Do you know what Adobe is working at? Do you know what’s up for the future?
Watch this video, then. You won’t believe to your eyes!

A grainy video has just become available from the Adobe Max conference in Milan, Italy last month of a sneak peek at a new experiment called Infinite Images.

Dear Crew,
here’s Creative Crew Singapore’s official video.
Feel free to embed it in your blog and share.

Dolly Zoom is a cinematic technique in which the camera moves closer or further from the subject while simultaneously adjusting the zoom angle to keep the subject the same size in the frame.

The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout.

In the first video I have created a digital Dolly Zoom effects using After Effects. There are three pre-composed sets of shapes, each 500 pixels away from another. Green, Blue and Red. The camera movements are all 500 pixels. The zoom movements 500 pixels as well.

Here some cinema examples from Vertigo, Jaws, Poltergeist, Goodfellas, and The Fellowship of the Ring:

This is a YouTube video on how to create a cheap dolly at home:

Interesting links and references:

MediaCollege.com

Wikipedia

Hi Crew,
thanks for the huge support and participation!

It was an exciting meeting.

Click here to watch the pictures of the meeting.

We covered 2 Photoshop sessions that you can already try yourself at the following links:

• 10 reasons why to use Adjustment layers
• The perfect neutralization of Color Cast

Then there was an Halloween After Effects session inspired by Andrew Kramer’s tutorial .

Thanks to Marianne Young who accepted my invite to present CS4.

Before to close the meeting we shown the 3 finalist for the Centaur Contest.

• Ang Siew Tiang
• Nazri
• Talia Lim

The winner of the contest was Talia Lim with 34 votes. Second Ang Siew Tiang with 16, and then Nazri with 7.

Congratulation Talia, now you can try to pass the ACE exam for free, using the 131$ voucher you won.

Let’s meet again on the Tuesday 11th November.
The program and the venue of the meeting will be released soon.

Ciao

Stefano

7.30 to 7.50 Warming up. Take your seat and be ready to take notes. This meeting is going to be a big one.

7.50 to 8.10 First Photoshop session (Basic) - 10 reasons why to use Adjustmen layers
Synopsis: Are you still using the menu Image>Adjustment? Form today it’s over.
CS4 new adjustment system based on Adjustment panel, is a true revolution.
One by one, 10 reason why to love Adjustment Layers.

8.10 to 8.30 Second Photoshop Session (Advanced) - Neutralize your picture to 128 gray
Synopsis: The most amazing mid tones neutralizer you have ever seen.
Stefano Virgilli’s unique method, based on adjustment layers, to find target pixels and uniform your picture tones.

8.30 to 8.40 Break
Bring your name cards for this “session”. It may be useful.

8.40 to 9.00 After Effects session (Advance) - Special FX to transform in a monster
Synopsis: Use liquify effect in a smarter way. Instead of applying it to the layer itself, track the movement first. Then pre-compose and parent it to Anchor Point, Rotation and Position of the original video.
Finally, make your monster unique adding color, contrast and textures.

9.00 to 9.20 Finally CS4 - Speaker Marianne Young - Adobe Technical Account Manager
Introducing the new CS4 and the suite configurations.
- Productivity Gains (working faster, smarter)
- Simplified Workflows
- Rich Expressiveness & Innovation
- Collaboration
Videos hosted by Paul Burnett, Colin Flemin, Lynn Grillo, Adam Pratt, Karl Soule, and Jason Levine.

9.20 to 9.30 Photoshop contest votation. And the winner is…
If you did not know about the contest, click here.
There is still time to submit your artwork.

During the meeting you might get the chance to win some Adobe gadgets!

Expressions are capable to animate an object without necessarily make use of keyframes.
One of the most simple expressions, and also one of the most useful, is Wiggle.

To apply an expression, select the proprieties one by one and go to Animation> Add expression. The shortcut is Alt+click on the animation stopwatch.
One the expression have been added, press Enter on the numeric pad or click any area outside the expression, to close the expression editor.
To temporary disable the expression, click the = icon on the left side of the expression.

- To randomly wiggle position use:

wiggle(5,50)

where 5 is frequency (times per second)
and 50 is magnitude (how many pixels movement)

- To randomly wiggle rotation:

wiggle(5,50)

where 5 is frequency (times per second)
and 50 is magnitude (how many degrees movement)

- To randomly wiggle scale:

wiggle(5,50)

where 5 is frequency (times per second)
and 50 is magnitude (how much in percentage)

- To randomly wiggle position and scale, just horizontal movement:

w = wiggle(5,50);
[w[0], value[1]]

where “w” is the short name for wiggle(5,50)
[0] is x, horizontal
[1] is y, vertical
“value” commits the actual value
to start a new row, just press enter on the keyboard

- To randomly wiggle position and scale, just vertical movement:

w = wiggle(5,50);
[value[0], w[1]]

where “w” is the short name for wiggle(5,50)
[0] is x, horizontal
[1] is y, vertical
“value” commits the actual value

- To equally animate scale on both x and y (horizontally and vertically) use the following expression:

w = wiggle(5,50)[0];
[w,w]

Where “w” sets a unique value for wiggle, and the array [w,w] apply the same value to both x and y

The same expression applied to position, makes the layer moving diagonally only.

Author: Stefano Virgilli

Creative Crew Seminar by Stefano Virgilli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.creativecrew.com.sg.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

This is a tutorial on the style “wow effect”. Thanks to our Italian reader Fulvio (click here to view his personal website) for the picture he gave us for this tutorial.

The “wow effect” (or special effect) consists in the window assistant, cloning from another window of the same image.

We will position the clone on a three-dimensional plan, that is possible to draw with the perspective filter Vanishing point from Adobe Photoshop CS2 onward.

In the version CS3 of Photoshop, the Filter have been much improved and now can share 3D shapes with After Effects. Can also render a 3D layer for Photoshop itself, that can be rotated using the camera view tools.

As the author of the photo told me, the photograph was taken without tripod with an unsatisfying illumination, which made it out of focus.

The blur is particularly obvious around the small brightness of individual lights.

In this case we can use Filter> Sharpen> Unsharpen mask to decrease the blur.

Once the definition of the image is optimized, we are ready to enter in the plug-in Vanishing point. We choose from the menu Filter or with the keyboard shortcut Alt+Apple+V (Pc: Alt+ctrl+V).

The Vanishing point filter is presented in a new window that reproduces the photograph in object, but with a palette tool different from the traditional one.

In this tutorial we will limit ourselves to the bases of this filter. In future we will include a new tutorial on the other possibilities offered by Vanishing point, like for example the possibility to carry out copy/paste dynamic in three dimensions, or to import texts, or to extrude -90° the “net”.

Just enter the interface of the Vanishing point the active tool is Create plane tool (V) (shortcut from keyboard, key C).

We need it in order to uses the filter itself, to have a better perception of the perspective. It is very user friendly. Just click the 4 corners of the wall and the “net” is ready.

The “net” represents the three-dimensional plan to operate.

In the palette tool Vanishing point we find the Stamp tool, that it is recalled with the keyboard shortcut, S, and functions in the same manner.

It will be necessary therefore to choose a sample point on the image by clicking and simultaneously holding Alt on the keyboard. For each click we clone the sampled area.

Click the thumbnail to enlarge the detail. Note the blue “net” vanish during the use of the Stamp tool to leave visual best.

Note also like the point champion of the stamp tool (the point Alt click sample point) is identified by a green cross.

The options bar for the setting of the tool is also present in the Vanishing point window in the top part. For the stamp tool, we have the possibility to plan the diameter of the brushstroke, the hardness, the opacity and most importantly, the type of correction. Very important is the last parameter that let us to attribute bright corrections to the cloned pixels. The photograph in this tutorial for example, the effect is especially interesting since the bright source positioned under the square in which we are adding the window is much different from the source from the point we sampled. Note the difference in the window that we added, the other windows are illuminated from very warm lights. The fine effect is guaranteed because of the Activated check for “Correct”. Alternatively, it is possible to plan it on Brightness, but in this case it would have involved a tone fall to the cold light spot, returning a fake result. Alternatively, it is still possible to deactivate any correction to the pixel cloned.

The advantage Vanishing point filter is the capacity to interpret the pixel positioned on the three-dimensional “net” like if it was on a horizontal plane, adapting Vanishing point.
Finished work of cloning pixel in correction activated mode, on the three-dimensional “net” specially drawn, press Enter or click OK to return to the window of Photoshop.

The filter will already be applied.

The image with the final result show us the naturalness of the effect obtained.
Click the thumbnail to view the final results enlarged.

Photo by Fulvio

Tutorial created by Stefano Virgilli
Adobe Video Specialist
Adobe Certified Instructor, Photoshop
Adobe Certified Instructor, Premiere Pro
Adobe Certified Instructor, Illustrator
Adobe Certified Instructor, After Effects
Adobe User Group Manager

Adobe Certified Instructor After Effects

Adobe User Group Manager

Creative Crew Seminar by Stefano Virgilli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.creativecrew.com.sg.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.