Photoshop Quick Tip: Dealing with substandard monitors

Here is a nice, quick tip for those of you who (like me) are stuck with a monitor with a low contrast ratio.

First, I'll explain why this is a problem. Lets say you are adjusting a photo manipulation to have a large concentration of a solid color in certain areas - either by playing with levels, or by manually painting over the area. You obviously don't want to go overboard (especially if you are using the levels method), so you will be working cautiously. The problem with this is that you can miss smaller parts/artifacts that would go unnoticed on a low contrast ratio screen, and they will show up in high quality printing or nicer screens.

Dealing with this is a simple affair, however. Every so often, during the manipulation process, do a "copy merged" and paste that into a new layer for proofing - then just crank up the contrast. All those little artifacts will come in crystal clear, so you'll know where to focus your attention when fixing them. You can show/hide the proofing layer while you work, which will ensure you aren't painting blind.

I learned this trick when I did the piece "Personality 2", which can be seen below.

Finally, the Standards Compliance Race is on

Slashdot was the inspiration for this article.

The world of web design has been one of lackluster attention.. well, except for Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, Galleon.. err, every major desktop browser except for IE.

Until now. IE had completely ignored standards and focused on, well.. whatever it was they focused on. The race for Acid3 compliance is finally on, however, and it couldn't come at a better time. With the tech-savvy world focusing on mobile accessibility, standards compliance creates a realistic platform for up-and-coming, cutting-edge mobile browsers to make a serious entrance.

This is a great thing.

Most internet users couldn't care less about accessibility - "It just works" is a common philosophy that has fueled IE users for many years now (thanks to web designers such as myself who hack up our markup to work with the now described as "hell-hath-frozen-over" browser). IE8 will/is pass(ing) the Acid2 test, and with any luck, the race will truly continue into the Acid3 test.

Thanks to this, web designers such as myself will spend less time troubleshooting various browser's interpretation of our beautiful CSS and markup and take more time creating wonderful content, layouts, and more for our sites.

-WFL

In the (blog) News: SEO's got game with print media advertising.

I was recently made aware of some interesting circumstances regarding advertising online materials in print products; Instead of printing a web address, many businesses are printing search keywords.

What interests me most in this is how much trust is put into whoever manages the SEO (Search Engine Optimization, for the web-illiterate) for the product(s). There are so many variables to consider, such as Google bombing, competitors listing similar products, and the plain-and-simple fact that some people just don't know how to do SEO properly (side note: Yes, I know - I've got to work on my own, but I've got to finish the transitions completely before I get too involved in SEO).

Another interesting thing to consider is what search engines your customers will be using. New search engines pop up regularly, and there has become quite the fringe market out there. How are the SEO-gurus dealing with the variety in search engines available now? Maintaining visibility across the board for search engines new and old reminds me of designing websites for the various major browsers (which is less of a problem now that IE8 is finally going to be somewhat standards compliant, but now we've got the mobile web to coddle).

It will be interesting to see, within the next month, if advertisers are finding that the keyword based advertising system is starting to become inadequate due to some of the points I mentioned (or others I may have missed).

-WFL

Incompetent Competition in Web Design

That's right, I'm not even justifying this post with an image.

I find it incredibly disgusting at how the web design industry has progressed in smaller communities. I look around at my competition and find that.. well.. they aren't truly worth being called competitors.

For the sake of saving face (and not screwing myself over professionally), I will avoid linking to any said "competitors", giving any names, or affording you any specifics on who you should be avoiding if you are seeking web design services - if you are curious, you can ask.

There are a number of businesses in the area that offer "professional" web design services for a modest (or insanely high) fee. The price usually varies - I know some who charge 14-year-old-in-his-mom's-basement prices, and some who charge more than high quality contract designers who have a waiting list a mile long. Either one seems to easily be able to dupe the local shops into contracting them for services that aren't even worth their time, let alone their finances.

For instance, I know of one company (yes, an actual company) that does their web design work in MS Word.

MS WORD. Not exactly a high class design tool.

Of course, there are some who actually know a little bit about web design. They can perhaps write a little markup language, or even use tables. The sad part is, the MySpace generation has aided in creating a mass breed of such designers, affording us little choice but to grab our pitchforks as professional web designers and go on a hunt to skewer these so called designers who aren't giving the client the products they need.

The technical market is suffering in rural areas, still. Clients don't research what they can get, and it shows - the amount of poor quality websites served up by sub-standard design firms is astounding. I'm not expecting perfection, but for Pete's sake, your damned abusive nested table based layout is costing the customer money in bandwidth costs!

Just because it is perceived as working doesn't mean it works well. Besides the aforementioned bandwidth costs, the lack of accessibility across various devices and platforms means that the person who contracted the designer isn't getting a full reach for their clients. Beyond that, a lack of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means that even fewer eyeballs will even casually stumble upon the website unless they see a physically printed product.

Why the hell are designers like this surviving? What hasn't the market demanded more?

Because nobody bothered to educate the rural market about what they can get, and nobody will.

-WFL

Confessions of a Newspaper Graphic Designer

The world of graphic design in the newspaper industry is much like the idea of surgery in the movie (and subsequent television series) M.A.S.H.; your job is to get it done quickly and effectively. Finesse and perfection is a luxury that typically can't be afforded.

I've been working in the newspaper industry for 2 years now carrying "graphic designer" in my collection of titles. Most people in the newspaper industry (especially at smaller and medium sized papers) learn that you will do much, much more than what your business card says. I myself do the dummy (advertising layout), cover art, advertising design, web design and development, random technical stuff, and a little photography on occasion. You could certainly say I stay busy, and our client base works fairly hard to keep me on my toes, too.

With locally focused newspapers (I will not use the inane buzzword "hyperlocal" other than to describe it as such), your typical advertiser will be the smaller businesses looking to promote a sale, service, or general product line. Most newspapers will generate their big money on car dealers and real estate agencies. Beyond that, it is a mishmash of businesses looking to get some public attention for as little money as possible. That brings me to my first problem with local advertising..

Numerous advertisers will try to squeeze as much information as they can into as small an ad as they can get. My job, in this case, is to make the key points as prominent as possible. In reality, only those key points should be in the ad, along with their branding and (possibly) some art conducive to the image or idea being presented. The phrase "5 pounds of shit in a 1 pound bag" comes to mind here. I will try, in this case, to leverage typographical skills and hope that the sales rep can take that cunning (or conniving) attitude and use it to convince the client that less is more.

Another common problem can be seen amongst the high-dollar advertisers.. the ones who spend money on color ads. Many of them feel that if they are paying for full process color that they need to use as much color as possible - thus leading to an ad not entirely unlike a poorly conceived circus. My job, in this case, is to at least present a circus of colors that will print well on a CMYK press - I avoid using colors that use all four plates, or I'll end up a real enemy of the press crew.

One more issue that usually only presents itself every few months is excessive branding requirements. Working at a newspaper, you can't honestly be expected to churn out the same quality of work as a design firm, just because you don't have the time a design firm has. That doesn't stop some companies, however, from trying to save a buck having me design the ad. What does that mean? It means a large stack of papers on branding usage, requirements, color specs, and more. Advertisers like this tend to put a real damper on any sort of enjoyment I might get from the job, because I can't always match the requirements in any sort of efficient manner. I often find myself eyeballing everything rather than measuring for conducive branding placement, just because of time constraints. When an advertiser comes along with over elaborate branding requirements, however, my workflow suffers. I spend hours upon hours on one ad alone, and it just isn't worth it, considering most of these advertisers will only spend money with us in certain special sections that come once a year.

I've touched on it lightly, but I really feel this deserves its own separate fit of vitriolic commentary. I'm referring to working with the press.

Shooting ink onto toilet paper (I never get tired of that metaphor) isn't easy, but I'm going to focus primarily on the design side of things (obviously). First, I'll give you a quick rundown on how the paper goes from InDesign to the printed product.

First, you print the page(s) to a printer known as a "RIP" or "Raster Image Processor" and image setter. This draws the contents onto large sheets of film (unless you've got a direct-to-plate printing system, which is becoming more common). Each plate gets its own sheet of film (one for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black - plus spot plates if applicable), which gets developed through the film processor, and then gets burned into large metal plates which are loaded into the press. At our paper, we still have our backup - a large camera and lighting setup used back in the days of paste-up (yes, they really did paste together the pages) to get the paper onto film for burning.

Now that you've got a basic rundown of the press, here is the problematic part - there are numerous points in the entire process that can cause misalignment of plates, color inaccuracies, and more. Film stretch, alignment problems, paper stretch (when paper gets wet with ink, it stretches), and ink density are all common problems and are tough to deal with, and I have no control over them as an artist. What I do have control over, however, is what goes to the press, and sometimes I've had to get creative.



The above ad was designed to print very, very well - notice anything special about it? Well, the photo has no magenta in the CMYK version. That's one less plate to worry about in the alignment scheme, which makes the press crew's job easier. I just mapped the red plate to black and adjusted the saturation to accommodate the press a little better, and the ad came out beautifully in our press configuration. We print our yellow plate first, since the paper stretches once it gets wet with ink and yellow won't show as bad when it is misaligned.

The final issue is always the most pressing (hah, get that? Pressing. I made a funny) in my industry - deadlines. As the newspaper industry struggles to meet financial goals (or even just make budget), I've found that the higher ups are a little more willing to take ads past deadline, which is usually between 24 and 48 hours before the press starts up. That sounds like a lot of time, but remember that I'm handling a large volume of ads - and that is only the deadline to get the ad space reserved. I've waited until 15 minutes before the paper is supposed to be on film to get ad copy (the information used to build the ad).

Another deadline related problem is dealing with the advertiser. Once I've designed an ad, they usually want to see it to approve it or make changes - so, I send it out to them via whatever means necessary. E-mail is finally getting accepted as a standard, but some still use a fax machine to proof ads. Also available is, in my mind, the most effective method - the sales rep bringing a printed copy of the ad down to the advertiser. Why do I describe it as the most effective? I've hours on end for an advertiser to check their e-mail or fax - if they even bother to. Then, many times, they won't even bother to let you know the ad is ok. I can't tell you the number of times I've had an ad done for days and not heard word on the ad until after it already printed ("just go ahead and run it" is a phrase I'm used to hearing). Thankfully, they are usually just letting you know the ad is ok. Sometimes, however, I have to deal with the backlash of a dissatisfied customer - which means bending over backwords to accommodate them.

That's just a short summary of the joys of working in the newspaper industry as a graphic artist. It is rough, stressful, time consuming, and harrowing, but the excitement of thousands upon thousands of people looking at my work can also be a great boon. Beyond that, I try to cling to the ideal that I'm helping get information out there - even if it is in the form of advertising (which is what supports the actual content).

Expect more commentary on the printed newspaper world in the future.

Rebirth through mediums.

I have been unable to truly create like I used to.

My mind has been SHOT, BURNED, and piked by what may as well be an enslavement to hurried productivity.

I have chosen a new medium, however - one not yet tainted by a lack of energy. Something new, something living.

Watch in the coming weeks and months for something new - and free.

-WFL

Commentary on Nine Inch Nails "Ghosts I-IV"

Trent Reznor is a man of action, apparently, and while I realize this has been covered to death by numerous other outlets, I can't help but celebrate the sudden release of a new album, "Ghosts I-IV". I wouldn't be a true Nine Inch Nails fan, otherwise.

Not everything out of my mouth will be sunshine and flowers (or irradiated glow and steel columns for my fellow rivitheads), however. This event brings with it a lot of praise, as well as potential for lack of foresight.

I refer to the idea that other bands should be following suit. There are certain concepts that would be wonderful for other bands to emulate here, but most definitely not all of them. Allow me to list a few..

1. Trent Reznor and Co. were able to produce, record, and engineer this album on their own (I'm assuming they mastered it themselves, too). Your average rock band doesn't know pro-tools from Solitaire, typically - and while the gap between recording engineer and musician is closing, there will always be a gap, in my opinion. The only way I was able to approach music production myself was because I am tech savvy, and had no life as a child. I guess what I'm trying to say is, your favorite rock band probably won't be able to convince the recording engineer, producer, and mastering technician (plus numerous others, including session musicians - that's right, the bands don't always play all the instruments on the record :)) to do the work for free and expect to be paid later, assuming the album sells and/or the band makes any money off touring.
2. The fact that Trent released the first part of the four part album really isn't that impressive. Many artists have been releasing 2-3 tracks from full length albums online for free for some time now - on a 10-12 song album, that evens out to a similar percentage of free material given the fact that the Ghosts I-IV album is 36 tracks in length (part one is 9 tracks).
3. Most of the album just plain isn't going to be approachable to people who aren't fans of Industrial music, or NIN (alternatively, Einsturzende Neubauten fans should enjoy this album). It most certainly isn't pop-friendly, and some of it will sound like pure ordure to the untrained ear (sad - for many of us, a lot of pop-friendly music sounds much like feces). Cue the uncultured masses whine regarding the lack of vocals, too.
4. Nine Inch Nails isn't just a band - it is a brand. It is a label, of sorts. People who have never heard NIN will quite likely have heard of NIN. That means that there are millions of eyeballs on Trent's every move. Artists such as myself can't reasonably expect to make jack squat with the same methods - I should know, I've been releasing my music for free for some time now, and all I seem to gain is bandwidth costs and lots of requests to play live. Sure, I could play live, but it would be hard to attain the green necessary to do so when I'm making no money from the album.

I'll close with a short review of the album, seeing as how I have listened to it a capite ad calcem.

Opening beautifully with piano is the right way to go with this album, building into the more difficult parts. There are numerous surprises throughout, and taking the listener in gently is a more than welcoming idea, given the rather eclectic nature of the album. Once you get past the first two tracks, though, be prepared to feel.. well.. unsure. I wondered to myself a number of times if I would really be reacting the same if this wasn't Trent Reznor & Co. I was listening to. I consider myself a mild fan of avant garde music (I'd have to be to enjoy most of E.N.'s discography, and to have watched the entire documentary without muting it once and a while), but that being said, I sometimes feel like they might have just slapped together a few things and punched in a few loops. I'm giving it a couple more listens to reassure myself, however, that it isn't the case (which should be a requirement for any album of this nature - yeah, it is long, deal with it - this isn't for ADD kids).

Getting past that, this album is a great buy. If we are going purely on minutes of music, $10 (plus shipping, which is actually pretty hefty) for 2 CDs and a digital download of a nearly 2 hour album is worth it. Would I spring for the $300 package having now listened to the album? Only as an investment into music history. People paying $300 to get vinyl of this for listening purposes should reconsider (of course, who would be stupid enough to risk damaging something this valuable?).

-WFL