WEEK 03: Lecture and Practical

  DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY & IMAGING GCD 61204

WEEK 3: PRACTICAL

NAME: Adeline Wong Chyn Nee

I.D: 0344017

COURSE: Bachelors of Design in Creative Media

GROUP: C

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Going into our 3rd week of lecture, I am starting to feel a bit tired from all the workload and started to have mental breakdowns weekly but I guess that is part of getting used to the university workload. However, I have been trying to improve my time management so I can finish up given tasks as soon as possible, so far it has been hard but I'll keep trying.

LECTURE NOTE:

This week, Mr. Martin introduced us to the basic tools of Photoshop which I'm really looking forward to learning. Photoshop is essential to most artists, designers, and editors so that is why I am learning Photoshop skills, to improve my designs and works.

1. Introduction to Photoshop

1)The toolbox- Photoshop provides several toolsets in the Toolbox, and you can expand the toolsets to reveal additional tools.

Fig. 1.1 Toolbox

These are some of the tools in the toolbox:

• Lasso Tool
• Pen Tool 
• Layering
• Crop/ Slice Tool
• Healing Tool
• Quick Selection Tool
• Brush Tool
• Path Creation Tool
• Text Tool
• Shape Tool
• etc...

Fig. 1.2 Marquee Selection Tool

Using any of the Marquee Selection Tool, we can mask and select an object out of the image. This is an important tool in Photoshop and in my opinion, the most used.

One of the Marquee Selection Tools is called, Lasso Tool...

2) Lasso Tool- This allows you to draw and pinpoint specific areas of a document. If you like drawing with pencil and paper or cutting and pasting objects from a photo, then you will love the Lasso Tool.

Fig. 1.3 Lasso Tool

How to use the Lasso Tool:

When you click on the Lasso Tool from the Toolbar, you will see three different tool options: 

• Lasso 
• Polygonal Lasso 
• Magnetic Lasso

The Lasso Tool is great to use with a graphic tablet because it is similar to a pencil. 

Unlike a mouse or trackpad, a graphic tablet can give a better flow when drawing and making selections.

Fig. 1.4 Lasso Tool

 

Fig. 1.5 Lasso Tool (selection line)

When we select a make a specific selection, the lasso tool will automatically detect the outline of your selection and run a dotted line around it.

To understand what we have learned better, we tried to work with the lasso tool ourselves with a few images prepared by Mr. Martin.

Fig. 1.6 How To Use The Lasso Tool

3) Pen Tools- Creates paths and shapes which can be duplicated and manipulated to create complex selections, masks and objects.

When it comes to actually create a path from scratch, the pen tool is the most common option.

The pen tool is the way that you add these points and the way you drag the tool as you create the points determines how they will look.

Remember, the fewer points, the smoother a path will be.

Fig. 1.7 How to use Pen Tool

Variation of Pen Tool:

1. Straight-line path
2. U shape curves
3. Simple S curves
4. Complex S curves

Fig. 1.8 Straight-line path

Fig. 1.9 U shape curves

Fig. 1.10 Simple S Curve

Fig. 1.11 Complex S curve

In the first week of the lecture, we practiced using the pen tool through the Bezier Game. (progress in Week 1 blog)

Fig. 1.12 The Bézier Game

4) Layering-  Transparent areas on a layer let you see layers below. You use layers to perform tasks such as compositing multiple images, adding text to an image, or adding vector graphic shapes. 

Fig. 1.13 Layering

How To Use Layers in Photoshop:

Layers are different images stacked on top of each other. 

You can use each layer without affecting another one to make adjustments. 

Together they form one final image. 

It could look something like this in real life.

Fig. 1.14 How to layer in Photoshop

The advantage of using Layers is that you can save a Photoshop file with all the layers included. This means you can use layers for non-destructive editing. 

Your adjustments in Photoshop will never destroy the original image. 

The layers contain all the extra information and/ or images you want to add to the original file.

Fig. 1.15 How to layer in Photoshop

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PRACTICAL

Trying the Lasso Tool with furniture!

Fig. 2.1 3 tables provided

These are the 3 images provided by Mr. Martin, we picked the suitable Lasso tool to mask out our selection and drag it over to a background image.

The Product:

Fig. 2.2 Lasso Tool Practice

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Digital Collage Exercise

Fig. 3.1 First composition 

Fig. 3.2 Second composition 

Fig. 3.3 Third Composition

After this exercise, we showed them to Mr. Martin on week 4 and he preferred both first and third compositions, however I would chose the third one as my favorite one.