Jonathan Ziegler
Forum Replies Created
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I would likely just call it a radial line screen for printing. They lay a clear sheet (say, on acetate) with the radial lines printed on it over a regular grayscale photo, then rephotograph the art (for offset lithography for example) and you have this effect. This is the same process used to add the halftone “dots” for line screen used in offset printing for, say, newspapers, though you no longer need to rephotograph anything anymore, you just use Photoshop and it takes a few seconds and you don’t have to develop anything.
To do this technique, you create the radial line screen – it’s likely an “artsy” line screen so you would make a series of thin radial lines of 1/4-1/2 pt each, spaced so you have about 50-60 per inch and make them black. Put these lines into photoshop over your photo. You can use filters and such to make it work. I suspect this technique works better with images that are generally a neutral grey.
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Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Now I will play Devil’s Advocate:
Basically, you have to be: a designer, a boss, a manager, a coach, an accountant, an attorney, a salesperson, a marketer, and more all in one go. It takes time and practice – it can take 2-3 years to start making a living (hence starting while you are still gainfully employed).
You don’t get paid for bad work, sometimes you don’t get paid at all, if there’s no work, you get nothing, you have to do jobs you would rather not do, you will learn about the people who have a great idea and want you to do all the work for no pay, but you will find your niche and make some money, eventually.
Save early. Save often.
Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Dunno if you are a Mac user, but try using GarageBand. There are hundreds of built-in clips of all different types. I use these to build layered audio for my stuff all the time – lay down a bass track, drums, a guitar, some funk, whatever and voila! Instant hit music! 😉
It was mentioned to try Acid, too – it’s also a great app, but I haven’t used it since I went Mac.
There are also a ton of free music sites out there, too. Just search Google for free music and you’ll find a ton. Consider paying a small license fee for some music – many times, this can help eliminate the issues about what is royalty free, copyright free, creative commons, etc.
Look at stock agencies, too: Pond5 and iStockphoto sell great stock audio and they have a really large number to choose from.
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Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Nice. Very succinct. I completely agree.
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Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Well, your USP is gonna be the allergy-free cakes. I would also look at organic, eco-friendly, and green-conscious baked goods as great high-concept stuff for your consumer marketing (having an existing marketing plan will make investors feel much better).
Consider: are they seeking investments from small or big investors? An example would be crowdsourcing as a small investor (a couple bucks at a pop) and you use the consumer marketing to talk about how great it will be.
For big investors or venture capital folks, they want to see real numbers with real research before they drop several thousands on a new company with no track record. Also, they want to know who the team is: the CEO, the financial, marketing, and sales folks and their track records.
Yesterday, the SEC lifted some bans on general solicitation via the JOBS act from last year (yeah, it’s taking them this long to get the rules laid out) – https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2013/2013-124.htm – that COULD mean you have a broader range of potential investors, but I would definitely talk to a lawyer first since you don’t want to screw with the SEC when seeking investors. 😉
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Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Where do you live that you can’t gigs doing video? What about stock? Weddings? Graduations? Business functions? Trade show videos? Professional podcasts? Legal video depositions? Training videos?
There are a TON of generally untapped or under-utilized markets in most geographic areas. I know a guy in a town of 5000 people who makes (almost) 6 figures a year doing a lot of the above.
This sounds like a cheese moving situation. In this biz, the cheese is always moving around and you either follow it or make your own. Start shooting stock video (I make $300-1000 a month just from stock video), start doing podcasts, hit up chambers of commerce (the members are all the people you will want to ping for some gigs), start partnering with the locals to shoot their short films or non-profits for commercials or whatever. It’s not gonna come to you, you have to go get it. Start going to local video group meetings (most cities have some variation on the Final Cut Pro groups or Avid or video in general) and see what others are doing for $. Tucson doesn’t have one so I made one: https://www.meetup.com/Tucson-Video-Group/ and the first meeting is next week.
Tucson, my town, really sucks for video. Unlike every state around us, we have no tax incentive for TV shows or films and our economy is trailing the rest of the country by leaps and bounds. There are so few opportunities here, it’s pathetic, but there’s still money here. There’s LOTS of money here.
Post your demo reel, maybe its not hitting your potential customers the way it should. You can’t change the market, but you can change what you are doing to get gigs. Maybe that’s what you need to do.
Save early. Save often.
Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Just to beat the point to death: I usually do any vector work in Illustrator. While I don’t mind using photoshop for simple vectors or selection vectors, beyond that it’s just not what the app was made for. Once you get some of the basics of Illustrator down, you won’t want to make your lines in Photoshop anymore. Incidentally, Photoshop really does a great anti-aliasing job when you import your illustrator files.
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Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
They’re saved as animated GIFs. Animated GIFs have a limit of 256 colors. If you have any other movement in the frame other than the one small thing, it will have an adverse effect on the color palette. Make sure you are taking a frozen frame and adding motion to it. First, get a single frame (no animation) to save correctly – use a limited palette and very little dithering. To cheat the palette, try blurring any background elements – hard lines and details require more from the palette, blurring detail will allow the GIF palette more wiggle room. Also, lots of motion puts a strain on the palette because of the tiny changes in the image from frame to frame (gain or grain, it’s all the same…). For your pic, freeze the frame and isolate the burning candle from your NLE, soften the edges and save as it’s own gif before placing it in the rest of the image – even just to see what it looks like.
Look at the one labelled “We all get dressed for Bill.” Froze everything, but the photographer and the model walk-by. Palette is limited to mostly blacks with some sharp contrasting white. The main focus, the photographer, is nearly the same palette as the skin and other tones and notice there is almost no detail in his clothing or face – contrast hides the lack of detail.
Dunno if any of this will help, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to make animated GIF images (I used to do work for CompuServe after AOL bought them), but I’m open to help.
Save early. Save often.
Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
Hmmm, sounds like a channels thing. Try bringing it into photoshop as a color image, then apply the Black n White layer. Also, make sure all of the RGB layers are active – not just Red.
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Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293 -
The Control key on the mac is sort of like an extra function key (like the Control-click). It’s got a specific use. Try option instead of control. On the Mac, they basically replaced the PC “control” key with the Command/Apple key (for example, copy on the PC is Control-C and is Command-C on the Mac) and the Option key even says “Alt” on it. I suspect its now a bit of a sacred cow – the choice, I suspect, was to make the Mac experience different from the PC so they changed the words and the Apple/Command and Option/Alt keys were born. Interesting: some UNIX functions on the Mac require using the Control key – control-C, X, Z, etc. If you replace a Mac keyboard with a windows keyboard, the Windows key becomes the Command/Apple key and Alt becomes Option.
Incidentally, I’m sure you’ve seen this, but you can hide Illustrator by going to Illustrator >> Hide Illustrator. Maybe a script?
Save early. Save often.
Jonathan Ziegler
http://www.electrictiger.com
520-360-8293