COMPOSITION
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Christopher Butler – Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – Vision is a mental processRead more: Christopher Butler – Understanding the Eye-Mind Connection – Vision is a mental processhttps://www.chrbutler.com/understanding-the-eye-mind-connection The intricate relationship between the eyes and the brain, often termed the eye-mind connection, reveals that vision is predominantly a cognitive process. This understanding has profound implications for fields such as design, where capturing and maintaining attention is paramount. This essay delves into the nuances of visual perception, the brain’s role in interpreting visual data, and how this knowledge can be applied to effective design strategies. This cognitive aspect of vision is evident in phenomena such as optical illusions, where the brain interprets visual information in a way that contradicts physical reality. These illusions underscore that what we “see” is not merely a direct recording of the external world but a constructed experience shaped by cognitive processes. Understanding the cognitive nature of vision is crucial for effective design. Designers must consider how the brain processes visual information to create compelling and engaging visuals. This involves several key principles: - Attention and Engagement
- Visual Hierarchy
- Cognitive Load Management
- Context and Meaning
  
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Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterRead more: Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterThe 300dpi digital poster is now available to all PixelSham.com subscribers. If you have already subscribed and wish a copy, please send me a note through the contact page. 
DESIGN
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Turn Yourself Into an Action Figure Using ChatGPTRead more: Turn Yourself Into an Action Figure Using ChatGPTChatGPT Action Figure Prompts: Create an action figure from the photo. It must be visualised in a realistic way. There should be accessories next to the figure like a UX designer have, Macbook Pro, a camera, drawing tablet, headset etc. Add a hole to the top of the box in the action figure. Also write the text “UX Mate” and below it “Keep Learning! Keep Designing 
 Use this image to create a picture of a action figure toy of a construction worker in a blister package from head to toe with accessories including a hammer, a staple gun and a ladder. The package should read “Kirk The Handy Man” 
 Create a realistic image of a toy action figure box. The box should be designed in a toy-equipment/action-figure style, with a cut-out window at the top like classic action figure packaging. The main color of the box and moleskine notebook should match the color of my jacket (referenced visually). Add colorful Mexican skull decorations across the box for a vibrant and artistic flair. Inside the box, include a “Your name” action figure, posed heroically. Next to the figure, arrange the following “equipment” in a stylized layout: • item 1 • item 2 … On the box, write: “Your name” (bold title font) Underneath: “Your role or anything else” The entire scene should look like a real product mockup, highly realistic, lit like a studio product photo. On the box, write: “Your name” (bold title font) Underneath: “Your role or description” The entire scene should look like a real product mockup, highly realistic, lit like a studio product photo. Prompt on Kling AI The figure steps out of its toy packaging and begins walking forward. As he continues to walk, the camera gradually zooms out in sync with his movement. 
 “Create image. Create a toy of the person in the photo. Let it be an action figure. Next to the figure, there should be the toy’s equipment, each in its individual blisters. 1) a book called “Tecnoforma”. 2) A 3-headed dog with a tag that says “Troika” and a bone at its feet with word “austerity” written on it. 3) a three-headed Hydra with with a tag called “Geringonça”. 4) a book titled “D. Sebastião”. Don’t repeat the equipment under any circumstance. The card holding the blister should be strong orange. Also, on top of the box, write ‘Pedro Passos Coelho’ and underneath it, ‘PSD action figure’. The figure and equipment must all be inside blisters. Visualize this in a realistic way.” 
COLOR
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PBR Color Reference List for Materials – by Grzegorz BaranRead more: PBR Color Reference List for Materials – by Grzegorz Baran“The list should be helpful for every material artist who work on PBR materials as it contains over 200 color values measured with PCE-RGB2 1002 Color Spectrometer device and presented in linear and sRGB (2.2) gamma space. All color values, HUE and Saturation in this list come from measurements taken with PCE-RGB2 1002 Color Spectrometer device and are presented in linear and sRGB (2.2) gamma space (more info at the end of this video) I calculated Relative Luminance and Luminance values based on captured color using my own equation which takes color based luminance perception into consideration. Bare in mind that there is no ‘one’ color per substance as nothing in nature is even 100% uniform and any value in +/-10% range from these should be considered as correct one. Therefore this list should be always considered as a color reference for material’s albedos, not ulitimate and absolute truth.“ 
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Thomas Mansencal – Colour Science for PythonRead more: Thomas Mansencal – Colour Science for Pythonhttps://thomasmansencal.substack.com/p/colour-science-for-python https://www.colour-science.org/ Colour is an open-source Python package providing a comprehensive number of algorithms and datasets for colour science. It is freely available under the BSD-3-Clause terms. 
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Björn Ottosson – OKHSV and OKHSL – Two new color spaces for color pickingRead more: Björn Ottosson – OKHSV and OKHSL – Two new color spaces for color pickinghttps://bottosson.github.io/misc/colorpicker https://bottosson.github.io/posts/colorpicker/ https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2024/10/interview-bjorn-ottosson-creator-oklab-color-space/ One problem with sRGB is that in a gradient between blue and white, it becomes a bit purple in the middle of the transition. That’s because sRGB really isn’t created to mimic how the eye sees colors; rather, it is based on how CRT monitors work. That means it works with certain frequencies of red, green, and blue, and also the non-linear coding called gamma. It’s a miracle it works as well as it does, but it’s not connected to color perception. When using those tools, you sometimes get surprising results, like purple in the gradient. There were also attempts to create simple models matching human perception based on XYZ, but as it turned out, it’s not possible to model all color vision that way. Perception of color is incredibly complex and depends, among other things, on whether it is dark or light in the room and the background color it is against. When you look at a photograph, it also depends on what you think the color of the light source is. The dress is a typical example of color vision being very context-dependent. It is almost impossible to model this perfectly. I based Oklab on two other color spaces, CIECAM16 and IPT. I used the lightness and saturation prediction from CIECAM16, which is a color appearance model, as a target. I actually wanted to use the datasets used to create CIECAM16, but I couldn’t find them. IPT was designed to have better hue uniformity. In experiments, they asked people to match light and dark colors, saturated and unsaturated colors, which resulted in a dataset for which colors, subjectively, have the same hue. IPT has a few other issues but is the basis for hue in Oklab. In the Munsell color system, colors are described with three parameters, designed to match the perceived appearance of colors: Hue, Chroma and Value. The parameters are designed to be independent and each have a uniform scale. This results in a color solid with an irregular shape. The parameters are designed to be independent and each have a uniform scale. This results in a color solid with an irregular shape. Modern color spaces and models, such as CIELAB, Cam16 and Björn Ottosson own Oklab, are very similar in their construction.  By far the most used color spaces today for color picking are HSL and HSV, two representations introduced in the classic 1978 paper “Color Spaces for Computer Graphics”. HSL and HSV designed to roughly correlate with perceptual color properties while being very simple and cheap to compute. Today HSL and HSV are most commonly used together with the sRGB color space.  One of the main advantages of HSL and HSV over the different Lab color spaces is that they map the sRGB gamut to a cylinder. This makes them easy to use since all parameters can be changed independently, without the risk of creating colors outside of the target gamut.  The main drawback on the other hand is that their properties don’t match human perception particularly well. 
 Reconciling these conflicting goals perfectly isn’t possible, but given that HSV and HSL don’t use anything derived from experiments relating to human perception, creating something that makes a better tradeoff does not seem unreasonable. With this new lightness estimate, we are ready to look into the construction of Okhsv and Okhsl.  
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No one could see the colour blue until modern timesRead more: No one could see the colour blue until modern timeshttps://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2  The way humans see the world… until we have a way to describe something, even something so fundamental as a colour, we may not even notice that something it’s there. Ancient languages didn’t have a word for blue — not Greek, not Chinese, not Japanese, not Hebrew, not Icelandic cultures. And without a word for the colour, there’s evidence that they may not have seen it at all. 
 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/211119-colorsEvery language first had a word for black and for white, or dark and light. The next word for a colour to come into existence — in every language studied around the world — was red, the colour of blood and wine. 
 After red, historically, yellow appears, and later, green (though in a couple of languages, yellow and green switch places). The last of these colours to appear in every language is blue.The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye. 
 https://mymodernmet.com/shades-of-blue-color-history/True blue hues are rare in the natural world because synthesizing pigments that absorb longer-wavelength light (reds and yellows) while reflecting shorter-wavelength blue light requires exceptionally elaborate molecular structures—biochemical feats that most plants and animals simply don’t undertake. When you gaze at a blueberry’s deep blue surface, you’re actually seeing structural coloration rather than a true blue pigment. A fine, waxy bloom on the berry’s skin contains nanostructures that preferentially scatter blue and violet light, giving the fruit its signature blue sheen even though its inherent pigment is reddish. Similarly, many of nature’s most striking blues—like those of blue jays and morpho butterflies—arise not from blue pigments but from microscopic architectures in feathers or wing scales. These tiny ridges and air pockets manipulate incoming light so that blue wavelengths emerge most prominently, creating vivid, angle-dependent colors through scattering rather than pigment alone. (more…)
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Light and Matter : The 2018 theory of Physically-Based Rendering and Shading by AllegorithmicRead more: Light and Matter : The 2018 theory of Physically-Based Rendering and Shading by Allegorithmicacademy.substance3d.com/courses/the-pbr-guide-part-1 academy.substance3d.com/courses/the-pbr-guide-part-2 Local copy:
 
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A Brief History of Color in ArtRead more: A Brief History of Color in Artwww.artsy.net/article/the-art-genome-project-a-brief-history-of-color-in-art Of all the pigments that have been banned over the centuries, the color most missed by painters is likely Lead White. This hue could capture and reflect a gleam of light like no other, though its production was anything but glamorous. The 17th-century Dutch method for manufacturing the pigment involved layering cow and horse manure over lead and vinegar. After three months in a sealed room, these materials would combine to create flakes of pure white. While scientists in the late 19th century identified lead as poisonous, it wasn’t until 1978 that the United States banned the production of lead white paint. More reading: 
 www.canva.com/learn/color-meanings/https://www.infogrades.com/history-events-infographics/bizarre-history-of-colors/ 
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What Is The Resolution and view coverage Of The human Eye. And what distance is TV at best?Read more: What Is The Resolution and view coverage Of The human Eye. And what distance is TV at best?https://www.discovery.com/science/mexapixels-in-human-eye About 576 megapixels for the entire field of view. Consider a view in front of you that is 90 degrees by 90 degrees, like looking through an open window at a scene. The number of pixels would be: 
 90 degrees * 60 arc-minutes/degree * 1/0.3 * 90 * 60 * 1/0.3 = 324,000,000 pixels (324 megapixels).At any one moment, you actually do not perceive that many pixels, but your eye moves around the scene to see all the detail you want. But the human eye really sees a larger field of view, close to 180 degrees. Let’s be conservative and use 120 degrees for the field of view. Then we would see: 120 * 120 * 60 * 60 / (0.3 * 0.3) = 576 megapixels. Or. 7 megapixels for the 2 degree focus arc… + 1 megapixel for the rest. https://clarkvision.com/articles/eye-resolution.html Details in the post 
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Gamma correctionRead more: Gamma correction http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html#Gammabox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Gamma.htm https://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB.html http://www.eizoglobal.com/library/basics/lcd_display_gamma/index.html https://forum.reallusion.com/PrintTopic308094.aspx Basically, gamma is the relationship between the brightness of a pixel as it appears on the screen, and the numerical value of that pixel. Generally Gamma is just about defining relationships. Three main types: 
 – Image Gamma encoded in images
 – Display Gammas encoded in hardware and/or viewing time
 – System or Viewing Gamma which is the net effect of all gammas when you look back at a final image. In theory this should flatten back to 1.0 gamma.
 (more…)
LIGHTING
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Terminators and Iron Men: HDRI, Image-based lighting and physical shading at ILM – Siggraph 2010Read more: Terminators and Iron Men: HDRI, Image-based lighting and physical shading at ILM – Siggraph 2010
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Types of Film Lights and their efficiency – CRI, Color Temperature and Luminous EfficacyRead more: Types of Film Lights and their efficiency – CRI, Color Temperature and Luminous Efficacynofilmschool.com/types-of-film-lights “Not every light performs the same way. Lights and lighting are tricky to handle. You have to plan for every circumstance. But the good news is, lighting can be adjusted. Let’s look at different factors that affect lighting in every scene you shoot. “ 
 Use CRI, Luminous Efficacy and color temperature controls to match your needs.Color Temperature 
 Color temperature describes the “color” of white light by a light source radiated by a perfect black body at a given temperature measured in degrees Kelvinhttps://www.pixelsham.com/2019/10/18/color-temperature/ CRI 
 “The Color Rendering Index is a measurement of how faithfully a light source reveals the colors of whatever it illuminates, it describes the ability of a light source to reveal the color of an object, as compared to the color a natural light source would provide. The highest possible CRI is 100. A CRI of 100 generally refers to a perfect black body, like a tungsten light source or the sun. “https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-color-rendering-index (more…)
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Arto T. – A workflow for creating photorealistic, equirectangular 360° panoramas in ComfyUI using FluxRead more: Arto T. – A workflow for creating photorealistic, equirectangular 360° panoramas in ComfyUI using Fluxhttps://civitai.com/models/735980/flux-equirectangular-360-panorama https://civitai.com/models/745010?modelVersionId=833115 The trigger phrase is “equirectangular 360 degree panorama”. I would avoid saying “spherical projection” since that tends to result in non-equirectangular spherical images. Image resolution should always be a 2:1 aspect ratio. 1024 x 512 or 1408 x 704 work quite well and were used in the training data. 2048 x 1024 also works. I suggest using a weight of 0.5 – 1.5. If you are having issues with the image generating too flat instead of having the necessary spherical distortion, try increasing the weight above 1, though this could negatively impact small details of the image. For Flux guidance, I recommend a value of about 2.5 for realistic scenes. 8-bit output at the moment   
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