Touched was inspired by a series of songs on my playlist, particularly “Touched” by VAST. I had a lot of fun with this and was able to bring a lot of raw energy and chaos to this composition. Doing the brushwork for the background took quite awhile to do. The retouch work was also quite fun for this image. I wanted to do something different as far as the colors and I’m satisfied with how those choices turned out.

Time: 14 HRS
Tools: Photoshop, Wacom Intuos3 4×6

Roberto Blake Photo Manipulation Touched

Touched was one of my images to be featured in Advanced Photoshop Magazine 67. It has always been a goal of mine to have my work featured in this publication so I was really happy about this.

Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake is a Professional Graphics Designer and Photographer, living in Fayetteville NC, has work been working with Photoshop® for over 8 years now, and Flash® for the past 5 years.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

As much as I found this hard to believe its true. Of all the companies out there being hit by the recession it seems that even industry giant, Adobe Systems is not immune. Adobe will be laying off an estimated 680 staff, or 9% of its work force in an effort to reduce cost.

Now personally I am an Adobe enthusiast and have defended many of their decisions as a company in the past, but I don’t think I can stand by this. The recession is a temporary problem, as a company I believe they would rally more support and increase profits by lowering the pricing of bundle products like Creative Suite 4 to meet with the economic needs of consumers and companies alike. Furthermore by refusing to layoff employees they would be eligible for the assistance the government is offering to companies that retain or expand their workforces to deal with the unemployment crisis.

This is what gets me, the fact that we live in an age where people have stopped making providing a quality product and service and making it available to most of their consumers, their first priority, it seems that everything is profit margins, and shareholders. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some naive idealist who fails to grasp the importance of the bottom line. However when I started working a kid at the mall in retail I learned that I could outsell the older more experienced employees 3 times over by not thinking about what I want and need and focusing on giving others what they need and want. As a result I got referrals and repeat business and huge commissions. If you put people first, they will come to you before going anywhere else, you can only build loyalty by showing people you value them; when did building brand loyalty NOT help profits? When did building employee loyalty NOT increase productivity?

When companies like Adobe stop looking at people and only start looking at the numbers, things start going downhill, and honestly I’ve always felt Adobe was well above this. They’ve been one of the most innovative companies of our age, and a pillar in the educational community and introducing media arts into school systems.

Furthermore these  job cuts will be made worldwide. Adobe also reduced the workforce at Omniture, which it has just acquired.  This is meant to bring Adobe’s costs in line with its 2010 budget. Personally I feel it shows something resembling a lack of faith, I find that disturbing coming from Adobe.

They have amazing products that are industry stables. They can expand this market by developing lower cost consumer products that reach a broader and younger audience, much like they’ve done with Premier and Photoshop Elements. Combining this with an effort to really introduce younger users to their products they are creating a client base in the future for their professional grade products, and increasing the value of the creative industry in the process. By also lowering the prices for upgrades to their products I honestly believe they will reduce loss to bootlegging and yet again establish more brand loyalty.

Personally I find it really surprising that this new round of  layoffs has been announced considering Adobe announced a previous round of layoffs just last December, when it said it would cut 600 jobs worldwide to reduce costs. Stating that the recession had been causing slow sales of its Creative Suite 4 software.

In reality I believe that the slow sales of its Creatives Suite 4 software were primarily caused by pragmatic business decisions on the part of consumers. Lets face the facts. If you were not getting Production Studio Premium or Master Collection, there was little incentive to upgrade to CS4 over CS3, the best improvements were to Flash, Encore, Premier, AfterEffects, and Soundbooth, as well as Photoshop Extended. Ultimately most businesses and individuals already utilizing mostly Design Suite Premium CS3 or any of its individual products would gain very little regarding their day to day work from investing in and upgrade at this time. Those using Production Studio Premium or Flash would however benefit dramatically from the new features.

There is a change that the current economic situation at Adobe Systems may delay the release of Creative Suite 5 next year, a version of the product that I believe from what we have been seeing will actually be more than worth it to upgrade to or buy outright. We can only hope that as the economy continues to improve little by little, that Adobe will try to see its way through and not fall the way of companies past and take a long term hit to deal with a short term loss.

I for one believe that Adobe Systems can pull this one out if they don’t let themselves be seduced by the Dark Side. Lets all hope for the best. I’d love to hear what all of you think of this situation and your thoughts on what should happen.

Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake is a Professional Graphics Designer and Photographer, living in Fayetteville NC, has work been working with Photoshop® for over 8 years now, and Flash® for the past 5 years.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

The online community is full of amazing, talented digital artist, and today I’m happy to showcase some fantastic photo-manipulation work I’ve seen on DeviantArt. Photo Manipulation is one of the most interesting and diverse forms of digital art work. There is no end to the different images an artist can develop using simple photography as a base.

Some of these digital artist you may have seen before in magazines or on other websites, others are relatively unknown but no less talented. Please give them some feedback about their work and don’t forget to visit their DeviantArt pages when you have a chance. These 20 Photo Manipulatons are nothing short of “Top Tier”.

1. Sentient by Conzpiracy

http://conzpiracy.deviantart.com/

2. Noir by Queedo

http://queedo.deviantart.com/

3. Mermaid by Alena Lazereva

http://alenalazareva.deviantart.com/

4. Painted by Hart3uk

http://hart3uk.deviantart.com/

5. Evolution in Progess by Vanority and Buffalotbill

http://vanority.deviantart.com/
http://buffalotbill.deviantart.com/

6. Global Warming Evolution by Pepey

http://pepey.deviantart.com/

7. Fire Angel by Vanority and Buffalotbill

http://vanority.deviantart.com/
http://buffalotbill.deviantart.com/

8. Ocean by Novemberxnight

http://novemberxnight.deviantart.com/

9. Explosive Beauty by xScriibleDoodlex

http://xscriibledoodlex.deviantart.com/

10. Niyo by Karen McDade

Niyo by Karen McDade

http://karenmcdade.deviantart.com/

11. Dancing Glow by VCell

http://vcell.deviantart.com/

12. Iva II by Ivangel

http://ivangel.deviantart.com/

13. Splash by Jmlam

http://jmlan.deviantart.com/

14. Fly to Eternity by Doneandonov

http://doneandonov.deviantart.com/

15. Making Magic by Wicked Juggalo Girl

http://wicked-juggalo-girl.deviantart.com/

16. Violet Sensation by Dean Site

http://dean-site.deviantart.com/

17. Viento by Dazegrafix

http://dazegrafix.deviantart.com/

18. Lets Go by MDesignN

http://mdesignn.deviantart.com/

19. Cutting Myself on Scraps by Mg3000

http://mg3000.deviantart.com/

20. Bill in His True Form by Demonicangel04

http://demonicangel04.deviantart.com/

21. Summoner by Roberto Blake

http://robertoblake.com/blog

Remember to leave comments and show your appreciation for these amazing digital artist and their work!

Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake is a Professional Graphics Designer and Photographer, living in Fayetteville NC, has work been working with Photoshop® for over 8 years now, and Flash® for the past 5 years.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Roberto Blake Illustration Non Destuctive Editing Poster

The concept of Non Destructive Editing, was something that was introduced to much later as a Graphic Designer. I can’t tell you how many times in my design career I wish it hadn’t been. I will never get back all those hours I foolishly used the erase tool, or how I used to keep 50 undo states in my preferences. Some people have the mistaken impression that Non Destructive editing is simply using layer stacks properly, but its so much more than that! Photoshop has come a long way in how it allows you to preseve the natural integrity of your images.

Layer Mask.
Even seasoned Graphic Designers and Digital Artist haven’t completely explored this tool and its usefulness sometimes. Personally I feel “Layer Masking is a Godsend!”  The Layer Mask tool is the third icon from the left in your Layers Panel. The Layer Mask lets you reveal and conceal parts of an image layer without Destroying, the original image. If you change your mind you can simply paint the pixels back in. In Layer masking you use a White Brush to reveal pixels, and  Black Brush to conceal them. You can even mask entire Layer Groups if you want to. When you combine this with custom brushes, blend modes, feathering, selection tools, and so on the array of effects you can get is amazing.

A great example of how Layer Mask can be used in Non Destructive Editing can be found in my tutorial Retouching Like A PRO 101

Adjustment Layers.
One of the greatest developments in the newer versions of Adobe Photoshop has to be Adjustment Layers. With this you can use most of the tools from your Image Adjustment menu, as their own layers. Black and White Conversions, Curves, Levels, Brightness and Contrast, and several others can be applied to get those rich effects you need, while still being easily undone if they don’t work out. This is a great way to handle Non Destructive Editing for retouching photos, or doing Photo-manipulations.

Smart Objects.
Another great but recent advancement in Photoshop, Smart Objects. Smart Objects let us preserve images and text, even whole art other PSD or AI files we want to bring into our composition, and the best part is, if you edit the original file that is linked via a Smart Object, a logo for example, it will update in the PDS file with out you having to start over. In the case of vector images brought over from Illustrator you can also scale them without any quality issues, this is especially useful whe working with type.

Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake is a Professional Graphics Designer and Photographer, living in Fayetteville NC, has work been working with Photoshop® for over 8 years now, and Flash® for the past 5 years.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook