Hey look, a blog!

[PJDonnell]

Welcome to my first post in what is (hopefully) a recurring blog about, well, the Database. Here I'm going to give you a glimpse at what's going on in the archives around YoJoe. But what to do for a first post?

I guess I'll give you a little glimpse behind the scenes at what I do to make the pictures I put on the site. Let's start with this pic of Kim Arashikage (v2), that I posted on our Facebook page not too long ago:



As you can see, it's a little "before and after" composite of her "Front" picture in the archive. The "before" half isn't entirely accurate, I have to confess - I actually cropped the image to be much closer to the figure than the original image. I figured you guys weren't all that interested in the outer edges of my photo box!

So what did I do to the picture? Well, aside from the cropping, it's all about the colors. I use daylight bulbs in my lamps to get the booth as bright as possible. But try as I might, my DSLR always tries to find that middle gray, and adjusts the colors of the pic to suit. But this is a relatively simple fix in Photoshop - I check the levels, and adjust the sliders appropriately.

Honestly, that's half the work right there! But while the colors may now be normalized, the photo box is a little too prominent in the background. So I'll duplicate my image and brighten until the background very nearly disappears. This has the effect of making for a much cleaner background, and it makes the shadows underneath the figure much more defined. True, I could crop out the shadows completely, but there's something a little off about a figure just floating in space like that. (Not that I haven't done that before - take a look at the Pit!)

But there is a side effect to all this brightening - while the colors of the figure are much more vibrant, many smaller details are now washed out. This is why I duplicated the image first - I can cut out the figure from the first image and copy it over this one. It means I have the properly color-corrected figure on top of a very clean background.

Confused yet?

[Flophouse]

Not confused, just having painful flashbacks. I, from a lot of experience working on images for this website, know exactly the amount of work you put in Phil. Much appreciated by me at least. I'm sure many, if not most members have no idea of the amount of time it takes to create these images properly. For the three hours we'll spend doing one vehicle, they will look at it for 30 seconds and move on to the next thing.

Thanks for keeping it up Phil.

[PJDonnell]

Hey, your pics are still the standard I aspire to reach! I'm getting better, but I still don't think I'm quite there yet.

[hkohles]

Your pictures are nice. I use to be a animation major and I know completely how horrible photoshop can be at times. You guys do beautifully!

[StkhlmDK]

Not confused, just having painful flashbacks. I, from a lot of experience working on images for this website, know exactly the amount of work you put in Phil. Much appreciated by me at least. I'm sure many, if not most members have no idea of the amount of time it takes to create these images properly. For the three hours we'll spend doing one vehicle, they will look at it for 30 seconds and move on to the next thing.

Thanks for keeping it up Phil.

I know this all too well, takes a long time to set everything up and getting the lighting correct for each shot and then all the afterwork on each image. I try not to edit my images too much when it comes to brightness/colors etc but I do use the sharpness tool from time to time if an element has gone blurry. My latest "trick" is to use a DOF-calculator on my iphone to make sure I have enough depth and then try to keep the item inside that "frame" by marking the table at the side with front and back focus limits. So far it has helped me on the Convention items I bought recently

@Phil, keep up the great job you are all doing on the YJ staff, it has been a true inspiration for when I started my site and I spent quite a few hours on your site when I got back to collecting in 2009 and needed to match figures and weapons using the WhoBits

[ransac]

Yojoe Archive Work Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Hopefully these will help out Phil! Been workin' hard on these for a couple weeks now. Still have several more to edit: Eels v1, Toxo viper v1, Alpine v1, and Barbeque v1 are under the digital knife atm.

Thanks, Laura & Will

EDIT* Is the link working guys? I can see everything on photobucket. Yeah, it is set to public... hmm I could try and post a few pix here?

[Super Sport]

Yojoe Archive Work Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Hopefully these will help out Phil! Been workin' hard on these for a couple weeks now. Still have several more to edit: Eels v1, Toxo viper v1, Alpine v1, and Barbeque v1 are under the digital knife atm.

Thanks, Laura & Will

EDIT* Is the link working guys? I can see everything on photobucket. Yeah, it is set to public... hmm I could try and post a few pix here?

Nope. Link ain't workin'.

[Tolan]

EDIT* Is the link working guys? I can see everything on photobucket. Yeah, it is set to public... hmm I could try and post a few pix here?

Yep it's working. Once you mouse over to the left side and click on " > " to open the pane you can see the folders of pictures you have.

excellent job

folder quick links

BATS V1 Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Crimson Guard V1 Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Dusty V1 Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Iron Grenadiers V1 Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Range Viper V1 1990 Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

Viper V1 1986 Photos by ransac420 | Photobucket

[ransac]

Thanks Tolan! After some discussion, we have retaken all of the profile pix so they are more straightened and at attention (fashioned to mimic 85 Snake Eyes archive work). Also all of the accessories have been retaken over the Yojoe! background. Fixed up the blurry Dusty head in his card art pic as well. Finishing up Alpine and Barbeque today, might try and shoot Bazooka if we time. New pix and link should be up in a couple days.

Thanks everyone!