longest time spent on one image? - GoFuckYourself.com

AOLGuy · 07-08-2003, 06:51 PM

Just curious for those who do their own graphic editing, processing, or design:

What is the longest you've ever spent working with a single image file?

Not a batch process, but one of those marathon sessions in Photoshop staring at the same pixels to get something that you thought looked good.

I don't know why, but I will spend more time on getting a perfect thumbnail than anything else. It needs to be small in size, clearly defined, sharp on the lines, and smoothed out in solid areas.

Am I the only one?

Curious to hear stories and also to see the before and after images that go with.

AOLGuy · 07-08-2003, 07:02 PM

this was 3 hours last night - wanted to edit it to match some other thumbs and a color scheme so it could stand out:

BEFORE: ------------------ AFTER:

------------------

Time was about 50/50 between modifying it and optimizing for the small pixel size and compression.

iwantchixx · 07-08-2003, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AKFK
Just curious for those who do their own graphic editing, processing, or design:

What is the longest you've ever spent working with a single image file?

Not a batch process, but one of those marathon sessions in Photoshop staring at the same pixels to get something that you thought looked good.

I don't know why, but I will spend more time on getting a perfect thumbnail than anything else. It needs to be small in size, clearly defined, sharp on the lines, and smoothed out in solid areas.

Am I the only one?

Curious to hear stories and also to see the before and after images that go with.

I waste too much damn time on suplimental graphics.

Thumbs are a breeze, I have an "action" set and saved for thumbs, click F2 and thumbs are done in 1 second. F3 for landscape thumbs, and F4 for video screencap type thumbs. On the odd chance that I want to put a fancy border around thumbs or a bevel of some type I just bind an action to F5.

wow, ok I just saw your latest post right bellow the submit reply button... why do you go that far to make them pretty? Do you make your full size images look that way too?

AOLGuy · 07-08-2003, 07:14 PM

I don't fuck with full-sized images all that much--typically I will do some lightening and blur touch-ups to the key facial areas, and fix moderate skin imperfections. It's not in my best interest to have a model look less than good--especially if it's a monthly rebill site.

However, I spend 3 hours on key images for a tour, because those live on the front of the site for months. When I started putting in the time and effort to make thumbs that looked great and stood out for each girl, I saw a tremendous increase in signups.

I shoot my own content and that's what I push on my sites. It's mainly solo hardcore, so the girls are what sell it. I figure the better they look and the more they are established in the tour, the more people are likely to pay to see them naked.

Each girl gets one thumbnail like that outta me... takes a long time, but it's worth it for me.

AOLGuy · 07-08-2003, 07:17 PM

I would love to hear stock settings that are good for general gallery thumbnails.

I spend a lot of time going through ETC, Adobe, and Fireworks trying to get 125 x 125's that look great and are 4k or less.

Figure that the 1-2 kilobytes per thumb I can shave off my bandwidth bill may come in handy as I try promoting my stuff via TGP.

As it stands now, I have done some by hand and can usually get 4-5k looking great if I blur, sharped, and blend by hand. A lot of time though for my TGP promotional experiments...

iwantchixx · 07-08-2003, 07:28 PM

Oh ok. if it's for a members area it's worth it. I don't think there are any actions that could be programed to do what you are doing but I think you could get away with simple collor correction and nice fat thumbs like you are doing. As for keeping the image sizes down with thumbs you really should only ge getting 4k with a 125x125 with poor comperession anyways. With really good compression 3.5k is average.

One tip. Stay away from drop shadows. They really increse file size and make light colored skin look washed out. To make the girl stand out just cut her out from the full sized pic and apply a stoke of 2 pixel 50 percent opacity #000000, merge visible with an empty backgorund to make it editable as a whole and create a 3 pixel border around the girl and add a light gaussian blur to her her border. That will give that really crisp standout look to her. If you do this trick with a dark colored background such as #800000 she will radiate from the background and file size will be minimal.

iwantchixx · 07-08-2003, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AKFK
I would love to hear stock settings that are good for general gallery thumbnails.

I spend a lot of time going through ETC, Adobe, and Fireworks trying to get 125 x 125's that look great and are 4k or less.

Figure that the 1-2 kilobytes per thumb I can shave off my bandwidth bill may come in handy as I try promoting my stuff via TGP.

As it stands now, I have done some by hand and can usually get 4-5k looking great if I blur, sharped, and blend by hand. A lot of time though for my TGP promotional experiments...

I just use photoshop all by itself, open image, start a new action binded to lets say F2, resize image so shortest side is 125, add a new layer, then change cavas size to 125 on longer then stop recording the action

move the image around so I have it placed properly. record a new action binded to lets say F3 then save-for-web, 45-50 percent corpession save to folder where I want it, close the image and stop recodring the new action

I create a catchall action for color correction too at time and bind it to it's own F-key. It's pretty simple but I get really good quality thumbs under 4k

AOLGuy · 07-08-2003, 07:37 PM

Thanks for the tips! I need to go through and catalog my Actions better--right now they are a mess and I typically create new ones on the fly for whatever batch process I need at the time.

I thought for TGPs it would be awesome to outline the girl and do a motion blur of the background so she stood out amongst a diagonal static action blur. Then you click it and see the whole pic with the regular background. Not sure how it would fly, however.

I am going to try your suggestions later on tonight!

07-08-2003, 06:51 PM	#1
AOLGuy Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 1,261	longest time spent on one image? Just curious for those who do their own graphic editing, processing, or design: What is the longest you've ever spent working with a single image file? Not a batch process, but one of those marathon sessions in Photoshop staring at the same pixels to get something that you thought looked good. I don't know why, but I will spend more time on getting a perfect thumbnail than anything else. It needs to be small in size, clearly defined, sharp on the lines, and smoothed out in solid areas. Am I the only one? Curious to hear stories and also to see the before and after images that go with.

07-08-2003, 07:02 PM	#2
AOLGuy Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 1,261	this was 3 hours last night - wanted to edit it to match some other thumbs and a color scheme so it could stand out: BEFORE: ------------------ AFTER: ------------------ Time was about 50/50 between modifying it and optimizing for the small pixel size and compression.

07-08-2003, 07:14 PM	#4
AOLGuy Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 1,261	I don't fuck with full-sized images all that much--typically I will do some lightening and blur touch-ups to the key facial areas, and fix moderate skin imperfections. It's not in my best interest to have a model look less than good--especially if it's a monthly rebill site. However, I spend 3 hours on key images for a tour, because those live on the front of the site for months. When I started putting in the time and effort to make thumbs that looked great and stood out for each girl, I saw a tremendous increase in signups. I shoot my own content and that's what I push on my sites. It's mainly solo hardcore, so the girls are what sell it. I figure the better they look and the more they are established in the tour, the more people are likely to pay to see them naked. Each girl gets one thumbnail like that outta me... takes a long time, but it's worth it for me.

07-08-2003, 07:17 PM	#5
AOLGuy Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 1,261	I would love to hear stock settings that are good for general gallery thumbnails. I spend a lot of time going through ETC, Adobe, and Fireworks trying to get 125 x 125's that look great and are 4k or less. Figure that the 1-2 kilobytes per thumb I can shave off my bandwidth bill may come in handy as I try promoting my stuff via TGP. As it stands now, I have done some by hand and can usually get 4-5k looking great if I blur, sharped, and blend by hand. A lot of time though for my TGP promotional experiments...

07-08-2003, 07:28 PM	#6
iwantchixx Too lazy to set a custom title Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: The Boonies Posts: 12,860	Oh ok. if it's for a members area it's worth it. I don't think there are any actions that could be programed to do what you are doing but I think you could get away with simple collor correction and nice fat thumbs like you are doing. As for keeping the image sizes down with thumbs you really should only ge getting 4k with a 125x125 with poor comperession anyways. With really good compression 3.5k is average. One tip. Stay away from drop shadows. They really increse file size and make light colored skin look washed out. To make the girl stand out just cut her out from the full sized pic and apply a stoke of 2 pixel 50 percent opacity #000000, merge visible with an empty backgorund to make it editable as a whole and create a 3 pixel border around the girl and add a light gaussian blur to her her border. That will give that really crisp standout look to her. If you do this trick with a dark colored background such as #800000 she will radiate from the background and file size will be minimal.

07-08-2003, 07:37 PM	#8
AOLGuy Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 1,261	Thanks for the tips! I need to go through and catalog my Actions better--right now they are a mess and I typically create new ones on the fly for whatever batch process I need at the time. I thought for TGPs it would be awesome to outline the girl and do a motion blur of the background so she stood out amongst a diagonal static action blur. Then you click it and see the whole pic with the regular background. Not sure how it would fly, however. I am going to try your suggestions later on tonight!