SFTW 158 — A Matter of Perspective

[Trevor.Dennis]

It's my turn to put up a starter for SFTW, and I am going with something a little bit different.  Basically a blank canvas. Regular posters know I am a fan of Lazy Nezumi Pro, and specifically its Vanishing Lines preset as a guide for matching a scene's perspective, but LNP does not work with OSX systems.  The Greatest Living Photoshop Artist, Bert Monroy, has always used Macs, so all he uses for his perspective guides is two or more three point work paths with the central point on the Vanishing Points.  In fact he uses Illustrator to lay out his perspective guide lines with his huge illustrations like Times Square.

Download the attached JPG and open in Photoshop.  Note: you have to obtain the starter image this way to have the work paths.  It will look something like this:

The way I do it is to place a layer at the top of the stack, move the work path end points into position and with a one pixel fully hard brush selected, click on the Stroke icon at the bottom of the Paths panel.  You might need to right click a path and chose Stroke the first time you do this to make sure the Brush is selected.

Tip: Did you know that with the  Move tool selected, you can hold down Ctrl (Cmd) and move work path points?  

Well keep things simple and assume that verticals are perfectly vertical so we can use Guides for those.

I don't want to put ideas into peoples heads, but a blank canvas might be a bit daunting, so this could be a simple way to fill a 2 point perspective.  Note that its rule of thumb that if we assume the terrain is flat, then people's eye lines will coincide with the horizon. 

My tip is to find each image element and paste into a new document so you can use Perspective Crop to square it up.  Make it a Smart Object — this makes the corner handles remain at the corners through multiple use of Free Transform.

You use either the Two Point Perspective as above, or use the central work path and make it a Single Point Perspective, so your image might look something like this (from Google):

The “rules”:

• Anything goes as long as it meets the forum rules on decency copyright etc.
• Anyone and everyone is welcome to have a go whether you are a complete beginner or a Photoshop expert. This is not just for our forum “regulars”, and other applications can be used.
• There are no prizes apart from the chance to practice show off or bring a bit of humour and fun. Don't be shy join in and have a go!

When posting back your image — please use the blue reply button in this first post. If posting a comment on someone else’s entry then please use the grey reply button next to their image post.

Have fun!

Trevor

Fingers crossed that the attachment loads OK, because I can't seee it! 

[Trevor.Dennis]

John, Perspective Made Easy is still available as a PDF download.  As we have said before, it is old but still relevant.  We talked about it back in 2018 and there some useful links in that thread.  

www.studentartguide.com/articles/one-point-perspective-drawing

The link to the Perspective Drawing Handbook is broken in that thread, but you can find it in the link below.  Unfortunately it is scanned rather than digital.

https://ia800600.us.archive.org/7/items/PerspectiveDrawing/PerspectiveDrawing.pdf

[EuanWilliamson]

How about these two from 1988 !! ( found them recently in a drawer )

 

https://archive.org/details/perspective-drawing-by-ernest-norling-walter-foster-1969/mode/2up

[Semaphoric]

Trevor I did indeed donwload it during the previous discussion — great read! The book I remember dealt a bit with the geometry of perspective, and I've always liked geometry. I remember the book, but not the Title, Author, or Publisher. Pffffttt.

[davescm]

It's a good point you make and a natural look is often achieved with two vanishing points when one, or both, are outside the bounds of the canvas.

Using FSpy on the starter image this week calculated a 17mm lens on a full frame 35mm size camera. That is quite an extreme wide angle, and I had to ensure I pushed the monument back into the picture to avoid extreme distortion that would have occurred if it had been closer.

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

Dave I tried to dumplicate your ellipses using two point perspective, but I am not sure it is possible without a z axis.  Least ways I'd love to know how to do it if it can be done.  John put up this illustration in the 2018 thread that appears to have been done with SketchUp, and with the rectangles, two point perspective definitely works.  You should be able to contain an ellipse within the rectangles.

However I got into a fine old mess when I tried it.  Containing the ellipse within the perspective guide rectangle (the dark ellipse) makes it way too flat, but the guide lines around the light ellipse are entirely arbitrary and could have been placed anywhere!  I can see a deep dive coming up, into one of the books we have liked to.  😞

[davescm]

Trevor the steps to draw a circle that becomes an ellipse in perspective are :

1. Start with your vanishing points and guides (this is from your starter image)

Add two more guides to form a perpective viewed square that will contain your ellipse

3. Join the diagonal corners (left to right and front to back) to find the centre of the 'square'

Draw out two more guides from the vanishing points that go through the centre and edges , so that you have found the half way point down each edge.

Now add an ellipse that touches the centre of each side at a tangent (note the centre of this drawn ellipse will not be at the centre of the square).

That is it.

Dave

[Semaphoric]

More musing —

Some "shallower" guidelines below the horizon alters the viewpoint considerably:

[Jacob Bugge]

Someone had to do something silly.

Bottom(s) up perspective?

Click/RightClick to get closer, or Click Here to see in Chrome 

[Dean_Utian]

Hi Trevor,

Great idea for a SFTW challenge. I'm a bit late to this but will try do something by the end of the week