About Adobe PhotoShop And Other Graphic Software This section of my web site was originally developed a few years ago as a graphics tutorial, done to fulfill a web design class's final project. There is a taste of the basics here, but slowly I've begun to use this part of my web site to explore ways to use graphic software as an artist to aid in expressing my creativity. One way I do this is to take a single image and slowly develop it, showing the kind of variations and offspring that are possible. As you scroll down on this page, I have about five variations on the original graphic painting that I call "Vail Smear," There are a few more on the following page, www.intimateriver.com/Adobe_Web/vail.html     I also like to collaborate with other artists, playing around with each others images that we are working on, or just getting their imput. The image below is one of the images I use on my home page.

It is easy to see how the image on the left, which centers on the theme of Sarah Brightman's wonderful voice, evolved from the one in the center, a mountain painting I call "Vail Smear," but you may wonder how the image on the right, which I have come to call, "The Ghost oOf Christmas Past," also emerged from this same "Vail Smear" painting. Below is an image that I call, "Woman Of The Northwind," that I created a couple of years ago. It is the bridge between these two images. I had opened up the file, "Woman Of The NorthWind," on my computer screen, and left it as it was, for Rob and Barbara to work on, while I worked on Rob's image. The present image is pretty much what I saw when I returned to work on it an hour later!. All I will say about this ghostly image, is that this is not the type of art I naturally create! I appreciate it, but I could never create it. So when I came back to my computer screen, after dilegently adding those shafts of beautiful light to Rob's image, I was shocked. I didn't know what to do, so, instead of working on the figure itself, I went to work on the border of my now, extremely haunting and modernesque, art work. I worked on it a while, they worked on it, then I "finished" it by lighting the "candle" and eventually adding a frame and a title. A year and a half later, late one night, I put the original version of the vail painting through an inversion graphic filter, and out popped a very "Southwest" sort of ghostly mountain painting. I stretched this image out horizontally, pasted a copy of the painting inside itself, and added the border. I call this one, "Ghost Dance Mountain." What will I do next with this Vail image? I have no idea? Something I am sure!

At present this part of my web site has nothing specifically to do with the Intimate River sculpture. When I have time I'll come back to this section and detail how I use PhotoShop, and other computer graphic software packages, to create images like the invitation below. If you like my web-site, you can right click on it and save it to a disk and then add it as an invitation / attachment to any outgoing e-mail. You can also click on the "Recommend-it" icon at the bottom of any page to bring up an address form that allows you to instantly send an e-mail recommending this, or any page, to one or more of your friends. I would appreciate your help in spreading word of this web site around. As you page through this section of my web site, you will notice that most of the head lines that you come to as you scroll down each page are hyperlinks. This means that as you move your curser over them, the curser turns into a hand. If you then left click on your mouse, a new page will open with that subject. For example, if you click on the Photoshop Design link at the bottom of this page, you will be brought to a page with three subheadings; such as, "Working With Paint And Paintbrush Options," or my favorite page of this section of my web,"Working With Text and Lettering Options." Each new page has a bit of information on computer graphics, to which I plan to add more information as time allows. Also on most of these pages, are small images of graphic art I have created, usually you can click on these and larger images will appear in a new page. At the bottom of the lettering page, in the middle of the wine bottle, see if you can find the link to a photo of an earlier version of my, "Intimate River," sculpture. Most of these graphic images were created about two years ago when I was first learning this type of art. I still like many of these images, but I realize their limitations. I have more recent graphic art in the Poetry Section of this web site. Last year I used Adobe Photoshop a lot as I began to illustrate my book of poetry,"Intimate River Sounds." The most recent graphic art I have on my overall Intimate River web site, now sits in the section dedicated to the singer Sarah Brightman. With this work, I have gone back and forth between "Microsoft Image Composer," and Photoshop, often using both programs on the same image. (Microsoft Image Composer is a small but powerful graphics program that is throne in free with Microsoft Front Page, a web design software.) The "fountain" image to the right is an example of my work with Image Composer. PhotoShop is a the industry standard graphics application. While at first it may seem vast and complex, the core tools and technology can be picked up fairly quickly. I learned Corel Draw and Corel Photopaint, before I ever touched Adobe PhotoShop. This part of my web site is divided into three sections, "About PhotoShop," "PhotoShop Design," and "PhotoShop Examples." The first section, "About PhotoShop," details some of the unique qualities of PhotoShop. It is a quick introduction to what can be done on a commercial and artistic basis using graphic design applications like PhotoShop. When you first bring up Adobe PhotoShop you should see a screen like the one below. Click on screen to see enlarged view Primary PhotoShop Web Design Tools You can click on the above title to go to the "PhotoShop Design," section of this tutorial. This section describes how to use PhotoShop techniques in Web design. Some of the basic concepts and tools are discussed. Here there is an explanation on how to use paintbrushes, paint, lettering and layering. The screen view above is the default option when you open PhotoShop. There is a tool box on the left, a working window in the middle, and pallets on the right that allow you to choose multiple options like color, brush size, opacity and layering. There are descriptions and examples throughout this web site on how to access and use these tools. Example Pages Using PhotoShop In the PhotoShop Examples section, I detail the anatomy of a moderately complex design and a rather simple design. Here there is a discussion on how tools were selected and what techniques were used to create the painting, "Take Adobe PhotoShop To The Beach," as well as how the top banner on this page and the hyperlink image map on the left side of this page were designed.