Case Studies
1. Pathologist
2. Histotech
3. Dako Never Sleeps
4. InDesign Tables: Strengths and Limitations
1. Pathologist: Trade Show Banner
February, 2012; Client: Diagnostic BioSystem; Art Director: Jan Moon
The client wanted to show a variety of bright, translucent "screens" rotating around a pathologist's head, as if they were his own visions, made possible by the client's product. The image was going to cover most of a wall at a trade show booth, and would additionally appear in the company's printed literature and on their website, so I prepared the image for a scenario requiring the highest resolution.
The hi-res image below was selected for the pathologist, from iStock.com.
First, I carefully created a detailed mask using Photoshop's Quick Selection tool, then refined the mask by adjusting the radius of the selection, faithfully preserving his hair details. Then I flipped the man horizontally, and using various lab coat web images from medical supply companies, I was able to paint his white lab coat directly over his tweed coat. I copied the man and darkened the image using Levels, then using the Healing and Clone Stamp tools, I whitened his teeth, evened out his beard, healed some blotches around his face, and removed the long shadow below his left lower lip.
Using the Paths tool I created a rectangular box for each of the screens that would appear around his head. After invoking a selection from the path, I went to Bridge, copied an image, and pasted the image inside the selection, which created a new layer with a layer mask. Then I resized the image to fit the box, using Free Transform to grab each corner and bring it close to the outside of the masked box. Each "screen" layer used up to two blending modes: hard light at 100% opacity, and normal, varying around 50% opacity. I also used the Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer to brighten the images. The masks for the images in back were faded and the images themselves were blurred slightly. Finally, a drop shadow effect was added to the screens in front of the pathologist's face.
The final adjustments included adding box-shaped shadows and highlights to the man's face, and color reflections on the top of his lab coat.
Finally, a gradation using a tint of the company's corporate blue color was added in the background.
Shown below, the pathologist image and the histotech image (presented in the following case study) were used in the client's trade show booth.
2. Histotech: Trade Show Banner
February, 2012; Client: Diagnostic BioSystems; Art Director: Jan Moon
The client wanted to show a variety of bright, translucent "screens" floating above the histotechnician's hand, as if they were her own visions, made possible by the client's product. The image was going to cover most of another wall at the same trade show booth with the Pathologist image, and would additionally appear in the company's printed literature and on their website, so I prepared the image for a scenario requiring the highest resolution.
The image below was selected for the pathologist, from iStock.com.
First, I extracted the woman from her background. Then I extended the document's canvas vertically to make room for the floating screens. Then I moved a resized copy of her fourth finger to replace her curved pinky finger.
Referring to a couple of other iStock images of the same woman, I was able to repaint parts of her shirt and sleeve in Photoshop that were missing after I had rotated her arm down about 30 degrees.
The slide was added in two layers with different blending modes: hard light, 100% opacity and normal, about 30% opacity. Since her hand appears to be slightly out of focus, I slightly blurred the mask around her hand so that the slide more naturally blended into her fingers.
Using the Pen tool I drew all the outlines of the floating screens, both front and back where needed. Making a selection from a single saved path (the outline of a screen) I switched over to Adobe Bridge, opened up a stain image in Photoshop, copied it, and pasted the copy into the selection in Photoshop. Then I resized and transformed the pasted image to fit into the selection, sometimes using the Warp tool. Each "screen" was comprised of 1-2 layers: a hard light blend at 100% opacity, and a normal layer at around 30% opacity. A tight drop shadow layer was added to each layer, and layer masks for each screen were adjusted so that the screens would appear to fade out in some parts.
A gradation was added to the background, in a tint of the company's corporate color.
I made a copy of the woman, turned off the original layer, then darkened the copy using Levels. With the Brush tool in the Levels adjustment layer mask I painted back some of the details in the shadows in her hair, eyes, teeth, and corners of her mouth using a white ink brush at a low opacity.
Finally, on a separate layer, I aded some faint color reflections to her face and shirt. In her glasses, I outlined the lenses with the Pen tool, and created a selection from the paths. Then I made screen shots of two different areas of the screens, and pasted them into the selection. In the resulting layer, I reduced the opacity of the reflection in her glasses, resulting in the final image, below.
Dako Never Sleeps Ad: Print and Online Ad
November, 2011; Client: Dako Corporation. Art Director: Jan Moon
Dako Corporation contracted me to create a pre-conceived ad lauding their 24/7 on-line shopping and customer service. The challenge was to paint a realistic looking laboratory coat over the man's suit. Then I was asked to include the copy to the right of the man by closely following Dako's brand guidelines, which was outlined in an accompanying PDF file.
Two stock art images were supplied by the client: a suited man holding a laptop and a pair of furry bunny slippers.
First I fixed the man's teeth, for which I am sure he will be forever grateful to me. I then searched for lab coats online and found several suitable examples which I used as a template to paint the coat, applying a fine cloth texture, shadows, and highlights where needed. To create the details in the garment I usually create paths, feather the resulting selections, then apply the Burn and Dodge tools to create the highlights, shadows and creases in the material. I also lightened the man's shirt sleeves to match the lighter blue of his shirt collar.
I then extracted the bunny slippers from their background and placed them over the man's black shoes, after erasing the bottom parts of his shoes that showed from beneath the slippers. Then I added the shadow between the slippers, similar to that which appeared in the original stock art of the slippers.
Using a screen shot of Dako's current website home page I pasted the image into the laptop's screen, adjusting the corners to match using the Free Transform tool.
Here I pasted in Dako's logo and the graphic at the bottom right, then adjusted the red in the bunny slippers to more closely match the red of the logo.
In the final image (below) I included the copy.
InDesign Tables: Strengths and Limitations
An InDesign table can be a compelling way to present data. Rows can be colored alternatively, and text can be precisely positioned within its cells. Cells can be merged and split, and rules can be added. The table below uses all the aforementioned features.
The maximum height of the cell can be fixed, to avoid oversetting text inside it. But for some reason the absolute minimum height of the table cell is predefined as well, so that the cell/row height cannot be very small. For the table below, the minimum cell height limitation does not pose a problem, due to the fact that the number of rows on the page, or the number of listings, does not exceed the page height. The row height is in fact somewhat greater than InDesign's minimum table row height.
In the two pages, shown below in a spread, it was impractical to use tabled, since the number of rows needed to be presented on each page would have exceeded the pages' height. Also, it being unnecessary to use alternating colored rows, I instead chose to use tabbed lines of text where I could independtently control the paragraph line spacing so as to neatly fit all the data on each page.
The checkboxes are in the Wingding font. The headers and footers are part of the master page spread. The colored columns and rows are long boxes placed behind the text.
In comparison, the page below is a tabled version of the above-left page. Note that several lines had to be removed from the bottom of the page, due to the cell/row height limitation of InDesign's tables. In the table below the colored boxes were filled rows and columns, as defined within InDesign table cell options.
