PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER

I am a doodler! I always have been and probably always will be. In my doodling career I have learned some useful tips. I thought perhaps it may be helpful to pin them down here. They certainly helped me.

Doodle Tip 1:

Have fun! This is not a serious thing and no-one will be harmed if you are not perfect. Just let yourself go and be delighted by what your hand produces!

Doodle Tip 2:

Aim to add an idea to your doodle with the patterns you choose. For instance I once drew a skull (very scary) but filled it with little hearts and flower patterns (very twee). The juxtaposition entertained me. I went looking for it and found it. So here it is:

Doodle Tip 3:

Doodle on good paper. Every now and then, you will create a masterpiece. It will be a real pity if it is in the margin of the telephone book!

“But I doodle when I am on the phone,” you say. So keep a clean pad of good paper near you always!

I mean always! I have several: on my desk, in my purse, by my bed and in the car!

Doodle Tip 4:

If a pristine white page is sitting there terrifying you, just close your eyes and draw a squiggle on it. Now it is “ruined”. It can only get better from here on in. This is a great way to fake out your own mind. It is only the chatter inside your head that says the page has to turn out to be a masterpiece – ignore your mind and enjoy the process!

Doodle Tip 5:

Try doodling with really skinny markers. Try some that are 1.0, 0.5, 0.3 and even 0.1 It is very interesting how the different thicknesses produce very different feelings when you draw. You get to play and figure out which one suits you best today.

Doodle Tip 6:

Play the scribble game. Get someone to just do a simple scribble on a piece of paper for you. Then you take it back and turn it about until the image appears to you. You can add a level of fun, by getting them to name a creature, say a dog or elephant or fish, and then you have to find a way to turn the scribble into that!
Have heaps of fun doodling today!

Fuzzy fonts are unflattering to say the least! So why does this happen you wonder? Well the main reason it happens is because you have sent a JPG to your printer to be printed instead of a file that can hold the fonts separate from the background like a .pdf.ai.ind and a few others. When you send through a JPG to be printed its is just one layer, meaning your background image and your fonts are all together in one image, flattened and this causes the edges of your fonts to be fuzzy instead of crispy clear.

I’m going to take your though the process of getting your file print-ready and without fuzz using Photoshop and Illustrator. In this tutorial i am going to assume you already have some artwork ( that is not flattened ) that has text in it. So lets get started.

Step 1. Open your document in Photoshop and if you haven’t already then convert it to CYMK by clicking on Image/Mode then selecting CYMK from the list. ( If you didn’t know already then all printed documents should be CYMK not the default RGB)

Step 2. Now select all the layers in your Photoshop document that are not fonts, then right click on them all while they are selected and click “merge layers” ( Note if you have effects on any of your fonts- such as drop shadow or any kind of layer effect you will need to merge them into the background as well). You should now only have one background image then the rest of the layers are fonts. If this is what you have then save and close photoshop.

Step 3. Open Illustrator and then open your document, a window will labeled “Photoshop Import Options”. From this window select “Convert Layers to Objects” then click “OK”.

Step 4. Now for the important part, this is the bit that kills fuzz dead in its tracks. Looking at the artboard click ctrl+a ( or command+a on mac ) and you will see that then entire document is selected now ( you will notice different parts of your document are highlighted with different bounding boxes ). From the menu at the top of the screen click “Type” then click “Create Outlines” and you will see that your fonts are now outlined This means instead of your fonts being fuzzy pixels like your background image, your fonts are now vector and will print perfect )

Paper and other related materials are still widely used even if portable media devices and computers are becoming more popular. It is what makes printed media possible and it comes in a lot of forms where you can see all sorts of interesting designs with flashy colors or informative text. It is quite easy to print these types of media on paper if you have a printer but that only covers the basics. When you go to a more professional level, you have other options for printing as well. Digital printing is always here to stay but don’t count out the other methods like litho printing.

Digital printing is the most common form because of all the consumer and business printers being sold today. There are a lot of printers that can be purchased for a low price while the more expensive printers get plenty of extra features. Other high-priced printers normally have greater outputs and/or faster speeds. The slower inkjet printers make use of an ink cartridge that sprays out ink while laser printers print much faster rely on xerographic printing with a toner cartridge.

Litho printing works differently because computers are not directly involved and isn’t something that you can actually do at home. It is also known as offset printing where it takes an inked image and then transfers it to a rubber blanket from a plate. The lithographic process is performed where chemical processes are involved to make the image.

Modern computers still play a role with litho printing as there are desktop publishing applications that create special files that lead to the creation of plates. Digital presses rather than digital printers are used to put the image to paper or other forms of material.

Both methods have their own advantages and disadvantages so both printing methods are here to stay. When it comes to flexibility, digital printing wins because the outputs are more direct and do not require plates.

This makes the digital method of printing most ideal if you want to do a very quick run or operation. When changes need to be made to the output, it is just as easy as editing the digital file. Litho printing depends on plates which you cannot edit after they are made so new plates are required. Digital printing is also better if you are on a tight budget as those plates significantly add to the cost.