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Free Software Downloads: Bryce, Daz Studio, and Hexagon

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Bryce, Hexagon, DAZ Studio Free Download

Saturday I learned that DAZ (Digital Art Zone) is making available the following software as free downloads until February 29:

Bryce 7 Pro 3D Landscape Software (retail price $249.95)
Hexagon 2.5 3D Modeling Software (retail price $149.95)
DAZ Studio 4 Pro 3D Software (Winner of 3D World’s 2011 Software Innovation of the Year Award) (retail price $429.95)
3D Photoshop Bridge (retail price $199.00)

In addition there are a number of free models and textures available as well. The total retail price of the basket of software, models, and textures that I downloaded was $1,350. The one requirement is that you subscribe to their newsletter - meaning you give them your email address.

Note that your order will show up in the Available Downloads link from your Account Dashboard and that you are allowed 4 downloads of each product you have ordered. The serial numbers for your software are retrieved separately via the Available Serial Numbers link. All downloads are in the form of executable files. The largest downloads are:

Bryce 7 Content - 670 meg
Daz Studio 4 32-bit - 441 meg
Daz Studio 4 64-bit - 439 meg
Bryce 7 Pro - 254 meg

I’ve never used Hexagon or DAZ Studio Pro but Bryce was the first 3D software I ever used - back when it was version 3. I haven’t used it in years but I still have a large collection of Bryce files and it would be nice to perhaps resurrect some of them. The name is taken from Bryce Canyon, which I had the pleasure of visiting a few years ago (there’s a photo of me at Bryce on the bottom of my home page). The first version of Bryce was released as a Mac only product in 1994. Version 3.1 of Bryce 3D was released in 1997 by MetaCreations Corporation - this was when I first purchased Bryce. Bryce was acquired by the Corel Corporation in 2000 who released version 5 of Bryce in 2001. Bryce was sold to DAZ in 2004 who has gone on to release versions 5.5 and 6.0 with Bryce 7 being released in 2010. Bryce 3D has always been looked down upon as a package for newbies with limited capabilities. While these criticisms are true, it’s important to remember that for many digital artists, Bryce was what opened the door for them to explore the world of 3D graphics software. It’s low price and easy-to-learn interface made it a perfect software solution for those digital artists looking to get their feet wet.

Hexagon is a tool for creating 3D models. According to the DAZ web site:

Hexagon delivers all the tools a graphic artist needs to create detailed 3D models ready for final render. Packed with features such as; DAZ Studio Bridge, sculpted primitives, freehand modeling brushes, micro-displacement modeling tools, comprehensive UV-mapping modules, advanced 3D paint, and instant ambient occlusion. Hexagon provides you with all the options of expensive competitor software, but at an affordable price.

I’m not sure what to make of 3D Photoshop Bridge. The DAZ web site describes it as a " DAZ Studio plug-in designed to connect the power of Photoshop with the unlimited content possibilities of DAZ Studio. It’s the next step to maximizing your creativity. It will also save you money by eliminating the need for costly photo shoots and stock imagery, save you time with quicker rendering, and save your brain by swiftly and easily integrating the best features of DAZ Studio and Photoshop…Easily pose characters and objects three-dimensionally with the 3D Photoshop Bridge while in DAZ Studio,"

Of course it would help if I knew more about Daz Studio. In this case, download first then investigate was my motto. According to DAZ:

DAZ Studio is a feature rich 3D figure customization, posing, and animation tool that enables anyone to create stunning digital illustrations and animations. DAZ Studio is the perfect tool to design unique digital art and animations using virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, accessories, environments and more. Simply select your subject and/or setting, arrange accessories, setup lighting, and begin creating beautiful artwork.

The free 3D software is available via download only from DAZ3D.com between now and February 29, 2012:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d/free-3d-software-overview

Product Links:

Note that there are a number of video tutorials available for Bryce, Hexagon, and DAZ Studio on YouTube.

Here’s to happy and creative computing. Jim

Tags: Bryce, DAZ, free software download, Hexagon, studio pro
Posted in Computing, Digital Art, Graphics Software, computer art | No Comments »

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New Algorithmic Art and a Processing Tutorial

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Aftermath Digital Painting, 32 x 16 inches

All in all this has been a very good day. It started too early when my alarm went off at 6:00am. While fixing my son’s lunch, I hit upon the following limerick, a testament to having gotten too little sleep (I didn’t go to bed till after 1:00am):

My alarm goes off at six o’clock
It always comes as quite a shock
There in bed I wish to lay
But I have to rise and face the day
Gee I hope I don’t get artist’s block

Seeing my son off to school and with coffee in hand I settled in at the computer. I began by putting the finishing touches on the web pages for my series of five works of algorithmic art titled Cubic Disarray. Fortunately most of the work was done for me by a program I wrote to fill in a skeleton art gallery web page with the relevant data from a control file. This program also produces the XML entries for my sitemap.xml and newsfeed.xml files. The five works in the Cubic Disarray series are:

Cubic Disarray: Division	Cubic Disarray: Bisection	Cubic Disarray: Impending Unity
Cubic Disarray: Point of Radiance	Cubic Disarray: Turbulence

When I decided yesterday that I was going to add these to my web site and make them available for purchase, I knew that I wanted to give credit to Georg Nees, whose work Schotter was the inspiration for my series. My idea quickly snowballed out of control. My first impulse was to just give a line of credit on each page. My next impulse was to create a web page dedicated to Schotter (German for gravel). I then decided to write a program using Processing that would recreate Schotter. Once I had the program written, it seemed only natural to turn it into a tutorial.

This morning I finished work on the tutorial and published it, along with the Cubic Disarray series to my web site. Included in the tutorial are a side by side comparison of Nees’ original Schotter and the Processing recreation. If you are a Processing user or are just curious to learn about algorithmic art, then check out my Georg Nees, Processing, and a Schotter Tutorial

In other good news I heard from an art gallery in Chicago today that is interested in my art. Hopefully we’ll be a good match for each other. Right now some of my space art is being exhibited and is available for purchase from Paper Crown Gallery located in Arlington Heights.

Lastly and best of all I completed two digital paintings today. Now one of these, titled City Lights, I started today and finished today. The other painting, titled Aftermath, I only finished today. Believe it or not I actually began this piece in April 2009 and last worked on it in April 2009. For almost three years this piece sat collecting electronic dust before I quite by accident rediscovered it earlier today. At 16 x 32 inches, Aftermath is one of my larger pieces and I have used it to illustrate this post.

So today was definitely a day without artist’s block. But who knows what tomorrow holds.

Tags: algorithmic art, Nees, Processing, Schotter, tutorial
Posted in Algorithmic Art, Art and Artists, Digital Art, Limericks, computer art | No Comments »

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New Art

Friday, January 6th, 2012

Autumn Mountains Digital Art Painting
Autumn Mountains Digital Painting

I last wrote about my creating a database for my art (see Creating An Art Inventory). As a part of that process I made a New Year’s resolution to get all my art added to my web site. Given the large number of digital paintings that I have to add, I decided to write a C++ program to create the needed gallery pages. The program works by pulling the relevant data from a control file created from my art inventory and writing that information to a skeleton gallery page. I’m happy to say it worked like a charm.

The first two paintings I’ve added are:

Autumn Mountains

Portrait of Amie

Portrait of Amie (a cropped version is shown here) is the final version in a series of paintings I made while developing and testing a digital painting program that employs what I refer to as an algorithmic paintbrush. This painting was particularly challenging because not only was I developing a work of art but I was simultaneously developing the painting program to create that art.

Autumn Mountains came to me unexpectedly. I was flipping through my copy of The Atlas of Middle Earth and paused on a page with a map of Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) and Grey Havens. It brought to mind the line art of J. R. R. Tolkien used to illustrate my very old copy of The Lord of the Rings. With that style in mind, I created the foreboding, fantasy landscape Autumn Mountains. Note that a wallpaper sized version is available from the Autumn Mountains gallery page.

More art to follow so stay tuned.

Tags: art, landscape, portrait
Posted in Digital Art, Portrait Art | No Comments »

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Digital Art and Unintended Consequences

Monday, December 12th, 2011

An example of unintended consequences in digital art

Yesterday I was working on an image processing program to use as a part of my art creation workflow. I was writing a program to texturize an image so that I could incorporate the output as a layer in a Photoshop document.

As a part of the development process, I decided to use as the source image the painting Paris Street, Rainy Day by French artist Gustave Caillebotte. This is the same image that I used to serve as the "discovered" painting for my article and applet Particle Painting: Name That Painting.

To create the look I was after I needed to use the third dimension, aka the z axis. The addition of the z axis made it possible for me to use that axis as the source of distortion while keeping the correct color information in the x,y plane. Using 3D also allowed me to rotate the image relative to the "camera" thus introducing another level of distortion.

All was going well until I made one small change to the variable I was using to control the distortion along the z axis. This single change took what had been output that was recognizable as the source image and produced an image that was completely unrecognizable. I’ve used a cropped version of that output to illustrate this post. Below is a side by side comparison of the source image that my program used as input and the resulting output.

Caillebotte's Paris Street, Rainy Day before and after
Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day before and after.

This can not be called an algorithmic oops or a glitch. Rather it is a case of parametric discovery. It is this discovery opportunity, whether by design or by accident, that makes digital art such an interesting and revolutionary arena for artistic creation.

It remains to be seen whether or not I will ever make use of this program in a production environment. Even if I don’t, what I learned during the process will serve me well in the future. So remember the golden rule of digital art: never be afraid to experiment.

Ad Astra, Jim

Tags: 3D, Caillebotte, image processing
Posted in Computing, Digital Art, computer art | No Comments »

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Art Exhibit and Web Site Updates

Monday, April 4th, 2011

Fremont Public Library in Mundelein IL

I must say that 2011 has not been a good year for posting to my blog. Looking back, I can see that my pace has slackened significantly from what it was in the past. If you visit my Facebook page - Artsnova Art of Jim Plaxco you’ll see that my postings there have been equally erratic. There are so many things going on and just not enough time for all of them.

However, I have been continuing to make additions to the Artsnova web site. Specifically, this year I’ve added:

a Digital Self Portrait to the Portrait Art Gallery,
a portrait of Elizabeth Taylor to the Portrait Art Gallery,
a Free IPAD Algorithmic Art Wallpaper Gallery,
Night Life - an abstract digital photo art to the Abstract Art Gallery,
a digital painting Sea Life Fantasy to the Nature Art Gallery,
A Gallery of Live Art Created at the Capricon Science Fiction Convention,
a new presentation Live Art to the Art Lectures Index,
an article Painting with Sound and Glitch Art.

With respect to my art, I spent part of today setting up an art exhibit at the Fremont Public Library in Mundelein, IL. I was only able to exhibit 11 framed works of art as each of my pieces was of a decent size and I quickly filled the space available. My art will be on display in the library until July 11, 2011.

Fremont Public Library Mundelein Art Display 1st Floor

The art on the first floor is in an excellent location from a visibility perspective. Upon entering the library, the art is easily visible. Note that additional wall space is reserved for another artist who is also a member of the Northwest Cultural Council Corporate Art Gallery Program. Fortunately the display space I received is slightly larger and better positioned than the alternate space.

Fremont Public Library Mundelein Art Display 2nd Floor

The art space on the second floor is much smaller and not so well positioned. However, as it turns out my art is located right next to the tax forms so for the next week or so it should be seen by lots of folks who, like myself, have waited to the last minute to do their taxes.

In other news, I’ll be speaking at the DucKon Science Fiction Convention in June and will also be in their art show. Because of that, I decided to not display any of my astronomical art or space art at the library.

I still don’t know if I’ll be able to attend the 2011 International Space Development Conference. While I did do a presentation about space art at last year’s conference, I did not submit any proposals this year due to not being certain of being able to attend. Missing the ISDC would be quite unfortunate as I am on the Board of Directors for the National Space Society and it is at the ISDC that one of the two annual board meetings is held.

To close, I leave you with a quote from scientist and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke: "The astronomical artist will always be far ahead of the explorer. They can depict scenes that no human eye will ever see, because of their danger, or their remoteness in time and space."

Tags: art exhibit, fremont public library, Space Art
Posted in Art Shows, Art and Artists, Digital Art, Space Art | No Comments »

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Capricon Science Fiction Convention 2011 Debriefing

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Capricon Live Art Sound Art Landscape
Capricon Live Art Program - Sound Art Landscape

The Capricon Science Fiction Convention was held at the Wheeling Westin Feb. 10 thru Feb 13. I arrived Thursday evening for my first panel - Requiem for the Space Shuttle. Along with fellow panelists Bill Higgins, Tracy Lunquist, and Henry Spencer, we discussed the history of the space shuttle program and its impact on space exploration. We also spent some time talking about the future of human access to space and the commercial revolution that will make it possible for private citizens to buy tickets for trips to space, i.e. space tourism. Our discussion lasted for over 90 minutes with lots of input from an enthusiastic audience.

Live Art

For me, the highlight of my participation in Capricon was my Friday morning Live Art presentation. My presentation opened with a demonstration of one of my programs for taking sound input from a microphone and processing that sound in order to create visual imagery. This was followed by my presentation which explored the subjects of algorithmic art, conceptual art, the question of is computer art art, and an explanation of my methodologies and the programming tools that I used to create the various programs. In fact a reasonable part of my presentation could be considered as a sales pitch for the field of computer art. My presentation was followed by the "show" - which involved running a number of different programs I had written to convert sound into art and letting the audience have their way with the microphone. Several of the artworks we created can be seen at A Gallery of Live Art Created at the Capricon Science Fiction Convention. The point that I sought to drive home was that while the sounds being generated by the audience were largely the same, the way in which they were interpreted visually varied tremendously based on the algorithm being used to translate the sound waves into visual imagery. For information about Live Art and my other presentations, see my Art Lectures page.

The Art of Space Exploration

Saturday morning I gave my The Art of Space Exploration presentation which provides an overview of the history of space art - beginning with early astronomical art and concluding with a discussion of space art from an artist’s business perspective. I included a couple of my own works in the presentation, including Shattered Dreams, a piece that I created as political commentary on the cancellation of NASA’s planned return of humans to the Moon and which was the cover art for the 2010 International Space Development Conference Program Book.

Capricon Odds and Ends

The rest of the weekend was spent either in conversation in the halls or over food, or attending panels on a variety of subjects. Unfortunately for me, the three programs I most wanted to see at the convention were scheduled in the same time slots as when I was speaking. My surprise meet-up of the convention was with fellow space artist John Kaufmann. This was the first time I had met John face to face - our previous meetings were of the virtual variety. John had some great astronomical art in the convention’s art show. We had a wonderful time talking shop and otherwise. Dinner Saturday consisted of an outing to a local mexican restaurant with Tullio Proni, maker of ray guns and other fine energy weapons; Bill Higgins, a beam jockey at Fermi Lab; and Nora. The other convention highlight was attending the Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog which indeed lived up to its name. In short, I had a fine, fun time at the con.

The Illustration

To illustrate this blog post, I combined two of the artworks created during the Live Art program in Photoshop and performed some additional image manipulation on them to create an abstract landscape. I also use this piece to illustrate A Gallery of Live Art Created at the Capricon Science Fiction Convention.

Referenced Links

Tags: Capricon, computer art, live art, science fiction convention, Space Art
Posted in Algorithmic Art, Digital Art, Presentations, SF Cons, Space Art, computer art | No Comments »

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Tweet A Processing Sketch

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

A Processing sketch to illustrate this post

If you check out my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/digitalart), you will note that in the past I created a limerick that fit within the 140 character limit Twitter imposes.

A while back there was a Processing Tiny Sketch Competition in which the Processing community was challenged to create a complete Processing sketch with a 200 character limit for the Processing program. That contest was hosted by Rhizome (you can visit my Rhizome account).

This got me to thinking: what about creating a Processing sketch that could be tweeted. If you haven’t heard of Processing, it is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Processing is built on Java and the Java programming language is available to Processing users. It’s a wonderful programming environment for artists and programmers alike. You can see what many folks have done with Processing at the OpenProcessing web site.

So my challenge to myself was to write an entire Processing program using less than 140 characters and I wanted the resulting image to be dynamic rather than a static. Fortunately Processing is quite flexible and there are a number of ways to shrink a program. Before explaining my methodology, here is the full unshortened version of the Processing program source code:

// declare integer variables
int x;    // x for horizontal pixel coordinate
int y;    // y for vertical pixel coordinate
int r=100;// r holds default screen size

// Setup() function is executed once at program start
void setup() {
  size(100,100); // Set the screen size
  background(0); // Set background color to black
}

// The draw() function executes continuously
void draw() {
  // Cycle through every value of x
  for(x=0;x<r;x++) {
   // For each x, cycle through every value of y
   for(y=0;y<r;y++) {
     // Set the pixel at x,y to the specified color
     set(x,y,color(frameCount*r*sin(frameCount*x),
             20*r*cos(frameCount*y),
             r*frameCount*cos(x)));
   }
 }
}

And here is the Twitter optimized version:

int x,y,r=100,t=1;void draw(){for(x=0;x<r;x++)for(y=0;y<r;y++)set(x,y,color(t*r*sin(t*x),20*r*cos(t*y), r*t*cos(x)));t++;}

The program is just 121 characters long. I’ve named this program Scottish Tartan as the output resembles a tartan. There’s a nice tie in as I am part-Scottish via the Campbell clan. Other than omitting the comments and crlfs (carriage return line feeds), there are functionally only two differences in the two programs.

I deleted the setup() function because it is optional. It is used to initialize various parameters and options and is executed just once. By removing it:
* the canvas will default to a size that is 100 pixels wide (the x dimension) by 100 pixels tall (the y dimension).
* the background color will default to gray.
* the colorMode will default to RGB with 256 possible values for each color.
I replaced the system variable frameCount with my own variable t. The frameCount variable is incremented each time the draw() function is executed. Substituting my own variable t saves characters.

Other strategies to shorten the program were to:

Keep variable names to one character (x,y,r,t)
Use the increment operator t++; instead of t=t+1;
Eliminate unnecessary for statement brackets

See the Processing program as a Twitter tweet

If you want to see what the program actually does you will need to download and install Processing. Installation is straight forward and best of all it’s free. Why not give it a try. Visit http://processing.org/ for more information and to download Processing.

Processing Books

There are a number of books that have been written about how to use Processing to create images, animations, etc. Following are books that I recommend - based on the fact that I’ve bought and used them.

In addition to the books listed above, there is a new book out on Processing that was released in August 2010. I do not have this book so can not comment on it. You may want to investigate for yourself. The book is Processing for Visual Artists: How to Create Expressive Images and Interactive Art

Merry Christmas everyone, Jim

Tags: Processing, twitter
Posted in Algorithmic Art, Computing, Digital Art, Graphics Software, computer art | No Comments »

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Grand Opening of Adobe Museum of Digital Media

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Adobe Museum of Digital Media Main Menu

Yesterday was the grand opening of the Adobe Museum of Digital Media and I was looking forward to my visit to this virtual museum of digital art. Arriving at the site - Adobe Museum of Digital Media - I found myself waiting for the museum to open in my browser. Unfortunately Adobe decided to implement their virtual museum as a completely Flash web site and that Flash file is really, really big. Even with my top of the line broadband internet connection, I had to wait some 45 seconds for the museum to open. A few browser reloads gave times in the 40-45 second range.

The museum opens with a city fly-around that focuses on the virtual museum building itself. This virtual building, a large white stylish futuristic looking building quite at odds with the surrounding cityscape, was designed by Italian Filippo Innocenti, an associate architect at Zaha Hadid Architect.

Adobe Museum of Digital Media Virtual Building
Adobe Museum of
Digital Media
Virtual Building

Upon completion of the fly-around the visitor is presented with three navigation options. One of these options is to see a message from the museum’s curator Tom Eccles, executive director and faculty member of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. The message is a brief introduction to the museum and the concept.

The second navigation option is to take a building tour. One of the sub-options, AMDM Cityscape allows you to replay the opening video. A second sub-option is Making the Impossible which opens a video describing the creation of the Adobe Museum of Digital Media with emphasis on the design of the virtual building that is meant to represent the museum.

The third navigation option is for the current exhibit. In terms of the actual art content, the current (and first and only) exhibit is Valley by Tony Oursler. I did not visit much of the exhibit because I did not find it to be particularly accessible from a user perspective.

There is also an option on various sub-pages to become a member by providing your email address and creating a user name. I joined as I am curious to observe how Adobe’s virtual museum evolves.

And Now - The Art Museum Review

My visit to the Adobe Museum of Digital Media was a disappointment. Not only does the initial page take an overly long time to load, but it also takes just as long for many of the sub-pages to load. In short, the site has a terrible time-to-content ratio - in fact the worst that I have ever experienced. Nor was I thrilled that the museum wound up kicking my laptop cooling fan into overdrive.

As to site navigation, at times it was not intuitively obvious where to click or where that click would take you. The flying eyeball that serves as your museum guide between the base pages was cool but only slowed things down more.

In conclusion, it looks like Adobe’s principal goal is to show off the virtual building they created to host the museum and to show off Flash’s visual capabilities. I think the public would have been better served if Adobe had concentrated on offering visitors a user friendly format in which to view digital art and to provide informative content in support of that art.

Visit the Adobe Museum of Digital Media

Tags: adobe, digital, Digital Art, flash, media, museum, review
Posted in Art and Artists, Digital Art | No Comments »

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Artist’s Reception And Poetry Reading in Arlington Heights IL

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Photoshop Abstract Whirlpool digital art
Photoshop Abstract Whirlpool

The Northwest Cultural Council will host an Artist’s Reception and Poetry Reading on Saturday July 17, 2010 from 1:00 to 3:00pm. Admission is free and refreshments will be served.

The artist’s reception and poetry reading will be held at the Arlington Green Executive Centre located at 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, IL.

I will be attending the artist’s reception and am looking forward to the opportunity to meet both those interested in my art as well as the other artists.

Unlike my last art exhibit at the Arlington Green Executive Centre Gallery, which consisted solely of abstract computer art, this time my works are space art and astronomical art.

The art exhibit is a part of the Northwest Cultural Council Corporate Gallery Exhibition Program. The Northwest Cultural Council’s Corporate Gallery Exhibits reflect a wide variety of media, artistic expression and vision of the artists. Artists with work on display in the art exhibit are:

Betty Morley	Arlington Heights
Mirella Scully	Mount Prospect
Min Ja Lah	Schaumburg
Carl Jalowiec	Palatine
Beverly Miotke	Roselle
Claire Vogt Wally	Barrington
Gail Baar	Buffalo Grove
Joan Brinkworth	Arlington Heights
Jim Plaxco	Schaumburg
Irene Oleksiuk	North Barrington
William Dunn	Arlington Heights
Robert Cobb	Rolling Meadows
Deanna Goldberg	Buffalo Grove

The art currently on exhibit at the Arlington Green Executive Centre will remain on display through August 2, 2010. The art can be viewed Mondays through Fridays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and Saturdays from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.

All art in the exhibit is for sale with a percentage of the sale price being a tax-deductible donation to support the activities of the Northwest Cultural Council, a not-for-profit community agency bringing visual art, music, dance, theater, poetry, and their unique “Kids Meet Art”™ program to the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

In addition to the art exhibit and the artist’s reception, there will be a poetry reading. Poets reading their work at the reception are:

Angela Narciso Torres	Glenview
Kathleen Kirk	Normal
Patricia McMillen	Oak Park
Virginia Bell	Evanston
Steven Schroeder	Chicago
Maureen Flannery	Evanston
Susanna Lang	Chicago
Helen Degen Cohen	Deerfield
Deborah Nodler Rosen	Glencoe

So if you’re in the northwest suburbs and are looking for something to do, I suggest checking out the Northwest Cultural Council’s Artist’s Reception And Poetry Reading.

The Art - Photoshop Abstract Whirlpool

Titled Photoshop Abstract Whirlpool, I created this piece this morning to serve as the illustration for this post. Strange to believe that I used as a starting point a photograph I took of baggage transport carriages at O’Hare Airport. The final piece seen here was created by using a combination of Photoshop filters, layer blends, layer styles, and adjustment layers. Isn’t digital wonderful!

Tags: artist, poetry, reading, reception
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Disappointment with Chicago Artists Coalition

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Screen shot of Chicago Artists Coalition email

Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I opened an email blast from the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC) and discovered that it contained three photographs taken from my web site. The three photos are part of a set of seven that I had taken at the Chicago Art Open Preview and Benefit Party at River East Art Center on April 20 and used to illustrate an article on my web site - Chicago Art Open Preview and Benefit Party at River East Art Center. For a view of the article in question, see this CAC email screen shot. Of the four photos shown in the screen shot, the group photo in the upper left (deliberately blurred) is not mine while the other three photos are.

Not only was I not asked if the photographs could be used but I was not given credit either. One would think that an organization representing artists would know better than to use copyrighted material without first getting permission. As a rule I’m pretty open about allowing non-profits to use my art at no cost. In fact if I had been asked by the Chicago Artists Coalition, I would have gladly said yes to letting them use the photographs. I used to be a member of this organization but did not renew as their dues continued to increase and their charge to artist members to have art shown on the CAC web site is far too expensive.

The Value of Metadata

As a rule, before posting any image to the Internet, I try to make sure that I have filled in the authorship-related fields in the image’s metadata. This consists of the Title, Author, Author Title, Description Writer, Description (if any), Copyright Status, Copyright Notice, and Copyright URL. In the case of the photographs in question, I did fill in the metadata fields. Saving the images from the CAC email to my hard drive, I opened them in Photoshop and looked at the metadata. Yep - my copyright notice was still present. (See Photoshop Metadata Illustration)

Of course there is nothing to stop someone from either removing or altering the contents of the metadata fields. For an informative article on this subject, see Why Photoshop doesn’t provide secure metadata

Watermarking Images

In the case of these particular photographs, because of their relatively small size (430 by 322) I did not bother to watermark the images. Typically I will place a textual statement on the image that is of the following format:
Picture Title - Copyright Symbol - Year - Jim Plaxco - www.artsnova.com

This watermark is semi-transparent with placement depending on the size of the image. For smaller images I locate the watermark along the bottom margin. For larger images I shift the watermark up so that it is more prominent.

Finding Your Images

A relatively new tool available for publishers of images is a search engine called TinEye. TinEye is a reverse image search tool. The user either uploads an image to TinEye or provides the URL for an image on the net. TinEye then searches its database for images that resemble the image you’ve provided and returns their URL.

Unfortunately TinEye’s database is not comprehensive. In the past I found one of my images being used by a city government (from Brazil of all places) by typing into Google the filename of my original image. Can’t say that I have tried that approach lately. And of course there is always the google image search if you have lots of time on your hands.

In Conclusion

All I can say is to be vigilant and don’t be surprised if your art or photographs show up in unlikely places. It is worth noting that copyrights are far more likely to be violated by your average Joe than by your average corporation.

Tags: copyright, image use, photography, tineye
Posted in Digital Art, Digital Photography, Photoshop, Web Design | 5 Comments »

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Digital Art and Space Blog
Reflections on Art, Computer Graphics, Photography, Space and Astronomy

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Archive for the ‘Digital Art’ Category

Free Software Downloads: Bryce, Daz Studio, and Hexagon

New Algorithmic Art and a Processing Tutorial

New Art

Digital Art and Unintended Consequences

Art Exhibit and Web Site Updates