Make them really tiny - postage stamp size, or crop interesting details and blow them up. Maybe.

yea, what sii said.

Suggestions:

- make them small and gang them up together in blocks
- ’arty/extreme’ cropping
- sepia/duotone them
- stylize them to the point where they become more illustration than photo
- collage them with type/illustration (making them more of a background element.

Squint really hard. But all joking aside, like Sii notes, keep them small, or crop them in interesting ways, or even apply filters wisely to make them look different on purpose - basically turn them into something very different then what was originally given to you.

Match them with type and visual devices that have a folksy feel. DIY/handwriting types mixed with some distressed ornaments and frames could work in a thrift-shop-hipster way. You might also want to check out books and magazines for people who shoot with Holga and other low-quality cameras.

I agree with the above, and will add that adding a vignette effect can often make snapshots look more arty.

Look for LOMO photoshop actions online. Those can make bland/poor photos interesting. Going black and white also can make a bad photo look a lot better.

Some professional/art photographers have made a style of the “snapshot” look. But I think it all depends on what kind of magazine we are talking about. While it could work well for an artsy or design magazine, I guess if you try to sell jewellery you’re out of luck :)

Where’s the type?

hhp

Thanks to everyone for your very helpful suggestions.

just a thought— depending on the context, the photographers/submitters might not appreciate you applying actions and effects to their photos. Correcting colour and press prep is obviously accepted, but even amateurs have a right not to have their shots monkeyed with.

Hey Curtis—this thread has nothing to do with type, typography, fonts or typeface design, neither specifically nor even in a general sort of way.

@cjg: just a thought— depending on the context, the photographers/submitters might not appreciate you applying actions and effects to their photos. Correcting colour and press prep is obviously accepted, but even amateurs have a right not to have their shots monkeyed with.

What crap. This kind of thing depends on the publication’s editorial policy and what the photographers / image owners may have agreed or not agreed to regarding having their images published. No photographer has any kind “right” not to have their shots monkeyed with. Where did you get that idea? Cropping, color correction and so forth go on all day every day in my job. We even do it to costly rights-managed stock photos by way of written contractual agreement we have with the stock agencies we buy from—because we have to be practical

Photographers and image owners may indeed not appreciate the applying of actions and effects to their photos—but that’s just too bad. It’s what happens. There isn’t much they can do about it, and at the end of the day most of them wize up and accept it as normal and par for the course. People who can’t accept their images being manipulated or cropped in some way are unrealistic and unprofessional.

j a m e s

@ James:cite> People who can’t accept their images being manipulated or cropped in some way are unrealistic and unprofessional....

And that’s why their work is being published by this mag ;o)

@ cumaso: Just go with the blur. Learn to love the fuzziness. Maybe you need to lwt your design be a little rough around the edges - I dunno, maybe let a bit of dirt creep in... In general, one reason media hire designers to create illusions. The best photographers you can afford take the best photos the can and then they colour correct and crop their hearts out, then designers colour correct and crop their hearts out, and used all their skill and experience to pick just the right type and arrange it all nicely on a page and it’s all a very nice, very slick and manufactured illusion. So, here you are with this project... except the illusion you have to create is that the photos are better than they are.

Sounds like fun :o)

-=®=-

There are a number of techniques you can work with. By amateur I assume you mean that these shots are low resolution/poor lens choice/bad exposure/poor focus/bad composition/&c.; try this. First, see if you can improve the image by applying a ’fix lens distortion’ filter. Then skew the image if additional perspective correction is necessary; this possibly after rotating the image if it’s crooked. There are a number of effects you can produce at this point, such as [Photoshop specific] change to bitmap mode and generate lithograph patterns; multiply a duplicate layer and mask based on the most flattering color channel; change color mode to grayscale and then to monotone/duotone might get you something interesting to look at. Or do something collage-like. I like the suggestions here that move you in a typographic direction, because let’s not forget we are type folks here.
I prefer large to small and inconspicuous.

i think many ’poor’ photographs can be enriched when a good designer gives them a critical and creative eye. try dramatic or imaginative crops. stay away from photoshop filters. evaluate them honestly, and play the better photos prominently and the lessor pieces smaller or as accents.

My two cents:

1. Change size/perspective
2. Blur the hell out of them
3. Duotone
4. Add noise (sparingly)
5. Crop
6. Match with typography that is so friggin’ awesome, the very thought of the possibility, of the photos being accidental crappy is heretical.
_____________________________________________
Personal Art and Design Portal of Ivan Gulkov
www.ivangdesign.com

I usually agree with a lot of James’ opinions, but i have to take exception with a couple of his points on this topic.

No photographer has any kind “right” not to have their shots monkeyed with.

It’s often easy for designers to forget that the other creatives they’re working with are also artists. I believe there is an inherent “right” to expect your work to be treated respectfully. For instance, I would never think of hiring an illustrator to create a piece for a publication and then dump it into Photoshop and change the colors of the work to suit my own needs. If these sorts of changes need to be made, I would — in every case — consult the artist at the least, and either give them the opportunity to make the changes themselves or sign off on any changes I made to the work. If that agreement couldn’t be secured, I would pay the artist the ’kill’ fee and move to someone else. Of course this is a different situation when dealing with stock images (where the artist signs away all creative rights), but when dealing one-on-one with another creative, I believe there are creative rights involved.

There isn’t much they can do about it, and at the end of the day most of them wize up and accept it as normal and par for the course. People who can’t accept their images being manipulated or cropped in some way are unrealistic and unprofessional.

Again, I disagree. There is nothing unprofessional about expecting the designer to preserve the artistic integrity of commissioned work. If I treated the illustrators, photographers and other creative professionals I work with with that attitude, I would find my stable of professionals empty pretty quickly. And I wouldn’t blame them a bit for refusing to work within that atmosphere.

Having said that, crops and scalings fall pretty much in the realm of ’design considerations,’ and should, in most cases, be professionally acceptable to most commissioned artists.
This gets a little away from your topic of working with unprofessional snapshot work, but I had to voice my difference to the concept of whatever-the-designer-wants approach.

I faced this kind of problem when designing an encyclopedia of MDs in Marienbad. The supplied portraits had been the worst mix of mostly unusable stuff I have ever seen. I had to come up with some unifying way of treating the pictures - the result can be seen at http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3019/2926848979_2013f480d9_b.jpg. I can agree with what was said above - duotone, cropping, tedious cleaning in Photoshop (would not be probably that necessary in a magazine) placement on the spread etc., all that served its purpose. But it was hell of a work.

Chuck—I was talking about stock images only, not commissioned works.

Thje situation is much the same as for writers and typeface designers. My retail fonts are fodder, to be treated as publishers and designers see fit. I don’t expect users of my retail fonts to treat them like unalterable religious icons, not do my feelings enter into how they use my works. Retail fonts are a form of stock art, and stock art is fodder.

That’s the way the publishing and design world works.

I treat artists and designers of commissioned works much differently, much as you describe.

This thread still has nothing whatsoever to do with type, typography, type design or fonts, except a few passing references. Thread rating: minus five stars, a complete failure.

j a m e s

James, please don’t be upset, General Discussion is subtitled “Anything goes”.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

If there’s no type angle whatsoever, don’t do it (and don’t encourage people to do it by replying). For every topic on this planet, there’s a good place to discuss it. This place is for type.

hhp

One of the realities of this ‘Destop Publishing‘ business is that the person in front of the computer can do it all… And that does mean that some of the ancient crafts have to be learned by that person: Typesetting, compositing, touch up, colorcorrection, colorseparation, proofreading…

Well, the absolute minimum is to try and improve the amateurs work.
1. Fix contrast en lighting
2. Straighten (esp verticals — most people can not keep theri camera straight when pushing the button)
3. Remove blemishes
4. (!) Change to Black and White.

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

i agree with the “anything goes” refrain... anyone disinterested can certainly ignore a thread. but even if our job is primarily typographic, we designers encounter myriad issues that affect our work, and i think we are not worse for discussing them when something comes up. many of the logo critique postings involve images or marks, and if it’s something someone wants to chime in on. i say let them.

james—
if i misinterpreted your post, i’m sorry, but you said, specifically: “No photographer” and “Photographers and image owners,” and didn’t say, “of course, i mean stock.”

> we designers encounter myriad issues

And when we go to a forum about photography to find something out we appreciate not having to deal with non-photographic issues. The web is not a collection of cocktail parties.

If you have a non-typographic topic, but would like the opinion of people who happen to frequent Typophile, a good compromise is to start a thread in the right place, then start a stub thread here with a title like “OFF-TOPIC: Photowhatever”, pointing to the real thread (and asking people to please only post over there).

hhp

okay... but why would it bother you so much? there are probably dozens of threads started every day on typophile.com that don’t interest you at all. don’t you just pass over them and go on to the topics that do mean something to you or to which you’d like to contribute?

Chuck

The Rant is only interested in left handed non calligraphic typefaces. : )

Just ignore him and he will not go away! Even bigger :: ))

Michael

It’s not about what threads personally interest me or not.
It violates the integrity of a community I respect and adore.

hhp

I vividly remember a loooong thread about soccer ... :-)

Touché.
“Do as I say, not as I do.”

hhp

james and hrant: lighten up a little! what’s with all the trollish negativity ?
are you the new topic police ? if so i will unsubscribe.

there are plenty of threads on typophile which relate to type only indirectly, many less so than this one. general design, layout, software, hardware, music, sports, politics, the law... the list goes on. i find many of them quite interesting and generally relevant to a professional creative life. if not, i just skim and move on.

meanwhile, i’ve found this method helpful with small or lower rez photos:

after full color and contrast correction i duplicate the layer and apply a sharpen filter to the new top layer. then i reduce its opacity to 50% so it mixes back with the original. a similar technique employs slightly blurring another dupe layer and changing that layer to a “lighten” transfer mode (also at reduced opacity), creating a bit of a glow around hi-lites. variations (darken, contrast modes, etc)
can be played with, always mixed back into the dominant original.

effects depend on context and narrative function of the shot.

That’s an interesting method Ch, I’ll give it a go.
I have a seriously faded 1971 colour photograph, no negatives available. That will be my first victim.

“The web is not a collection of cocktail parties.”

Well, it is. Except for those few places with ornery admins. ;o)

Ch, the Age of Lightening Up is over (thankfully). Get serious.

hhp

You see?
http://typophile.com/node/51020

And this from before:
http://typophile.com/node/50743

In both cases those people created accounts specifically to ask a non-typographic question.* It’s not crazy to suggest that what most of us really value about this place can end up being drowned out.

* At least Curtis has a few typographic threads to his credit.

hhp

“most of us really value about this place can end up being drowned out.”

hrant, I can understand the concern, and I definitely would hate to see you and the ’elders’ (and I use that term not in the sense of age, but experience and wise advice) leave, BUT...I do have a hard time imagining you getting drowned out:

;o)

Another way to look at it: You’re exposing potential customers and aficionados to the intricacies of the work and talent and complexity that is the type design world.

I’ve had to work with low resolution photos before, and the way I got around it was by cropping out the main focal point (yes, making them even smaller) and then popping these elements into the text with a text wrap around them with a wide border between the image and the text.

I’m not very proud of the design, and I learned a lot from it for sure, but sometimes you have to listen to the design itself and try what it wants, and it’s a lot of trial and learning I’m afraid!