Blank DVD case

This would be a great image for an ad intended to market a DVD. I designed the image to be blank, so that the customer can include his own text, images, and content – both onto the DVD case itself and onto the blank DVD. The challenge of using this image, of course, is the reflection in the table. But if you can do it, it can be a really strong image. Here’s how I’d do it:

STEP 1
In Photoshop, I’ve opened the blank DVD image, and the artwork intended to go on the DVD case. I’m using the following artwork for a fake learn-guitar-at-home DVD:

A fake DVD cover

I’ll copy this image and paste it into a new layer in the blank DVD image. I renamed that layer “Artwork”.

STEP 2
Next step is to position it properly and, using the free transform tool, get it to line up with the DVD case.

Step 2: Position the artwork

Positioning the bottom right corner is a little challenging, because it’s concealed by the disc. But with some careful eyeballing, you should be able to get it to line up. Of course, the problem we see now is that the artwork hides the disc. So on to step 3!

STEP 3
With the artwork layer selected, click to create a layer mask. I like to drop the layer opacity down to about 50%, so I can see the underlying layer. That will let me draw the layer mask correctly. Because the element that our mask wants to match is a machined shape (the disc), and not an organic shape (like a hand or grass), our best starting point might be a vector shape. I selected the Ellipse Tool (U), and made sure that I had it in “Paths” mode:

From there, I drew an ellipse that roughly corresponded to the shape of the DVD. It took a little tweaking with the paths Direct Selection tool (A), and eventually I got a pretty close match. Once the path looked right, I converted it into a selection and deleted it from the layer mask to reveal that portion of the underlying layer. For reasons we’ll see very soon, t’s important that we don’t actually delete the pixels from the artwork layer, but rather just selectively mask out portions of it.

Don’t forget to invert the mask for the inside portion of the DVD, to reveal the underlying layer that should show through the center hole in the DVD. I actually used a 40% gray, so that the plastic portion became translucent, as shown here.

The artwork layer is now masked.

STEP 4
Now comes the fun part – the reflection. To start, let’s make a copy of the artwork layer, and rename it “reflection”. With this new layer selected, delete its layer mask. We’ll create a new one from scratch, using the same method as before, but for now the mask is only going to get in the way. With the mask gone, flip the layer (Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical). Now, using the Free Transform tool, we’ll once again line up the edges of the artwork with the edges of the DVD case, this time in the reflection.

Step 4.1: The reflected artwork is lined up with the reflected DVD case edges.

Now, again using the Ellipse tool (U) and the Direct Selection tool (A), tweak a vector path until it matches the shape of the reflected DVD. As you can see, the portion of the artwork layer that shows in the reflection is not the same as the portion that shows in the “real” DVD case. This is why we didn’t want to delete pixels in Step 3, but instead just mask them. This way, we’d still have the original pixels available to display in the reflection.

Step 4.2: The reflection is now properly masked to reveal the DVD.

STEP 5
To get that last little bit of realism, I tweaked the pixels of the reflection layer in a few ways. First I applied a light blur to the whole layer, then I added a more random pattern blur, to simulate the unevenness of the table surface. Then I reduced the layer opacity to 75%, and set the blend mode to “Overlay”. This would allow the shadow cast by the DVD to still show through. You can see the final result here:

Step 5: The completed image.

That’s all there is to it! Feel free to drop a comment to let me know if this helped you in any way. Or give me a link to how you were able to accomplish the same effect in your own work.

Copy Space

An example of an image composed with "Copy Space"

One of the easiest “Your Text Here” kinds of compositions is “Copy Space”. This is simply composing the image in such a way that there is some neutral space – an area with minimal detail to allow the end user to layer in other elements without any trouble.  A shot like this one is a great example of an image composed with copy space in mind. It’s not a solid color in the background, but it’s a neutral texture, and it wouldn’t distract from the client’s message layered in front.  The iStock CV keyword “Copy Space” is the best bet for an image with this kind of composition.

This shows how a buyer could make good use of the copy space. When designers know they want to layer an element over a portion of the image, they often search for "Copy Space".

As a side note, I tend to try to compose my images such that the viewer’s eye is led into the copy space, not away from it. How to achieve this is a subject for another post, but for now I will say that the easiest way to do it is to have the subject himself looking into the copy space area.

Background

Backgrounds have long been a staple of stock imagery. These are the workhorse images of the stock photographer or illustrator, because they are so versatile. Often they represent pure abstractions, such as mellowness, corporate, or outdoors.

A background is an image that serves as the foundation for a designer’s completed piece. It is the rustic texture that sets the tone for a brochure for an off-the-beaten-path Bed and Breakfast; it’s the edge-to-edge shot of coffee beans that becomes the basis of a cafe’s print menu; it’s the cracked mud shot below that serves as the, well, background in front of which flies video clips of 4×4s kicking up mud and careening around a track.

Images suitable for the CV term “Backgrounds” are similar to those for “Copy Space”, except that the “open” area is the entirety of the image. A designer could buy that cracked mud shot and put his logos, text, and other images over any portion of it.

Often the subject of a “Backgrounds” shot will exist entirely in a single plane, and almost always it will fill up the entire frame from edge to edge, top to bottom. If the image contains a subject in front of the background, then it’s probably a better candidate for “Copy Space” than “Backgrounds”.

Blank

Another great genre within stock photography is the blank area shot. These are images, like the Magician’s DVD case below, that have a subject displaying a product, sign, or card, that has been left blank. An image like this is virtually useless on its own, but becomes a great tool in the hands of a skilled designer.  No one would ever display the magician DVD image on a website as-is, probably, but after a little Photoshop tweaking, you can see how it now looks like the client has paid for a custom shoot for his product.

By itself, this probably wouldn't get much use...

... but with some custom graphics overlaid, this has become a powerful tool.

“Blank” is the keyword to use when there’s an element in the image that has been left blank intentionally so as to give the buyer the ability to put his own logo, graphics, or other elements in there. It’s for those shots of things that would ordinarily have text or logos on them that do not.

Not two days later, I was talking with another buyer. This one was a woman who does marketing pieces for non-profit organizations. She’s always in need of stock photos of people “in real life, not posed” situations. I told her to be sure to add – “Looking at Camera” as a search within her main search. That’s no guarantee of the kind of verisimilitude she’s after, but again, it could be a good starting place.

“Looking At Camera”: Use it for images like this:

… and be sure to leave it off of images like this:

That’s what today in the studio will be about. Simple, usable, workhorse images. Maybe even a cliche or two.

Stone wall texture

I’ve been trying to come up with a cheap and somewhat realistic stone wall background. You may be looking to do this for your own photography backgrounds, or for theater productions, for Halloween decorations, or even for a very different kind of wall surface for a kids room. For me, this was for a photography background. I don’t think this is it yet, but it’s getting close. Here’s how I got there.

First off, the materials and equipment. The surface is a 4×8′ piece of EPS foam. This is the standard home insulation foam available at all home improvement big box stores. I went with the inch and a half thickness, because I knew I wanted to be able to cut some deep grooves between the rocks. Depending on where you live, there will be different kinds of EPS foam available. Here in Arizona, it’s simply the sheets of white Styrofoam. Other parts of the US will have big pink or blue sheets. Each is slightly different, and I believe the pink and blue are easier to work than the white, but you play the hand you’re dealt.

Next – and most important – is the foam cutting system. I went with the Hot Wire Foam Factory pro system (this one, specifically). It’s not the cheapest way to go, but I’ve used it for a number of projects already, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Ever hear the expression “like a hot knife through butter”? That’s what you get with this. The foam carves away beautifully. It takes some practice to get the cuts you want, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a great system.

Finally, I picked up some paint – 2 cans of black spray paint, a gallon of a medium gray, and a quart of a light gray. Your home improvement center can color match paint for you from those little paint chip samplers. That is definitely the way to go. If you end up building a second wall section, you’re going to appreciate the ability to go back to The Depot to get another can of exactly the same color.

So lets get carving. One important note about this step is to make sure you have adequate ventilation. The melting foam stinks and breathing it in can’t be all that good for you. The first thing I did was to layout the lines between the stones. I tried to keep it pretty regular, with just a few irregularities. Depending on the look you’re after, you may want to go very rigid, or very loose.  Once the mortar lines were drawn in, I grabbed the Hot Wire cutter and carved them out. I used a combination of the straight knife and the freehand router to cut the deep grooves.

Next was the irregular stone texture. This is the part that I thought would have the biggest impact on the final look. It matters, of course, but not as much as the paint job does. So the bottom line is not to stress too much about this step. I just tried to make the surface irregular. I used a variety of techniques, including dragging the router, using the side edge of the knife tool, and gouging with the router. The good thing about rough stone is that it’s a very forgiving look. You can use a variety of techniques and still get the effect.

With the blocks defined, and the texture cut in, it was off to the paint room. First I covered the whole thing with a pass of the black spray paint. Most important is to cover the deepest grooves. With that done, I grabbed a paint roller, and covered the whole thing with my medium gray. The paint roller doesn’t go into the deepest grooves, of course, so they stay black. It also doesn’t get into all of the shallower texture “valleys”, so I did some stiff brush touch up afterwards. \

Once that was dry, I opened the light gray and dry brushed that on. This is the step that really brings the piece to life. Dry brushing is when you scrape most of the paint off the brush and lightly pass over the surface of the workpiece. This has the effect of depositing paint only on the highest points of the texture. Starting from the top of the stones and brushing downward, I was able to create a very realistic texture effect very quickly.

The last step was one more pass of the black spray paint, pointing up from the bottom of the piece. This has the opposite effect of the highlight dry brushing; it creates the shadows under the “mountains”

(I didn’t take enough in-progress images when I made this piece, so I’ll make another one soon and take pictures along the way to illustrate this article.)

All in all, I like the result, but there are a few things I’ll do differently next time. I’m not thrilled with the brick pattern I used – the irregularities look too planned for my taste – so I’ll try to make it look more realistic in that regard. The texturing is improved by the paint job, but the base texture work could still be refined more. I also want to do a little more finishing work to the piece: I’d like to spray it with a matte finish to protect it without giving it too much shine, I want to add in some small rocks and perhaps vegetation in some of the crevices, and I have plans to include some shackles and/or torches coming off the wall, so I’ll need to devise a mounting system for that.

Cloudy Catalina Mountains

Early morning shot of Tucson’s Santa Catalina Mountains, shot from the entrance to Catalina State Park.

When it comes to “overfiltering”, one of the things I hate to see is poor editing or cloning. This often happens when the contributor is trying to remove some other rejectable element in an image – a visible person for whom there’s no model release, a logo or other copyright-protected element, or sensor spots, perhaps – but does it in a less than seamless way. Any editing of this sort has to appear natural and realistic, and not look like the file has been edited.

Let’s use this image of a tent in the backyard to illustrate the wrong ways to go about removing material, then we can look at a good solution. As you can see, the bottom corner of the tent door has a manufacturer’s logo and a hand-painted “W1″. The logo is a no-go for iStock, so it will have to be removed. The “w1″ is not really problematic in terms of iStockphoto’s standards, but it’s also not doing me any favors in the image. It’s a distraction, and this would be a more usable image without it, so out it goes.

When it comes to doing it wrong, the three main culprits are The Blur, The Splotch, and The Clone:

The Blur

This is the easiest and least effective way to edit out undesirable elements. The contributor often selects the element (using a mask or lasso selection) and just adds the Gaussian Blur filter. There’s almost no way to make this an effective edit; selectively blurred areas stick out like sore thumbs. Not only does it leave an ugly and distracting region in the image, it also looks completely unnatural. Even more delicate selections than I did here are usually unconvincing. They will, by definition, be more blurry than their surroundings, and more blurry than the lens would have made it. There are really very few applications of this that would look natural.

The Splotch

This is what I call those cases where the contributor opted to cover over the undesirable mark. In general, that’s a fine idea, but The Splotch is a bad way to do it. This is when it’s covered over with just a painted-on single color brush stroke. In the tent example, the areas surrounding the marks we want to remove are mostly monochromatic – the maroon surrounding the “W1″ and the off-white surrounding the manufacturer’s logo. So you might think that a single color stroke could work. But click on that thumbnail above to see how ineffective that is. The big problem with The Splotch is that it makes no effort to replicate the texture of the surface.

The Clone

The Splotch fails because it doesn’t take into account the texture of actual material, so why not use the actual material to cover up the marks? Great idea, and usually when I need to fix an area, that’s my first step as well. But it must be done right. As a click on the thumbnail to the left will attest, it’s very easy to do it wrong. This is more common than you might think. I probably end up rejecting up to five or so images a day for overfiltering of this nature. It comes from a lazy application of cloning techniques. The clone stamp source is set once, and the contributor just click-click-clicks until the offending elements are covered up.

So if that’s how to do it wrong, how do we go about getting it right? The short answer is that there’s no short answer. It really depends on the specifics of the image. For this tent image (the iStock version, by the way, lives here), I did a combination of cloning and healing brush.

Step 1 was some cloning onto a new layer (everything is done on new layers, of course).  The key here is to try to match the lights and darks of the fabric wrinkles. There is not going to be a single clone source that will do it all, so I make sure to continually set new clone sources, taking some highlights from one area, some shadows from another. Don’t be afraid, also, to cover over areas that are actually just fine in the original. Sometimes it takes doing that to make the edits appear to blend in seamlessly. Be on the lookout for obvious pattern repetitions. The crop below shows the results of the cloning step. It’s not bad, but I’ve highlighted areas that are too obvious.

So we move on to step 2. On another new layer, I start using the Healing Brush tool (J). The key to using this tool is to keep a small brush and use multiple small strokes. The tool is most effective when you’re using it away from any hard edges or abrupt color changes. With those guidelines in mind, I did some selective healing to the trouble spots above, and got this:

And there you have it. A much smoother and more seamless edit. The same techniques apply whether I’m removing logos, skin blemishes, wandering background strangers, or annoying sensor spots.

1. The term was spam.
2. The term was a “multiple incompatible”.
3. The term was a stretch.

#3 is where I want to spend some time with you today. Stretch terms are those terms that are related to but not conveyed by the subject and context of the image. They usually take the form of concept terms. A real life example to get us all on the same page:

This is one stern math teacher. The kind one used to know in high school after being a little late with the homework.  Not that that ever happened to me, of course.

The terms currently applied to this image:

• Education
• School
• Classroom
• Only Mature Men
• 40s
• Teacher
• Serious
• Mathematics
• Mathematical Symbol
• Whiteboard
• One Man Only
• One Person
• Horizontal
• Photography
• Mature Adult
• Mature Men
• Necktie
• Looking At Camera
• Displeased
• Anger
• Indoors
• Head And Shoulders
• Color Image

What’s not on the list? “Homework”, for one. This image is not about homework, it doesn’t depict homework, and a buyer looking for “Homework” shots would pass over this image in a heartbeat. “Homework” would be a stretch term, and it would be removed by an inspector without hesitation. It’s the kind of stretch term that we see people try to use often.

Enter the concept of Opportunity Rejection. An Opportunity Rejection is a rejection that should spur you on to create and upload something new. By removing the term, the inspector has essentially said to the contributor that this image of a disappointed teacher doesn’t convey the notion of “Homework”. Contributors should take that as a challenge to then create an image of a stern teacher that does convey the notion of “Homework”. By putting the term “Homework” on the original image, the contributor made it clear that he felt there was a market for “Stern” AND “Teacher” AND “Homework”. If there’s a market for it, why on earth wouldn’t he create an image that is undeniably and unequivocally about those things?

The benefit of turning an opportunity rejection into a new separate upload is that you can create a file that is geared specifically to the terms you want to use. You can achieve that Laser Focus I mentioned last week. An image geared specifically to the concept will likely sell better for that collection of terms than will a generalized image. The image above is mostly a generalized image. The teacher is stern, but nothing in the image indicates why that is so, so it’s left open for a number of interpretations, making it a good general option. The flip side of that is that I can’t keyword for every possible interpretation – I can’t drill down to the specifics of “Homework” and “Excuses” and “Poor Performance” and “Class Clown” and every other concept that might disappoint a teacher (again, not that I’d have any first-hand experience with the things that annoy teachers).

I say “mostly generalized”, however, because I did make some specific choices as well. For one thing, he’s a white male adult. So those specifics preclude other specifics. But that kind of thing happens almost any time you use a model. The other specific choice was to make him a math teacher. The formulae on the board behind him put him pretty squarely into the math realm (maybe physics, but I chose math – again, it’s not both). If a buyer needed an image of a disappointed teacher of chemistry, this file would either not work for their purposes, or they’d generalize their search (”Teacher” instead of “Teacher” AND “Chemistry”) and edit the file for their own needs.

Content focus is, in short, the subject of your image; the content or concept that the image is meant to convey. One of the most important factors in a stock image is how quickly, clearly and concisely the image conveys a concept. If the image is about a college graduate entering the workplace for the first time, for instance, you’re going to want the image to convey that concept quickly and unambiguously. Because if your image does not, someone else’s will and that’s where the customer will spend his credits.

Because of the way the latest iteration of iStock’s “Best Match” algorthm works (the so-called “BM 2.0″), images will move up the rankings the more clearly they are associated with a given term. Images that are muddled in their presentation or that do not clearly convey a concept will find themselves languishing near the bottom. If you want to appear near the front of a Best Match sort, be sure your file is unambiguous in its meaning.

Lets look at an example. This image is a pretty good match for “Paperwork”, showing up in about the 15th place in a Best Match sort for that keyword as of this writing. It’s also a fine match for “Drowning”, currently occupying the #1 slot there. It also appears in a search for “Emergence”, but while “Emergence” is an appropriate term, this image isn’t really the best image in our database to convey that concept. For exactly that reason, it doesn’t even show in the first 500 results for that term.

The million dollar question, of course, is how to get your own images to move up the rankings? There are a few techniques you can consider:

• Trim the fat: One of the best things you can do is remove keywords that are unlikely to be of any help at all. If I had “Life Vest” on that drowning image above, that would be a prime candidate for removal (and let’s be frank, a term like that should be removed before you even upload). There is no “Life Vest” in the image, and no one searching for “Life Vest” is likely to buy an image that doesn’t contain or even relate to the term.But what about “Photography”, “One Person”, “Vertical”, and those other meta descriptors? No one is likely to search for “Vertical” to buy this image, right, so should that be trimmed? Nope, those kinds of meta terms are fine to keep on because they are usually used in a boolean mode – “Drowning NOT Illustration” or “Paperwork AND Vertical”. Those terms are not subject and concept terms, so they don’t muddy the subject and concept focus of the image.
• Consider Underserved Niches: It’s a whole lot easier to move up the results rankings when there are only a hundred or so images between your image and the top. Lets say you’ve hired a model, and you have a prop closet and wardrobe full of options. You can dress your model in a suit and tie and do a “Businessman” series. Upload that as your concept and you’ll be up against some 77,000 files. Might take a while to climb that ladder. Or you can put him in jeans and a flannel shirt, plunk a guitar in his hand and sit him down by a campfire to make him a “Camp Counselor”. Go search on iStock and see how many files you’re up against in that case. I’ll wait here.Back so soon? Now, it’s clear that “Businessman” is a more common search term than “Camp Counselor”. I’ll grant you that. Is it 20,000 times more common? Let’s look at this from the view point of expected value. This is an Econ 101 concept that seeks to describe the expected potential for a given action. For easy math, let’s first say that the average royalty per sale is $1. Now let us imagine that the search term “Businessman” leads to 100,000 sales per day. That comes to $1.29 per “Businessman” image per day (assuming that sales, on average, will spread out to everyone in the search results. Which they will not, of course. If your image is on page 50+ for that search term, you’ll be very lucky to have “Businessman” lead to any sales at all).

  Now lets say that “Camp Counselor” gets 1% of the search traffic that “Businessman” gets. That would be 100 sales per day for that term*. If there were just 10 matching files, they’d each have an expected value of $10/day. Much sweeter return than the $1.29 “Businessman” average. Of course, this example uses some assumptions. You’d have to make your own assumptions about the numbers in order to determine your own expected value.

• Generic is A Focus: I was recently chatting with another inspector about the notion of a generic file and specific keywords. The file depicted a series of generic spice rack spice jars. The keywords included every kind of spice imaginable. Now, we had to remove all those spice keywords, because the image didn’t actually depict them. The focus of the image is “Spices” in the generic. There are plenty of times when a buyer needs an illustration depicting a parent term in the generic, and not the specific instantiations of that parent. A wise contributor, however, would see the opportunity in this. Illustrate the generic parent term, and keyword it just for the generic, then also create the specific instances of the child terms (the parsleys, sages, rosemaries, and thymeses). The contributor would have to be careful not to make the specific instance illustrations too similar to each other, to avoid the “Duplicate/Serial” rejection, but I think a talented illustrator should be able to do that without much problem.
• Keep The Content Clutter Free As Well: Clutter-free keywording is important, but let’s not forget the content of the image must also immediately convey the concept. Take care to include just those image elements that lead the viewer to that concept, and eliminate everything else that doesn’t support the concept. This isn’t to say that all images must be isolated on white. That would be horrible. Keep in elements that set the stage and make the photo convincing, but if that coffee mug on the table isn’t helping to set the stage or sell the concept, lose it.

If you find that you’d like to improve your Best Match standings, try implementing some of the above. Feel free to drop a line in the comments to let me know what you find.

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* Cry Foul! How can I claim the term Camp Counselor gets 100 sales a day when the few files keyworded with “Camp Counselor” together have a total download count of less than 100? One of the assumptions in the calculations above is that the demand for “Camp Counselor” is 100/day. The existing files in that search may not be suitable for the customers looking for that term, so they may not be buying any Camp Counselor images at all.