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Subject:Re: Using digital camera for illustrations? From:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 16 Feb 2005 12:54:54 -0800
In addition to all the other suggestions, make sure you photograph
everything against a clean background. It takes just as much, if not
more, time and "illustration skill" to remove a cluttered background
than to draw the pictures from scratch.
The big problem with photos vs line art is the current tendency
toward short-run photocopy/laserprint based printing rather than
offset. The image quality of photos in such printed materials
is almost always inferior to what you'd get from higher volume
printing techniques, making line art a better illustration choice.
This might not be an issue for a consumer product, however.
How are the case and controls being designed? Are there CAD
models? In most cases, it's reasonably easy to convert CAD plot
files into line art.
Probably needless to say, but your marketability as a contractor
will be significantly improved if you can develop some skills as
an illustrator. IMO the age of specialization in document pros
is over, if it ever existed in the first place.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: <greg_ontheroad -at- hotmail -dot- com>
> I have a client that has a TV set up box the requires some documentation.
> I
> am ok with the software part of doing the docs, but it is the hardware
> element that bothers me. I can describe the hardware (and have done so in
> the past) but I have always had a technical illustrator to work with when
> I
> did hardware documentation. My illustration skills are limited so I was
> thinking about using a digital camera to take pictures of the hardware I
> needed to document, than add call outs to the pictures once I added them
> into the manual. I almost worked with a client that wanted me to do
> something similar for them, so I have always had this in the back of my
> mind as an approach I could use in future jobs.
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