Our picture creation and manipulation service can be used to produce a wide range of different picture types, such as photographs, drawings, diagrams, graphs and charts. It can also be used to produce text oriented graphics, such as logos or special headings and titles, and special backgrounds. While intended to be used to complement our website design and authoring services, by producing illustrations, etc., for your web pages or other documents, you can also use this service stand-alone to allow us to produce pictures for other purposes.

If you combine this service with our authoring service, then, in addition to simply illustrating your document, we can also produce a wide range of graphically-intensive documents for you, such as glossy brochures and leaflets, CD, DVD or booklet covers, advertisement panels or even complete posters. Please note, however, that we are not offering a complete graphic design service, but if you have a reasonably clear idea of what you want, and how it is to look, then we can help you to produce it. We have extensive experience of using graphic production tools such as Adobe Photoshop, and can liase with commercial printing services to get your documents produced in the quantities you need.

Common Operations

Here at Aardstorm, we can use a wide range of operations to produce the picture(s) that you require. This section describes some of the more common techniques that we can use, either individually or in combination; if you have a requirement for a type of operation that is not described here, we can probably also produce it for you, please contact us for a quotation. When requesting a quotation for this service, please describe as fully as possible the picture you require, in terms of its overall look, the elements it is to contain, and the source pictures and/or data it is to be created from. Some sort of sketch, however rough, can also help specify your requirements. We will then select the appropriate techniques needed to implement your requirements. This section is intended to give an indication of what we can do, rather than provide a menu from which you need to select specific operations.

Format and Size Conversion

This is the simplest type of operation we can perform, and if it is required as part of other services, it will often be performed free of charge. However, we can perform it as a stand-alone operation, to convert a picture that you supply to us in one format into an other and/or increase or reduce its size (number of pixels). In the latter case, size reduction is no problem, but there are practical limits to the degree of enlargement we can apply, before the resulting picture quality becomes unacceptable. This shows itself as a loss of sharpness as the size is increases, that cannot always be recovered by subsequent artificial sharpening.

Image Correction

This operation is typically required when the source is a technically inadequate photograph. The sorts of corrections we can do include contrast / brightness adjustment, colour cast removal, sharpening, and cropping to improve composition.

Colour Manipulation

The basic colour adjustments used for image correction can be extended to produce special effects such as conversion to black and white, optionally with subsequent colour toning. Other techniques can change the subtlety of colour and tone variations in the source image, to produce a picture that looks more like a coloured-in line drawing, a painting, or other traditional artistic techniques.

Background Removal / Object Extraction

This operation involves extracting one or more elements or objects in the source image from the background, then replacing the rest of the picture with a plain background. This could be used, for example, to improve pictures of your products that were not taken on a plain background. The extracted object could also be used as the basis for a silhouette shape, or even a repeating pattern.

Instead of complete removal or extraction, selected areas of the source picture could be blurred, for example to reduce the impact of a complicated background, or to add special effects such as a motion blur. Selective blurring could also be used to prevent certain features of the picture (such as trademarks or peoples' faces) from being identified. This can reduce or even eliminate the need for a model or property release where the picture is to be used for commercial purposes.

Image Combination

This is a development of the object extraction technique in which elements or objects from several source images are extracted, then combined to produce the new picture, possibly including a background from a further source picture.

Geometric Transformation

This operation is typically applied to the whole image, and involves transformations such as rotation, reflection, and stretching or squashing. These transformations can be applied individually, or in combination. Some of them, such as stretching/squashing can also either be applied uniformly , or the amount can vary across the image, for example to simulate or reduce perspective. More advance transformations also allow us to warp images so the they appear to be 'wrapped around' a three-dimensional shape.

Graphs and Charts

With this operation, we use numerical data to produce complete graphs and charts in a wide variety of styles. These range from simple line graphs, bar and pie charts, to elaborate versions with simulated 3-d bars and surfaces, complete with lighting effects. We can of course also include text annotations such as titles and axis and key labels, as appropriate for the size of chart and its intended viewing format.

Diagrams

We can produce a wide variety of diagram types, such as flow charts and labelled drawings. For flow charts, which usually consist of text within boxes linked together by lines or arrows, we can use a wide variety of box and arrow styles, from simple shapes to elaborate 3-d effects. For labelled drawings, we can start with a photograph, which we then manipulate to produce a line drawing, or we can tidy up a hand drawn and scanned version. In either case, the resulting drawing can either be monochrome or colour, with any desired degree of shading. We then add appropriate text labels and arrows or lines to link the labels with the appropriate areas of the drawing.

Text Effects

These effects are used to make short but significant pieces of text, such as titles, headings, or logos, stand out more effectively from their background (and the rest of the page) than can be achieved with simple colour and size differences. We start with a simple piece of text, for which we have access to a wide range of fonts as standard. If we don't already have access to a font that you require, or cannot provide a near equivalent, the we can obtain it for you, although this may involve additional charges. After this we can apply a variety of special effects to this basic text: we can warp it in various ways, such as to lean it over, follow a curved line, appear to recede into the distance, or even appear to be dripping or melting; we can add 3-d lighting effects such as highlights, glows, and drop shadows; or we can add textures to make it appear to be made from specific materials such as fabric, stone, metal, or liquid. In fact, if you can think of a look, we can almost certainly acheive it.

Shapes and Patterns

Here, rather than starting with some sort of photograph or scanned drawing, we can start from scratch to arrange lines and geometric shapes (including pseudo 3-d shapes such as spheres, boxes, etc) to produce the picture you require. The basic shapes can also be warped in various ways to produce more complex shapes. The shapes can be simple outlines, and/or filled with solid colours, patterns or textures, such as continuous gradation of colour or tone, or simulations of materials such as fabric, stone, wood, metal, or liquid. The patterns and textures can also be applied to the overall background. We can also add a variety of lighting effects such as light beams, highlights, glows, and shadows, to give a 3-d look to your picture.

Information Sources

We can produce pictures from pictures or other information either that we have found for you through our Research or Picture Location Services, or that you supply us with. We can accept this source information in a wide variety of elecronic formats - if the file can be read by one of the components of the Microsoft Office (2003) or Adobe Creative Suite (CS2) program suites, then we can accept it. We can also accept your source information on paper or film (35mm negatives or transparencies only), but if these are to be included directly in the documents we produce for you, then the scanning and transcription charges described below will also apply. Small amounts of information in electronic form can be supplied to us as e-mail attachments, otherwise it is better to send the information to us on CD or DVD ROM.

Picture Production

During our production process, if your picture is particularly complex, or if you leave some aspects of it to our judgement, we will supply you with preliminary or 'mocked up' versions for your approval, before we continue with the final detailed processing. If appropriate (or requested) we may supply you with several different versions of a single picture, for you to make the final selection. These preliminary pictures will typically be supplied at less than the final resolution, and optimised for on screen viewing, and may be supplied as e-mail attachments or on CD or DVD ROM.

Once we have the produced the picture to your specification, and you have requested us to supply it for either your own internal use or to be passed on to a third party, we can supply it to you in a variety of electronic formats appropriate to its intended use. This could be instead of or as well as our using the picture to illustrate a website or document that we are also producing for you. As with your input information, if the file format can be produced by any of the component programs of the Microsoft Office (2003) or Adobe Creative Suite (CS2) packages, then we can supply your picture in that format. Small files can be shipped to you as e-mail attachments, otherwise (or at your request) we will ship the files on CD or DVD ROM.

We can also supply your picture on paper, or other hard copy medium such as canvas. We can supply a limited number of paper copies from our own colour laser or inkjet printers, for example for proofing or approval purposes, or for your own internal use or distribution. Note that our laser printer is only suitable for rough drafts or simple diagrams without subtle variations in colour; our inkjet printer is however capable of very high 'photographic' quality output. We can also supply our inkjet prints framed and mounted; please enquire for details of our framing and mounting fees. If you require a larger number of copies, or require your prints to be produced on other media, then we can liase with a commercial printing service to produce them for you, or we can supply the necessary files for you to supply to your own printing service.

Copyright and Licensing

We will take great care not to infringe anybody else's copyright when producing your picture. We normally also retain the copyright in all our work, and our standard license only covers pictures that are either to be published (free of charge) on the internet, used or distributed internally within your organisation, or incorporated by ourselves into other documents that are to be distributed free of charge to your customers or clients; you will be able to make as many copies of our work as you like for these purposes, or we can supply additional copies for additional fees.

If you intend to sell the pictures we produce for you, either directly or as part a larger document, or distribute them to others other than as described above, then you will also require some form of production license from us. Please contact us with details of your requirements to negotiate the additional fees for this.

Communication

All communication between us and you, throughout any picture creation project, from request for quotation onwards, will normally be via e-mail or regular post. However, at your request, then we are happy to visit you for a face to face meeting, perhaps to dicuss your requirements in detail, or to present the results of our work, but an additional fee will apply to each meeting to cover our travelling costs.

Fees

The standard fees for our authoring service are as follows:

Service	Fee
Picture Creation / Manipulation	£150 / day
Printer Liason	£75 / document
Meeting Travelling Fee (hourly rate applies to total return travelling time, as estimated by public route planning websites)	£25 / hour + £75 if one-way travelling time exceeds 3 hours
Prints (from our own laser printer)	£0.10 / page
Prints (from our own inkjet printer)	£5 / print (up to A4) £8 / print (up to A3)
Prints (from commercial printing service)	£5 / picture + printing fees
Additional CD/DVD copies (1 copy of any CD or DVD we produce is included without charge)	£5 / disc

Where you supply text, pictures, or graphics to us on paper or film for direct inclusion in your picture, the following additional scanning and transcription charges will apply:

Input Format	Fee
Text on paper (typed)	£20 / page (up to A4)
Picture on paper	£10 / picture
Picture on film (35mm negative or transparency)	£10 / picture

Once we have provided you with a quotation for our work, the quoted fee will be firm and fixed; if we take more or less time than expected to produce your picture, the price you pay will not change, unless you change your requirements.

Aardstorm is not currently registered for VAT, and therefore cannot charge VAT. Once we are registered, the fees above will be the VAT exclusive rates.

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