Woes of a Wallpaper Designer
Oct. 26th, 2007 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elennielMaking wallpapers ain't easy. (Okay, well, sometimes it is, but generally it isn't. :P )
Take, for example, my most recent attempts at making new wallpapers. Even with 2.62GB of Arashi images, it's still difficult to find the perfect image. Yes, you read it right. 2.62GB. Of jpegs. HQ jpegs. Those from Loze and arashi.vox andboys_paper are especially high-quality - average filesize is about 2MB. I spent over an hour yesterday renaming most of the files so the date formats would sync and it'd be easier if I ever decided to perform a search based on the magazine shoot dates. (Batch Filename Editor is another godsent piece software.)
The thing is... Even with so many pictures of good quality. A lot of them are "flawed" - at least when you look at them from a wallpaper designer's point of view. ("Wallpaper designer" sounds so much better than "wallpaper-maker", no? :P I think I'm entitled to use it, since I'm in the design industry anyway. Hahahah! Gosh that sounds so "perasan" - ie. "full of myself" XP )
Let me bother enlighten you with the major examples.
1. Boring Pose.
I don't quite like it when all they do is just stand there. Like a pole. Doing absolutely nothing. Just standing and staring at the camera. It's... Boring. Might be easier to crop the figure out, but there's no point to it. It's like having a particularly blank-faced paper doll. Actually, even paper dolls have more interesting poses...
2. Inconvenient text.
This is rather common. I'll have these gorgeous pics, but then there'll be the magazine article text tattooed all over. Minor amounts is fine - I can fix that easily. Even large amounts are fine - IF the sections the text crosses is not full of highlights and shadows. Even 6 years of Photoshop experience (I sound like Horio now...) has its limits. More importantly, my patience has limits. If I was free enough with nothing to do, then I might sit down and slowly patch up pics like the above one. This particular pic isn't impossible. It's just too time-consuming.
3. Overly complex backgrounds.
Not a necessarily impossible task, but, like I just said, too time-consuming. If the hairstyle is spiky and all over the place then... I usually just don't bother anymore. Hahah! Things like trees, other people and well, basically anything other than a plain backdrop will be rather a pain to edit. I normally only attempt cropping if the pic is just too irresistable or if I'm too free :P
4. Facial expressions.
THIS... Argh. This is painfully common - especially with Arashi. I can have the lovelist plain background - ideal for cropping - or the nicest setups, butttttttt... What do they do? They frown/sulk/stare at the camera in the most aggravating way. Particularly common in solo photos for Arashi. (Guys, can't you smile a bit when it's a solo pic?) Like the above set. The only one just barely cracking a smile is Aiba. Sho's frowning at the camera like he doesn't want to be photographed, Ohno's staring blankly (as usual), Jun's midway between a moody stare and a frown, and Nino's... Kinda blank too. I could shake them. Or their art director. What's the big idea with the sullen expressions?? I wouldn't feel happy looking at my desktop if Sho was staring me down like that... -_-
And there you have it. My personal top four grievances with images when it comes to making wallpapers. :P They may be really nice to just look at, but usage... Oh well.
Now, since I have the time, I'm off to make more wallpapers! XD
Take, for example, my most recent attempts at making new wallpapers. Even with 2.62GB of Arashi images, it's still difficult to find the perfect image. Yes, you read it right. 2.62GB. Of jpegs. HQ jpegs. Those from Loze and arashi.vox and
boys_paper are especially high-quality - average filesize is about 2MB. I spent over an hour yesterday renaming most of the files so the date formats would sync and it'd be easier if I ever decided to perform a search based on the magazine shoot dates. (Batch Filename Editor is another godsent piece software.)The thing is... Even with so many pictures of good quality. A lot of them are "flawed" - at least when you look at them from a wallpaper designer's point of view. ("Wallpaper designer" sounds so much better than "wallpaper-maker", no? :P I think I'm entitled to use it, since I'm in the design industry anyway. Hahahah! Gosh that sounds so "perasan" - ie. "full of myself" XP )
Let me bother enlighten you with the major examples.
1. Boring Pose.
I don't quite like it when all they do is just stand there. Like a pole. Doing absolutely nothing. Just standing and staring at the camera. It's... Boring. Might be easier to crop the figure out, but there's no point to it. It's like having a particularly blank-faced paper doll. Actually, even paper dolls have more interesting poses...
2. Inconvenient text.
This is rather common. I'll have these gorgeous pics, but then there'll be the magazine article text tattooed all over. Minor amounts is fine - I can fix that easily. Even large amounts are fine - IF the sections the text crosses is not full of highlights and shadows. Even 6 years of Photoshop experience (I sound like Horio now...) has its limits. More importantly, my patience has limits. If I was free enough with nothing to do, then I might sit down and slowly patch up pics like the above one. This particular pic isn't impossible. It's just too time-consuming.
3. Overly complex backgrounds.
Not a necessarily impossible task, but, like I just said, too time-consuming. If the hairstyle is spiky and all over the place then... I usually just don't bother anymore. Hahah! Things like trees, other people and well, basically anything other than a plain backdrop will be rather a pain to edit. I normally only attempt cropping if the pic is just too irresistable or if I'm too free :P
4. Facial expressions.
THIS... Argh. This is painfully common - especially with Arashi. I can have the lovelist plain background - ideal for cropping - or the nicest setups, butttttttt... What do they do? They frown/sulk/stare at the camera in the most aggravating way. Particularly common in solo photos for Arashi. (Guys, can't you smile a bit when it's a solo pic?) Like the above set. The only one just barely cracking a smile is Aiba. Sho's frowning at the camera like he doesn't want to be photographed, Ohno's staring blankly (as usual), Jun's midway between a moody stare and a frown, and Nino's... Kinda blank too. I could shake them. Or their art director. What's the big idea with the sullen expressions?? I wouldn't feel happy looking at my desktop if Sho was staring me down like that... -_-
And there you have it. My personal top four grievances with images when it comes to making wallpapers. :P They may be really nice to just look at, but usage... Oh well.
Now, since I have the time, I'm off to make more wallpapers! XD
