The State of Rendering – Part 1 | fxguide

How competitive? Since we wrote the first Art of Rendering story, just 18 months ago, the landscape has changed dramatically. New renderers and whole new approaches have been released. There have been dramatic improvements, renderers have died, others have been bought, and there is no sense that the process is anywhere near over. Rendering, once a fairly predictable evolutionary space, has become like a quickly moving landscape. For this story alone we have done over 20 interviews and we will be covering 14 major production rendering platforms. We have aimed to focus on production renderers for animation and VFX and not even really touch on game engine rendering, GPU rendering and mobile offerings. Art of Rendering saw many compliments but also a host of complaints. To paraphrase a quote from the first article, “rendering is now a bit like a religion.”

Photoshop CC: modest upgrades shackled to terrible “rental” model | Ars Technica

Coming back to Earth a bit and looking just at Photoshop CC, is this a worthwhile upgrade? I think it has some compelling features—I use the Camera Raw 8 as a filter a lot for grading rendered 32-bit images, and the camera shake reduction is very good. But thanks to a shareholder-oriented license model that places Adobe customers in a bad spot, the entire line of Creative Cloud applications comes with a massive asterisk hanging over them. I think that Photoshop CC’s features are nice, but the licensing drawback is so severe that it leans this version toward “don’t upgrade.”

Pricing and Negotiating: In-Store Display for National Retailer

Shoot Concept: Beauty shots of professional talent in a studio

Licensing:  Use of three images in any media (excluding Outdoor and Broadcast) in North America for 2 years. Although we avoid vague language whenever possible, the client insisted on using this language, effectively conveying Advertising, Collateral and Publicity use of the images as defined in our T&C.

Location: A studio in New York

Shoot Days: 1

Photographer: Up-and-coming beauty and fashion specialist

Agency: Mid-sized, based in the Midwest.

Client: Prominent retailer with approximately 2,000 stores in North America.

Here is the initial estimate:

You should all probably bookmark this as well. These types of examples are priceless.

Danklife Essay on A Sporting Life, daily inspiration for sports creatives.

I have a new Essay published on A Sporting Life about the importance of Photography for great post work and a brief write up of the World Basketball Festival Project we did last year.  Here is a small section:

“Some people like to say how something is all done in post and that photography does not matter anymore. In my experience that statement could not be further from the truth. A bad image can only be pushed so far before it falls apart. With bad photography post time is spent making images look acceptable instead of making them look great. The better the starting file, the more that can be done with the image in post, the better the final image. It’s pretty simple.”

— http://www.asportinglife.com/nike-world-basketball-fest-daniel-kopton/

Been wanting to write up something discussing the importance of a great Photographer for awhile now as I am getting tired of people saying it's all done in post. So I was very happy to have the opportunity to publish this.

Adobe Photoshop CC Has Already Been Pirated In Just One Day | Fstoppers

Now that Photoshop Creative Cloud went live just the other day, we didn’t know what to expect. However, news is out that just a day after the release, Photoshop CC has already been pirated and available.

So much for that stopping pirating.  Another great example of how DRM just annoys the honest customers of your product while doing nothing to stop the pirates. I will not be updating to CC until I have to this time around. I'm sure they will stop upgrading the CS version of Adobe Camera Raw any day now and I'll see how long I can get by with Capture One for that side of the business.  

I say this as someone who has been a first day release buyer for the past ten years.  Way to go Adobe.

Vogue/Condé Nast Contest Attempts To Secure Free Images For Unlimited Use

The core problems we see are that:

The sponsors have the perpetual, unlimited use of all contest entries. There is neither compensation for contest participants nor is there credit given for their work. Participants are required to sign a liability release and copyright assignment, and to indemnify Botega Veneta and Condé Nast against any lawsuits that may arise as a result of the usage of the photographs. Every entrant is required to waive any right to sue in the event of misuse of the photographs entered. The winner is being offered $10,000 for a shoot that would normally command several times that amount. The winner will be required to grant copyright ownership of all photographs from the shoot.

Adobe Creative Cloud: It is RansomeWare.

So with the news yesterday that Adobe is going to a Subscription model I find myself thinking that it is now RansomeWare.

“Ransomware (also referred to in some cases as cryptoviruses, cryptotrojans, cryptoworms or scareware) comprises a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed. Some forms of ransomware encrypt files on the system’s hard drive, while some may simply lock the system and display messages intended to coax the user into paying. Modern ransomware attacks were initially popular within Russia, but in recent years there have been an increasing number of ransomware attacks targeted towards other countries, such as Australia, Germany, and the United States among others.”

— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware_(malware)

​So if I don't pay Adobe 50 bucks (or 20 just for Photoshop) a month forever I can kiss my 15 year old archive goodbye.  Or whats that you say?  "You can edit those files in the Gimp! Stop being so dramatic!  You own your files!"  Like hell I can edit them and like hell I own them.  Adobe does now.  All of our collective Archives are wholly owned and controlled by Adobe. Sure the flattened final tiffs are not but can I open PSB files in any other program?  (No, I won't call Photoshop an "App" DIAF) Can I open a PSD in any other program with adjustment layers, smart objects and any number of other odd effects? Not without losing half of the effects that make up the look of that file. This is a horrible turn of events for anyone who is a serious image maker.  

​I find it really interesting that it is announced just after there was a call for a standard layered image format on May 1st. That article got my head to thinking of the,  "What If's" and now here we are. 

>Cue Godfather music<​

"Hey there.  Those are some really fine looking imagers ya gots there.  That one of those fancy Panowhoramics?  Nice, real nice.  Bet that could be one of those 16 bit files too?  You like those smooth gradients do ya?  Ya, those are purty.  Be a real shame if you could not, I dunno, let's say, open it. Maybe you want to print it? Maybe edit it down the road.  Ya,  hate to see something "happen" where you could not do that. O, hey buddy, why ya sweating?  We ain't gonna hurt ya.  Tell ya what.  Pay me and Vinne here, I dunno, lets say 20 bucks a month and we will protect those files for ya.  Oh, what's that? You have a Illustrator file as a Smart Object in there? Well, ain't you mister freaking fancy pants! Smart boy here Vinne!  Well, we can help ya out for, eh, let's say 50 a month. Payable, let me think here... Vinne what sounds like a good payment plan to you?  Forever you say?  It does have a nice ring to it don't it?  Forever it is then, It's our way of helping ya out, capice'?  No, don't thank us, you are very welcome.​"

Adobe Jumps the Shark

Adobe has decided to focus its resources on Creative Cloud and will not continue development on its Creative Suite software, reports The Next Web. While Creative Suite 6 will continue to be supported in regards to bug fixes, there will be no further updates and no Creative Suite 7.

Instead, the company has today announced several Creative Cloud apps at its Adobe MAX conference, including Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamweaver CC, and Premiere Pro CC.

There will be backlash for this, no doubt.

Adobe targets the same Pro and Pro-sumer community that Apple had the misfortune of knowing when it redesigned Final Cut Pro. Adobe’s decision to solely embrace a subscription offering could lead to mass protest if not handled correctly.

But before grabbing your torch, let us explain what, exactly, is happening — then we’ll get into why.

​

So this is just horrible.  What if our internet goes down?  We just pack up shop for the day and tell our clients sorry?  What about those clients who let their subscriptions lapse? Now they can't open PSDs anymore to see the files and their decades old archive is "unreadable"?  Pay a subscription to Adobe or your entire library is up for ransom? This is insane...​  

I'd say I'd just stick with CS6 but Adobe will not release new RAW camera support for older versions, trapping you in this upgrade cycle.  Between Apple and now Adobe abandoning the WORKING professional markets where are we left to go? Someone smarter then me really needs to target working pros in creative fields not everyone can or wants to work off a damn phone people.

We Need A Standard Layered Image Format

Last summer, Adobe killed their image exchange format "FXG". The idea was to have a publicly defined XML based image format which could handle vectors, bitmaps, and layers, and could be read and written by any app that wanted to support it (as Acorn did for a while).

I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. It was a horrible format. The goal is worthy, but the implementation of it was an incredibly bad idea. When you want to send someone an image you want to pass them a single file, not an XML file with a folder of assets. While there are technical benefits to this, it's an incredible burden on the customer.

There is of course PSD which is the native format for Photoshop, and over the years it has become the de facto standard for layered images. PSD is a crazy format and implementing a reader and writer for PSD files is non-trivial and nobody but Adobe actually supports it correctly. It's crazy hard (and I'm not blaming Adobe or PS engineers for this- extending a file format for 25 years isn't exactly an easy thing to do).

So what would be better?

Kodak to Sell Its Film and Imaging in $2.8 Billion Deal

Eastman Kodak Company today announced a comprehensive settlement agreement with the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan (KPP), its largest creditor, with respect to its Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization. Under the agreement, which will be filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Kodak’s Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses will be spun off under new ownership to KPP.

I used to order so much paper from them. So crazy how they missed the how switch to digital so badly.

Danklife Featured on AD Week again!

Looks like Danklife Retouching is featured on AD Week again! Awesome project shot by Mike Powell and directed by Arnold Worldwide for New Balance.​

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Thanks everyone for a great project.​

Danklife Mention in The Portland Egoist

The Portland Egoist Gave a lovely write up of my March Madness Project done with Travis Barteaux as the AD for Nike in 2012.

There's something that we deeply love about the art of photo compositing. When it's done well it is a great mix of fantasy and reality. We hadn't seen much of the work from Portland-based illustration and re-touching crew, Danklife, before today. What we're seeing though we're digging. The hyper-realistic, fantastical nature of the work is what we look for in this type of work. The above illustrations were created in conjunction with Nike for last year's March Madness. The effects add to and heighten the already amazing physical nature of young ball players in today's game.

Awesome sauce!​ Link

Publishers need better photography to stay relevant on the web

Today a sluggish economy and tectonic changes in the media landscape are squeezing editorial outlets. Publications understand that they need to compete on the web and in social media, and to compete they need to maintain a hyperactive content cycle. A handful of long articles every month won't cut it. With a requirement for daily content, hiring two creatives for every story is an unaffordable luxury. Since, through a sort of institutional inertia, the writers have remained the prime movers for most media outlets, publications have addressed this problem by asking authors to take up photography on the side. The results: predictably poor.

The irony of this situation is that it is happening at a time when the visual image is achieving ascendancy.

AN EXAMPLE Last September USA Today unveiled a new website design devoting prime real estate to photography. Somebody in the design process understood the visual nature of the web—photos sell stories and increase click-through rates. The layout highlights photography and dedicates the entire area above the fold to images on many pages. The design is smart and attractive, but although the designers understood the value of the image, the editorial staff has yet to catch on. USA Today doesn't seem to be commissioning photos to fill this space. Instead they are relying on writer-supplied images with the occasional wire or stock photo.

Danklife on Adweek Talent Gallery

The New Balance Run Light Project shot by the talented Mike Powell made it to the Ad Week Talent Gallery today! ​

Check it out and all our other work on Behance. ​

Copyright Controversy After Appropriated Photo Used to Win Art Contest

In the two photographs above, the bottom image is a photo-manipulation created using the top image. Are they completely separate works of art? What if we told you the second photo was created without the original photographer’s permission and submitted to a contest as an original artwork? What if we told you it actually won?

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I'll side with it being a rip off and he should lose his award of a new mac laptop.​

Art Producers Speak: Nadav Kander

The industry has so drastically changed that the art director’s position can be very difficult. I think art directors are saints who are coming up with brilliant ideas that they wish could be a certain way, and sometimes they are thwarted by the client. I am there to help the process come together as smoothly as possible for them. It’s a collaboration.

Judge Rules William Eggleston Can Clone His Own Work

About a year ago, I mentioned a lawsuit by a collector, filed after William Eggleston decided to re-print older photographs, using inkjet printing and a larger size. A judge now ruled that the photographer had the right to do that. On the surface, that’s great news for photographers. It also blows a huge hole into the whole editioning game that galleries have been relying on. (more) Most photographs can be printed in large numbers, so it’s not all that obvious why someone would pay a lot of money for a photograph. Editions provide an easy solution: Even though there could be thousands of copies of a single photograph, the promise is that there will be merely, let’s say, eight. If you buy a print you got one out of only eight, and this - artificial - scarcity then justifies your investment. Thus, as a photographer you need to think about editions if you want to work with a gallery, since that’s part of the game.

What this means is that if you want to re-print a photograph that was issued in some edition you can’t - unless, and here’s the trick, you can show that your new edition is very different. That’s essentially what the Eggleston lawsuit was about. And why wouldn’t a somewhat different size plus a somewhat different process truly be a different edition, right?

Do bigger images mean improved conversion rates?

The mega-sized image lowered visitor bounce rates by 27%, plus it increased leads generated by 36%. 

Dell was so impressed by these results that the testing team ran out similar redesign tests for other B2B product lines… and so far they’ve all raised lead generation and contact form conversions as well, sometimes into the triple digits.

Bigger images lead to better sales.  Can I ask if BETTER images do anything? ;)​

Something to keep in mind when talking to clients.

Magnum Photos approaches new audiences in deal with Vice magazine - British Journal of Photography

For Magnum, the collaboration with Vice is a positive one, says Bell, as it will allow the agency to showcase the scope and breadth of its offering by including interviews with photographers who are not typical of the Vice brand. "Vice has featured [Magnum] photographers in the past who are perhaps more traditionally suited to their market but we've always wanted do something broader. We hope to feature a range of Magnum photographers - not just those who are working on subjects that are in the news but photographers working on long term projects or those who are outside of the spotlight. It's important that [the series] represents Magnum across the board," he adds. "There are a lot of photographers at Magnum who have work that hasn't been widely seen; I hope we'll have the chance to represent all the different sides of the agency and its membership.

Thomas Hawk - Why I Quit Getty Images and Why I’m Moving My Stock Photography Sales to Stocksy

Since the Carlyle Group (read their wikipedia page actually, it’s fascinating) has taken over Getty Images, things seem to have changed. Maybe Getty’s parent is trying to wring as much profit as their stock business as they can, but it feels like artists are getting the short end of the stick even more these days.

...​

While Stocksy isn’t exactly “occupy” stock photography, rather than me getting 20% and Carlyle getting 80%, I’ll be paid a much fairer 50% payout. The exciting part about Stocksy though isn’t just the higher payout, it’s that the members of Stocksy actually OWN the agency. That’s right, after paying out costs, Stocksy will distribute profits to it’s members — so members will get dividends and actually hold real equity in the business.

...​

If you are a photographer, consider signing up. One bit of warning here though, Stocksy is being *very* selective about the photographers that they are adding. I have felt a little bad because some of my good friends and talented photographers haven’t been asked to join

​And here is more on Stocksy via Cnn.

"Photographers kept coming to see me, coming to visit, telling me how bad the industry was, telling me they were disenfranchised, telling me about the competition, this sea of images. That, combined with declining royalties -- they were super frustrated," he said. "They were looking to me to get back in the game. I just couldn't ignore it anymore."

He's not aiming to conquer the world -- something iStock did as it pioneered the "microstock" market that exploded when an army of digital photographers mobilized to sell photos globally on the Internet. That growth accelerated dramatically when Getty Images acquired iStock for $50 million in 2006. This time around, Livingstone is looking for "sustainability," concentrating on a high-end foothold