Digital Composites
Monday, 11 August 2008
South of Tennessee
What, you may be asking, is a digital composite? I use the term to describe images that are combinations of multiple digital files. Using Photoshop CS3 software on my computer, I can layer one image on top of another and change the transparency of the layers. The result is rather like a mixed media collage, except that the layers exist only within the computer until I print them as one unit. You can also try to visualize the resulting image as a double, triple, or quadruple exposure — a digital sandwich.
Take, for example, South of Tennessee, a digital composite. With imaging software, I combined five digital elements — a old map of the Georgia/Tennessee region, and four of my drawings. I changed the transparencies so that parts of each image would show through or be masked by other images. I added color filters, and gradients, and changed the light and dark values. Altogether 17 layers were combined to make one image. It is just plain magic to me.
Some digital art, as it commonly called, is generated entirely with a computer, using painting tools and other ingenious techniques. What I am doing, however, is combining images that already exist, using maps, my pastel drawings, and sometimes my photographs to create a new thing. You can see other examples in the Homestead Series section of my website. http://eugenietorgerson.com/homestead_series.htm