My overall experience in digital imaging class was a successful learning experience. I first came into the class not knowing much about the class, but I know it was going a lot of Photoshop work. I had previously used photo shop before when I was in high school, but not as advanced as what we did in class. During the early days of class I would say is where I learned a lot. One thing that caught my eye is that using Photoshop can help you with any career. I remember when I told the teacher that I major in criminology , and the professor told me that this class can help with that career. The professor explained that it can help getting good details on the person who committed the crime so that it will be easier to search for him. Another thing I learned how to do was create a website. I never created a website before but I always wanted to so I’m glad we got to do that in class. When we finally got to go on Photoshop there were a few thing that we had to learn before we could even pick up a brush. I learned the right height and width for when you open a new paper. I learned that we have to make the page transparent, so it gets those squares in the back of the photo. I also leaned that we put the color of the photo as RGB, because that is the color setting for print.
The first project that we received was to make a hyper realism picture. Hyper realism is a picture that looks real but it won’t be real in real life. At first I thought it would be an easy task, but I was wrong for the fact that I couldn’t even figure out five possible themes to do it on. I sat down with the professor one on one and she told me to do it on what inspires me. After that moment I knew what I’m going to do my hyper realism piece on. I did my hyper realism piece on family. Family should be important in everybody life, because whenever you’re in a tough situation they always have your back with anything especially when no one else does. I also wanted to added clouds in the piece, because looking up at the sky on a bright cloudy day always keeps me at bay.Some of the tools that the professor taught us for this project was the brush tool, lasso tool, smudge tool, clone tool, and the magic wand tool. The brush tool was not even used for brushing we used it more for erasing, because we would switch the brush to clear so it would be a faster way of cleaning up the access edges. the lasso tool was used to crop out certain you want and did not want in the photo. the smudge tool was used to spread out something in the photo to other areas. the clone tool was used to take an area of something and clone it to another part of the picture. the magic wand was used for an easier way to grab only what you want from the photo without a lot of edges to it.For my piece I wanted to have my family and friends faces in the clouds. To do that I used the magnetic lasso to only get their head and shoulders, and spread their faces around the cloud. As I got all of the family and friends heads that I needed it looked all bunched up, and I needed to create space. I took the background picture ,( the clouds, ) and split them up into four different corners. Therefore it would look like one giant cloud covering up the page. The next thing I noticed was that I had a gap in the middle, and I wanted to put something there. I then learned my next tool called the text tool from the professor which allows you to write want you want in the picture. I had enough space for one word so I put the word love. I put love, because that’s the one word that describes them. I changed the color of the word love to red and changed the font style and size. There was also space on the bottom for me to write something so I wrote family= success. I wrote that because when you have motivation from family you feel that you will be able to achieve more knowing you have family is behind you. The piece was finally done; all that was left now to do was clean up the edges to make it look sharp. The cleaning tool I used was the brush tool on clear, the smudge tool, and the clone tool to push some of the photo out to the whole page. When I was done this is what it looked like.
The next project was doing a cubism photo. A cubism photo is sort of like a whole bunch of photo together that looks like a portrait. The professor said we can either do a landscape or a self-portrait of someone. I then decided to do a self-portrait of myself. In the beginning this was going to seem like an easy project. I had the themes ready, I knew where all the pictures were going to go in the background photo so I was feeling good. I even had a name for my them which is called a typical saturday in which it shows me doing things I would do on a normal saturday at home. The only problem I had was that it was looking more like a hyper realism photo and I didn’t have a focal point. I then got some feedback from the students and the professor in class, and they told me which tools to use to make it more cubist and where the focal point should be in my piece. The tools they showed me was the polygon lasso tool and a place where you make effects to a layer. I used the polygon lasso tool to make shapes around the background area so that it will bring out a focal point and make it seem like the shapes were coming out of the picture. Once I had the shapes I started to add some effects towards it. For example I added satin to it, put an outer glow to it, dropped a shadow, and used the bevel and contour. The piece was going well but instead of me just putting effects on the picture I decided to put them on the pictures of me. When I was done I finally had my cubist piece. I expanded the room a little bit more going to the canvas size. I used the clone tool to move the stuff that was on the right of the photo over some, and it even gave it a cubist effect towards it. The final step in this project was to make the picture stand out more by brightening up its colors. The professor then showed me levels. Levels is what you use to brighten or darken a picture. Once that was done the picture came out good. This is what came up when I was done.
The next project that we did was the grid. A grid was certain things in the photo that had more effects to it whether you move the picture around, or just changed the texture of it. The by far was my favorite out of all the projects, because it was easy to do, and did not consume a lot of time. As funny as it may seem the only problem I had with the grid is getting the grid lines to show up on my picture. I asked one of my classmates and she showed me how to do it. The picture that I chosed was another family picture with my uncle and cousin. I really did not choose it based on family; I chosed it because it had a lot of colors in it that I know would look well with effects. The way I did my piece was that every other grid block was going to get an effect on it. One advice that the teacher gave me was how to take out the rest of the blocks and just focus on one block. The way you do that was duplicate the background layer, and then drag it above all your other layers. then you take the marque tool with the marching ants and select a block you wish to work on. From there you select the inverse and then hide all of your other layers. Then you press delete and there you have one block showing on your screen. I continue to do that with every other block and put some cool effects in. For example I put a negative effect on the people’s faces. I change the difference on their clothes. I put different color outer glows around their heads, and even one effect made it look like a tattoo on my uncle’s arm. When I was done I went to levels and made the colors pop out more, and this is how it came out.
The final project was to choose one of the other projects we did before and do another composition. The project that I pick to do was the grid. I picked the grid, because it simple and very easy to use when you know where to go on Photoshop. In this composition I chose to do it on the happy times I had with my girl in our relationship. I got a whole bunch of pictures of us together so I put them together in a little cologne. I then use the same method I did with the last grid. Some of the things I did different was that I used more pattern overlay, color overlay, stroke, and satin. These tools brought out different things in the picture. For example it gave it more color, it gave it a little 3D effect, and different patterns to different areas of the composition. I also added a text on the composition that says more than a relationship. I wrote that because in our hearts the relationship is not an ordinary one. For more of a love effect I went on google and found a heart that I put in front of the text. When I finished the composition it looked like this.
In conclusion, I feel that I have learned a lot in this class and will help me in my future. I really felt that learning how to do things on Photoshop can really help you with anything you do in life. Another thing that I feel is that art is a way of expressing yourself, so if you have things inside of you let it out. It could be in a form of a song, drawing, diaries, anyway possible because it is a form of art.
Maliktke16 