 Flying cars, disappearing streets, and new bike lanes. Do you ever wonder how you can make these things happen and make them come to life? Well, you're in the right place. In today's video webinar, Jan Kamensky, who is the maker of these signature videos, is going to show you exactly how it's done. And by the end of this 45 minutes, you'll be glad you're staying. So, onwards and enjoy this lecture by Jan Kamensky, together with the Urban Cycling Institute. Making utopias visible, we will see why I chose this name later on. And yeah, at the beginning, I'll give a short introduction to the project and show some examples of my utopian animations for those who don't know. Afterwards, we will deal with the theoretical part of the image selection. And we'll continue the course in a practical way and jump into Photoshop. Finally, we will deal with your submissions and offer space for any questions you may have. And I really look forward to spending an hour with you. You are committed part of that movement in a whole sound direction. That is what constitutes the quality of utopia. It's the movement. But this movement is about more than getting cars to fly vertically. It's about more than levitating street signs. It's about more than painting up bike lanes and trees. It's about a holistic view of possibilities for our future. Let every edited pixel in the Photoshop document move in the right direction. In the published animations, as you can see here, we see the tip of the iceberg of more intensive treatment on several levels. That is why I would like to go into background of the project in addition to the practical application. So yeah, let's start here now. What are we confronted with? It's a seminar in times of crisis, or rather a mass seminar. A massively crisis-proof event, thanks to a streaming-based concept which at this moment connects over 100 people, maybe across the globe, to make cars fly. That would have seemed unimaginable just over a year ago, for most of us, especially me, who started the project just a year ago. Who could have imagined only three years ago that several thousand Parisians would be cycling to work each day, and they do it relatively safely too. What is considered unimaginable today may become reality tomorrow. I'll talk about imagination in more detail later, but now I'd like to get to grips with the crisis. As you might know, the word crisis is derived from the Greek. It means uncertainty, precarious situation, escalation, decision, or turning point. These are all descriptions that apply to our situation, or at least they could. Without a doubt, we have to change ourselves and our living environment, and this also, and especially includes the way we get around, as a fundamental part of our way of life. My project, Utopia for Bicyclists, starts exactly there. The project takes a transformation of our living environment, and thus creates visual arguments for change. I want to create new channels to the viewers, open up access to an alternative consciousness, and inspire and convince them of an ecological and socially sustainable way of life. The aforementioned imagination is to be inspired and activated. It's visual publicity for unimaginable but totally necessary transformation. Visualizing and communicating concepts for the future is an important foundation for public discussion and implementation of new concepts. Successful visual communication enables great convincing power, and can lead to a change in individual awareness of possible transformation processes. It should not discourage but inspire joy and confidence. The juxtaposition of the present with the future in form of the animated transformation should give the viewers an idea of what we gain in terms of quality of life. For example, by giving up individual automobile traffic and transforming streets into philanthropic places that images are thought provoking and encourage action. People should feel inspired to change their way of life, or and rethink previous habits. The utopia serves us, or the utopia serves to get us moving mentally and emotionally. Having the courage to imagine what today seems unthinkable, unrealizable and far away, the utopian pushing ahead is the motor for transformation into a wholesome future. Utopia offers a window on a possible development of our futures. It's our white sheet of paper that needs to be painted with color, that is now moving to action. So this is what you see here now, the longest animation. It's the facade. The facade is quite special. It's also quite long, so I will interrupt this here and now. We will have a look now at the selection of images, which is quite important. So I'll exit here and I'll jump back to the presentation, selection of the image. And we will talk about potentials and image analysis. We will deal with more theoretical and technical basics now. You will find them later on in the practical part of digital image editing. Which motives are suitable for this purpose? What factors need to be taken into account? So as I said, the motive is the basis for a successful visualization, whether the image is self-shot or from an image source. One of the decisive factors in choosing the right image is recognizing its potential. Content-related and technical aspects play an essential role. So what potential is there in the image? To excite and inspire. The high recognition value helps to open up access to the motive and possibly contributes to its popularity. As you can see here, the dome of Cologne, big cathedral. This is truly a high recognition value. Are there objects that are suitable for levitation, which means flying and moving away, such as lanterns, street signs, or traffic lights, and especially cars? But I will talk about cars later. That's a specific topic. Is the motive suitable to illustrate the situation in public space or to focus on a specific topic? Is there sufficient space to design your utopia? As you can see here, this is all the same picture as you have seen maybe before in the animation. And is something special about it? Does it include possible highlights, such as that cathedral or something more normal, which is, for example here, this facade, which gets a highlight in the animation? This gray facade will be a green oasis. Here we see already some of your submissions. So look for images that require little editing if your Photoshop skills are low. Take into account the area that is hidden behind the objects. For example, here, this car and the hidden area. It must be edited afterwards. This can lead to a considerable effort, trust me. Try to avoid it by a clever photography on the spot or smart selection of your image in the databases. As an alternative, you can also become a true master in imagery touching. If necessary, take pictures from several perspectives or wait until hidden areas of the picture become visible again. For example, when this car here moves away, so you could take another picture. So you have both. You have a car and you have the hidden area behind the picture. Different images can be combined. The use of a camera tripod can also be helpful. Make sure that there are not too many cars in the picture or no cars. Only completely photographed cars are suitable for further processing within the animation. The facades provide the framework for the design. At the same time, they are a key recognition feature. They offer the potential of an exciting design and can come into focus during the animation. The vanishing point here. Visible vanishing points offer the possibility for movement. For example, when a tram or bicycles are traveling. The wide view is perceived as pleasant. The crossing axis enables the use of moving objects in the horizontal, which offers another exciting dimension for the movement. For a harmonious composition, the ratio of about one third to two thirds for the division of the sky to the landscape, or in this case, the street, is recommended. But it really depends on the image you have. Image databases, very important. This is your source for a lot of things, or it can be your source. Image databases and other sources of visual material are extremely useful for an appealing design. They are not only helpful for choosing the motive, they also serve good purpose for people and objects such as trees, cars, furniture, and animals. You will also find great free material for your motives and objects on different websites such as unsplash.com. Be persistent. Image research can take some time. Seek and you shall find. Just a quick overview about basic technical aspects and formats, such as PNG. You might have heard it before, PNGs, JPEGs, and high resolution. I will jump over this very quickly. PNGs are suitable for the application because they allow a transparent background, as you can see here. In this way, people, cars, and other objects can be integrated in the motive as cutouts without much effort. And check pages like MrCutout.com. And trust me, I get not paid from them. JPEGs do not have the capacity for transparency. They must be cut out. Nevertheless, they are suitable to use, and often there's no way around them. So JPEGs are all over. High resolution images, whether it's a PNG or a JPEG, are suitable for high quality design. It's just good to have them. Just look out for the huge image size, as huge as it gets. And cash should also be taken, of course, to use only images whose licenses have either been purchased or offered under Creative Commons or something similar. Or even better, go outside and do it yourself. That's healthy. Image editing, digital image editing. Often, there are several ways to achieve the goal in Photoshop and After Effects. Those are huge applications. It is better to take a simpler route, especially in the beginning, and work as cleanly as possible. Try out different tools and find out which one suits you best. The animation is thought through right from the start of the project. This is the reason why the objects are left in the document once you cut them out, and they do not simply disappear in the trash can. Name the layers and structure groups so that you can find them again easily. You will have a lot, maybe. This will save time. They will have the same name in After Effects as in Photoshop. Both applications are connected to each other. And the masking mode is a very useful way to edit your layers. No image information is permanently erased or deleted with, like the rubber does, only masked and made invisible. This makes it possible to edit it afterwards. And to work precisely, it is recommended to use the path tool. It's curve-based and thus enables a clean way of cropping. We will do this later on in some minutes. The basis for an exciting animation is a well-functioning static design. If the realization already inspires as a still, not-moving image, the way to an exciting animation is paint. So try out to make a good, functioning, well-made static design first. Experimentation is useful to achieve unexpected results. Sometimes the direct and obvious path is not the one who's the most exciting. This insight can also be applied to the choice of your cycle path as seen end by recycle. Dare to think around the corner and try to find the courage to design something completely unrealistic. This will bring us a little closer to utopia. Utopia provides the space for ideas that might be considered as naive or unworkable in other contexts. Don't worry. Once the utopian vision reaches people, it stimulates discourse. This is already good. This sets things in motion. We will now jump into Photoshop already. I've seen that Otto also is also in the seminar. This is a street in Riga, his hometown. Otto is one of the first members of the Flying Car movement. He does great animations already. We had also little workshops and the animation of Riga we did together in those workshops. That's the results of it. And I can now show you how such a Photoshop document is structured and how I go on. So this is the photo the image Otto took in Riga. He will be able to explain more about this street and the situation. I never been there actually. I hope to be there soon. But that's not so important right now. But as you can see, this street is dominated by cars or the space for cars. We don't see so many cars here. I think normally there are more cars. And this is the image he took. And everything begins here. As I explained before, and we can see here, the facade, the vanishing point and the sky, they will all play a role in this animation. So this is why we took this motive because this house here is very interesting. It has an art deco architecture. Correct me if I'm wrong, but looks like. And this is a nice architecture, even if it's quite dirty maybe. It has a patina. Which makes it even more interesting. So it gets a specific role in this animation. This is why I call this a framework. Also this facade here on the side. Maybe it's not at first sight a beautiful motive, but you will have to think in other dimensions. So you will have to think about what can this street be in the future without cars and without offering them so much space? What can happen then with houses and the surrounding of the street? This is very important. So this is also a part of the theoretical basis of your work, to see the potentials, to recognize it. And later on I have two submissions, Singapore and Zurich. I will explain more technically with those images and here I just give an overview about the steps. So the first step is to cut out every object which must leave the public space and which has to move in a certain way. And I can show you it's quite a lot. I don't know if you see it good here in my screen sharing, but it's quite a lot layers. And this is after I have to go to before. Sign, sign forth, sign three, sign two, sign one, etc. and traffic lights. They are all cut out. And yes, that's why it's so important to name them. Because you will have to animate the layers by themselves or not by themselves. You have to make it, but you have to move them in after effects as well. You have to find them. So for example, here, let me show you the traffic light. I can move it already. So this is a nice effect. You can try out in Photoshop already to move your things. And it's cutting out. I will show cutting out afterwards. When you cut it out, you will have to prepare your street. So your street will be empty and your street will look like this. This is already quite impressive, I think. It looks somehow deserted. But for me, it's already better than with cars. That's for sure, even if there's nothing. We in Hamburg, during the G20 summit, we had situations like this, because everybody in the city was running out with cars out of the city. And we had situations who resembled. So this is a work where the stamp tool is quite important. I will show you later. And when we reached at this point here, we now have to think about the status in your animation, which you want to achieve. And I don't take this as my before status. This is just the original. So I have a lot of things who I don't need in my animation. For example, those people, I don't need them in my animation. I could, but in this case, I made another choice. So I made it like this. This was my before, my edited before. And I put cars into it and cars who weren't there before. PNGs, like this car here, you might recognize that this car was also in the facade. So it drives from the facade into this animation. And you already can move it. It looks kind of weird because you don't scale it here in Photoshop. But this here is already quite nice and somehow gives another dimension. That is the crossing axis. And something is hidden here. So it gives the feeling of something is going on here in this part of the image, which you don't see. And I took, of course, such a nice, sportive car here, a fast car, which flies like this in the animation. So I cut out the wheels and everything now here is cut out. Also the shadow, which looks kind of weird here, but you don't see this in the animation. This is my before status. When everything out of the before status, the edited before status, is a way like this. You see this in the animation. It's time to get the after, the creating utopia. And this is the final result. But also here, as I explained, this, for example, the skater is the PNG. It's transparent. I did not have to have to cut it out. It is not a JPEG, where I have to cut out first. This, for example, this person on the cargo bike was a JPEG. I had to cut it out. But it was quite easy because there was a wide background. And here, as you can see, is the vanishing point. And I think it's, yeah, it looks nice. It's perceived as pleasant. That's, I think, a human aspect. And we can now move the tram, or we can move bicycles, or we can just move the bike lanes here, or the tram lines. This is a nice effect in the whole thing. Also here, a lot of layers. Everything is separate. So each and every tree is separate. Tree seven, example, and tree one. And here, in this case, it's the same tree, but you don't see it in the final result. Sometimes I mirror them. So I think in this case, yeah, or I cut them sometimes. I cut some leaves, and then you won't see that this is not the, that this is the same tree. Okay, let's jump to our first submission. Anna, we are right in the time. Yes. I have 29 minutes now on my clock. And it's quite fast, even if I, even even talking slowly. So let's begin in Zurich. This is Zurich. I'm sorry, I don't remember who sent it in, but this is a nice picture. And I mentioned before that this is a picture, an image which does not need to be edited a lot. So you can use something like this when your Photoshop level is quite low. You don't have to make a lot of or put a lot of work into it. When I have such an image, the first thing I begin with is the cutting out. I will do it very quickly. Please don't be too strict with me. I make it not so clean, not as clean as normal. So I'm now using here the path tool. I don't know if you can see it. In German, it's the Zeichenstiftwerkzeug. Long name, path tool is better. And I'm making my path. I'm missing something. It's hidden behind the Zoom video. Okay. So now I have the selection of this sign. As I said, we have to cut out every and each and every object you want to move later on. So I'm going now on my original here and I'm cutting it off. It didn't work out. Why? This is a classic. I don't know why it's not working. It's so simple. But it seems that you also selected the entire picture. Yes, but actually I don't know. We will make it differently because of course I'm good prepared and I already did it. So this is sign two and this would look like this. I don't know why it did not work out. I do this thousands of times in the week but okay. So this is our hidden area now, what you can see now. So we have to stamp now this area. The sign is here. Okay. The sign is there and I can already move it like this. But here we have to stamp a little bit. I make it really quick and dirty because time is running and I will show you why it's sufficient to make it so quick and dirty just like that. That's enough for now because we can already use the tree and another tree to hide this. So this looks like perfect. I think you don't see any mistake in stamping but of course you will be cleaner and here is another sign and I will make this again. This is stamping a lot of stamping work but this motive, this image is quite good because it's not so much and we have information of the background in the parts of the hidden background in the parts you see. So this hidden area is the same as here. Can you see it? So this is very easy. This is very easy stamping and it's all about training. You have to apply and you will be making it. So this is enough for now and just to give you a feeling of what you can do very easy. We have another nice example from Singapore and I will go in more detail into this one. This is why I put Zurich on the quick list but also here. You can easily take a floor inside. This is already quite impressive I think here. Put the floor. I will show maybe later on if there's enough time how to make this floor but maybe it's not enough time and a bike lane. So you take the same floor structure and you are making only something like this or you take the path to even better. You make a form of your bike lane, cycle path however. You color it and then maybe work a little bit with the opacity here and then you already have quite nice bike lane and you can also put a bench here and chairs and that's it for Zurich. Zurich already has quite a good bike infrastructure or not. I'm not sure. So let's jump to Singapore. That's a long road to go and I took Singapore because Singapore is probably the image who traveled the longest distance and here you go. Hopefully the person who sent it in is here. I never used an image out of Google and I'm not sure actually if there's a license problem but we don't care right now. It's for sure we have to stamp this part. I already did it so I will show you only the edited part and I did it quite roughly here. You will see later why I did this so roughly. So actually it's not only stamping because we also have to cut out those cars. So stamping would be like this. The animation is there. No problem. Here this fence of the bridge is more problematic because there's a curve and this curve might cause some effort and actually it caused me some effort but not so much so this is still a picture who's good for you I think when your Photoshop skills are quite low. But I edited it and of course I cut out the cars as well so we can move them and the shadow will be fading away in the animation but cars now will not fly away they just will disappear and this area here won't stay like this and you might make it a little bit more clean for the animation but in this case we don't have an animation and I will put grass here because I think this bridge at first looks quite usual even if it's sunny and it's Singapore we have the typical skyline skyscrapers but it's a usual bridge and still there is a potential. I like bridges. Bridges connect people and bridges are highly frequented normally and we can make something special out of bridges and not just offer them to cars. Bridges have been beautiful in other times such as in Florence or Venice you know the the Rialto bridge for example this is a beautiful example for a bridge and a lot of bridges in the past have been like that and so grass it's so easy grass already makes it beautiful for me it's the same effect with trees just put trees on the bridge and this is already a beautiful place so what I want to say is that you don't need much for a huge effect this is already sufficient to show that we need less to gain something and to make our world better it sounds so cheesy but yeah I'm convinced about this why not not put some water in it it's completely unrealistic maybe but I don't know I don't care I think water is also good and this bridge is overly water going over the water but it can also have water and we can put flowers there as well and why some plants as well or we can make this part here more beautiful like this I'm sorry to interrupt we have about 10 minutes left do you think you can yeah okay yeah I'm I'm I'm finished very soon just to show you the possibilities and this is something who goes further this is now getting kind of really utopic utopian and I forgot the floor actually and yeah I just want to show you how beautiful it is for flamingos also and for another tree and also such a stock-built kingfisher who is from Singapore and of course by king priests persons so it's a beautiful beautiful place right now and it doesn't take too much to make it okay we we're good right now and in time Anna like yes there were a couple of questions in the chat but they are quite similar so maybe you can respond quite quickly perhaps as you like you can start answering the questions and if there is something you wanted to show at the end you can do that in the end or if you want to take one more minute maybe you can do that no for me it's fine because as I said in the beginning this is more about inspiration because all those technical things you have to you have to see by yourselves watch tutorials it's not sufficient time to explain how to cut out and be precise and everything like this so Jan thank you very much for for this this great insight into the back office of these animations I want to give the floor back to to Anna to to round this up thanks Jan yeah thank you very much Jan and thank you Marco for helping to moderate the event I didn't have time to introduce Marco de Brommelstude you probably all know him as a teacher in the course and as another leader in re-invisioning our streets but in his own way so I think it's been very nice to have this really amazing insight into Jan's work so thank you Jan very much of course you couldn't teach us how to do your animations in a just one hour but I think I hope you sparked interest and you sparked inspiration and people who want to do that they at least have some idea of how it works and then can explore further they I also shared your slides which really give some clear guidelines so that's also a great start and everybody knows your how to find you everybody knows how to follow your animations I will share the recording later and thank you very much to everyone who joined us from your respective time zones with varying degree of perseverance early in the morning or late in the night thank you thanks for your enthusiasm I hope you learned something I hope you got inspired and last word I would like to give to Jan as our honored guest thank you thank you Anna thank you Marco thank you all it was fun and hope to see you again one day all right thanks everyone and stay here go and reclaim streets dream big huge