Looking through the latest fractal images (for the last few weeks) I have a general plea to many - please spend more time getting a good final colour scheme i.e. spend more time adjusting your palettes/merging, this goes for UF, Apo and XD work. I found many forms I liked but the images where spoiled by poor colour choices ! Feel free to shout back at me if you like !!

First I must say that I think color choice is highly personal,Dave;-))) Could you tell us more specific which images you have found offending your taste in color? Evie

Hi Evie, It's not that I find them offensive, just un-appealing ! And there are far too many to list - probably more than 50% of posts actually !! This has been a trend over the last year or so - I don't remember anywhere near so many images with IMHO "poor colour" selection when I was last really active on R'osity 12-18 months ago :-) I just feel it's a shame that so many nice fractals aren't living up to their potential due to poor colour.

Hi Evie (again), I should have said that I realise colour choices are somewhat personal but I felt strongly enough about a perceived overall reduction of quality to comment.

Maybe this should be your goal. Show us what you can do! (: Most of the people that post their fractals think they look nice, or they wouldn't have posted them. Keep in mind that everyone sees things differently. IMHO the nice fractals far outnumber the off-color fractals. To each their own though.

I don't dare make a plea like Dave has, but I do agree that there are a lot of good images that could be great if the colors were different. I know that it's all up to personal taste and that these folks probably don't match my taste, which is one reason that I don't dare say anything. On the other hand, I find helpful comments to be the most flattering. If someone cares enough about me and my art to offer help, how could I possibly be insulted? If someone thinks that my colors suck, it wouldn't bother me at all to hear it. There is one person in particular who has been building some wonderful apo images - stuff that I have never seen before. In my humble opinion, if this person had better colors, he would be the best flame artist on this site. I don't dare say it though. One of my reasons for not saying it is that I know that colors can be a challenge to control in apo. UF provides gnat's ass control so it can be used as an apo gradient editor, but these flames can't be exported to UF. Too bad. These are "next level" flames - at least the shapes are. This goes back to the classic discussion about the purpose of comments, which is one that we have had 1532.345 times before. My conclusion is still that this place is more for socializing than it is for helping each other to become better artists. This is a law of physics that will never change, so make the best of it and enjoy it for what it is. The reason that it will never change is that most people are too thin skinned to accept anything but stroking and most other people are too afraid or too lazy (like me) to offer help. Good criticism requires work and a genuine regard for the artist. Keith

How are we supposed to know what it is you regard as being 'unappealing', if you don't tell us explicitly? David

I don't understand why people could be offended from another person's personal preferences. Why don't you IM people and tell them that in your opinion they could do better? If you are willing to be helpful, and do what most people wont do, then that is awesome (to use a 'commentable' word). If they can't take that, then why are they here? Let them be offended. Michael

It's a gamble, isn't it? Believe or not, I don't like offending people, and I have with several comments that I have made. You never know who can take it and who can't

I really don't want to offend anyone either. i am part of the commenting problem too. awesome, cool etc. some people even ask for critisism and don't get very much. i guess it is a real shame. maybe we should have a special forum area for critisism. we might have to lable it with Violence though. Michael

Well heck! I don't mind if people tell me what they don't like about my work. It's not what people say but how they say it. I'm always willing to listen if it's constructive. (:

Whenever we have this discussion many people come to the surface and say that they like constructive criticism. The trouble is, this list of people fades out and then you are left to wonder who wants it and who doesn't. There is also a bunch of new people showing up all the time who don't know that we have had this discussion 1532.345 times. If you want help the best thing to do is to ask for it.

Personally, I think it is wrong to publicly criticise someone's work in a negative way. It's embarrassing for the artist. It's much better to send a personal IM. The artist is more likely to listen, understand, learn and appreciate critisism and not take it personally. If someone is continually uploading images that appear un-appealing because of their colour, then is it possible that their monitor is not calibrated correctly? If so, would it not be a good idea to point this out in an IM? How can we improve our artwork if we cannot get honest critisism? How can we give honest critisism if we are constantly afraid of offending? Send an IM and take time to point out the positive as well as the negative. After all you've taken the time to look at their image so there must be something positive before you decided to click on the thumbnail. I'd prefer to have honest critisism than to be constantly living in a bubble uploading images I think people like when in reality they dislike. How about we all help one another to improve and stop being afraid of offending.

Message edited on: 03/17/2006 19:43

I would love constructive criticism. You can tell me my work sucks, and I'll tell you to kiss my ass.

The we have a good chuckle and finish our cokes...

Seriously, I agree with the topic of color. I think it would behoove all of us, and particulatly those that are new to the idea, to spend a little time going over some color theory. There is a reason that colors look good or bad together. Designers have made millions understanding color theory. And you don't need a lot to make a diff...just take a few minutes to get familiar with some of the concepts.

Speaking of color basics...here are a few good links:

http://www.worqx.com/color/index.htm

http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html

http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

http://www.colormatch.dk/

AND!!! Speaking of commenting, here is a great article talking about commenting on art:

Art Commentary Tutorial

Have fun!
sharkrey

When I first started using apo, I was using my hubby's older laptop and I know (that in the beginning and even now) have a lot to learn about gradients and apo program itself. After getting a new desktop comp. I transferred all my files and began looking through them to make sure that they were all there. What I saw, I was ashamed of!!!! The colors where sh***y looking and many of the images were pixelized. I looked at these same images through the laptop and couldn't see a lot of the things that the new comp. showed. Looking at others work some times I wonder if maybe different comps. could make a big difference and then I thought about the artist's eyes themselves, not everyone in real life sees everything in the same way especially colors. People who are color blind for example and there are other variations of this that allows a person to see the most beautiful colors they have ever seen and then someone with different eye resolutions (or what ever it is called) sees these same colors and they see the ugliest colors possible. So I wonder sometimes if image changes are in the comp. or are they some slight defect in one's vision! Anyway, it's just a thought!

What a great bunch of links. Thanks

It doesn't take long to see that there is a range of views about helpful comments. Every image has this attached to it: "Your helpful comments for improving this image:" but comments are seldom used to help. Look at this place like it is a classroom for an art class. What would the class be like if there was no discussion about art, or no questions or answers? What if every question and answer was done privately so that no one else could learn from them? What if we all just sat around told each other how great we are? A class like that would be ineffective, but at least everyone would like each other. I have yet to see a malicious helpful comment (I have heard of one and the commenter was fired). Everyone who has been willing to offer helpful comments has been kind and gentle.

I'm reading about colour theory now. Thanks sharkrey! From your perspective, Keith, this is one horrible art class. Very good point! What good is it to have a fractal art hobby, and not want to learn? Of course if you are here on a social level, and are here to make fractal images, and forget about art, then i can see people taking offence. Once again i have gotten myself into a discussion that will never be solved on a whole. we can only try to do better individually, and encourage good art. Michael

Hi all, I was expecting a little flak - I suppose one of the problems is that the general accepted practice on R'osity has been just to compliment folks when they get it right and not to actually provide constructive criticism - at least as far as fractals go, I don't know what happens in the other galleries :-) The other point I'd like to make is that there's a difference between bad colour choices and colour choices that don't suit personal taste - I've often given praise to images for which the colour scheme is not to my personal taste (i.e. I'd never have used) but given praise as the colours work for the image concerned.

I can answer only for myself why I do not usually give "constructive" criticism: I simply do not have the time for it! I go through the gallery once, sometimes twice a week, and I look at what interests me by viewing the thumbnails. That is already very time consuming, you know:-) If I comment, it usually means I find the image interesting, and I try to really "say something" about that what made me look at the image in the first place. Sometimes I only "view" the picture, and do not comment for lack of time.... About colors: I actually totally agree with Dave here. A lot of colorschemes look the same dull brew of desatureated greyish, greenish to me. And yes, my monitor is calibrated right;-) But I often wonder if other people should have a closer look at their monitor's colorprofile and gamma settings! Probably that would help a lot already. Evie

well, i have to say that apophysis's gradient selector is rather a lo-tech thing, and i like UF's better, but i can't import my UF gradients into APO!!!! has anyone else had this problem?

Patti makes an excellent point! Funky computer, bad vision...sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. I do think, however, that David's initial idea of images being "spoiled by poor colour choices" is just that...a case where a some deliberate consideration to color could make an image more aesthetically pleasing. With respect to importing UF gradients into Apo, I just tried this and it worked fine: 1) Copy UF .ugr file 2) Paste into Apo gradient folder (in my case it is C:Program FilesApophysis 2.0Gradients) 3) In Apo, open gradient browser (File/Gradient Browser) and click on the little folder lower right. Browse to the UF gradient file. This help?

It's really pretty simple. If you want help you have to say that you want it. We can't read your mind to know how you would react. You if don't say that you want help then the safest assumption to make is that you don't want it. When you put an image on Deviantart there is a pull down menu that allows you to select what sort of comments that you are looking for. The top one is "advanced critiques encouraged", then "critiques welcomed", "critiques discouraged" and "comments disabled". We don't have that pull down menu here so we have to say what we want. I haven't asked for help in a while. For the last several months I haven't been interested in it. It wouldn't bother me to get a helpful comment but lately I have not been focused on improving. I'm here for the fun of it.

Craig - all you need to do is browse/point Apo to your gradient folder in UF and it'll use those just fine. Open the Gradient window in Apo, click the little "Open Gradient Browser" icon at the lower left and then click the little folder icon (Open...) next to the pic of the current used gradient and browse to your UF folder. Then just click "Gradients" once in the UF folder and select the gradient you want to use. I have a .ugr file in UF called "flamegrads" that contains about 50 "decent" gradients that I've made in UF that come in handy for Apo stuff and also some Apo gradients that are cool to use on stuff like textures in UF. Rick

As to "constructive critique", I think one reason it doesn't happen very often - aside from the "thin-skinned" artist and "social" stuff - is that most of us probably don't feel we are qualified to give an actual and learned critique of what we see here. Myself, I don't know squat about art theory (and I'm sure sometimes it shows! lol) other than what I may have learned a million lightyears ago in jr. high art class. I can only give an "opinion", which is basically just whether I "like" the colors or not and nothing to do with whether they are "correct" per a formula. I suppose the "correctness" of the colors might subconsciously be the reason I "like" them since the "rules" for colors and composition in art have been honed over centuries to explain why most humans find something "attractive" or not. If I don't find the image "attractive", then I just don't say anything at all because there is no quantifiable "reason" why I don't like it - I just don't. And "I don't like this" isn't very constructive. The only things I feel maybe a bit qualified to critique or help with might be technique issues like how to make a better mask or "complete" the gradient that falls on a shape by getting rid of the little black spot in the middle of a highlight. Technical stuff. But, other than that, I reckon I just either like a piece or I don't - just because.... Rick

In some of the other forums on R'osity, the artists post Works In Progress and specifically ask the members to 'rip it apart'...make suggestions for improvement in the image before it is finalized for posting. I know that has been tried here a couple of times, but it was not received well by some people here. The posters were told that they should post in the gallery. Perhaps we should try that again if anyone really wants input on their image. ~Vivian

I wasn't going to say anything until I read Rykk's statement above. I know nothing of art theory and very little about the technical possibilities of the different fractal programs. Therefore, I do not feel qualified to make any comments about improvement. Just as Rykk says---I either like an image or I don't. I comment on the ones I like. As for receiving constructive comments on my post: I'm all for it. But if it gets too technical, I might not know what to do to correct my image. I just do this stuff for fun! Marion

I would just like to say that colour choice is a personal thing what colours you like i dont and what colours i like you might not like. Should we all be making fractals with the same colours i dont think so. I have asked this many times to may people how do you calibrate a TFT monitor and if i calibrate my TFT would my colours look the same on a CRT monitor i dont think so. so unless we all use the same monitors we are all going to see different colours surely. Helen/locomouse had a post a while back where she asked people to say what colours they saw in one of her fractals and had many different answers so how do we solve this problem?

I concur with the reasons Rykk and Kansas mentioned for not offering constructive criticism :-) As to improving colour choices: Before starting to finalise an image always try at least 10 different palettes on each layer (different colours, rates of colour change etc.) and always tweak a palette, never leave it as it was "set" i.e. tweak whether you're using preset palettes or random ones. Do this even if you had a preconceived idea as to what colour you wanted the image - you'll often find an alternative that works even better. I probably try hundreds of palettes out per layer before finally tweaking - the fact that I usually end up with a result in earthtones is just me ;-)

Another tip to those newer to fractals is that if the fractal itself is quite "busy", i.e. has lots of smaller detail, then as a general rule it's better to use fewer colours/slower colour changes whereas if the fractal is less busy then it's better to add detail by increasing the number of colours/rate of colour change. Creating a good result on a busy fractal with many colours/fast colour changes is possible (Rykk, Deagol etc.) but is more difficult and requires considerable skill/experience - it's a skill that I've not acquired yet !!

OH BROTHER!!!!

This business about not being 'qualified' to comment unless you know about art and/or colour theory really bothers me!

There is no such thing as a universal set of rules about how colours should be combined, nor about how images should be composed. All that theory stuff is just that: theory. It's sets of ideas that people have come up with to try to explain why some things seem to work and others don't.

None of these systems is carved in stone; they should be for guidence, not blind obedience. You think Picasso or Van Gogh were following the then accepted rules of composition and colour? It's much, much more important to think about what you're creating and why it has the effects on you that it does than to try to conform to other people's rationalisations about what constitutes good art. Come up with your own colour and composition theories.

Carol Walske (who knew a lot about art theory) commented to me about some of my images, that she didn't know (compositionally) why they worked - they shouldn't, but they did - and that's what she found particularly interesting about them. For the same reason, I find Eveline's (fractalchemist's) colour combinations fascinating: I look at them and wonder why I like them, when they seem to conflict with lots of my ideas about colour.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you like something or don't like something, try to work out why. It will help you become better at creating things in future. If reading all that theory stuff helps you to do this, great! But don't read the theory with the idea that unless you abide by it your images will 'fail'.

In terms of commenting on other people's work, if you can say why you do or don't like something, that's every bit as valuable as knowing the accepted art theory.

Have confidence in your own opinions.

Anyway, off my soapbox now, and back out into real life.

:-)

Best wishes,
Simon.

Im colourblind :P ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DROP ACID NOT BOMBS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Message edited on: 03/20/2006 03:57

Simon: Thanks for your comment. Important to think about. Marion

Well said, Simon. Much of the best of what art does is to challenge. Otherwise a computer could 'create' art.

a suggestion is to use pictures you like for to make smooth gradients. the results can be quite extroadinary over and above the gradients that comes with Apophysis. also there are many free gradients available here in the freebies section. I agree completely that gradients can make or break a fractal and a different gradient can make an unattractive fractal come alive and or ruin the same

I just had to add one more comment here, since I'm at my sister's using her super fast computers which are very new and even have flat screens... On the upstairs computer, I see the colors on my pictures the way they look on my monitor at home, but on the downstairs computer, they look lighter and more muted. There's a world of difference there. I've set the colors on my monitor at home, but I think that some monitors just show things differently, like televisions....maybe? I'm sure my bro 'n' law calibrates his monitors. Funny, isn't it? Okay, I'll hush up. lol q-:

You'll see a big difference between the way images look on a flat LCD monitor and a CRT type monitor. I'm currently working at work on tablet type computers with LCD monitors, so I've learned a little more tech stuff about them and actually dug around inside the displays. The problem is that the liquid crystal display will not light up until a flourescent white "backlight" is played across it from the sides. Since this light is white, all colors - especially black - will appear more washed out than a CRT monitor. The "color gamut" is lower on an LCD, too. It can show fewer of the "16 million" colors than a CRT. The colors on a CRT are richer because each pixel is made up of a discrete mix of red, green and blue light. An lcd "pixel" can only be either red, green or blue rather than a mix. This is similar to guitar amps - analog vacuum tube amps have that rich, "brown" sound you can't get from a solid-state amp, even to this day. But all monitors will look slightly different from each other and that's why the monitor calibration stuff is needed so that a printer "knows" how to print the colors. I HAVE found that, brightness-wise, an LCD is closer to what a printer prints, probably due to the fact that printers also have a limited color gamut. Or maybe my home CRT monitor is just too old and wimpy to light up as bright anymore. To emulate the look of my CRT monitor, I've had to crank the brightness of the LCD monitor on my desk at work all the way down to "8%" and the red, green and blue to like 65%, 60% and 55% to approximate what they are "supposed" to look like. CRT's are getting rare and I will probably have to search out a "high-end" one online somewhere because all the ones they have at Best Buy are the cruddiest el-cheapo things I've ever seen and I wouldn't let my dog use one - lol Rick

Thanks Rick, so you get what I'm talking about. I didn't know all that(and won't remember it!lol), but for now, thanks for the explanation. I remember people telling me they could see where I 'clipped' and 'added' to some of my images, and that was the first time I realized that not all of us see the same thing. There's no way to fix that either. Hell's bells!

Also - it ain't just the monitor - switch video cards and you'll see what I mean :-)

I guarantee that if I could afford one I'd have one. lol q-: However, yes, I can imagine there would also be a big difference with some super duper video card. ...maybe...someday....who knows?!?!!? (:

Dave - yeah, I that's what I was afraid of. I bought a faster video card last year with twice the memory as the 64Mb Ge-Force I'm running now but have been scared to install it for fear that my images would look different. Though, I didn't notice a big difference between my present pc and my old PIII, 550MHz I put out to pasture a couple of years ago. But I kept the same monitor so maybe that dampened the effect of the change a litlle bit? Rick

if your computer is slow a fast video card will not provide a big difference. it helps but not as much as one would think

I've been having problems with color management over the last few weeks and I have found some useful tools. (Haven't got what I consider to be the final solution yet but I think I'll be there soon.) Firstly, Microsoft has recently issued a color management utility that can be downloaded for free. It is "not supported" yet but I can testify that it doesn't crash my system. With it you can assign various color profiles to your input and output devices, i.e. scanners, monitors and printers. Secondly, a program called WiziWYG XP for windows XP users (they also have one for Mac) allows you to create color profiles for your monitor, even if you don't have a color measuring device. It is also a free download, from a company called Praxis. They, of course, want you to upgrade to their "pro" version. There may be other freebies out there too. My problem is that the profiles I have created don't produce the results they should when I apply them; the colors seem all right but the screen goes very dark. Perhaps someone can shine a little more light on this.

I used the one that came free with Adobe Photoshop - if you've got that and haven't seen the utility, it should be somewhere in your control panel. But I don't use Photoshop on my new PC and I set that up using WiziWYG from Praxisoft - the monitors and video cards on my three machines here at home are completely different but WiziWYG and the Adobe utility have meant that my images look much the same on each system (not identical though). As for colour matching when printing - that's a whole different ballgame mainly due to the reduced colour gamut when printing (especially for blue).

I use the Adobe Gamma utility that comes with Photoshop too. I've been working on a laptop for the last few months (I'm travelling and my PC and lovely 21" CRT monitor are in storage). Until necessity forced me to get this laptop, I avoided them like the plague: horrible keyboards, trackpads instead of a mouse, and worst of all: one of those terrible LCD screens! One of the first things I did on it was to visit my gallery here to see how my images looked, and I recoiled in horror. My number 1 priority became to get Photoshop installed and see what I could do with colour management. I must admit, that once I'd run Adobe Gamma the results were surprisingly good! My old images now look practically the same as they do on my CRT. The only difference really is that the LCD is sharper (i.e. there's no colour bleed between pixels) which on some of my more textured images results in a more grainy look, but nothing I can't live with. The last three images I've posted were all created on the laptop, and I must admit that I'm slightly nervous to see them on my CRT when I get home. But considering that I'd previously thought I'd never be able to produce any images on a laptop, this is very positive. Anyway, the point of all this waffle is that even using a very simplistic, software-only, colour-profiling tool can produce very good results (between screens at least), so it's worth trying. Best wishes, Simon.

Oh! I love it when guys talk color! lol q-:

I've used the Gamma utility. The thing I like about the color manager and the profile creation utilities that I mentioned is that when everything is complete one's whole system can be coordinated, and not just one's Adobe programs. Though I'm not sure how far Photoshop takes the output of the Gamma utility, I doubt that it applies it system-wide. In other words, other programs, like the Windows picture and fax viewer for instance (and UltraFractal for that matter), would not necessarily operate under the same harware color profiles and consequently the same internal color-space.

Some notes about colour profiles embedded in images. This is a separate issue from colour calibrating your monitor/computer. The software that saves your final image to jpg may be inserting colour profiles with or without your knowledge. I highly recommend against this! Photoshop can insert colour profiles, but it is often unclear whether it's inserting one or not. I do all my post-work (re-sizing, signatures) in the Mac version of Photoshop 7/CS, so I can't speak for other programs. I'm assuming a colour profile can only be inserted if you have colour-calibrated your machine, but I'm not entirely sure about that as all Macs use some colour-calibration by default. Obviously I have a PC, but I never calibrated it as it has always been consistent with my other systems, and I always do a final colour check on the Mac before publishing.

I had a big problem with this a couple of years ago. Some background information: I run a website that provides my images as computer backgrounds, thus I was trying to make my images look as good as possible on -all- computers, not just ones I control. I embedded colour profiles in all my images. The end result was total colour chaos. Some computers ignored the profile, others used it but made the images look wrong. I even had inconsistencies within the same software package, where sometimes the colour profile would be used, and sometimes not, and Internet Explorer can be set to show images like they have a colour profile when they don't even have one! I ended up re-doing hundreds of images to remove the colour profiles.

I wrote a rant after I had the issue figured out, you can read it here. There are some example images there you can use to test your computer with.

Another thing I would recommend is to know your monitor. Look at your images on other monitors/computers. Visit a friend and have a look at your Renderosity gallery from there. Visit the library. Spend a buck and go to Kinkos. If you don't want to log into Renderosity from a public computer, upload a couple of images to one of the free hosting services. If your images look significantly different on other computers than on your own, maybe you have a problem.

It's been my experience that old CRTs often start losing quality. My last 23" CRT (purchased in 1998) was a colour nightmare at the end. Laptop screens are another source of problems, I suspect because the screens may be designed to be low-power, but that causes gamma issues and often a lack of saturation. I love my 12" PowerBook, but I would never ever do colour work on it; I just can't see subtle hues, even when I know they are there. Not all laptop screens are bad, for example the 17" PowerBook has very nice colour reproduction, as do some high-end PC laptops, but it's something to watch for.

The color settings in Photoshop are under "EditColor Settings". As far as I know, (which isn't a very long way - lol) Photoshop sticks with whatever "colorspace" you saved an image with and doesn't change it unless you tell it to. "Adobe rgb (1998)" is the colorspace my print guy has me save anything I want printed in. There's also one called "Monitor RGB - sRGB EIC61966-2.1" that my copy of Photoshop was defaulted to when I got it. The Adobe colorspace seems to make the colors brighter or maybe more saturated than the Monitor RGB one. I'm not sure what the "Monitor RGB" one does or means - maybe it might talk to the profile Adobe Gamma makes? Dunno. I need to learn what "ICC profiles" are, too - anybody want to explain? Rick

Sorry, I should have been more clear. What I was referring to above as a "colour profile" is an ICC colour profile. See this page for more information on ICC profiles.

I have colour management turned off in Photoshop, however Photoshop's "save for web" still gives me the option to insert an ICC profile when saving as a JPG, but when saving in PNG format, it inserts the ICC colour profile without asking and there is no option to turn it off. This is why I think that it's something for people to consider as other programs may be doing the same or similar things.