Triptych Photography

You have TWO CLASSES to complete this project.

A triptych was originally a series of three carved panels (of art) with hinges between the panels, so the piece could be opened up for display or closed for protection:

In modern photography, a triptych is simply three images displayed together so they can be seen and appreciated as a set.

Take a minute to do a quick Google image search for Triptych Photography. You'll see all sorts of ideas.

Triptych (ca.1532) - Lambert Lombard

(source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lambert_Lombard_-_Triptych_-_WGA13360.jpg)

1) PROJECT: TRIPTYCH PHOTOGRAPHY

2) VIDEO AND WRITTEN TUTORIALS

3) HANDING IN

4) STUDENT EXAMPLES

PROJECT: TRIPTYCH PHOTOGRAPHY

You are to produce ONE triptych to submit.

Here are the parameters:

Subject: You can shoot any subject, but the three images must be thematically related. It doesn't have to tell a linear story.

Format: You can display the three images any way you like. The method above is a good guide but you can also have three full-sized images side-by-side-by-side in their original orientation. You can crop your canvas to whatever proportion you see fit.

Camera Settings: Entirely up to you. Images must be properly exposed.

Images will be assessed on quality of exposure and composition (individually and thematically as a whole).

IN THE RUBRIC DOCUMENT, YOU WILL NEED TO WRITE ABOUT YOUR THEME, WHY YOU CHOSE TO DISPLAY THEM IN A CERTAIN WAY, ETC.

See the bottom of this page for student examples of this project.

2) VIDEO AND WRITTEN TUTORIALS

HOW TO SET UP PRE-SIZED FRAMES IN PHOTOSHOP:

(This tutorial will fit a standard 8.5x11" piece of paper)

Photoshop (1/2)

Use these first two videos if completing in class.

Photoshop (2/2)

Photopea

Use this video if completing at home

PHOTOSHOP written steps (video tutorial is better but this is another option):

1) Open Photoshop.

2) Create a new document (File > New).

3) Click on the "Letter" template to select it.

4) Change the orientation to landscape (horizontal). There's a button just for that in the New Document window. Click on Create.

5) Select the Shape tool (default is Rectangle Tool) - Keyboard shortcut U.

6) Choose a visible colour (doesn't matter - it's just so you can see the shape).

7) Draw a rectangle where you want one of your images to fit.

Note: For this tutorial, we're aiming for three identical panels. If you want them to be different, simply draw two more shapes where you want them.

8) Duplicate your shape by selecting the Rectangle 1 layer and pressing CTRL-J. Do this one more time so you have a total of thee Rectangle layers.

9) Move the other rectangle layers over by selecting each of them, then using the Move tool (shortcut: V) to drag the shapes over. PRO TIP: Hold down SHIFT while dragging left or right...this will ensure that your image doesn't move vertically while you reposition it horizontally. They don't have to be perfectly symmetrical; we'll fix that in a minute.

10) Now we need to even things out. First, select all of your shape layers by clicking on the top one and SHIFT-clicking on the bottom one. Then, making sure you're still in the Move tool, look up at the toolbar and select Distribute Horizontal Centers.

11) Now that the three panels are evenly spaced, you can ensure that the triptych is centered horizontally. Use the Move tool to drag the three shapes until you see the little purple centre line appear in the middle of your centre image. That's where dead centre is.

12) Now we're ready to import our images. For this example, there's obviously going to be a huge crop effect. You might want this, OR if you want three differently-sized shapes you can just draw and position them manually. For now we'll go with this.

Open your first image: File

> Place Embedded, select which image you want.

13) Once your new image appears, place it more or less over the shape you want it to be assigned to. Don't worry about cropping or resizing yet.

14) Ensure that the shape layer is moved immediately below your image layer.

15) You will now create a clipping mask that will fit your image to the contours of the shape. To do this, select your image layer, right-click, and select Create clipping mask. You can also do this by holding down ALT and left-clicking on the line between the two layers (the cursor will change to a square with an arrow beside it).

16) At this point, you can re-position (Move tool: "V") or re-size your image (Free Transform: Ctrl-T, hold down SHIFT while re-sizing to preserve proportion) and it will stay inside the boundaries of the shaped it's been clipped to. TIP: If your original image was very large, you might not be able to see the bounding box in Free Transform mode. You may need to zoom out (CTRL -) in order to be able to adjust your image size.

17) Repeat steps 12-16 with your other two images. Be sure that each image layer is always positioned immediately over the corresponding shape layer or else your clipping mask won't work.

Image source: Anna Kraemer (Former Photo 30 student)

This could be good enough as-is, but let's look at two possible ways to make this triptych "pop".

18A) Let's add effects to the rectangles. Start by selecting one of your rectangle layers and then clicking on the fx button on the bottom-right toolbar. Select Blending Options. When the Layer Styles menu appears, click on the word "Drop shado

w" and adjust distance, opacity, size, and angle to taste (recommended angle is 135 degrees). Now let's add an outline. Click on the word "Stroke" and add a small (1-5 px) stroke in a colour of your choosing (black is also effective).

18B) Here's another approach you could try instead. Select your background layer, then go to Edit > Fill and fill it with black. Now select one of your rectangle layers and click on the fx button on the bottom-right toolbar. Select Blending Options. When the Layer Styles menu appears, click on the word "Stroke" and add a small (1-5 px) stroke in a colour of your choosing (white is also effective).

19) After choosing some effects for your first rectangle, you can now copy these to the other rectangle layers. The easiest way is to Alt-click the "effects" eyeball under the rectangle layer and drag it on to each of the other rectangle layers (holding down Alt the whole time).

Compare the results.....

First method

Second method

What looks best will often depend on how the viewer is going to see the final product. If it's displayed on a white website, the second method will definitely "pop" more. If you were to print and frame with a coloured frame, the first method might be the better choice.

20) Once finished, save your work as a .psd file, then again as a .jpg. You're ready to upload to your website!

Bonus example: Here's another variation. This time, the rectangles were drawn to different heights and the images positioned accordingly. Also, two things were done to the background layer. First, a radial gradient was applied using the Gradient tool (G). Second, a texture was added by selecting Filter > Filter Gallery. In this case, under texture, the texturizer tool was set to canvas.