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Posted on 02/11/23 5:56:53 PM

DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 5301

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My giant mega image is finally finished!!

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I would be missing a couple of challenges because I wanted to finish the huge image I had been working for Ingrid.

Well it's finally finished! It represents a little over two years of on/off work, change and development.

The version posted here is a reduced size version but you will be able zoom in enough to get a good idea of the level of detail. The original is 14000 x 8000 pixels which enables a very large size print that one can get really close up to and enjoy the little details. I am afraid that I have had to watermark it - no reflection on your good selves who I would far prefer to see it clean. Sadly far too much of my work has been pirated for me to post it this size in a public forum without watermarks.

For those of you who like the statistical stuff it has (in round figures) 1120 layers within which smart layers contain a further 475 layers. Given that each layer is 112 MegaPixels that's a lot of image for my poor machine to handle. The PSB disc file weighs in at 14GB. I have an M2 Max Mac studio with enhanced GPU and 64 GB RAM. Even with this I have to turn off half to two thirds of my layers and work on segments to prevent too much slow down on some of the tools and adjustments. The layer structure is quite specifically designed to allow this to be done in a way that means that at any one time I am working on a coherent and meaningful segment of the image.

So what's it about?

You tell me what you think .................

There are three different worlds or times each rotated 90° relative to each other. They are night, day and morning/evening. The night time world, although the architecture is classical, is peopled by modern characters, presumably tourists, who are busy photographing the other two worlds (if you look carefully you will find one who is photographing you the spectator). The daytime world is quite evidently mediaeval while the third world is in an ecclesiastical setting which is basically timeless. Although each segment is distinct there are parts where they intersect and penetrate one another seemingly randomly. Clearly the tourists with all their cameras are fully aware of the other two worlds or times, but are the subjects of their attention aware of being observed and recorded? They seem not to be. Are these really different times with time travelling tourists or is this some kind of fantastical theme park with costumed actors there for the tourists benefit?

This is an image you are absolutely free to fantasise and interpret in your own manner.

It started off black and white but over time has become a fairly muted colour. We both felt this helped give each of the three 'worlds' its own character.

Hope you like. I really enjoyed creating it.

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The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 03/11/23 08:39:19 AM

Steve Caplin
Administrator
Posts: 6926

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