Art beyond the lens : working with digital textures / by Sarah Gardner.

Machine generated contents note: chapter 1 Back to Art -- An artist's journey -- A question of art -- Painters who influenced my style -- Minimalism: Hidden in the absence of detail -- Painting with a digital canvas -- Discovering textures -- Gaining confidence to work intuitively -- chapter 2 A Working Style -- How textures bring nostalgia and emotion to my work -- A question of inspiration or influence -- Developing a signature style -- chapter 3 Shooting with Textures in Mind -- Negative space and the right composition -- Backgrounds -- How light and dark backgrounds work differently -- From plain to textured -- Working with bokeh -- Shooting with natural light -- Why is it important to shoot with textures in mind? -- chapter 4 Digital Textures Explained -- The right textures -- What is a digital texture? -- Don't judge a book -- Making textures from the right source material -- Processing textures -- How scale is important -- Varying scale -- Layers, blend modes, and opacity.

Blend modes explained -- Tints and color casts -- Pictorial layers -- chapter 5 Processing Insights -- How to prepare an image for texturing -- Identifying my image -- Lightening with a Screen Blend -- Reducing image contrast -- Increasing clarity -- Final adjustments and fine tuning -- Levels Adjustments -- First Save -- Processing with textures -- Pure texture -- Effective texture removal -- Using a mask layer effectively -- The "paint away" technique -- Processing example -- The "paint away" technique on a single texture -- Layering multiple textures -- The "paint away" technique on multiple textures -- Flatten -- Beyond the textured -- Gradient Fills -- Processing example -- Introducing Gradient Fills -- Gradient fills on extreme backgrounds -- Levels RGB tinting -- Black-and-white conversion -- Solid color layers -- Background color layers -- Finish with a curves adjustment -- Final sharpen and save -- Example recipes -- Last word on processing.

Ch. 6 Photography Insights -- ISO settings -- Keep ISO settings as low as possible to reduce unwanted image noise -- Aperture priority -- Work in AV (aperture priority) mode to ensure shallow depth of field -- Prime lenses -- Get moving with prime lenses and vary shooting angles -- Exposure -- Slightly overexpose to keep photograph's light and colors vibrant -- White balance -- Customize white balance to avoid overly warm or "yellowed" greens and skin tones -- Lighting -- Identify the right light for the job -- Composition -- Consider backgrounds, middle grounds, and foregrounds -- Focus -- Self-select the auto focal points for precision focusing -- chapter 7 Presentation and Design Work -- Introducing digital papers and design ideas -- Client storyboard presentation -- Client work, weddings, and portrait shoots.