technical

Lambda print file preparation

Image files for the Lambda printing of prints on this site were prepared on VIPS software co-developed by The National Gallery and The University of Southampton.  Features used for these prints include the removal of phjotographers studio illumination gradients from night scenes and fine tuning of sharpening to minimise edge contrast effects.

Technical introduction to the VIPS platform

For more background and free downloads see www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk

Procedure used for paintings

Introduction

The selectivity of the process used ‘filters out’ a huge number of colours. The idea is to articulate or ‘parse’ the visible scene in a more efficient and visually explicit way than is possible in a photograph. This articulation offers an aesthetic that is at once empirical, lively and intimately human. These are traditional goals of Western realist and many Eastern realist art forms, but the procedure can modernise and, I think, extend their scope. The procedure itself is capable of further development.

Sequence

  • On the spot studies map perceived colours of the subject as individual patches of oil paint. Colour range is first established by global comparisons across the field, but the local appearance of colours, including contrast effects, important to the artistic purpose is also recorded. There can also be selection of ‘characteristic’ colours for important objects or areas.
  • A series of variously exposed photographs were taken as sources for colour distribution analysis. The recent development of High Dynamic Range digital photography now makes it possible to make much better images for this purpose.
  • Selected local colours taken from the painted studies are then matched (mapped) to similar colours on a computer screen display of the photographs on a ‘good enough’ basis. The distribution of colours of a cluster of similar pixel values is found using software selection tools. These patterns are printed out. For example
  • These printouts are then used in the studio as colour guides for layers of paint, applied wet
    on dry to maintain clear colour separation. The resulting painting has articulate local colour,
    an enriching sense of global colour patterning and strong unity of illumination, in this case
    across 120º
  • Further information in the essay Oaks in the Senses : an Essay on New Nature Painting, also
    on this website.