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Odd Cat
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Alabama
Insane since: Jun 2002

posted posted 05-04-2004 10:00

This is the motorcycle. I made this in my Photoshop II class at school, and it was my final project. It's over 100 layers (not sure how many now; I had to combine them after a while to shrink the file size). Original size is 36' x 24', 300 dpi - it's a huge file. I was very proud of it when I made it, but lately I kind of have mixed feelings about it. While it's some nice Photoshop rendering, no doubt, I feel like the main thing it says about my skills is that I can emulate metal pretty well. Further, over time I've begun to wonder why we spent so much time on photorealistic objects instead of editing actual photos. We spent one day of class on color adjusting photos, we learned how to use the rubber stamp tool but didn't spend a large amount of time on editing photos believably. We didn't learn the basics of scanning at all - everything I learned about producing a good scan, I learned by watching the Screen Savers on Tech TV, of all places. But we spent half the quarter working on our photorealistic final projects.

Frequently people would see my motorcycle and say "people pay good money for that kind of work!" and I found myself wondering, who are these people who pay for this? What kind of job pays to render real items in Photoshop? And why would they pay for this - they could just photograph the motorcycle in a 30 minute shoot rather than wait several days for me to create this image. I didn't create this motorcycle - it's a Honda, and although the whole thing was done in Photoshop, I used a photograph for reference. When I asked my teacher later on why we spent so much time on this, when most Photoshop jobs seem to rely on photo-editing skills, he said "yeah, but this shows that you have great Photoshop skills! If you can do this, you can do anything!" And I disagree; doing this image doesn't mean I can do anything with a photograph, nor does it seem to mean that I can do anything practical in Photoshop at all.

So am I being hard on my teacher here? What's your opinion - is this a practical use of my Photoshop skills? If this does show a skill that people will hire you for, what type of job would you get for doing this kind of stuff? What did everyone else focus on in their Photoshop classes?

Thanks for your feedback!

jstuartj
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Mpls, MN
Insane since: Dec 2000

posted posted 05-04-2004 16:40

First I must say very nice work, i am impressed. as far as getting a job. Perhaps pre-visualization or concept would require such skills, basicly and job traditially done by an illustrator.

Thou in my option you you be nuts to do that kind of work realist work in photoshop, as it seams better suited to a 3D appliction. It seams more a nich illustration market, likely something you would have to do freelance and realy sell you self, and I am sure the feild is crowded depending on your location.

Keep in mind appliction skills alone will not get you a good job, it can hurt, but your hole book will count more. In most comercial art feilds your ability to see, visualize, and complete a project that counts more to getting hired then skill using tools. After all you can teach almost anyone to run photoshop and be productive.

J. Stuart J.

Alevice
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Mexico
Insane since: Dec 2002

posted posted 05-04-2004 20:47

Your current skills would be good for conecptualization. I mean, you can pretty much emulate how the will will look like when its truly done. I do realize it could be done with a 3d modelling program, but you would have to take far more days trying to make it look like a real motorcycle.

I concur you should be learning photoediting, as it is way more used for advertisements and such.. the best thing you can do if you dont want to spend more money on classes, is self-teaching. Whiel it may not be as good as a real class, it may help you get the grasp of the thing.

__________________________________
Something else

Sexy Demoness cel

Copey
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: UK
Insane since: Aug 2002

posted posted 05-04-2004 20:59

First things first....

Nice work on the bike, really nice shading and stuff. But to your questions it just as jstuartj says, "It seams more a nich illustration market" which is rightly right for that type of work. Also as it?s for illustration market it's also to mention that most illustrators I think would not use photoshop, I'd use Illustrator instead. Photoshop is mostly raster based so is a lossy format in like vector.

As for your questions:

So am I being hard on my teacher here?

Not all saying you disagree with your teacher. As I see teachers being there to boost you when they see something special or someone that has skills and you?re under confident in your work, which can never do harm. But I find most teachers are misleading when it comes to seeing real world industries and how work is done.

What's your opinion - is this a practical use of my Photoshop skills?

Yes and No. It all depends on what you want to accomplish at the end. Photoshop skills is not just one area like illustration, it's a whole lot of areas, from colour correction to photo manipulation, etc. Photoshop to me a very powerful tool and no one will use it to its full power. So when you say "practical use of my Photoshop skills" I start to think of basic skills, because my practical skills where just basic stuff out of a class room book and some work sheets. But by seeing that motorbike your skills in photoshop illustration are good, very good. Just have so you have to define the word "practical" to some more wider in photoshop, if you mean photoshop as a whole.

If this does show a skill that people will hire you for, what type of job would you get for doing this kind of stuff?

Yes and NO again. People we hire you for this, but you might be looking for needle in hay stack for it. Don't feel bad about that because the skills you have doing this you can transfer to other parts of photoshop. In my experience, this is only a year and half of working in the design industry. I tried and still trying to find a market for my type work, but I have not found any yet.

I find that you have more chance getting a job if your multi skilled.... in all areas of photoshop and other software. But if you specialise in an area that you like you'll get picked up more on that area, rather than being looked at as an all rounder.

What did everyone else focus on in their Photoshop classes?

I had photoshop classes that where just sheets out of a book to practise the basics like the tools and interface of photoshop, then I found myself getting inspired by artists and found they done photo manipulation, so I went down that path. Not because of I thought you could get work by doing it. I loved doing it and still do but all learned a lot of other skills too. I always got picked up for my photoshop skills in photo manipulation than any other, but It?s safer to get work if you know most programs well, inside and out and have a very good skill to show off too.


Really tho is seems you worried about the job aspects of your classes your doing. If I think to yourself, about where it?s going, why your doing it and most importantly do you like doing it.

If you?re in low end education, just enjoy it and get the most of each course

If you?re in high end education, think about it more read books on designers/artist, etc and find out how they got working and how it all started for them. Also ask you teacher for more in-depth information about the design/art/illustration/etc industries, if they can?t find out for you or give you info, find a place that does.

Last, but not lastly? enjoy it, don?t loath it! Your work is good, just need to focus on want you want and learn a variety of skills by the sounds of it.

*oh I can ramble can?t I?.. Sorry if you read all of this?.. *pokes your blood shot eyes**

::: COPEY + CELL + DA + GFX :::

Odd Cat
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Alabama
Insane since: Jun 2002

posted posted 05-06-2004 09:33

I've graduated at this time. I took Photoshop I and II while going to school for my Web Design degree. There was no higher level of Photoshop offered, and the final project for Photoshop II was to make a photorealistic object. So you could interpret that project as being the highest level of skills we were expected to achieve by our instructor.

I agree that this isn't a very practical skill. Yes, it shows that I can render things with a great deal of accuracy. However, I also think you'd have to have rocks in your head if you were an art director and paid me as a Photoshopper an hourly rate to create this rather than paying a photographer to simply shoot the bike in question. If you add up all of my classroom time, it probably took me over 40 hours total to create this. Even if I were working as a freelancer, producing work like this as illustrations to sell, this would definitely not the most productive way to work.

My Photoshop instructor said that this work was the best for showing who was really skilled at Photoshop, and totally felt that photo-editing and photo-faking was too easy. He actually had no respect for photo-fakers - he thought they were talentless.

The reason I mentioned this subject here is because that was how I learned Photoshop, from him, but now that time has passed, I just don't see where this is a useful skill in the long run. It irritates me, because he wanted us to do what was cool, not what was useful. Further, he would (and still to this day will) say that if we could do this, we could do the simple stuff like photo-editing. Like if we could do this, which is hard, then we could do the easy stuff that he never taught us (apparently the Photoshop fairies were going to bless us with this knowledge or something). It's insane; doing this work has nothing to do with photo manipulation.

Does anyone else have anything to share about their own experience in Photoshop classes?

And yes, I am going down the self-taught road. Fortunately, there are some good books out there, once you learn to sort the good from the bad.

Alevice
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Mexico
Insane since: Dec 2002

posted posted 05-06-2004 21:05
quote:
Odd Cat said:

My Photoshop instructor said that this work was the best for showing who was really skilled at Photoshop, and totally felt that photo-editing and photo-faking was too easy. He actually had no respect for photo-fakers - he thought they were talentless.



Your instructor is a jackass. He surely may have some good ps skills, however, he got some useless skills. Skills are relevant if they have any practical purpose (at least job-wise), not just showing off how cool you are.

__________________________________


Sexy Demoness cel

rickindy
Nervous Wreck (II) Inmate

From: Indianapolis, In USA
Insane since: Jan 2002

posted posted 05-07-2004 14:55

Those of us that are "right brain challenged" are envious (and curious) about people who obviously have loads of talent and wonder what they're going to do with it.
As basketball coaches say "You can't coach height", which means that talent, like height, is something you either have or don't have.
In your case, you obviously have a lot of talent, so you just need to find an area to apply it. Learn as much of the technical and time-savng tools in PS as you can. Learing photo editing/enhancement/whatever is an excellent skill that you can get paid for. If you can do it faster and better than anyone else, you can make a living at it. If you merge your talent with the tech skills, you would be able to do it faster and better.
Learning some left-brain skills like web design and coding could also help. I don't know anybody that knows too much.

Few problems in life can't be solved by chocolate

Odd Cat
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Alabama
Insane since: Jun 2002

posted posted 05-08-2004 09:51

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been feeling a bit ornery about my education, but I'm more than willing to pull myself up and do my own self-study. I learned the basics of web design, and now I am working more on coding, trying to learn XML, all that stuff.

Odd Cat
Bipolar (III) Inmate

From: Alabama
Insane since: Jun 2002

posted posted 05-08-2004 09:51

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been feeling a bit ornery about my education, but I'm more than willing to pull myself up and do my own self-study. I learned the basics of web design, and now I am working more on coding, trying to learn XML, all that stuff.

(Edited by Odd Cat on 05-08-2004 09:57)

theGuest
Nervous Wreck (II) Inmate

From: Vancouver, BC Canada
Insane since: Apr 2002

posted posted 05-10-2004 00:21

Hi there!

I concure that the teacher in this case is a tad underscoring the practical use of Photoshop. He/she needs to be a bit more open minded as to it's use and abilities. There are probably millions of folks out there making a real decent living off of "photo manipulation" -- like those touching up magazine cover models, etc. After all... the skillz you learn & use are only relevant to what's practical in YOUR situation. And to him, it's teaching... so i feel he needs to expand his mode of thought in regards to what/how PS is/should be used for.

And as a teacher myself, i'm speaking from experience here, not just an opinion.

As for what practical good your talent is, that can only be gauged by you yourself. Personally, the most obvious use i see your talent being put to is for custom artwork. Other than that, it's basically just a good tool to help you do other things with PS. But if you're getting into Web Design, then your current level of ability is pretty much wasted. That of course doesn't mean you should stop applying yourself though.

Who knows... you may one day want to become a teacher yourself.

PS: Excellent rendering btw. Very efficient use of gradients. And wonderful detail you've added. Nice work.

(Edited by theGuest on 05-10-2004 00:23)

eyezaer
Lunatic (VI) Mad Scientist

From: the Psychiatric Ward
Insane since: Sep 2000

posted posted 05-10-2004 00:33

On the other hand, if you can do that... you probably know many of the PS tools intimately... and you can probably use them to touch up photos with a little creativity, quite easilly.

photos... piece of cake.


[antique sigs are us]

hyperbole
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: Madison, Indiana, USA
Insane since: Aug 2000

posted posted 05-11-2004 20:06

Odd Cat: It seems to me that the purpose of the rendering exercise is for you to learn how to ?see" the objects you are trying to render and to ?see? the rendering. When anyone can look at your rendering and not know whether it was a photograph or a rendering, you will have learned how to see the objects you are ?painting?.

The skill of seeing objects is easier to teach when you are rendering the object from scratch than if you are manipulating a photograph of the object. However, once you have learned to see the objects and render them realistically, you can take the same skill and apply it to photo manipulation and create photographs that look like photographs, not like photographs that have been manipulated.

I suspect that is what your teacher was saying when he said that the same skills are applicable to the easier stuff.

By the way that is a really nice rendering.

-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

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