Creative problem

[russelli]

Hi,

I'm sat here at my desk pulling my hair out over a piece of creative. Marketing would like me to develop some print qaulity advertising showing Hyde Park filled up with Phonebooks. This is to represent the impact on the environment using paper phonebooks and why we should use online directory services instead.

We have found a great oblique image showing the whole of Hyde Park and the London skyline behind it. I'm currently having a crack at this using Photoshop but replicating the Phonebooks and rescaling them is start to send me crazy! its not looking that amazing and Photoshop is struggling with the amount of layers. Can anyone recommend a better route? I'm starting to consider 3D or tell them we have bitten off more then we can chew.

Please help!

Russell

[Jam]

You could use illustrator to create a basic book shape before adding the spine and cover to it.
You can then duplicate the books to create stacks and then over lay these on to you photo to get the sizing right.
Once everything is in place, hide the back ground image and import everything into photoshop.
This should reduce the layers you have and free up the computers memory.

[russelli]

Thanks for the reply. This would work well but produce an Illustrated look. I have to use images of scanned in Phonebooks, so they look realistic. I have taken about 5/6 different angles of 3 Phonebooks and I am now distorting and re-scaling them in Photoshop.

[Broacher]

I wonder how many unemployed workers (everything from paper mills/printers/sales/associated spin-off positions) that you'd have in that park if the print phonebooks vanished? Or corollary sales (how many businesses receive new customers from printed phone book 'browsing' versus on-line browsing?) Does anyone know what the percentage of recycled fibre is for the average printed phone book? And what is the comparative carbon footprint of the carbon/energy footprint of both print and on-line delivery systems? Some studies would suggest it's closer than you would think.

I'm not saying I don't support efforts to promote green alternatives--it's just that as things heat up (literally) the tendency for companies to slap a thin coat of green on their product or service as a strategy to gain sales is going to be thoroughly exploited.

Thus far, the consumer's ability to accurately compare environmental costs of their choices is frighteningly small. A well known example might be compact fluorescents vs. incandescent bulbs. Without revealing the maze of connections and environmental costs hidden within any process, we're putting a lot of faith in the corporations own environmental accounting processes--when they exist at all.

[MikeTheVike]

maybe you could have stacks of phone books piled up, maybe one on top of the other, 20 high. Or maybe just random piles. I would probably find a bunch of phone books, stack them, pile them how I wanted and take pictures at the correct angle so it matches the park picture. Then just add it in and play with the colors and lighting.

[mojoprime]

i think i'm with mike on this one. scaling them and rotating them is probably going to be way more work than you have time or patience for. i would shoot stacks of books. you might want to do them against a white background so you can cut them out and get the shadows right.

[Broacher]

[sigh] Okay, back to the tech problem. What kind of view is the shot of Hyde Park that you are working with? Aerial? Are you including the south football pitches and the Serpentine? The bridge? Any idea of the height of the book stack? Are you supposed to keep it to accurate scale or is this just a whimsical visualization?

I guess the next Q is whether or not you have access to a decent 3D modelling/rendering package.

Ideally, I'd start with constructing a closed curve shape of the area viewed flat overhead. If you're including roadways it's gonna be a compound curve.

It might be worth exploring doing the basic construct in AI using the 3D Extrude/mapping features and tweaking/touching up the results in Pshop.

If all you have is a high shot (but not aerial) of the park, you could start with using AI's basic 2D image distortions (or even with Pshop's basic distortion) to truly 'flatten' out the photo to create your base vector curve. If you work with low rez copies of the photo, it's much faster and likely accurate enough for this purpose. Once you've got a good overhead 'flat' view of the park, rasterize and lock it into a top layer with a transparency that allows you to trace the vector paths under it easily. Once you have your paths made, make them into one composite, and insert underneath it (in a locked file) your high rez final shot. Use the 3D Extrude controls now to match your composite shape extrusion to the angle, height and position.

Then off to Pshop for your surface textures which you'll use with 'Map Art' to add to the extruded shape. Once you've got those plugged in and mapped properly, tweak AI's 3D lighting controls to get your best 'average' match. That might be too big a challenge for this tool, but assuming it isn't...

Export the whole thing to PSD (CMYK, with layers) at the resolution you want and open that in PShop where using layer masks you can tweak out the items at the edges (trees, building, etc) and refine lighting colour etc.

Hard to say whether that will work easily or not though.

[captain spanky]

i'd get a new pic... mabe a pic of a gate/archway (with hyde park signage) and boundary wall/fence and have the phone books stacked up behind it... it would imply the whole place is full of books but in practice, you'd only have to photoshop a few in there... know what i mean?

[Jam]

what is the final picture going to be used for?
how big does it have to be?
do the books need to be to scale?

If the image is going to be quite big then you need to produce a high res image if not then what can you get away with?

If the books are to scale - are you really going to see that much?

Sketch it out - make sure you have the right images to start with
Make sure your boss is happy before you spend the next day putting it together

[Jam]

Thanks for the reply. This would work well but produce an Illustrated look. I have to use images of scanned in Phonebooks, so they look realistic. I have taken about 5/6 different angles of 3 Phonebooks and I am now distorting and re-scaling them in Photoshop.

You can wrap an image around a box in illustrator and use that box, distorted and twisted to create the stacks.
These can be used to plan your image, use it as a reference for the types of photographs you are going to need to take of the book.
You can also use it as a quick sign off to high light issues and get initial approval from your boss.

[russelli]

Thank you for all for the replies.

I do have some time to put this together but I have been wasting a lot of it creating the Phonebooks in Photoshop and making a very 2D looking image with no relief.

I started with an initial sketch and took some photos of Phonebooks at different angles. The issue I am having with these is photos is a very flat looking terrain and too much time spent rotating/scaling. It dosn't have to be 100% to scale but look realistic enough to get the message across.

I'm thinking now after today that some cheap 3D software like Bryce would work with a hi-res Phonebook texture being using as an image and bump map. I would adjust the terrain for the river, pond and other features I would like to stand out. This will also create accurate shadows and perspective.

[Broacher]

Another effect you want to match is depth of field. Might not be such an issue depending on the photo you're trying to match but if it is, learn how to use the lens blur tool effectively.

If you're looking for some good stacks of paper reference shots, you might check out your local paper recycling plant. They often have huge piles of stuff just laying around--maybe even outdoors, which would be even better for your purpposes.