Montage and how to create a succesful one

This is one of my previous projects I did when I was doing my National Diploma in Multimedia, it was a project where we had to create a Montage from our favourite things - using photos. I think it is a really good example of how to go about making one as I'm prety sure we will be required to do one at some point on our course . With out further ado, lets get to it.

My Favourite things:

I would like to start by thanking Adobe for creating such easy to use programs with infinite possibilities, I would furthermore like to thank my Design Principals lecturer Sean Cusack – Burslem College (Stoke on Trent Colleges) for pushing me in the right direction and giving me a better sense of the uses of textures. Indeed the possibilities are endless…

I would also like to thank my newfound friend called coffee (which I have humbly started calling JAVA!) that kept me full of energy through this whole process and all the artists who provided the trance music I listened to while writing this report (which kept my mind relaxed and focused). And Finally to the creators of a program called ACDsee that cut my resizing time and File size by at least 3 times!! (if not more)

I would furthermore like to excuse myself for not resizing all the images in this document before inserting them which may have resulted in a larger than normal file size, I however did not feel the need to as everything was being converted into a easy to use PDF format at the time and then written onto CD with ample space to spare (which was it’s initial intent)

The Beginning

I started out with a pen and pencil and a faint idea of what I was going to do, Indeed I had written a short list of my favorite things beforehand but the question was, which ones did I have access to and which ones would fit best into my montage…

Sketching away I envisioned a whirlpool draining my thoughts away and pretty much confusing me at the same time, I had no idea how the images I had access to would fit as I had not even acquired them yet (don’t get me wrong, I had them all in my possession but had not fed them into the computer yet as I did not want to waste time obtaining images that I did not require)

Suddenly it struck me, if the whirlpool was all that was in my mind at the moment, why not spite it and actually use the whirlpool instead of fighting it, pure genius… or so I thought.

Obtaining the images

This was no small task may I remind you, after all I was (and am) aiming for top marks for this project and to reach my goal I would have to complete all of the required tasks on the brief.

I started by trying to find a lithographic print, I didn’t really want to use one as it was far easier to just take a digital photo, but I had to grit my teeth and bare with it. I wondered what I could scan; it was a really tough decision because I could not find a lithographic print with an appropriate object printed on it. My morale slowly started to diminish as this was my ver

y fist task and I thought to myself that I could not complete it… Something inside me said ‘Come on man, improvise, improvise damit!’ I replied back to myself ‘No, you improvise for me!’ then a reply came back with a hint of cheek imbedded within ‘you shouldn’t be talking to voices in your head’ (this didn’t really happen, but I think it’s a good explanation of how I felt at that moment)

I checked the next thing that would be required of me; a scanned photograph would be required next. Fortunately for me I had loaded my 35mm Minolta camera with some rather expensive colour film in preparation for a past project and had gotten… well… quite trigger happy, taking photos of rando

m things to enlighten myself of the setting on the camera; fully manual, just the way I liked it.

I cropped the image before doing the final scan to save space and used the same dpi of 300 as it would be clear enough at this setting, I did not have to pay extra attention to filters and just made sure the ‘Reflective’ setting was checked. I was now in business and all was going as planned. I just hoped that my luck wou

ld not run away again and have the grace to make an extended visit on my doorstep.

Here’s the image I acquired ->

I would need a piece of line art to fulfill my next task, this was easy enough because I had just recently drawn a very good looking picture of a sword not long ago in my spare time, the reason? It was one of my favorite things so it fit quite comfortably in this category. I did this with the use of another one of the Adobe products called Illustrator 10, a relatively easy to use program resembling Photoshop but specifically for line art.

I wanted to use this in my first montage (explanatio

n on why I did not stick with the first montage will be revealed later on) but decided not too as I found that it did not fit with the surroundings, it was way too cartoon like and the colors, texture and weight just did not fit. I was saddened by this cruel truth.

Luck had not stayed with me and indeed went on that little extended vacation that it had been threatening me with from the beginning, still I went on.

A 3D object was required too, this was no problem as I had done this in the past whilst playing the fool at home on my very own scanner, I envisioned someone making

a Xerox of their rear (like we see on T.V on the comedy channel) I quickly disbanded that idea as it would be highly inappropriate in more ways than one. So I thought, what could one of my favourite things be that I could scan in 3d. What made my world go round? Well the answer was clear; what made everyone world go round – Money!

This was quite a easy scan to get hold of, I just popped it in the scanned (carefully putting a see through mat on the glass to avoi

d scratching it with the coins I was about to place down, I think this should be done with most if not all 3d objects before scanning)

I scanned this image at 600 Dpi as I really wanted to get a clear picture (lines on money are very minute) and toggled the 3D on. Fortunately money was thin so I did not have to cover it with a dark piece of cloth to avoid extra light seeping through the open lid (well, that’s if it was open) and got a perfect scan first time round. I later tried to do a 3D scan of my hand -just for practice- and covered it with my black jumper, even though I was not going to use this image, it was nice to know that I had a understanding of scanning 3D images flawlessly. well almost apart from obvious ligh

ting flaws.

I found that this image might have been better if I used a more reflective background as the fist did tend to get darker the further away it was from the glass. I took a mental note that higher objects would need a more appropriate background in the future but this technique had its uses too, it would make a perfect fade away effect.

Ooooh, I could almost feel the tingling sensation in my fingertips when digital photography was mentioned next, this was by far the easiest way in which to obtain material and the one with the highest quality (respecting time taken to develop of course which was practically zero), I shall further my argument; Loading film, then taking quality pictures and being stuck with ones that have failed does not seem to me to be a very practical thing to do when trying to complete a project, not to mention

developing time (which can sometimes go wrong if one is developing colour film, not to mention expensive!) I was by all means thrilled when it came to this part of the project as I could shoot large quantities of quality photos and even check them over with the aid of a built in LCD screen and get rid of the ones I did not wish to use and fill the spaces with new ones! thus ensuring at least one great picture, uploading these into a PC/MAC (take your pick) took a matter of seconds instead of having to fool around with clumsy Negative holders and going through the whole scanning process. Wow, pure bliss in my opinion.

I set out with a Digital camera (SLR if you must know, I forgot what model type but it matters not as I know the resolution which was about six million pixels, plenty of resolution in my opinion for the cut outs that I required), I acquired many photos;

In fact I took quite a few photos that I would use in Both Montages (mostly in the second montage which did produce much better results being almost fully digital photography

based)

I had taken the centre piece of my project in this manner, my trusty P.C with which all the images I had taken would revolve around, thus symbolizing the importance of this object and the amount of functions it could perform, In my mind all the things in my montage could either be reasearched on this amazing piece of technology or created (in a digital sense of course, but then again it was possible to construct these things with the knowledge gained from this amazing well constructed and almost elegant piece of technology), indeed my praise may sound as if I have no life and nothing better to do than to sit and be awed all day by one but think of this first. What c

ontrols everything we know? T

elephone exchange, all forms of communication including emails. All of our advertising is digitally enhanced and put together on a computer. Music is mixed via expertly constructed programs and all forms of research are sorted through these machines in some way or another. This is why I picked this object to be the centre of my montage, as it did have a profound effect in my life and almost every other persons in a first world country. I only wish I could have done it justice though (You are probably wondering what I’m on about, but worry not, all will be explained in time)

I also chose a few other digital photo’s to be part of my project as I had taken quite a few with potential and did not want to waste them

(even though I keep most of them for future use and have benefited from doing so in the past)

I got this little beauty from my travels in South Africa,

indeed this did enhance the quality of the computer as it entailed travel, different places with one click etc…

It was all coming together and I was growing happier by the moment.

I also added a chessboard and statue of a knight using the same process as it was easy and the quality stood out from the rest.

Then I just added a background and added the twirl effect I required, amazing!

It was atrocious! ->>>>>>>>>>>

I looked at it with sheer disappointment (now you know why I said ‘ Ill explain in time’)

This montage did not express a powerful meaning at all, it would not even receive a second glance by any sane person. Where did I go wrong?

I asked my humble lecturer (who if in the day of chivalry existed, would have been knighted immediately thus giving him the noble title of Sir Sean Cusack) for advice on this disaster, He answered with a question ‘ Do you think the textures work together?’ I replied ‘Noooo!’ whilst holding my saddened face in both hands.

He then enquired ‘so do the objects work together then?’ I thought to myself before replying, ‘Well yes, they did have the basis of the meaning I was trying to convey but

they where just not working together’ He nodded in thought scratching his chin whilst dong so.

He boldly said in a polite manner ‘maybe you portrayed it a little different from what you expected, the idea is there but the images as powerful as they are, are not working together’ I knew what this meant, he was really saying that I had made a complete balls up and it would be better if I started over again, you naughty, naughty student! The shame, the shame!

I have to admit that the first (AHA! So there is a second) montage was a complete disaster, I had used all of my favorite images, yes. But I had not used them effectively. Why? I asked myself. Well… this I would have to find out for myself by doing a little research.

The Research (oh boy!)

I was now determined not to make a mess of things again, sure the objects I had used where nice but that’s the all they where, nice. And without a solid foundation to hold them together I had no hope whatsoever of even getting a PASS on this subject.

I went on the Internet and looked at a few Photoshop montages and Photomontages, I quickly discovered what my montage had lacked, and the textures did not fit together just as the wise Sean Cusack had said right at the very beginning.

I found a very nice article in a newspaper, which had been modified; I did not pay much attention to the article itself as with most news these days its all-just mind numbing rubbish. But the picture interested me as all the object worked together to convey a specific point. I took note of the textures and found that they where relatively a similar shape and all had a common element (I.e. they where all vegetables), but then again this was not exactly what I was looking for, however the only thing I was interested in (in this picture) was that the images worked well with each other. The reason? I thought the textures worked well as they where all organic and the colour did not vary greatly. I took this into consideration and then moved on to the second picture I had found.

Before:

After:

This did not have anything to do with linking images certain images together to form a single meaning, but I was impressed with how this image worked. It was the use of textures again. The image was altered for the survey project, altering the small town into something of a more prosperous one, so in actual fact the meaning had been changed. I was getting a good understanding of how textures worked but also understanding that it was not just the textures that where the most important part of an image. However they played a rather large role. So I decided to pick an image with as many different textures as I could find and see how they worked together.

I had always been fascinated by games and how gripping their graphics were, after all if it where not for games then we probably would not have advanced so far in the computer world, The need to build bigger and faster technology to cope with the advanced graphics and game engines has indeed been one of the main reasons computers are so good today. This picture was taken from (www.Gamespy.com) and is a screenshot of one of the most eagerly awaited games of this year, Half-Life 2.

This picture was very interesting, indeed there where a large variety of textures and the objects also varied quite drastically. But still I looked at this image and said to myself ‘Wow! What an amazing picture’

It finally hit me why this was such a good image, the lighting effects where amazing. Even the smallest point of light had a profound effect on its surroundings. The angles of the objects where all spot on (obviously this being a game they would have to be) I looked closely at this image and you are probably going to hate me for saying this as I have done so many times already, The textures where the main reason I enjoyed looking at this image, they all blended in well and even the ones that where completely different blended in because of the lighting and what effect it had on each individual pixel. Amazing!

O.K So it was very important to start practicing on how to make textures work with each other, I decided to go flat out and create some images to try and understand this better.

First I wanted to see if a smooth object would look good on a rather rough and jagged background.

I created this image Using Photoshop 7 out of nothing more than a picture of a motherboard, it may not even resemble one now but that was not the point in the first place, I merely fragmented the entire image and made triangles extrude all across the canvas(filter-sylise-exrude). Then I simply used the liquid tool and twirled the centre, it even created four ‘flower like’ petals, I had intended this as I had played around with this tool in the past and came across it by mistake while holding in the mouse button when using the twirl tool set at 100% exposure.

Did this image work with its background, yes very much so. But why? , The answer was simple, it was completely blended and did not look like a cutout, maybe because it wasn’t a cutout. But still this was a very important factor. Even though the textures varied quite greatly they still blended in well. I had actually achieved this by putting a picture of clouds in a different layer above this image and brought the transparency up, I found this trick worked very well because it didn’t really damage the image and blurred it slightly whilst still keeping the image fairly sharp (if that makes any sense whatsoever) and adding a nice mist effect in the process.

I had gained knowledge that blurring your image slightly with another more subtly image would produce positive effects in most cases. I aimed to prove this by trying another one.

Believe it or not I completely proved my theory, with this image. I could hardly believe that the jet was just made out of a few oval shapes I had quickly created and duplicated three times, resised and rotated to create the effect of a ships hull. I had also added some motion blur to give the illusion of speed. Why had this image worked so successfully eh?

Well the reason was because I had done exactly the same thing again, I had hidden its quite obvious flaws with a transparent layer, as you can see the clouds provided a sort of mist effect and also added to the position of the object (it seemed to be behind the mist but also remained above the background. This was an amazing use of layers and I also found that using bright colours and a rather dark background centred the viewers focus on the intended target. It didn’t look like a cutout both proving my suspisions and my intended point.

I had done this quite well and decided to give it another shot but this time not put a mist effect on the object. I started by creating a background. I had chosen a very nice scene from the vast collection of images I had collected and by using filters to brighten the colours, making them look more mystical and then making a frame out of duplicated cutouts of the moon, indeed I ended up with a cave effect, I did however use a blue layer to provide a tint. I would now try to add an image on top of this without further modifications.

I chose Kirsten Dunst as the centre of attention.

Guess what, she looked like a cutout. Even though I had taken all precautions to select the right position to try make her fit in as best as possible she had not fit perfectly. However the image was still very powerful and I did take pleasure in the effect it produced. The angle of the image made a very big difference (just like in the Half-Life 2 picture) and if it had been any different I’m sure it would have resulted in failure. Fortunately I had considered this beforehand.

I now had a better understanding of how I would create my final image and might even use this technique again, hopefully masking it better than I had done here. I was sure that a tint would allow the two desperate images to blend in better but did not even have to try it to know the outcome as I had already done so In the previous two images.

I also wanted to experiment with line art and find out what would be the best way to blend this type of image, so I took the sword I had previously drawn and set it up on a background which I produced in Photoshop (it was basically a radial gradient and the bars where a linier gradient).

I started with a basic background which I named Sun. Basically I was just playing around with the ability to make an object the centre of an image (in other words, the object that would draw the most attention) Funny enough when I did the first picture with the sword I found that the background and image where a little too blended, if I turned away, cleared my mind and looked again my attention was equally distributed. I did not like this at all because I was intending for the sword to be the focus of attention. I found that what I had done wrong was make the background stand out too much, it had bright colours just as the sword did and thus diverting attention.

I thought the grid was a clever idea as it did draw some attention away from the background and made the image more realistic. I decided that I would have to rethink my strategy.

I enlarged the sword and drastically changed the hue of the background, darkening it in the process, it may be hard to see in the smaller image to the right but it gave the effect of an almost well like feature with the sword suspended above it. I found myself looking at the sword straight away now. Indeed this was a great day for experimenting and had paid off.

I decided that I had done enough research now and should start to do my second and final montage (nope, there isn’t a third one)

I tried playing with filters again (I will not add them to this document as they can be found on the CD provided) and produced a few more images similar to this one. I was getting good at it now and felt my confidence growing by the second. I had become quite accustomed to using layers that it was almost autonomous.

The creation of the final product:

I asked myself, what images produced the best results. Where they the scanned images, line art, 3D or Digital photos. I came to the conclusion that digital photographs where by far the ones that produced the best quality and saved time. I had a vast collection of them anyways. I started by making a new page and setting the resolution to 72, this would produce a fine print and the quality onscreen would be excellent.

I started by choosing images from my photo library and in no time at all had chosen the ones I would require.

I wanted to make a montage that showed how my mind ticked, I was very interested in role playing fantasy games like Final fantasy, fallout ect… I also enjoyed technology and how quickly it was growing so I decided to create an image based on this theme.

I started by cutting out all my individual images and putting them in the appropriate layers, I used my new found mist effect to make the images blend together better and basically had a great deal of fun in the process.

I wanted to make my montage attract the viewer and inspire awe, a sense of adventure and make them feel as though they would like to jump into this image and explore. What better to inspire wonder than a closed

door, as humans we are naturally curious so it was settled, I shall construct a door but not a normal one.

I started by taking a normal photo of a motherboard and changing its perspective then duplicated it again to form a sort of bridge. Amazing it looked great. And next I took the same image and changed its perspective even more so it stood up and copy-flipped it so it produced two halves that would fit together to make a door. I had to use different colour settings on the layers to produce a more strange looking colour as the texture worked but the colour was way off. I got it right in no time at all by overlapping the images and putting a blue tint over the entire image (as you can probably tell I am quite a fan of the colour blue)

I have gotten quite ahead of myself because I had to produce the background first before it was possible to create the main features.

The background consisted of a picture of a castle I had taken with a digital camera, I added this and duplicated it quite vigorously and set it right at the bottom of the screen; this would produce the illusion of height, but if the images stood out boldly then this illusion would be broken almost instantly so I decided to set the transparency down to give that far away effect and then added the mist affect I was so proud of discovering (Yes I used more than one mist effect in this montage), this effect was in the form of clouds which I radically altered with a filter to bring out the colours, I had used the stained glass filter but only after making a copy of the original which I kept, then I duplicated the original image again and altered the hue. So henceforth the clouds where made up of three separate images which produced a very nice effect. I used the exclusion colour filter in the layer settings and brought the transparency down on all of them.

It still didn’t have depth though, I needed a more noticeable background that would result in better distance/perspective qualities. I took the picture of a simple chess board and added this which gave depth and then a few computer fans with further added to this effect. It also gave the feeling of a more strange world and made me think why these features where there, where they there because this world needed a constant supply of artificial oxygen or where they there for temperature control. The chessboard also made me think, where these old runes of a past civilization. Who knows, these where the things I wanted other people to analyze.

I needed another connection to this world, usually one could find strange beings wandering around a foreign landscape. Seeing as this was a technological based montage I decided to make creatures out of computer parts. I put a computer case and an amplifier together and funny enough, in my own mind I could see these objects as creatures. The computer case made a very realistic looking body capable of flying and the amplifier fitted nicely on top to give the impression of a head. I was really starting to get into this project now.

Weather was also an important phenomenon for any landscape so I decided to add a light meteor shower J

I took a normal bottle of rum and transformed it into a sort of raindrop and then made a copy and motioned blurred it to give the effect of fast movement.

It did not turn out as I had thought it first would, instead of it looking like a meteor shower it seemed as though there was another form of life in this scene busily going about their duties, or these could even be fast crafts that other beings where traveling in. I thought to myself ‘Wow man, you have a strange mind’

I found that the cloud attracted far too much attention with all its fancy colours so I asked myself, if its going to draw so much attention why not put something inside them like battleships or something interesting. Easy enough. I got myself a nice picture of fire pokers and set them in the cloud, changing their transparency and altering their colour settings. Unfortunately they did not look good at all, I just didn’t like them as they did not portray any meaning at all and where actually a waste. ‘Less is more’ now those are wise words and I took that advice on this occasion and removed them.

Oh well, this is what I came up with. Something really big was missing. It did not have a centre focus as people would be looking all over the place and then ask themselves

what’s the point of this image, it just looked like a fancy background with loads of weird creatures and objects. My intention was to make the door the main object of attention but I just couldn’t see it working at this moment in time.

What it needed was a main character, something to pull everything together. I thought who this main character could be. Another machine? Naaa. I had enough of them already, how about something completely surreal. I had it!

I would take a photo of myself (the creator of this image) and to even further the surreal thought I would add a weapon to this character, but not a fancy lazer cannon… oh no… but a sword! (image provided on CD)

It worked great!!!! But there where a few tweaks that could make this image better; back to sorting the layer out and looking on ways to implement new things. I found it easier to put separate parts of the montage into designated ‘sub layer folders’ this way I could keep track of everything more efficiently and could even alter an entire set of images in a folder at one (for example changing the opacity)

To spice things up a little bit more I decided to

draw a few strange symbols circling the door and even add a new creature which was originally a camera, it worked well within the image when modified appropriately. I got this image from the internet.

Right, I was almost done. There where just a few tweaks that might benefit the entire image, for instance I had made a small mistake with the bridge; it was not noticeable until a person inspected closer, but it was bugging me because I was well aware of it. A small crack in the bridge was the main problem, it spread across the entire section of the bridge making it obvious that these two images where separate. Fortunately for me there is such a thing as a healing brush and this made quick work of this flaw.

I had completed my task; the final image was very interesting to look at. The images worked well together and the textures where without doubt working within this image. I could finally save the final image as a jpeg and admire my hard work.

Even though I had not used lithographic prints, 3D objects etc… and mostly digital photographs, I had done so in my first attempt to create a montage and found that the second one was by far superior quality. Henceforth I have learned that Digital photos are the way to go and line art works pretty well too when used right. I have however used all of these formats in the first montage and thus deserve the credit as I have learned much from it.

Feast your eyes upon the final product.

All that for (pardon my French) a bloody 153 KB file! (Thanks to ACDsee)