For the past months I've been working on a secret photo-assignment for the local library, taking photo's of both interior & exterior, postprocessing to duotones and designing the text lay-out of suiting quotes. Finally the frustrating process of having it printed the way I visioned it all.
It had to be a surprisegift for two "pensionada's" so only very few people were allowed to see the previews.
Yesterday we had a cosy party with a delicious buffet, lots of speeches & presents and of course the official release of The Book. Both me and the manager were a bit nervous as to how the book would be "judged". To our joy everybody was enthousiastic!
So here it is : the pages of my first book (http://secretatlantis.smugmug.com/gallery/6824696_rt5rA#419613059_G6tYy) :) (maybe I can add a pic of the actual book in the near future as well)
FANTASTIC! Very PROfessional.
Atlantis, it looks beautiful! I really like all the quotes in different print. This is the first project I've seen here it is suitable (relevant) to use all the different types.
How did you process the photos to duotones, did you use a gradient map adjustment layer? I don't know much about all the available techniques but it the result here looks so good. (I like it when white and black are clearly present)
Great job,
Hannie
(http://bestsmileys.com/christmas1/3.gif)
Wow! Very nice. I love the duotone colors.
Christine
Tell me! Tell me! How did you do duotone? I love it.
"A house without books is like a body without soul." - Cicero
Beautifully done! I love your layout and the quotes. I know that I wish I could translate all of the pages, but especially the one on page 12 with the young boy reading with window behind him. What a beautiful library and the duotone set the right mood and made it look so elegant. :wnw:
Margie
Atlantis, congratulations on the publication of your book. I can't imagine it's not being treasured by the people for whom you created it. Your design work is wonderful and I love the way you used type in the quotes. Having once been a typographer, that especially struck me. (Now I only wish I could read Dutch so I could understand the quotes. I'm a total book addict, so I'm sure they'd all have meaning for me.)
For those of you who asked about duotones, the way I learned to accomplish that in Photoshop is to change the mode to grayscale. Once you do that and go back under "mode," you have the option of duotone mode, and you can combine colors to your heart's content. Atlantis, is that what you did?
Kudos for your work of art. It's gorgeous. What a fabulous accomplishment.
Bless,
GK
Quote from: glennab on December 14, 2008, 01:09:18 PM
For those of you who asked about duotones, the way I learned to accomplish that in Photoshop is to change the mode to grayscale. Once you do that and go back under "mode," you have the option of duotone mode, and you can combine colors to your heart's content. Atlantis, is that what you did?
GK
Glenna,
That much I figured out but I am having trouble selecting the right colors that will have the result I like. I am even struggling to find out the relationships between the selected colors and the results. Wondering whether there is a duotone school I can go to.
Margie,
I think the quote says: "If you are young, you want to read more books than you have. If you are old, you want to have more books than you can read." Atlantis will tell you how badly I butchered the translation :)
Shujen
Shujen,
When in the bookstore, look for "Photoshop for Photography the art of pixel processing " by Tom Ang (pg 70-73) and also by the same author: "Advance Digital Photography Technique's & Tips for Creating Professional Quality Images (pg 102-103). Also, here are some links that you might find helpful:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/duotone.shtml (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/duotone.shtml)
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/actions-tutorials/duotone-tritone-quadtone-actions-tutorial.html (http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/actions-tutorials/duotone-tritone-quadtone-actions-tutorial.html)
http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/duotones/index.html (http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/duotones/index.html)
http://www.butzi.net/articles/toning.htm (http://www.butzi.net/articles/toning.htm)
http://teched.vt.edu/gcc/PDFs/Duotones.pdf (http://teched.vt.edu/gcc/PDFs/Duotones.pdf)
The one thing that one of these links stressed is that you cannot accurately predict the colors on a consumer printer.
Thanks for the translation--I'm impressed! (unless we find out it means something else ;D)
Margie
I'm playing around with the duotone technique right now, following along in the book Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook on pages 120-121.
It says once I have the duotone dialog box up, I should click on "load" button to access the variety of Duotone settings within Photoshop. However, my folder is empty!? So where do I found the pre-loaded settings??
Christine
Christine, I'm on CS2, but once I chose my Mode to Duotones, the next window has Load and that will give me the following folders: Duotones, Quadtones, Tritone. I don't know why your folder is empty. [Program Files>Adobe>Adobe Photoshop CS2>Presets>Duotones]
Maybe we should start a new post on this subject, so not to detract from Atlantis and her book?
Margie
Sorry Atlantis, I guess we have gotten away from the subject.
Anyway, I can see the duotones with in the folder when I go thru "my computer" but not when I go thru Photoshop. Go figure...
Chris
To hijack this thread even further, for those looking for predictability in the colors in your duotones I would suggest stick with the colors from the Pantone Matching System (PMS) or some other color matching system. Then if you are going for a printed image on a printing press then things should be pretty close to the chosen color. If you are getting real serious you may want to pick up a Pantone Process Color Imaging Guide. It shows the PMS color along with the direct CYMK color. It even gives the CYMK percentages to create that color.
Johnboy
Now back to the real topic. Great book Atlantis. I like your photography and the overall layout. Also noticed that you picked up the duotone color in some of the type.
Johnboy
Sorry Atlantis to stay on the distraction. Thank you Margie for the links. They answered a question I had that was I did not know the box with a diagonal line meant to be curve. That helped in adjustments of the tone. I am still having difficulty selecting a color. Pantone does not seem to group the color in an order that I can understand.
Shujen, you can use the process or Pantone duotone sets and then convert back to RGB. That's especially a good way to fine tune your color. Unless you really are going to use a Pantone color (many of which are outside the color gamut of the other modes), your best bet is to try that method to give yourself the ability to adjust colors. Although you won't have a true duotone, you'll have the look of one and better control.
Another possibility would be to get the image to an acceptable range of saturation, convert to grayscale, and then convert back to RGB, create a separate color layer an with RGB formula and play with the opacity.
GK
Thanks all of you that reacted to The Book.
As for duotones, I need to finish tons of stuff before the end of the week so I will keep it brief.
One important thing though : always use the channel mixer adj. layer to convert to B&W (don't forget to click the monochrome checkbox on the bottomleft) and adjust the sliders to your liking. This way you have much better control and results than desaturating with Hue/Sat or, even worse, simply converting to grayscale. Next you can use levels and curves to tweak the contrast and so on.
There's 2 ways to get duotones. First of all the proper way.
Once you are happy with your B&W you go to Image - Mode and convert to grayscale. At that point you return to Image - Mode and choose duotones. That's when the fun starts. I use the pantones and roam around to pick two colours I like. You can also tweak them a little in the curves box by doubelclicking on the diagonal.
Finding the right colour may take some time as there is so many to choose from ( and I keep forgetting to write down my favorite combinations ... *note to self* ).
Once finished you need to convert back to RGB to be able to save it as psd or jpg. That's all.
Two examples :
http://secretatlantis.smugmug.com/gallery/5470846_JbFji#334486374_8VkNL (http://secretatlantis.smugmug.com/gallery/5470846_JbFji#334486374_8VkNL)
Oddly enough I postprocessed the bookphoto's the improper way :D but due to some urgent work to be done I will explain that option some other time.
edited to add the checkboxtip
Atlantis, thanks for explaining the right way to get duotones, can't wait for you to tell the wrong way to do it! ;D
Great tip you gave on converting to black and white using the channel mixer adj. layer. I tried it for myself using all 3 forementioned methods and I never realized that the result would be so different. The channel mixer adjustment layer gave the photo with much more detail. I always used hue/saturation but from now on I will use your method, thanks for sharing these tips with us!
Hannie
Glad I could help - edited for one more tip on the channel mixer - back to business again :D
Beautiful book, Atlantis. You are very talented!
Jan