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Check out these short film images:

Behind the scenes of Writing for Film & Television Port Short, “7 Day Work Week”


Image by vancouverfilmschool

Behind the scenes of Writing for Film & Television Port Short, “7 Day Work Week”


Image by vancouverfilmschool

Behind the scenes of Writing for Film & Television Port Short, “Dinner and a Show”


Image by vancouverfilmschool

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by 531///

Question by You-Know-Who: Adobe Illustrator CS2: How do you remove the white background behind a picture, when importing it?
Adobe Illustrator CS2: How do you remove the white background behind a picture, when importing it?

I completly removed the background from a picture with Photoshop, but when I import it into Illustrator, I always end up with that same white background behinds my picture. How do I eliminate this, and just leave the picture itself?

Thank you.

Best answer:

Answer by goatboy
When saving the picture from photoshop, save it as a .png file, then you can remove the background and have the image sat on a layer of transparency as opposed to the white background (presumably you’re currently saving it as a .jpeg right?)

Give your answer to this question below!

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Youtube tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1RT81kW2x8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8eLQIwVHKs

Tutorial overview:
A successful logo design needs to be both professional and functional. It might be the first piece of branding someone sees relating to a company, so it should make a positive impression. So Iâ??ll share my techniques and experience in Logo Design behind the Scenes. I walks through the fundamental decisions, such as what information to include, what size and orientation the logo should have, and whether to use in corporate identity, TV production, Web publishing. I demonstrate how to set up a template and work with type alignment and color. Also discusses animation techniques and preparing the file for printing, TV production, Web Publishing. How to integrate and fill the gap between 6 software is my goal in this tutorial. I’ll use Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe after Effects, Adobe Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver.

Topics covered:

Quick Sketching
Logo Exploration
Logo Modeling
Producing Logo to several illustrators formats
Animation approach
Animation Composition
Web Animation and production

Chapters:

Part 1
01: Intro Goals
02: 1st stage Sketching ideas
03: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Rendering and Detail Design.
04: Put the logo into Layout
05: Illustration stage
06: 2nd stage animation

Part 2
07: animation composition and finalize exporting HD
08: 3rd stage Web Production
09: Final Design, animation inside HTML page.

Details:
01: Intro Goals
In the first stage we have a look to our goals before we start working to know who exactly we should do. We will prepare our logo to be ready for printing, TV production and Web Publishing. As a designing apprentice I have always asked myself what is the best method for designing something or that particular logo. It is evident that you can apply different methods for doing the same logo, but the quality of the output might vary according to the method you use.

02: 1st stage Sketching ideas
Then the process of swirling out your ideas begins. It doesn’t matter if the sketch looks like monotone; you are just throwing ideas down onto a white blank page at the moment. I used tablet here. Just try to find ideas and concepts using balance. What I mean with balance is our logo should be physically balanced inside our design. Just imagine if you create that logo in real life with clay or wood and try to put it on a flat surface it should be stable balanced. Once I had placed some ideas down on paper you can scan them in and dive into your image editor of choice if you would like. I’m using Adobe Photoshop for this one. The method I use to create logo could be wildly different from someone else so go with whatever method feels comfortable. The end result will be a series of scaled resources that the OS will use in different views.

03: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Rendering and Detail Design.

Modeling
For a non-organic bending object such as the subject of this tutorial it is wise to use polygonal modeling unless you care about the quality. Polygon modeling has always fascinated me especially with the accuracy it provides for making industrial models and its flexibility. The good thing about Autodesk Maya is that it provides both a strong NURBS system and a multi-optional NURBS to polygon conversion dialog, where by we can convert our detailed NURBS model to a polygonal object with the desired number of faces.

The aim of this tutorial is to provide a practical guide for the novice Polygon modeler, whereby he/she can practice the basic methods through designing a somewhat complex object. Of course, this tutorial does not cover all Polygon commands but rather most of them.

Now observe and contemplate the above sketching image for a moment; try to visualize it from front, the front view: that’s the key point in making the logo.

First we will begin with a set of primitives for different logo parts. I make a sphere (polygon sphere) then 4 twisted cubes. To make twisted cubes in Maya it’s just easy. Make a cube then go to deformers panel and use the twisting toll. After made a 1 twisted cube, duplicate it 3 times with 90 degrees. Then put them together to fitting in the sphere.

That’s exactly my idea represented. I have a point in this logo which I can say the sphere represent the red word and the 4 twisted cubes represent how mush it’s secured.

The next step is to create mental ray subdivision from approximation editor panel. I like to make the N subdivision as a 2.000 points for sure that’s give me a good smoothed mesh and also at any time I can go back and make any changes in low poly mode.

Texturing
The texturing stage is the most important part. Everyone who’s worked before with 3D texturing knows that every texture have an advantage and disadvantage. We can see that the Lambert shading absorb lights. Also we knows about the phonge shade it’s reflect lights with angels and have a different characterizes instead of blinn shade.

So I render the logo 3 times 1 with blinn shade, 2 with mia_material and phong shades. By this way we mention that we have the logo in 3 different characteristic so we can use this 3 together in later steps.

Lighting and Rendering
Let’s talk about lights. I use in this scene 9 lights. Our goal in lights is how to use a minimal number of area and point lights to recreate all direct and indirect light sources for a logo. They are 8 area lights and 1 point light. The 8 area lights have a very small intensity. Also I used the white light color. In This technique we use Global Illumination and Final Gather.

Final step in lighting and rendering is to render the logo in 3 different images every image with a different shade.

04: Put the logo into Layout
lets go to Adobe Photoshop and open the 3 images we exported from Maya. Actually I like to export images as a .TIF images. Taking the 3 images and put it together in Adobe Photoshop blind them together. I used overlay blinding mode. Then finish by company name and the caption.

Also I simulate a deep shadow behind the logo. Its give me a nice look.

In this stage if u would like to represent that logo to the client u have or to your boss. That’s will fair enough.

05: Illustration stage
For the first time I present this tutorial someone ask me… hay the logo u created now is fine but do u think is it ready for print in big scale like billboards?..

Actually it’s a very good question because for sure we need the logo to be ready in everything from print to TV production to web production as we agreed in statge1. So I’ll start now to give u my approach for how to export our logo as a vector (scalable) shape. We will go back to Maya and use logo model and exporting into a different illustrator types. I used here Maya vector render and I use some options like
Curve tolerance and detail level to end up with different logo versions. 1 with dark colors, bright colors, and wire frame, etcâ?¦ everything is vector we can export it as an AI file and import it to adobe illustrator. Easily u will find that our logo is now ready to use it in printing elements safely if we need to print it in higher printing elements or huge billboard.
We finished now the stage 1 which is creating a 3d logo ready for print production.

06: 2nd stage animation
Okay… Let’s animate. We will go back to Maya and starts animate our logo. I start by prepare my timeline with 72 frame. This will give me 3 seconds (24X3=72). Animate the sphere shrink in then shrink out until its stop. Then about the 4 twisted cubes I animate it in 360 digress reversed. So it’s give me a very nice effect. So what we have now is shrink sphere and 4 rotated cubes. I think it’s Looks good for me now. For sure I’ll go to the timeline and play the frames fast, slow, reversed, etc… Check if anything looks weird or out of scene.

So we have now 72 frames let’s render it in .PNG sequence of images. And have a look for the animation when it’s finish render.

07: animation composition and finalize exporting HD
So we end now with 72 PNG sequences of images. If u thinks about composition for sure we will think about Adobe after Effects. You can import the 72 images directly to Adobe after Effects but in this tutorial I convert this sequence to 1 MOV file using quick time. So I open quick time then open the sequence of image and save as a MOV file.
So let’s import the MOV file to Adobe after Effects and start composition. First effect I have used is the auto level effect. It’s just makes the logo looks fine and has a deep look. Also I just check some other effects like rippling and bouncing and I end up with the 3D rippling animation. I make a radial gradient for the background to give me nice look when the logo animate. So I’m happy for what I end up with now

Let’s render our MOV file from Adobe after Effects and finally the logo now composite fine and ready for TV production.

09: 3rd stage Web Production
After we have our composite MOV file let we think about web animation. Actually Adobe Flash is the solution. First I prepare my stage in Adobe Flash 640X480 as we rendered our files and also prepare my timeline and frame rate 24 FPS. Now we are ready to import our animation file. But the MOV file has a huge size and we shouldn’t use it for web. That does will take a lot of time in loading. So I think about converting this file to FLV file using Adobe Flash CS3 Video Encoder. Start encoding and we have now a small FLV file. So import the FLV file and check it in Adobe Flash. After everything is looks fine and small size the only one problem is the frames looping. So I add one Action Script behavior to stop the animation when it’s finished (played for 1 time). So our file now ready for publishing from Adobe Flash we will end up with HTML file contained the flash SWF file.

10: Final Design, animation inside HTML page.
The last step in our entire tutorial is to open the HTML into Adobe Dreamweaver and center the flash object (SWF file) and we can easily type welcome to red secure website and it’s now ready for Web Production.

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What do I do to make this work? What margins? Paper size? Top? Bottom? Left? Right? Gutter? I’ve tried everything that I know & I cannot seem to get it to fit in the center of this invitation.

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If you are an American and grew up attending school in the United States, you were taught the lesson of how Betsy Ross sewed together the first American flag in 1776. But how many recall exactly what the stripes, the stars and the colors represent?

Believe it or not, the colors red, white, and blue didn’t have any significance when the flag was adopted in 1777. The Continental Congress actually passed a resolution on July 4, 1776 which authorized a committee to come up with a seal for the United States of America. That committee was instructed to create a design that reflected the Founding Fathers’ beliefs of values and independence for the new Nation. It wasn’t until the seal was completed and approved on June 20, 1782 that the national colors and symbols on the American flag had any defined meaning. The explanation for the flag’s design, taken from a book written by the House of Representatives during that time, is as follows:

The Stripes – White to denote purity and innocence – Red to represent hardiness and valor

The Field – Blue for vigilance, perseverance and justice

The Star – “…a symbol of the heavens and the divine goal to which man has aspired from time immemorial; the stripe is symbolic of the rays of light emanating from the sun.”

In 1777, the number of stripes was congressionally mandated to stand at thirteen to represent the original thirteen colonies, however, designs throughout America still varied greatly. A hero of the War of 1812 and Naval Officer named Samuel Chester Reid got together with New York Congressman Peter H. Wendover in 1818 and initiated a bill to establish uniformity for the design of the American flag. Samuel Reid was the person who actually suggested that stars be added as new states were admitted into the Union. That bill was passed on April 4, 1818.

Over the years, there have been twenty-seven versions of the flag. The current design dates to July 4, 1960, when Hawaii became the United States of America’s 50th state.

You should fly your flag from sunrise to sunset, especially on suggested holidays and any additional state and local holidays, but only if weather permits:

New Year’s Day, January 1 * Inauguration Day, January 20 * Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, 3rd Mon in Jan * Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12 * Washington’s Birthday, 3rd Mon in Feb * Patriots Day, * Armed Forces Day, 3rd Sat in May * Memorial Day (half-staff until noon), last Mon in May Flag Day, June 14 * Independence Day, July 4th * Labor Day, 1st Mon in Sep
Constitution Day, September 17 * Columbus Day, October 12th * Navy Day, October 27 * Veterans Day, November 11 * Thanksgiving Day, 4th Thu in November.

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The famous name of ‘Old Glory’ was originated in 1831 by Captain William Driver, a shipmaster from Salem, Massachusetts. As he was leaving on one of his many voyages aboard his ship the ‘Charles Doggett’, his friends presented him with a beautiful flag of twenty four stars. As the banner opened and waved in the ocean breeze for the first time, he cried out “Old Glory!” By the time the Civil War broke out, just about everybody in and around Nashville, where he had retired in 1837, recognized Captain Driver’s banner as “Old Glory.” William Driver’s grave rests in the old Nashville City Cemetery and is one of only three places authorized by an act of Congress where the Flag of the United States can be flown 24 hours a day – quite an honor.

Although schools around the country had already been celebrating the American flag’s ‘birthday’ on June 14 every year for over 30 years, it wasn’t until August 3, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th as National Flag Day.

During the War of 1812, a young lawyer and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key wrote what later became the United State’s National Anthem. While witnessing the final enemy attack on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, he became greatly inspired by the flag’s survival through the bombings and fires. He wrote his verses on the back of a letter he had in his pocket and after his brother had the words published, it immediately became popular across the country. In October of that year, a Baltimore actor sang Mr. Key’s song in a public performance calling it “The Star-Spangled Banner”. History had been made and finally, on March 3, 1931, his song was adopted as our national anthem.

As a child growing up in the United States, you learned to pledge your allegiance to the American flag. But did you know, that after all the current controversy about omitting the ‘Under G-d’ part, that the original pledge went like this: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands – one nation indivisible – with liberty and justice for all.” Ironic, isn’t it? But true nonetheless. That original Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy on September 8, 1892. Bellamy was a circulation manager in Rome, New York and printed those words on thousands of leaflets that were sent out to public schools across the country. Then, on October 12, 1892, more than 12 million children recited the Pledge of Allegiance in their morning classes, thereby beginning a mandatory school-day ritual.

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During elections many people complain about political parties. But, there is mathematical explanation behind why political parties exist and how they can help our votes count. Created for: Mathematics Awareness Month Contest Theme: What does Math and Voting mean to you? Credits: Free Clip Art from free-clipart.net and 1clipart.com

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