have been carrying this around with me)
1 80 gig portable hard drive (contains source files from images being worked on or that still need to be rendered- also Bryce objects, Poser poses, Photoshop extensions and filters etc. And videos created, things I have written)
1 case logic USB memory stick holder
includes USB SD card reader (I don’t need this- don’t know why I carry it)
1 1gig USB memory stick (contains invoices, spreadsheets, password files, letters, diagrams)
1 1gig USB memory stick (contains client files such as logos, letterheads and such)
1 4gig USB Memory stick (contains web site files and images)
1 1gig USB memory stick (there is nothing on this one)
1 2gig USB memory stick (I just use when I need to transfer files from my computer to someone else’s computer or when I am not carrying my laptop- rarely)
1 black zippered case that contains a little notebook for checklists that I use to try and keep organized- includes a pen
1 leather bound journal where I keep ideas- includes a pen
1 zippered cd case where I keep software cds and backup files for drivers and things
1 DVD case with about 30 DVDs of images already rendered.
1 flashlight?
1 red 8 1/2 x 11 1 subject notebook ( I use this when I take notes at meetings)
1 retractable ethernet cord for when I need to hook up to another computer for internet connection
1 Strawberry chapstick
5 Cinnamon disk candies and 3 empty wrappers
1 USB Hub with 4 extra ports
1 retractable USB cord male to male
1 retractable USB cord male to female
1 retractable USB cord that hooks up to a printer
1 Creatacolor art set (contains various pencils, leads, chalks, graphite sticks)
1 Pencil Sharpener
1 Pink pearl eraser
1 package of wet wipes.
1 book of stamps- 7 left
1 Hair brush
1 Toothbrush
1 Tube Crest travel size toothpaste
…wow- I think there is more in there but you get the idea.

…listing the intangible items would involve more than one post.

My apologies…if you came here with the hopes of getting tips on how to organize your art studio…I may be worse off than you.

The four most common image file formats are: TIF, JPG, GIF, and PNG. Programs like Photoshop and Elements support each of these formats.

These are not the only options just the most accepted. A web page requires a jpg, gif, or png because those are the file types that a browser can read.

TIF supports most color spaces and the file format contains many options such as the option to add tags to each image- but the biggest benefit is that a TIF file can be exchanged among platforms with no problem.

When saving a TIF file you can use the LZW lossless compression as an option. Lossless compression simply means that there is no loss of quality from compression. That means that you can always read back exactly what you thought you saved. Bit for bit with no data corruption. TIF files are generally very large. But the size is not a disadvantage because it just means there is a lot of detail saved within the file. A TIF should be used when high quality and archiving are a major consideration.

There may be times when quality is less a consideration than file size such as web pages or email- in this case choose a jpg.

JPG uses lossy compression which means that there is loss to image quality. But JPG was designed to be lossy to allow for major size reduction in the image. So when we open a JPG file the data expands so that we may view it and it is not exactly as it was before. This is loss of quality, purity and integrity. And it is unrecoverable. So depending on your image you need a good reason to use a JPG since its purpose is to create a smaller file. A good reason would be email or for the web.

Photoshop and other image editing programs will allow you to choose a quality setting when saving a JPG. Always use the highest setting.

When using JPGs you must also realize that each time the image is opened and then saved again it further compresses creating more data corruption. Each time it is rotated or added to- it is further compressed and more data is lost. Opening and viewing the JPG file is no problem. But every time you perform a save operation more data is lost. You can begin to see that this compression is leaving artifacts (or blurry spots) in your image over time by zooming in by 300% and the data loss becomes apparent. Over time these corruptions will become apparent when viewing the image at regular size.

So rather than continuing to edit and save a JPG file you should just begin with an archived Master TIF file and begin anew.

When using a camera that uses JPG files you should immediately save the image as a TIF and keep that as your master as you can then feel comfortable that there will be no quality or data loss with in the file. From the TIF file you can create JPG copies if needed. Keep in mind that you will not gain quality by transferring your JPG images that you already have to TIF format. But you can feel secure that you will not lose anymore quality. So if your JPGs already contain data corruption they will keep these if transferring to a TIF format. Which is why saving to a TIF to keep as a master copy that you will never rewrite is the first thing you should do if your camera does not support TIF files. Save any new changes to a different file. Never rewrite over your master copy.

The small JPG file size is great but it comes with a price.

GIF has no real value in photo quality images and is best suited for the web. JPG is a much better choice for the web for both quality and file size. However if your image has any transparency then use a GIF or PNG file as JPG does not support this. PNG will produce the better quality image but GIF is still the better choice as Internet Explorer does not always read the transparency information in a PNG file as other browsers do. So although I don’t feel that GIF is the better choice for quality it is the better choice for browser compatibility.

PNG supports lossless compression and is well suited for master copy like TIF files. It will also create a smaller file size than TIF. But TIF is the undisputed leader for image quality. When nothing less than maximum quality is required than always choose a TIF file to save your images. TIF is also the most common file asked for by commercial printers.