Just for fun, Martin recently bought a batch of Put-In-Cups to decorate the chain-link fence outside our office window. The following is a tutorial for anyone who wants to use Put-In Cups to put low-rez photographic images on their fence. (Or contact Martin for a consultation.)
You'll need Photoshop to complete this tutorial. We used version CS2, although you may be able to use other versions as well.
Please note that you can download a program from Put-In-Cups that will do this for you, although it doesn't give you as much control over the look.
Go out to your chain-link fence and count how many "diamonds" high it is. In our case, the fence was 12-14 "diamonds" high (some of the top and bottom diamonds were badly bent out of shape). For us, width was essentially infinite.
Bear in mind that there are only about 16 colors of Put-In-Cups, so choose your scene wisely. Make sure that the photo consists of bright, primary colors, and that the contrast is not subtle.
Now crop your photo so that it will generally fit the shape of your fence. For us, that meant cropping the photo from being fairly square-ish, to being "widescreen."
Make a note of the height and width (it's important for step 7). If we want our finished picture to be 14 "diamonds" high, we calculate the corresponding width by figuring out the ratio between height and width. This image is 97 x 157 pixels. If we want it to be 14 "diamonds" high, the width would be about 23 "diamonds."
A chain-link fence is essentially a very low-resolution computer monitor. The difference is that chain-link "pixels" are rotated 45 degrees. To simulate chain link on a computer monitor, rotate your image 45 degrees.
Since there are only 17 colors of Put-In-Cups, and they're mostly vivid colors. You'll want to increase the saturation and contrast in your picture. (You may have to repeat steps 5 and 6 until you get something you like.)
Note: for different effects, reverse steps 6 and 7.
Now it's time to reduce our color depth from full-color to the Put-In-Cups color palette. You can use the eyedropper and the Put-In-Cups brochure to create your own color table (.act file), but it's easier to just use ours.
Right click this link to download putincups.act to your hard drive. Then in photoshop, choose Image > Mode > "Indexed Color..." to open the Indexed Color dialog box. (NOTE: for different effects, choose different Dither options on the Indexed Color dialog box.)
Under Palette choose "Custom..." to open the Color Table dialog box. Now choose "Load..." and browse to wherever you saved putincups.act. Click OK until you're back at your picture.
Note: for different effects, reverse steps 6 and 7.
Now you need to reduce the size of your picture so that the number of pixels works out to the correct number of "diamonds." From step 3 we see that the width is supposed to be about 23 "diamonds." (Substitute height for width if your picture is taller than it is wide.) Since we're rotated 45 degrees, we need to multiply by about 1.4 to get the width of our Photoshop image. For us, that's about 33 pixels. In Photoshop, back up your file, then choose Image > Size and enter 33 pixels.
The image is presented here at 300% size so that you can see the detail.
The image we actually used for our fence has a slightly different color and shape. The one we used is presented here, also at 300% size.
Now you need to order the cups. Each "pixel" is one cup. (Cups are sold in lots of 50.) What we need is a handy way to count the number of pixels of each color in our picture.
In Photoshop we can select one color at a time by choosing Select > Color Range, and then using the eyedropper to pick a color. Make sure you turn the "fuzziness" setting all the way down to 0.
Now that you have a single color selected, open the Histogram palette, under Window > Histogram. It probably doesn't look like much until you click the options button (a circle with a right-pointing triangle up by the word "histogram"). Choose "Expanded view" and suddenly you'll be able to see interesting information about the selection. Specifically, you can see the number of pixels that are selected. In our case, we have 210 light blue pixels selected, so we need 210 light blue Put-In-Cups.
Repeat this step for each color in your picture. It's a good idea to cut the pixels and paste them into a new, hidden layer as you go so that you can keep track of which colors you've accounted for.
Now that you know how many cups you need, you can place your order. When they come, print off your Photoshop file (on a color printer!) and take it with you out to your fence. Put the cups in according to your design. Send us a picture when you're done.
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