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Artist => General Art Discussions => Topic started by: Griffin on February 26, 2015, 09:17:15 PM
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I have accepted a last minute job from a client and need some assistance on artwork. I'm not begging for a handout or a freebie.
I have to take a picture of the client and convert it into a clipart shadow figure (threshold?).
I am attaching a picture of my client as well as an example that I am hoping to achieve. The main goal is to make a one color image of the client that looks like the client. I have attempted several youtube tutorials as well as about 5 hours of blind attempts and have not been able to achieve a satisfactory result.
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Something along this line?
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Yes, very much so along those lines!
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I did a similar thing for a friend the other day.
I opened the filter gallery in PS and started going through each one till I found one that kind was close, then I started tweaking from there. Also adjustment LAYERS will be your best friend as opposed to permanent adjustments.
I think I ended up liking posterized for my purposes as well.
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Okay, I was just playing with it, but here's how I got the last one using what you may have or have access to.
Took your .png into PS and just removed the background
Sharpened it a touch
Converted to Greyscale
Saved as a .jpg
Opened Inkscape (remember this one guys????) and used the Trace several times to see what it did.
Took a screen shot of the output to .jpg and posted here
Inkscape is free to download - https://inkscape.org/en/
You can play with the Trace settings in Inkscape and can be from dark to lighter (but lost some detail) and then just did a screen shot capture as a new .jpg,
Try out Inkscape. Its open source and free.
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Gilly, the second pic did use the posterize and then to inkscape.
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I don't think I spent more than 10 mins on any one of them
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Screen, I attempted to do the tracing in Illustrator but I can not get enough detail in his face.
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At this point in my career, things like that are too much of a headache and my customers have to understand that to get the right product they will have to pay. I would have sent that to artworksource.com and had them vector it. We are a vector based shop so PS is not going to cut it. They vector overnight and you can specify what the final artwork will be used for and how many colors you are after. Its just my 2ยข.
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Yea, only used PS to basically get rid of background and convert to grayscale.
Sending out is one option.
I used Inkscape for the trace because it's a bit more rustic which is what I was going for. Like I said, it's free to download.
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I found these notes on Inkscape should you decide to install it:
Step 1) Import your image. Click File>Import, find your file and click OK. Or you can just drag and drop your file on the desktop once open.
Step 2) Select the image, go to the top of the screen, click Path>Trace Bitmap.
Step 3) The Trace Bitmap menu will then open. Here you can select how you want your image vectorised and adjust the settings. You can also generate a preview. Once you are happy with the preview click OK and close the Trace Bitmap screen.
Step 4) Now you will have your new vector image and the old raster (bitmap, jpeg, gif etc) image stacked on top of each other. Seperate the two and delete the raster.
Step 5) Play around with your new vector image!
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First things first, do you have a better image? A tiny 72 ppi jpeg is no place to start if you want that image to look like the other examples you provided...
Steve
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I agree that a basic manipulation will not render print ready results. Is anyone interested in drawing the art for me? Let me know what kind of cost I am looking at. I need this to be a vector format as I will also be digitizing this piece for future work.
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First things first, do you have a better image? A tiny 72 ppi jpeg is no place to start if you want that image to look like the other examples you provided...
Steve
I have not been able to get a high res image from anyone. He does not personally have any. I am looking on google (horrible I know) to find a larger image.
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The original image is fine for something like this. The provided examples on the other hand are either straight up "drawn" using pen tool etc in PS/ILL, or have been filtered, traced, and had nodes adjusted by hand after the fact. There really is no automatic way to get those kinds of clean lines based on a photograph that retain the right info in the right places and still look dynamic.
When I approach something like this, I typically do something like this:
*Always scale the image up to print size at 300 dpi/ppi first.
1. cut out the background
2. duplicate the layer a few times, retaining the original unedited.
3. mask out different areas or details you deem important from each layer, deleting the rest of the layer. On something like this, I would probably have his head as it's own layer, his arms, and possibly his chest. This image is actually pretty easy since it is relatively evenly lit and balanced. That said, you are going to want to preserve facial detail differently than solid muscle areas. His arm veins would be a nice touch and should be edited separately from the muscle shadows, and his chest has some of the darkest shadows and most contrast, so it will require it's own editing as well.
4. after you have your masked out layers, duplicate each a few times.
5. for each layer, grayscale, adjust curves/levels, then play with things like shadow/highlight and midtone contrast until the details you want are more or less clean and dynamic. then you can adjust levels/contrast/threshold to make it black and white. Repeat for all your layers and details until you have something that looks pretty close to what you want.
6. cleanup! you can do a fair amount of cleanup on edges by using tools like Gaussian blur then levels, but this will round off sharp details (which can be fixed in ILL after tracing and adjusting nodes). I also will occasionally just use the poly lasso tool to delete or create detail where it looks "right".
7. flatten and save, then import to ILL and trace/expand. You'll then be able to mess with nodes to clean it up as much as you want and bring out the details you want. This step isn't always even necessary, but ideally for this image you would use it.
edit: The real key is going to be masking out and editing different areas individually them merging them all back together. No filter will adjust the whole image in a way that works for his face, chest, arms, ect at the same time. Parts will be too dark or light and detail will be missing.
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The original image is fine for something like this. The provided examples on the other hand are either straight up "drawn" using pen tool etc in PS/ILL, or have been filtered, traced, and had nodes adjusted by hand after the fact. There really is no automatic way to get those kinds of clean lines based on a photograph that retain the right info in the right places and still look dynamic.
When I approach something like this, I typically do something like this:
unfortunately these steps are a little above my capabilities. I am pretty proficient in illustrator but photoshop is another language. Is anyone interested in creating the piece I am looking for? Cost and turnaround?
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I'm pretty sure I would be way too expensive. There are services out there that will vectorize for dirt cheap though. I think one was already linked above.
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I just checked with our artist, she could draw that in an hour to an hour and a half, $60 - $90...
Steve
do you want the legs?
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I was able to draw him up to this point. Adding the finishing details is where my trouble comes in and the face is my biggest failure!
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Thank you for all of your help! I was able to figure it out with your help!
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Soooooooo, u gonna post what u ended up with?
Or just gonna keep us all in suspense?
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Soooooooo, u gonna post what u ended up with?
Or just gonna keep us all in suspense?
I ended up doin by a completely different design due to frustration. I am going to continue working on this piece for another design.
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$60-$90 to redraw that! I am telling you artworksource.com will do it for $15 and if you upload it at 6pm you will have it back by 6am. Work smarter not harder. Trying to sit there and battle with artwork is something that I did for years. There are a lot of things that I will still do in house, but I know where to say that something is way over my head, I take that artwork, send it out and it comes back right. And I can move on to the next project. Think about it, you spend 3 hours tearing your eyes out trying to get a piece of art right when you could have been making $ working on another project that is profitable. You just cut your margin in that job. You are asking yourself, what about that that extra $15 that artwork source charges, you build it in to the invoice as a artwork fee. I get my customer a great looking product and I am more profitable. And my customers can bring me garbage artwork and we can take care of them and keep them coming back or referring other customers to us.
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$60-$90 to redraw that! I am telling you artworksource.com will do it for $15 and if you upload it at 6pm you will have it back by 6am. Work smarter not harder. Trying to sit there and battle with artwork is something that I did for years. There are a lot of things that I will still do in house, but I know where to say that something is way over my head, I take that artwork, send it out and it comes back right. And I can move on to the next project. Think about it, you spend 3 hours tearing your eyes out trying to get a piece of art right when you could have been making $ working on another project that is profitable. You just cut your margin in that job. You are asking yourself, what about that that extra $15 that artwork source charges, you build it in to the invoice as a artwork fee. I get my customer a great looking product and I am more profitable. And my customers can bring me garbage artwork and we can take care of them and keep them coming back or referring other customers to us.
You bring up some very valid points. Can't argue with working smarter, but there may be more to the desire than meets the eye in the post. From an artist standpoint, He's tried a few basic auto trace options himself, and got some various options from posters. Ya can't knock a guy for trying to lean some programs and do some things on his own. There comes a point tho, like you said, when you have to decide when to outsource it. Now, when you do outsource it, you need to determine what level of quality you need for that job.
One person offered up what they would charge (if) the poster wanted that person to do it. I could post up my fees, another 10 artist could post up their fees and could be all over the place, but MOST would not be in the $15.00 range and I applaud them for not.
I'm sure for that 60-90 price, you don't get basic vector re draw like you would for some logo. There are some jobs that require a more illustrated skill with a flair that also matches the individual characteristics of the original photo rather than just the basic "vector conversion". One mans top quality work is another mans work after a night out and hangover. One printer that advertises "Best quality in town" may not be totally accurate but they believe they are. FOr some types of jobs, they may be the best at that for the price. Many things come into play, just like the quality or type of work you need. One shop may do nothing but use artworksource, while another may use an illustrator and who gets more work? Could be you. That may still not make a difference in the end. You may get tons more basic work and keep Artworksource hopping. The other shop, but may not get as many of your jobs but of those they get, they may be larger type orders that require a higher level of art. It's all relative to what you offer and what type of customers you have.
Sure. we can expect good quality production friendly work from these sources, but many of them do not employ illustrators that can draw people accurately with a flair. Sources like the $15.00 are more likely fast and furious at the graphic look. Now, thats not to knock your post, but maybe to add on to that and clarify that what the other person may have done might very well be worth $60.00-$90.00 given what the customer may be wanting versus the $15.00 flat logo vector look that most people use these types of sources for.
Each has a place and a time, just like you can buy one of these sim process sep programs and do it yourself with only 15-30 minutes in it, or, you can send it out to someone like myself of some other separators who specialize in providing something more than what you get out of the average sep program on the average job. It depends on what the customer is looking for. Some people have two or three of these programs...yet have those particular jobs that they will send out to one of us separators. Happens every day.
Print on.
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Thanks Dan for explaining. In my life, I've found that you get what you pay for, 99% of the time. (I've gotten a bargain or two, but that's it). Our in house artist has been at it for almost 40 years. We have no problem getting $60.00 an hour for art, people pay it day in and out. $15.00 art, looks like $15.00 art, and the normal end user can't tell the difference. The first couple of tries that were posted would never get printed here, not insult anyone by any means, but they just aren't good enough. We don't use vector art only either, because I think that as professionals, we need to be able to work with anything, just like the old days (pre digital) when people brought us matchbook covers and cocktail napkins. Sure, we could enlarge it the camera, but it came out like crap, and had to be redrawn. I see a lot of prints that I'm sure someone thinks are fine, because they run them, but I would let it leave our shop. We are not clip art jockeys here, (but we do use it) and expect to be paid a reasonable sum for what we do. And we're profitable too, been in business for 24 years now.
Steve
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All very good points. We have an in-house artist as well and I have no problem charging $45-$50 an hour to create artwork. But I am not going to pay my guy his hourly wage to spend 2.5 hours vectoring something that a perfectly capable artist overseas can do for $15. In this situation, I would beg to differ that you get what you pay for, and if I don't like what I see I send back and get what I want. But there is the adage of bad data in bad data out. You can't shine a turd. I just hate to see a guy struggle, like i did in the beginning, get frustrated and not get the customer what they wanted and came to you for. We all know that in our industry the customer has more choices than we know about, they all have a "buddy" that prints in his garage, there is custom ink. com, and any number of legit guys like us. Customer retention and word of mouth is huge, and I would hate to see someone not use a resource because they didn't know about it and lose a customer.
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I follow you. Of course when I started, there was no internet, and no resources at one's fingertips, so we really had no choice, recreate it. Almost every single job was recreated, except for those rare times when we would get "camera ready art" from a pro, illustration board with overlays. It's a fairly different world now. Luckily for us, even our long term contract customers that are fully aware of these sources still use us instead. Word of mouth is a very big deal indeed. I get calls from people referred to us by small shops, because they are told "those guys can do most anything." I know that's not completely true, but having the abilities in house it what makes that happen for us. That said, I had Dot-tone Dan do a great separation for us the other day. I could have, but I have too much on my plate, and so does my full time artist. In the end, as long as it looks good, and the customer pays, we'll all get good reviews for it.
Steve
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This might help. Go to www.creativemarket.com (http://www.creativemarket.com). On homepage/add ons/actions/super engraver download @ $8.00
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Flash Ink,
I see your points as well. Very true in this day and age.
You are getting ripped off tho, by $3.10
Times have changed and it's a global market. With that comes this issue (that doesn't hurt you that much) directly right now as it applied to buying art or art services. I see it as the truth facing the US artist and can't get around it. As you can understand, it's frustrating to the artist that the art profession or future art profession will not be profitable enough as job worth having. The art profession or career to get into is dismal In art school, we used to be told or warned not to get into the tee shirt art world. It was beneath most artist career desires. Thats what they taught us. It was a low pay or (bottom of the pay scale) for art careers with little glory.
In comparisons back then, 25 years ago, it was mostly true. About 15 years ago, for a while, I found that gap to be a little more narrow with the need of artist "illustrators" and even more need of good separators for printers who wanted to print art that was multi colors and blended into each other for a more full color photo or illustrated look. What we called "high end' back then. Today, the HIGH END is starting to become commonplace or no differentiation of the from High end to normal production in a shop.
Today, you already can get one job that would normally be $45.00-$90.00 here in the US for the America artist for $15.00 over seas.
For the American artist to earn a decent living lets look at the top rate of $90.00 per job. $90.00 divided by 2.5 hrs is $36.00 per hr (assuming no breaks) and assuming this is the type of jobs we get all day long. That equates to 3.2 jobs per 8 hr shift assuming a normal work day is supposed to be 8 hrs. That's $288.00 per day. Good money in the best case scenario. Of course, we all know not all jobs are the same so your daily rate can fluctuate. Now, as a freelancer, you pay your own taxes overhead and benefits. So lets take off 30% or $86.40 = now, thats $25.00 take home or $200.00 per day.
WOW, that's $52,000 per year. Good pay for an artist right? Well, Yes and no. Remember where I said "(assuming no breaks) and assuming this is the type of jobs we get all day long? well, it's not. Just like your day consist of jobs for 500 units and some jobs at 24 units, our art jobs and time for them come in at various rates as well. Some for $15.00 and some for $150.00 So our $52.000 per year average, is not likely. It's more like $35,000 but much better, if you work 16 hrs per day.$35k per year does suck for artist today. You're only getting by, earning enough to cover bills. No savings for your kids and no new cars or house unless you go deeply in debt. But that's with everyone today right? No. The national average pay is $44,888.16
Now, your pay for overseas art at $15.00 is great for you here. You're getting more profitable, while lowering our US economy more and more, yet raising the overseas economy...eventually, 20-60 years, we will balance out to what is a 2nd world economy for all of us...and our business will have evolved into something else. That's inevitable.
Your $15.00 overseas art (for China), is our $90.00 art or rather, to be exact, it's $93.10 See image attached. So you are overpaying in China (as it pertains to a global market). ;)
Eventually, 10, 20 or 50 years from now, all art, (the business of being an artist) will only be to create art for online sales) used and sold globally and the price will be down to $1.00-$5.00 with no custom qualities with that unless you pay an additional fee of $2.00 Quick turn vector conversions for .50 cents or 5 for $2.00
"But I am not going to pay my guy his hourly wage to spend 2.5 hours vectoring something that a perfectly capable artist overseas can do for $15.
Printers, (shop owners) are ok with this, (it doesn't affect them) YET, because it takes the art cost factor out of being an issue right now. That's ok for you for now, but the difference will come, when something is done differently with shipping to make our global business even easier, our small world gets even smaller and more cost competitive...and eventually, not worth being a printer or shop owner as a career in the US...unless we are all globally a 2nd world economy. By that time, I'm sure we business owners will have evolved/adapted to change and will be doing apparel decoration in a different manor. Perhaps using LED lighting micro woven into the fibers instead of screen printing at all and the artist will need an engineering background. Kinda cool.
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As always, the artists that people want, are the ones that will command the most money. So I've had a basic philosophy that since what we do for a living can be had in so many places, you want to develop a reputation that makes potential customers come to you for your product. Whether it's your art, your print quality, your presentation, how you treat and educate customer to their options, is all rolled together. You want your customers to refer you to others with exclamations like, "These people know their stuff, etc..." Sorry if it's slightly off topic, but as it relates to art rates, my point was people will pay our rate, and know they will get top notch quality and consideration.
Steve