Photoshop Reflection

Overview of Project: 

Starting a new year of graphic design meant starting a new year of tutorials. Our job was to accomplish the many tutorials given to us in order to learn a variety of new skills we will be presenting in photoshop. 

What I learned: 

Over the course of the tutorials I learned many new skills. I learned how to remove branding, move labels, get ride of images, take away items from photos, as well as clean up portraits so they are free of blemishes. I learned to use tools like the spot healing brush, content aware fill, clone stamp, and patch tool. All of these skills helped me to create great images every time. 

Spot Healing Tool 

Strengths:

My strengths when it came to this project were using my knowledge on the different skills. Following the different videos made it relatively easy for me to understand how to use each of the tools and how they would change the picture.  

Weaknesses:

My weakness came at times when my computer would not work, or when the files would already be messed with. Many times I found that the images provided had already been messed with in way that additional  layers had been added and locked, or  I was unable to get the tool to work properly inside of the file opened. The skills itself I did not seem to struggle with, it was merely the computer delays that stopped me the most. 

What could be different/the same in the future:

Patch Tool 

When working in Photoshop next time, the only things I would consider changing is how the videos were made. Aspects of the video were not always the same on tier Photoshop, verses my own Photoshop. As I am not someone who remembers all the shortcuts keys, I found it very frustrating at times to find all the tools needed when it comes to using different tools for things like the challenge problem at the end of this post.
Some things I would suggest stay the same, are all the skills taught through tutorials. Those tools seemed to be the most common, as well as the only ones we will need to use for our projects this year. As this is not a very advanced class, the skills that we used seem to bump us up a bit further than previous years of Photoshop.

Final thoughts/conclusion:

Final Tutorial 

Overall, my favorite part of the project by far was the last photo shown on this post. I was given a set number of photos, and I had no parameters other than to turn it in. It game me my own creative freedom in which I could change the photo however I wanted. I mainly stuck to keeping the photo as natural as possible but by adding in all the landscape, I created a basic piece of abstract. The design of how it is done, draws the views eyes in, which I love about that. I plan on making more things like that in Photoshop as it was the most enjoyable thing I have done in graphic design the past two years. After doing Photoshop tutorials for the last month though, I am officially ready to move on to illustrator!  

                                 

Challenge Photo

Bouncing Ball

Process - 

For thin animation, we used photoshop. We used squash and stretch for the process. We made the all bounce over out names by started with our names first. Each movement of the ball was made by a different frame. From there we repeated the steps of moving the ball across our name with stretching as the ball fell and squashing when the ball came back up. 

Name Frame Animation

Process - 

For this project, we used photoshop again. To begin we started with out with the finished product. We typed out name, and added then affect we liked for the end of the gif. From there we duplicated layers and began slowly erasing our names backwards. From there we placed the frames into an animation timeline, reversed the frames, and created an animation of our names being wrote. As you can see this is on a forever loop, being placed as a gif. From here - We have just embedded it into our blog for everyone else to see! 

10 Words Animation

Basic Description -  In Animation, we created a ten word analysis. All of these words in this animation I believe describe me.

Process - We used a series of layers to create each word, and then used the video timeline to create a mini video.

The Bounce of a Ball

Animated - 

             With this project, we learned two of the twelve principles of animation; 'Stretch and Squash' and 'Ease in and Ease out'.
From this, I learned that when using the timeline panel (Animation Panel) everything is to be done frame by frame. You have to repeat all the steps, which at first seemed complicated but got easier. The most difficult thing about the process was trying to get all the frames correctly organized in order for it to look as if the ball is actually bounding.

Wanna learn more about animation and how to get started?  Start here  http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/101-How-to-Get-Started-with-Animation-in-Maya

Learn about the 12 Principles of Animation 

Experimentation with Photoshop

Project 1
Skill - Occupancy Tool and Fade Adjustment  

Project 2
Skill - Cloning tool and Magic Wand Tool 

 For Photoshop we learned many new tool, and editing skills for the photos. As you can see underneath all my work, I added the skill we learned in each. If i had to choose a favorite, I would say the Butterfly with the clone tool because the flying 3-D effect on a 2-D image looks really interesting against a white piece of paper.




In comparison, Illustrator and Photoshop are very different. In illustrator, the biggest difference is that you are un-able to make all the edits on photos you would like to add things too. Also you can go bad and undo as many things as you would like, as in photoshop you really have to utilize your history panel. In photoshop manipulating colors and taking away different things is much harder than in illustrator, so I defiantly prefer photoshop over illustrator.

Project 3
Skill - Text Mask and Gradient Tool 

Project 4
Skill - Magic Lasso Tool and Fading Adjustment