techniques

What is Scratchboard Design?

guest — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:17:15 +0000

Scratchboard was developed in nineteenth century England and France, where printers were looking for new ways to reproduce illustrations. Wood, metal and linoleum engraving all had their faults, and scratchboard seemed to be the perfect solution.

Scratchboard illustrators use knives and other tools to etch delicate lines into white China clay. The etching is then coated with black India ink to reveal intricate images with sophisticated shading, texture and, occasionally, many colours. The ability of the images to be accurately reproduced in everything from newspapers to educational books meant the scratchboard technique soon became the preferred method of printing medical, scientific and technical illustrations.

By brookeduckart

Because of this prestigious association with the great designs of the past, the scratchboard technique is having a comeback in publications like graphic novels, magazines and ads.

Most scratchboard artists use pencil sketches to begin the design process, drawing rough outlines of the finished product. The first pencil sketch will have shading and textured elements to give the artist a good idea of what the illustration will look like when finished. Then, they often create a simplified sketch that they transfer to the scratchboard. They prefer to keep the sketch as simple as possible, since the graphite of the pencil is hard to erase from the scratchboard tablet. Once the simplified sketch has been transferred, the artist will use various carving knives and other tools to scratch lines into the clay, using deeper scratches for areas that are more highlighted and less shaded and eventually revealing the complete scratchboard design.

By Paul Demyser III

By sixtäriis

By Kai

By John D Maddin

By Avalilly

By Hellmuth

By Klcostley

By Sadam JP

There are a couple of ways the scratchboard design can then be used for printing. Most printers will likely take a high-resolution photograph of the image, as most printing is done electronically now via desktop publishing. The photograph will then be inserted into the digital design of the page, then a plate will be made of that page. Finally, the plate will be inserted into the printer, and the page will be printed. Before desktop publishing became the industry standard, however, the scratchboard design would often be inserted directly onto the metal plates that already contained the text of the page. The scratchboard itself would then be coated with ink along with the moveable type.

By kuruvata

By SADAM JP

Scratchboard is also becoming popular as an artistic medium in its own right. Because it uses fine lines to create intricate designs, the scratchboard technique is superb for accurate depictions of eyes and fur. This makes it an ideal medium for wildlife artists and artists who make very detailed drawings. Scratchboard artists will often sell the scratchboard tablet as its own work of art. Though the contrast of the black ink and the white clay is striking enough to generate interest from buyers, some artists will also add colour to the illustrations using ink, watercolour or acrylic paint.

By amelieke

By WildGlance

By Jan Poynter

By jeanner

By PawtraitsFL

Videos

About Amie

Amie is a freelance graphic designer for a printing company, Print Express UK. They specialise in business card design and printing. Amie has been designing and writing for 2 years and has a huge passion for abstract art and vintage photography styles. She can be found on Twitter .

The Amazing Photography of Philipp Klinger

paul0v2 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:57:57 +0000

Philipp Klinger is for sure one of my favorite photographers, his work is very well rounded with amazing photos of all types. One of the things that also impress me a lot about his work is that he doesn't mind sharing his experience on how he took the shot, what the shot is about and so on. Each one of his photos is a piece of art ans you have to check out for yourself.

Make sure to visit Philipp Flickr for more.

Turn To Clear Vision

Technique/Processing
Straight forward, shot with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 @ f/3.2 and then square-cropped and converted to b/w.
Where?
Top Of The Rock observation deck, Rockefeller Center, New York City, USA

Invasion

Technique/Processing:
1 shot with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4, converted to b/w with Silver Efex, adding a slight blue toning.
Where?
Staten Island Ferry Terminal while waiting for the Ferry back to Manhattan.

Is Time Linear?

Technique/ProcessingShot with my Sigma 12-24 @ 24mm. The framing took a few attempts (especially to align the lines of the ceiling with the 12h mark of the clock...
No fancy processing this time, just converted to b&w and a little dodge and burn for more contrast on the clock
Where?
Nearly all my photos are geotagged, so you can see directly on the flickr map where the photo was taken.
This one's been shot in the brand new Guillemins train Station in Liège, Belgium, designed by the famous spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava.
It's still in work though and should be finished by the end of september 2009. Nevertheless, it's already a very impressive structure.

New York - Brooklyn Bridge Panorama

Technique/Processing:
I've taken 8x7 = 56 shots for this photo. 8 for the panorama to cover everything i wanted and each of them with 7 different exposures for the DRI).
Stitched the 0 EV exposure in PTGui and made it remember all the control points and the exchanged the photos for all other exposures (ranging from -3 to +3 EV).
Those 7 panoramas where then blended in Photoshop using Smart Object Stacking and manual mask painting.
Color and Contrast processing then done mostly using Nik Color Efex.

My Tree During The Perseid Meteor Shower

Technique/Processing
Shot at ISO 2500 and 30 seconds exposure. I used this combination to get many stars in the sky, but they should still be visible as dots (thus the high iso and rather short exposure).
Flashed the tree and the path using an SB-28 off-camera (in my hand) using the test button @ 1/8 several times.
Nearly no post processing in Photoshop

Robot

Technique/Processing:
Shot with the Sigma 12-24, then removed the lens distortion with PTLens and converted it to b&w using Nik Silver Efex Pro

Cape Cod - Sunset

Technique/Processing:
HDR made using Photomatix (for a change) from 5 exposures

New York City - The Police Horse

Technique/Processing:
Shot wide open with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4. Shadows lightened a bit and the cross processed with Nik Color Efex. No HDR or DRI (obviously ;))

Bale Of Straw

Technique/Processing:
DRI made using 2 of the 7 exposures (Smart Object method) and then processed in PS with Nik Color Efex and curves.

Metropolis

Technique/Processing:
Just shooting straight up into the sky (not really 'just' as it took quite long to frame it symmetrically) with the Sigma 12-24mm @ 12mm. I darkened the sky and lightened the Chrysler Building entrance. B&W processing done with Nik Silver Efex Pro as usual.

Location:
NYC, Lexington avenue, between E 42nd and E 43rd street. The building on the left is the Chrysler Building and the one on the right is the Grand Hyatt Hotel in whose facade the Chrysler Building is reflected.

Toronto Skyline

Technique/Processing:
We planned to take the Ferry to the Toronto Islands to take shots of the skyline from there, but unfortunately (for us) the ferries were on strike during our visit (Reminded me of the railway strikes we had in Germany last year...), so we had to go to the Humber Bay Park instead.
I made a standard 5 exposure bracketing using the 70-300mm VR lens, taken at my night settings - most importantly ISO 160 which generates the least noise on the D700 ( ISO 125 and 100 are worse, as they are interpolated by software and thus result in a loss of dynamic range).
Blended in Photoshop using the ADRI technique and the result was manually blended with the darkest exposure masking everything but the highlights.

New York - Grand Central Terminal

Technique/Processing:
I put the camera onto the balustrade of the stairs and exposed for 3 seconds to achieve the motion blur. It's not very sharp in 100% view as i had to set the aperture to f/20.

No HDR or DRI processing this time - only one single exposure, but i tried to retain as much detail in the highlights and shadows usind RAW and Nik's Color Efex (Tonal Contrast).

New York - Brooklyn Bridge Sunset

Niagara Falls at Night

Technique/Processing:
No HDR or DRI this time. Just one exposure (the colors were changing so i had no time to make several exposures)

Is It The End Of Days?

Technique/Processing:
DRI of 3 images, processed to look a bit 'apocalyptic'...

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

350+ Great CSS Tools and Techniques

PauloGabriel — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:33:31 +0000

One of the most enjoyable moments for a web designer is coding CSS. It's such a nice language that it actually gets fun to work with it... style your pages and actually watching your designs gain life and forms. But sometimes, a little help is welcome.

Even being a fun thing to do, sometimes you run into some problems, trying to find the right way to get a certain look. But for our sake, there are many many great sites out there that help us during these times, such as the great CSS Play, Smashing Magazine, and others.

Taking a quick ride thru my Delicious, I took a look at some of my CSS tag favorites, and I'd like to share them with you. These are really resourceful articles, worth the visit. From tools to simple techniques that will help you at some point. Hope you all enjoy these!! Cheers. ;)

50 Extremely Useful And Powerful CSS Tools

12 CSS Tools and Tutorials for Beautiful Web Typography

101 CSS Techniques Of All Time- Part 1

53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

Powerful CSS-Techniques For Effective Coding

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part1)

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part2)

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part3)

CSS Dock Menu

Most used CSS tricks

About the author

Hello, everyone! I'm Paulo Gabriel, designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil, born in 1984. I have worked as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobby for me since 1999. Here in Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you... and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! For more cool stuff, you may also follow me on Twitter.

techniques

What is Scratchboard Design?

Scratchboard was developed in nineteenth century England and France, where printers were looking for new ways to reproduce illustrations. Wood, metal and linoleum engraving all had their faults, and scratchboard seemed to be the perfect solution.

Videos

About Amie

The Amazing Photography of Philipp Klinger

Turn To Clear Vision

Invasion

Is Time Linear?

New York - Brooklyn Bridge Panorama

My Tree During The Perseid Meteor Shower

Robot

Cape Cod - Sunset

New York City - The Police Horse

Bale Of Straw

Metropolis

Toronto Skyline

New York - Grand Central Terminal

New York - Brooklyn Bridge Sunset

Niagara Falls at Night

Is It The End Of Days?

About the author

Sponsored Links:

350+ Great CSS Tools and Techniques

One of the most enjoyable moments for a web designer is coding CSS. It's such a nice language that it actually gets fun to work with it... style your pages and actually watching your designs gain life and forms. But sometimes, a little help is welcome.

50 Extremely Useful And Powerful CSS Tools

12 CSS Tools and Tutorials for Beautiful Web Typography

101 CSS Techniques Of All Time- Part 1

53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

Powerful CSS-Techniques For Effective Coding

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part1)

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part2)

25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part3)

CSS Dock Menu

Most used CSS tricks

About the author

Sponsored Links: