Setting Up Backglass Art File

Insomina has provided a time opportunity to finish up my Flash backglass art file in Photoshop. First I took about 12 closeup shots of the backglass with my digital camera (my scanner was negatively impacted by the thickness of the backglass refracting the light - see earlier post). I then used Photoshop's almost magical Auto-Align feature to automatically fix the individual photograph angles, and stich all of the images together in one composite file. After scaling the image to the exact size of the original backglass, it was time to clean up the art files.

I do this color by color, starting with black, and working toward white. By separating each color into its own layer, I can more easily adjust color balance later on. The above image is the current black mask layer, which I am still working on. The other colors will be much easier, just blobs of color lying underneath the black mask. There is so much detail here, though, especially with the tiny individual flecks of black, giving an illusion of a smooth color gradient, that the black layer has taken some time. Without Photoshop's powerful color selection tools, this would be too time consuming to attempt.

The plan is to send a completed Flash backglass art file to a printer in the next couple of weeks, so that I can print a good translite (or two). We are selling the Flash at the end of November, so it will need to be done by then.