This week, Ann-Christine’s challenge for us is to think in three parts. She writes, “With Three of a Kind, I want you to think about things related to your photo – maybe a book (even interesting inside?), a flower, a room, a piece of art… Almost anything will fit in here – you could make your three images tell a story too! Simply put: Your post should have three separate images that are somehow related.” The technical name for this art of three is a triptych. You can read her entire challenge post here.
This week, I am visiting family in North Carolina, so please excuse the brevity of my response. I did, however, learn to use a new (to me) tool just to help me show off my final project, two triptych image sets. I like those ultra-wide panoramic images, but they can be difficult to have printed because of the unusually long image size. For this project, I took one panorama of the Grand Canyon and chopped off each end. If I were to print the image for hanging on a wall, it would consist of three normal size prints. I think the image set would look really nice printed on metal.
On a visit to the Denver Botanical Gardens, I not only captured some beautiful flowers, but I also spotted a volunteer preparing the ground for new planting. I decided this triptych would tell the story that you don’t get beautiful flowers without putting forth the effort.
To make these triptych images, I did my usual processing in Lightroom. Then, for the first time since subscribing to the Creative Cloud, I downloaded and installed Photoshop. I wanted to simulate a frame around each image of the floral story. For practice, I used the Grand Canyon images to build a white frame around each image, but since I imagine the images on borderless metal, I didn’t want the frame to be visible.
With the story, however, I used Photoshop to create black frames around the three images to simulate a framed print. To get WordPress to show the images in a row instead of separate images, or in a WordPress gallery, I put the related images together to create a single PNG file that could be displayed more easily in this post.
Thanks, Ann-Christine, for a unique challenge that actually got me off dead center and starting to use the Photoshop app that I’ve been paying for. Next week it’s Sofia’s turn to share her challenge with us all. Her topic is Minimalism/Maximalism. If you’d like to join in the fun but wonder how, just click here.
John Steiner
Flare Legend Adventures
Both great examples, John that work incredibly well. The Grand Canyon triptych is awesome and I agree, it would be amazing when printed on metal.
Thanks, Sofia!
I totally agree with Sofia. I’d love to see the Grand Canyon triptych printed on metal. Great idea. Your garden triptych arrangement really tells the story as you intended. Really nice!
Thanks, Patti. This challenge has made me think about looking at many of the panoramas I’ve done in the past to see if they might work in threes as well.
Good idea. I was thinking the same thing. Um….
This is a great use of triptych, John, – the garden is fun, and true to the bones…and the Grand Canyon one would certainly make a glorious and impressive print on metal – or on anything really. If you do decide to make it come true – I’d love you to post on it!
Thanks, Ann-Christine! I will be sure to share the details if I decide to print it. I am also planning to review my other panoramas to see if I might like something better arranged in thirds… or maybe even 5ths, (equal width panels with panel heights increasing to the center panel and then decreasing again.)
Sounds great!
Great response to this challenge John! I especially like the Grand Canyon trio. They will be beautiful on metal.
Thanks, Anne! I do like the concept. I may have to do some experimenting. See my comment to Ann-Christine about 5ths. 🙂
Fifths would be very interesting on the right wall. I hope you do it and then let us know about itl.
Your grand canyon photo is marvelous. And of course I adore the gardener and flowers 😀 😀
Thanks, Cee!
Yes, that Grand Canyon shot would look great printed in three parts, as you have it here! And I love the other set too – it really does exactly as you’d hoped, emphasising the work that goes into making a beautiful garden 🙂
Thanks, Sarah!
Excellent job John – and good for you for finally getting around to P/S ! It’s my go-to application for triptychs as I’ve not taken the time to try it in WP. My frustration with WP is the lack of control over which photo goes where in a gallery. Probably just a reflection of my unwillingness to take the time to figure it out! Loved both of your sets and agree the opener would be a beautiful set printed on metal.
I haven’t been successful with using WordPress galleries unless I simply didn’t care about order or placement. 🙂
Thanks, Tina!
Two very different but both lovely examples.
janet
Triptychs can be a good way to tell a story. Thanks, Janet.
Great examples of triptychs, John! What gorgeous images of the GC! I’m glad photoshop works for you. I need to use the ones I pay for too, LOL!
We might just as well, we are paying for them anyway. >grin< Thanks, Terri.
The Grand Canyon is a great place to bring triptych. It certainly would look nice on a wall. I loved the gardener in the botanical garden. For me it would be a perfect rip for my guest room. Very nice. Donna Keep enjoying NC
Thanks, Donna! As I noted earlier, I should be looking for some other images that might be improved by being in a set.
Such a nice response to the challenge John! The gardener hunched over the plants and on the sides the flowers in bloom is a wonderful one.
Thanks, Anne! I need to look for similar “stories in threes” to tell in my future shoots.
Nice selection to the challenge, John! Thank you also for sharing your tips on using photoshop AND posting in WordPress. Very helpful!
Thanks, Donna! Being relatively unfamiliar with Photoshop, the Internet was a great help in finding out how to best handle the merging of the images and framing them.
These are great images – I agree the Grand Canyon triptych would look nice on metal
Thanks!
A great post John. I especially enjoyed reading how you handled these pictures in PS, posting on WP plus your thoughts about printing on metal. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Sylvia. I have a lot to learn about Photoshop.
Great photo selections, John! I haven’t tried PS for the triptych.
I love the pano pic. So did you crop and save each little piece? I love the flower trio. That inspires me to do more with my Woodlake Rose Garden pics.
Thanks, Marsha. I used Lightroom’s virtual copy function to make three copies of the image and then used the crop function to isolate each section.
I then took them into Photoshop to put the white frame around them.
Nice. I put the frame around mine in Canva. I also used to use Photoshop Elements. I’m much more familiar with that program even though it’s not as substantial as Photoshop. I need a brush-up class on Photoshop. I took one where I worked about 10 – 12 years ago. I might still have the notes, LOL.
After that session, I know I have a lot to learn about Photoshop.
I got really god at it in Elements, but I’m sure it’s easier in PS.
Make that good not god! LOL
One advantage of Ps over PsE is that there are far many more YouTube how-to videos to select from. 🙂
I need to check them out.