WEEK 04: Lecture & Digital Poster Progress

   DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY & IMAGING GCD 61204

WEEK 4: 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 4th week of lecture, I am starting to feel a bit better from last week as I am getting the hang of the workload. This week, we are diving deeper into photoshop so I'm excited to learn more.

LECTURE NOTE:

This week, Mr. Martin introduced us to the adjustment layer of Photoshop which is very new to me as I have never come across this feature and never familiarise myself with it before. While the lecture was going on, Mr. Martin encouraged us to follow along with him.

1. Introduction to Photoshop 3: Adjustment Layer and Filter

Adjustment Layer

The Adjustment Layers in Photoshop are a group of super useful, non-destructive image editing tools that add color and tonal adjustments to your image without permanently changing its pixels. 

Fig. 1.1 Adjustment layer

With the adjustment layers, you can edit and discard your adjustments or restore your original image at any time. This will make your workflow in Photoshop more flexible and efficient and is an absolute must-know.

Fig. 1.2 Adjustment layer

Basic understanding of Adjustment Layer

When you add an adjustment layer to your image, a new layer will appear over your image and a Properties panel specific to the type of adjustment you’ve selected will pop up. The Properties panel will allow you to modify your adjustment layer, which in turn will modify your image.

Fig. 1.3 Properties of the adjustment layer

Fig. 1.4 Brightness

1) Brightness- Brightness / Contrast makes adjustments to the tonal range of your image. 

The brightness slider is for adjusting the highlights in your image and the Contrast slider is for adjusting the shadows in your image.

Fig. 1.5 Level

2) Level- Levels modify the tonal values in an image by adjusting the levels of the shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. 

It’s one of the most used tools in the adjustment layer panel, and using just a touch of levels will go a long way in correcting your images.

Fig. 1.6 Curves

3) Curve- Curves let you adjust as many points as you want throughout the entire tonal range of your image, and are the most powerful and precise tool for editing the tones in an image. 

Fig. 1.7 Exposure

4) Exposure- Exposure lets you adjust exposure levels with three sliders: Exposure, Offset, and Gamma. 

Exposure will adjust only the highlights of the image, Offset adjusts the mid-tones and Gamma will adjust the dark tones only.

Fig. 1.8 Selective color

5) Selective Colour- The Selective Color adjustment layer selectively modifies the amount of a primary color without modifying the other primary colors in your image.

Filters

Using filters to edit photos is an essential element of Adobe’s graphics editor. 

There are filters to change color, add blur, or create completely new image effects. Photoshop offers a virtually unlimited variety of filters for this purpose.

Fig. 2.1 Filters tutorial from lecture

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PRACTICAL

During the lecture, I tried experimenting with the image given by Mr. Martin and this is the result I got from that. 

Fig. 3.2 Image before photoshop

Fig. 3.1 Image after photoshop

These are the adjustment layers I used on that image.

I tried to go for an underwater effect by adding vibrance to the ground (to look like reefs) and increased the blue of the sky to create a bright blue watercolor. Lastly, I added a water pattern on the top of the image for the underwater effect.

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PROJECT 1- DIGITAL COLLAGE

For my digital collage, I utilized the provided materials by Mr. Martin during practicals and tried them for ourselves during class. I used the tools to mask the subjects out and then gather them in an interesting way. I made a total of 3 compositions in total.

Pre-Composition #1

Fig. 4.1 Pre-composition 1

For this composition, I imagined a story in which a bunch of people is consumed by the giant building ahead of them which represents capitalism. I made a clipping mask a circle over the black and white element to create a moon-like element that symbolizes 'hypnotizing'. The red elements in the background are associated with evil and its devil acts.

Pre-Composition #2

Fig. 4.2 Pre-composition 2

For this composition, I imagined a story in which a bunch of fish is swimming towards the text which represents the news, this shows how the society all swarm towards trusting a rumor and canceling someone upon hearing the news, following and believing whatever they hear without trying to dig deeper down for the truth.

Pre-Composition #3

Fig. 4.3 Pre-composition 3

For this last composition, I imagined a story where a parallel universe exists and the middle is the truth about it which no people of either two universes know about it.

Adjustment Layers & Filters

Adjustment Layer #1

Fig. 4.3 Vintage Filter

Fig. 4.4 Adjustment layer

For my first try on filters, I applied an orange solid color and decreased the opacity to create a vintage look except for the white in the middle as I only want to apply the filter o the subjects on this collage composition.

Adjustment Layer #2

Fig. 4.5 Replaced colors

Fig. 4.5 Adjustment Layer

For my second try on filters, I applied a replace color adjustment layer on and changed the train layer so it seems green which gives it a film camera look, as for the fishes in the middle, I replaced its blue color with red to contrast with the green background as they are complementary colors and would become a focal point to the viewers.

Final Composition Submission

Fig. 4.4 Final Digital PDF