The Ohanaware Weblog
Triptychs, what are they and how can I make my own.
Well, put simply a Triptych is an image comprised of three images. Oh you say, that’s it. Pretty much. I was inspired to have a go myself after reading an article in Amateur Photographer, it was illustrating David Hilliard’s (http://www.davidhilliard.com/) use of this format. So read on to see how you can do it too with this tutorial.
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The idea is that you can use the Triptych to tell more of a story than a single photo, so when it comes to choosing your images, try to think about the story behind the images.
- First you’ll need to install the Triptych layout into Funtastic Photos. Make sure Funtastic Photos isn’t running, and then download the following file Triptych.clay . Once it’s downloaded go to the Finder and select “Go to Folder” from the “Go” menu, a little sheet will slide out allowing you to enter in the address of the folder you wish to go to. If your copy of Funtastic Photos is in your applications folder, this address will work. Enter in the following address (You can copy and paste) “/Applications/Funtastic Photos.app/Contents/Resources/CombinerLayouts/” and press enter. Now you’ll see all the layouts. Copy the Triptych layout into this folder.
- When you take your first image, you’re going to need to get into the “Advanced Options”, (if you don’t see them on the right hand side of the window, click once on the “Advanced Options” button.) find the Blur effect, and drag the Radius to about half way. Check “Use a Focal Point” and then set the diameter to about 3 quarters.
- If your image isn’t portrait that’s not a problem as you can use the “Change Orientation” option on the “Rotate” toolbar button to make it a portrait.
Next find the “VIgnette” effect and increase the radius to about nine tenths.
- Now use the “Save As” option from the “Save” toolbar button to save your image to disk, I’d suggest making a folder on the desktop and calling it Triptych, saving your images into that folder. Now click on the “Copy” toolbar button and select “Copy Style”, this’ll store the current style on the clipboard and make it easier to apply the effects to the other 2 images. Which is what you need to do now; except once you’ve loaded your next image you can quickly apply the effect to the image, by selecting “Paste Style” from the “Copy” toolbar button.
- Once your 3 images have had the effects applied to them, you’ll need to use the “Print & Layouts” part of Funtastic Photos to create your Triptych. So now we close the final image, and we’re back in the “Browser” section of Funtastic Photos. With nothing selected in the browser, click on the “Print & Layouts” toolbar button, the interface will change and the Print & Layouts section will slide into view. At the bottom of the window, scroll through the templates list until you can see “Triptych”. Click once on it to switch to it. Most likely you’ll need to change the “Page Setup”, this is done via the “Page Setup” toolbar button. When the Page Setup window appears, make sure the orientation is set to Landscape and a nice wide format. I’d suggest US legal, as this has a nice wide aspect ratio, although if you’re intending to print your Triptych, you’ll want to select an actual paper size you can get.
- Now click on the “+” button in the bottom left, and you’ll be whisked back to the browser. Navigate back to the folder we created earlier and select all your images and then click on the “Print & Layouts” toolbar button. Your images will be loaded into the Triptych.
- Now use the Save toolbar button to select “Save As” and save your Triptych image.
That’s it, pretty easy and kinda cool! You can also use the “2 Horizontal” to create a Diptych (two images).
As always, share your Triptychs in the Funtastic Photos Flickr group. http://www.flickr.com/groups/funtasticphotos/pool/
There are some more examples of Triptychs over at the Triptych Flickr group. http://www.flickr.com/groups/triptychs/pool/
Tags: Triptych
June 26th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
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