Digital Photography and Imaging / Project 1
1.9.2022 - 22.9.2022 (Week 1- Week 4)
Loke Yan Ling / 0344602
Digital Photography and Imaging / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Loke Yan Ling / 0344602
Digital Photography and Imaging / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Project 1: Physical & Digital Collage
Lecture
Week 1 / Introduction
The class begins with an introduction and briefing by Mr. Fauzi. For convenience, we used Google Classroom as our resource and material platform. We will learn skills related to Photoshop, Aftereffect and some animations. Mr Fauzi also give us some tips to follow as a designer. I was amazed by the seniors works, it was creative and meaningful. Mr. Fauzi also gave some tips to become a great designer.
The importance of Photoshop for Graphic Designer:
- Express your creativity
- Create graphic design
- Restoration of old images
- Integrate graphics with text artistically
- Make use of brushes
- Change photo colour
- Rectify mistakes in photographs
Photography Manipulation
It is a technique of combining multiple images on one negative (background) during 1850s. It involves the transformation or alteration of a photograph by using various methods & techniques to achieved desired results. For my opinion, photography manipulation brings benefits to the society such as giving a visual when there is an absent of element.
Digital Imaging
Digital image is converts from the printed text, artwork, and photographs by using digital scanner. There is several techniques in digital imaging such as removing details (retouch), inserting details, photomontage and false captioning. Photomontage is create or pair images with a relationship or an entirely new image with a composite meaning while false captioning is context of what a photograph purportedly portrays is falsified to distort the meaning.
Week 2 / Composition
Introduction to basic composition
Every design have their own purpose, here have some rules of composition to follow by expressing your message in design more effectively. (Design also mean as photography in below notes taking)
- Basic Composition
All of the composition can’t stay away from the focal point because it is a key element that catch viewer’s eyes naturally settle on the important pieces of design first. However, if you want to draw attention towards or away a certain elements, scale & hierarchy would help you a lot. To achieve asymmetrical balance, apply weightage of element and white space into design will balance up the main focus of a composition. White space is important in design, it gives clarity and give the design a space to breath even though the composition is complicated.
- Rules of third
Rules of thirds is a composition of guideline to create more dynamism to a design by dividing the photography into 3 parts (grid line) either horizontally or vertically or both. Mostly, subject is placed at the intersection point to make the make the design look pleasant. In addition, there are several other techniques in photographic composition.
- Leading Lines (principles of perspective)
- Diagonal Line (create great movement),
- Framing
- Figure to Ground (contrast between subject and background),
- Fill the Frame (get close to the subject),
- Center Dominant Eye (gives impression and make the eyes follow you),
- Patterns & Repetition (with interrupted pattern is the best)
- Symmetry
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Figure 2.1 Golden Ratio |
- Golden Ratio
It is a mathematical ratio (1:1.618) that can be commonly found in nature. It provides a sense of artist and beauty through harmony and proportion. Furthermore, it is useful guideline for determining the dimension of layout.
- Composition framing & cropping
Using composition in framing & cropping have the same way in drawing attention and keep focus on the subject in the frame. It is suggested to plan out the shots in detail before production which effectively present the relationship between subjects or depth in photography. There are total of 9 shots recommended in the YouTube video provided by Mr. Fauzi. For a better photograph or film, use multiple shots that suits the scene and plan the shots before filming.
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| Figure 2.2 Shot Composition |
Week 3 / Intro to Photoshop 2
Lasso Tool
The Lasso Tool allow you to draw and pinpoint specific areas of a document. It is great to use with graphic tablet because it is similar to a pencil. In Lasso Tool from the Toolbar, there 3 different tool options:
- Lasso - Freehand
- Polygonal Lasso - Straight
- Magnetic Lasso - Magnetic
Pen Tool
Pen Tool is one of the option to create precise path from scratch through create the nodes or points. Fewer Nodes will have a smoother path. There are 4 basic variation that can create through pen tool. The bezier games we play on week 1 a tutorial of the pen tool.
- Straight Line paths
- U shaped curves
- Simple S curves
- Complex S curves
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| Figure 3.1 Straight Line paths |
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| Figure 3.2 U shaped curves |
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| Figure 3.3 Simple S curves |
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| Figure 3.4 Complex S curves |
Layering
Different photos are stacked on top of one another to form layers. A layer can be adjusted independently of other layers. Using layers has the benefit of allowing you to save a Photoshop file with every layer present without impacting any other layers or erasing the original image. All the additional data and/or images you want to add to the original file can be found in the layers.
Week 4/ Intro to Photoshop 3
Adjustment Layer
With the help of Photoshop's adjustment layers, you may make colour and tone changes to your image without permanently altering its pixels. Adjustment can be edited, discarded, or restored to the original image at any moment using adjustment layers. A new layer will appear above your image when you add an adjustment layer, and a Properties panel will appear that is particular to the sort of modification you've chosen. The adjustment layer can be modified in the Properties tab, which will also change the image.
- Brightness - adjust highlights
- Contrast - adjust the shadows
- Level - adjust the level of shadow, mid tones and highlights
- Curve - adjust points throughout the entire tonal range
- Exposure - adjust highlights
- Offset - adjust mid tones
- Gamma - adjust dark tone
- Selective Colour - selective modify the amount of primary color without modifying others
Filter
A key component of Adobe's graphics editor is the ability to apply filters to photographs for editing. There are filters to alter the colour, add blur, or make entirely original image effects. For this, Photoshop provides an essentially limitless array of filters.
Instruction
Description:
Learning Composition through Collage Design.
Project 1 consist of 2 exercises related to Collage Design, one physical and one digital.
The aim is to develop a theme/idea with layers of images with design principles and composition.
1. PROJECT 1A: COLLAGE (10%)
Design elements (5 Marks)
Composition (5 Marks)
Submission: WEEK 3
Submit your best selected collage composition (.jpg)
2. PROJECT 1B: DIGITAL COLLAGE (10%)
Design elements (5 Marks)
Composition (5 Marks)
Submission: WEEK 5
Submit your best selected digital collage composition (Week 4: Adjustment layer) (.jpg)
Task 1:
- List out 3 graphic design work from Pinterest and explain
- Practice and play on this game: https://bezier.method.ac
- Prepare material for next week collage assignment
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| Figure 1.2: https://pin.it/Lx8lSNB |
This artwork is found on Pinterest, I really like the perspective that look from the ground. It is the same perspective with us when we look up the sky. For me, this graphic design give me a sign of depression, because the view is narrow by the building and birds mostly represent freedom. It uses dark tone color in the background to emphasize the girls. The dark tone also let me notice there's a ladder on the left building. So, the overall work gave me a feeling of the will to survive and some hope of freedom. This feeling resonates with my current situation. I like how the design expresses the feeling without any facial expression.
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Figure 1.3 Editorial illustrations @Eiko Ojala |
When I first saw this design, I was amazed by its use of negative space and layers.. The obvious layers enrich the message and impact of the design. It uses the smoke or fire from the torch to show the catastrophe is irreversible. I saw an interesting comment from the Pinterest pin that lists out the theories that have been used in this design. I think this is a good design which is suitable for newbies to learn and apply those design theories.
The illustration is very neat, while showing the ingredients used in a bowl of ramen accordingly. It is not based on the order of the recipe that you see on a regular basis, but rather the order in which it is arranged inside the bowl. The amount of ingredients is also expressed through the principle of the pyramid. It contrasts the ingredients by wisely using color platelets and I like the way he draws the shape of soup that fits the bowl.
BEZIER GAME
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| Figure 1.5 Bezier games |
It is a pen tool game as a practice on Photoshop. At first, tutorials are given to follow different shapes and lines with some assists of keyboard shortcuts. Then, it followed by a harder level with more complicated objects that you have to be creative with those tutorials to fit into the object shapes. In each level, there is a fixed number of nodes but it is not preferred to use them all. Try your best to achieve the ideal number of nodes by mastering those tutorial skills.
After all, it is fun and trains our thinking skills. I was stuck at the cloud level for a long time because I forgot to use one of the tutorial skills wisely. I should try to think out of the box without thinking too straightly. However, I got 30 nodes to spare and it really surprised me. This game practice us to use both hands when using photoshop.
Task 2: Physical Collage (Project 1A)
- Choose and identify your collage's design elements to be cut out and compose it into your own concept & story.
- Pre compositing the collage's design elements into 3 composition. It can be the same material but have to be different composition.
I love the cultures of ancient civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. They have had a major impact on art. Therefore, I use the three graces statue who were said to represent youth/beauty (Thalia), mirth (Euphrosyne), and elegance (Aglaea) as my main subject matter, in the words of a free journal. And the message I want to convey is to encourage everyone to be themselves, to liberate themselves. I used Goodnotes to cut them out and then collaged the materials I took off Pinterest. However, I didn't think the collage was good enough, so I changed the composition with other materials and replaced the main character with Athena. Again, I felt that the materials I used did not express my concept as strongly as I would have liked.
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| Figure 2.6 Physical Collage 3 |
Description:
When looking for material for the statue of Athena, I thought of a tragic figure, Medusa. There are many versions of her transformation into a snake-haired demon, but without exception, every version of her went from an innocent, beautiful and lively girl to a murderous, snake-haired demon, of which Medusa was the real victim. Daisy is represent pleasant, happiness, peace and hope, strongly contrasted with the snake hair. But in the end, I replaced Daisy with a different kind of flower.
In this physical collage, I have learn to understand the importance of composition. Different compositions bring different messages. It has a lot of potential to reshape and create. I realized that I am not active and thinking outside the box about composition, I should refer to other people's composition and learn to use principles such as rule of third, golden ratio and etc.
Mr. Fauzi prefers the first collage, so the physical collage is glued and submit on the week 4 class.
Task 3: Digital Collage (Project 1B)
In tutorial class, Mr. Fauzi teach us how to use pen tool, magic wand and scale tool to cut out the image and remove the background in the simplest and effective way.
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| Figure 3.1 Pen Tool & Magic Wand in Photoshop |
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| Figure 3.2 Digital Collage 1 |
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| Figure 3.3 Digital Collage 2 |
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| Figure 3.4 Digital Collage 3 Final Digital Collage |
Description:
In this digital collage, I have learn to apply tools with different situation in Photoshop. For instance, geometrical objects use the pen tool with shape to crop out while non-geometrical objects such as the fish, plants use the magic wand tool to cut it out. Object with many small details can be cut out by magic wand by lowering the number of tolerance. If the tolerance is too low that make the object is not cut out clearly, eraser tool can use to make adjustment. I have successfully cut out all the objects with the tools. This exercise is really a good experience for us to apply those knowledge we learn in class. The same thing again, my composition has a lot of improvement because my composition is a bit too straightforward, the object can be reshaped in many ways such as scale or geometrical shape and so on. The first composition is try to bring the 3 object together while the second composition use the principle of contrast in scale. Last but not least, the third composition shows people running away from reality with the train.
Task 4: Digital Collage (Project 1B)
- Attach your best composition from WEEK 3 digital collage exercise below.
- Using the same Photoshop file, improvise your WEEK 3 digital collage into WEEK 4 by using Adjustment Layers & Filters on Photoshop.
- Explain what you’ve learned in the description section.
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| Figure 4.1 Original Color |
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| Figure 4.2 Levels and Brightness |
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| Figure 4.3 Color Balance and Warm filter |
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| Figure 4.2 Digital Collage with Layers |
Description:
Making adjustments and filters on Photoshop is very convenient. With the layers, you can see the before and after very clearly and continue to make adjustments until you achieve the effect you want. In order to make the image appear darker, I first applied levels layers to change the brightness, contrast, and tonal range of the image. I then adjusted the red tones more deeply using colour balance and a warm picture filter. It starts to have that apocalyptic feel which has a big red sun that makes people want to run away. In addition, I changed the leaf colour by create the effect layer with clipping mask to give them a wilted appearance.
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| Figure 4.3 Final Outcome of Digital Collage |
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