Bits and pieces from the past keep bubbling up. This is a double-paged spread from a 1990 document called The Post Paper, recently posted on Facebook by Linda Rheinstein - written by my longtime friend and Paintbox “brother,” Paul Hoegh-Guldberg.
It really brought back some memories and I particularly love the quote, “Electric Paint has grown and continues to grow into some sort of all consuming electronic monster.”
The transcribed article is shown below.
In 1987, veteran Paintbox artist, Tony Redhead, joined forces with Linda Rheinstein, Vice President of The Post Group, to form a new company called Electric Paint. Conceived to embrace the electronic print imaging world, the original working idea was that The Post Group would directly feed Electric Paint work from its own clientele, and as well, Electric Paint would create its own list of clients who needed high quality print images. Thus, a partnership began between Redhead, The Post Group, and Linda Rheinstein's privately owned company, Autographics. Based on this premise, Electric Paint purchased a Graphic Paintbox, the first in this country, and began to produce what are called "high resolution" images. What in fact happened, was that the so-called "low resolution" images of video were in many cases, both uneconomic and unsuitable for re-rendering to "high res." As a result, Electric Paint began to build its own base of clients from the world of advertising and most prominently, the entertainment industry.
From those beginning days, Electric Paint has grown and continues to grow into some sort of all devouring electronic monster, that is happy to spend most working days and nights thinking only of pixels and high quality images. From the days of squinting at an 18 monitor, albeit a high definition one, it has increased its equipment list to include two Quantel Graphic Paintboxes with 28 high-def monitors, a Scitex work station, a Dai Nippon thermal printer, a JX450 flatbed scanner, a 3047 Iris Inkjet Printer, and last but not least to arrive, the Macintosh system -all this without mentioning the number of pixel jockeys that have passed through their doors, including myselt. My association with Electric Paint began about eight months ago while consulting on the applicaton of the first Graphic Paintbox in Australia. I met Tony in Sydney and have had considerable involvement with Electric Paint on further developments in this technology since.
Now to get down to the meaty part that is, the combination of the Quantel Graphic Paintbox with the Macintosh system. Electric Paint has been experimenting extensively with Macintosh applications in the "high-res" area over the last few months. However it is difficult in this particular industry to know exactly how each piece of new technology and its attendant software are going to fit into the scheme of things, and one's original plans are always having to change in order to accommodate new ideas. The Macintosh system is an extremely versatile and comprehensive computer and presents many opportunities in its application. Electric Paint has purchased a Macintosh Ilx system that includes a 19" Radius Color monitor, 50Mhz Daystar accelerator, 300 Mb Micronet external hard drive, 45 Mb removeable and Articulate Systems Voice Navigator. Running within this lot is Letraset Color Studio and Letrastudio, Adobe Photoshop and Pixel Paint Professional, not forgetting the Wacom bitpad and pressure pen. Now I won't pretend to understand the internal workings of all these bits and pieces because that is the realm of skilled engineers. My work is to apply them in the creation of "high-res graphics" and to use each system for which it is best suited.
To successfully integrate different systems, it is important to understand the disparities that exist between such systems. The Macintosh will never replace the Graphic Paintbox in its area of expertise and the inverse goes for the Macintosh. The Quantel Graphic Paintbox was built for a specific set of functions while the Macintosh is a general purpose platform that allows you to perform many different tasks. An obvious difference exists between the systems in terms of purchase price. The Paintbox costs around $750,000, while the Macintosh is priced much closer to the mortals budget of around $25,000. While in itself this is a not an insubstantial amount, it outlines the reason why these are two very different systems. In order for the Macintosh to reach the operating power that the Graphic Paintbox commands, it would have to increase the number of computer boards to increase its processing capabilities and thus end up costing just as much. The real advantage comes with the combined use of both systems working together to reach a common goal. Because the entertainment industry is Electric Paint's major clientele using the system for the creation of theatrical one-sheets, it is constantly necessary to come up with new ways to improve images... images that have been pulled together from all over the place: bad 35mm location shots with the wrong lighting, wrong angles, wrong heads, wrong everything, 35mm half frames cut from the movie itself.. not to mention a client that expects or rather knows, that if they bring it to Electric Paint, it will all come together and look outstanding.
This is where the Macintosh/Paintbox combo comes into play. Using the nine track tape system as the medium of transfer, we are able to take images to and from both systems and combine them to create one image. For example just recently I had a project that required finished art for a movie one-sheet to be built out of three transparencies. One transparency was a flag shot on the set of the movie that required perspective manipulation, a perfect job for the Macintosh. A file containing the original flag inscan was transferred to the Macintosh, manipulated in Photoshop including a three dimensional ripple effect, then re-transferred back to the Paintbox to be stripped into the final image. Another example was a client request to color a B/W image of a head. Although possible to achieve this on the Paintbox, using the color curve functions in Colorstudio, we were able to geta much more effective result, which was then used as a base from which the final image was constructed in the Paintbox.
Using new Beta software, that Electric Paint is testing, PostScript files can be rendered in ColorStudio with the advantage of eliminating the jaggies—or that lovely pixel edge that we all love so much. Once the type has been created, either by scanning or hand illustrating, it can be turned into a Postscript file using the new Shapes software, and then manipulated, before rendering to the resolution of the bitmapped image file. For that matter, any shape can be turned into a Postscript file and manipulated in the same way-both as a solid or outlined object. For example, a recent job required that the type, as well as a group of figures, have a neon glow surround them. To achieve this, we built the type and a matte for the figures on the Paintbox and took it to the Macintosh to be turned into a Postscipt file. Once they were both in Colorstudio, the shapes were automatically rendered using an airbrush outline in varying widths to create the glow. The files containing the glows and the type were then transferred back to the Graphic Paintbox to be composed, and final touches applied. As I've stated along the way, these projects could have been accomplished on the Paintbox, but these particular examples were expedited by using both systems.
In the area of comping, where the client is building several versions of one project and does not require them to be of finished "high resolution," the Macintosh can be a very effective tool. Using the Howtek JX-450 Flatbed scanner to inscan images instead of having them drum scanned, is a timely and cost effective method in many cases. The images can be scanned, manipulated, and the initial strip done on the Macintosh. It is in the final finishing of an image that the Graphic Paintbox can be used for the best results. One of the main reasons being, that the Graphic Paintbox has much more effective paintbrushes, giving a far larger area of cover in real time, and making it easier to finesse and smooth out areas on the comp. But again, it's the combination of the systems that is the key.
According to Tony, the growing number of clients installing the Macintosh systems will provide Electric Paint a base of literate Art Directors with a grasp of the complexity of electronic image manipulation through their own work. These clients will use it for the initial design and conceptual end of the project, and then come to Electric Paint for the higher resolution comping and final image creation. The one thing that I have noticed about Electric Paint's client base is that they prepare all their low res comping in-house and then come to us for the final high quality output.
People have concerns about the resolution differences, and that there may be a change in quality when transferring images back and forth between the two principles, since they both share the same common measure the lowly pixel. But you can take a 200 pixel by 200 pixel resolution file from the Macintosh to the Paintbox and they will retain the same resolution. However, issues such as color lookup tables and file formats need to be addressed in the area of file transfer. As these two and other systems develop, the combined use will become simpler and faster, and the inevitable direct interface will eliminate the need to go through the nine track tape system. By utilizing a Macintosh as a special effects generator and the Graphic Paintbox as the image creator, both of. these systems, side by side, will create and open a whole new world in the realm of high resolution digital image manipulation and creation.
