Fusing side by side images takes a bit of practice. In visual perception research, it comes in handy almost daily when reading journal articles with examples of stereo images. It’s also a handy ability to have when you see one of those puzzles where you have to say, what is the difference between these two pictures? If they are presented side by side, you can fuse them and answer the question effortlessly.

I still stand by my words: I like all the variations that you and Steve displayed.

I’ll offer a variation on Steve’s coding of the side-by-side display of images on Monday when I discuss what’s up with the new art blogs we are experimenting with.

re: screen version versus live version: interesting conundrum. As someone (Steve?) mentioned, the screen versions are all relative to one another — that is, we started with the original jpg and cloned or sprayed or cropped using it. So no radical changes among the screen version occurred.

However, I’ve been re-working the live version using the screen as both a printing tool and a model, and I’ve run across some different challenges.

Painting from hard copies of the screen changes, I can deepen/darken/blue the internal sections without much difficulty because I can adjust according to the (live) surrounds. It’s mostly a matter of instinct and experience (and an ability to go with the flow of the paint). Those changes have a lot of flexibility and instinct attached to what will make them work best and that fits my “live” work.

However, printing on linen with a pigment based printer, I haven’t yet gotten a good reproduction of the side panels, or at least a good enough version that I can use use it at the top. This is the larger test of accuracy — there’s simply less flexibility in the outcome needed.

The outcome problem consists of too many variables, having to do with the original tiff image, the monitor settings, the calibration between monitor and printer, and the textile on which the printing is taking place.

This problem isn’t insurmountable (I’m good at fudging and there’s some flex in techniques and I haven’t tried everything I know how to do with the printer). But it could be that a certain amount of “temperamental” flexibility would be important — that is, students would have to know that what they see on the screen could be inaccurate; comparing a particular blue against a particular orange, for example, could vary depending on monitor differences. And could vary when set up against live pantotone samples, if you were running the Itten processes, for example.

By the way, I photograph my work in progress all the time.Partly this just gives me the kind of view that looking at a piece in a mirror or from a distance would give me. But also I can play around with changes I might be thinking of making. The digital camera gives me instant access to the image and I can get some sense, if only crudely, about possible options. It makes me wonder if putting this auditioning process into a workshop or short course might not be very helpful to students.

All that said, I have to reiterate — I think this process will save a (fairly important)piece that I wanted to save but was feeling hopeless about. The computer-generated frames that allowed moving the piece around on the monitor was important. but equally important were the live eyes that Steve (and Karl and Birgit) brought to bear on the piece. If it wasn’t true collaborative work (and David, I think you are right about that), it certainly was a valuable way to get a peer-to-peer critique that allowed for the “what if….” questions to be checked out.

June’s textile art is gorgeous.

I had not trouble picking out which version of the perhaps 10 or more of Mountains that I liked best. It was immediately obvious to me, perhaps because I had some very specific intentions as well as specific criticisms of the piece. And Steve picked up other areas where I was uneasy but hadn’t articulated my unease even to myself. As soon as I saw what he was doing, I knew it was going in the right direction.

The idea of incorporating this into the blog system is an exciting one. Go for it, Karl. (I’m still struggling to get the basic test blog up to speed). Steve gave me the code to make the page that allows the scrolling on both sides, but I haven’t ventured to try it yet.

And, the crossing of the eyes to give a sculptural version is definitely something I would like to try. I’ll have to wait, though, to do it in the privacy of my own, ahem, room.

An alternative viewing method that pops out changes is to have the image change when you mouse over it. That’s better for some purposes, but I set up the viewer to show two images at the same time.

Steve,
Yes. Good point about the color not having to be correct. Of course the color on the screen is different from the real live color, but obviously June still finds this exercise useful.

June, any thoughts on the experience of the screen version versus the live verison of your piece?