Homework | Week 3 | Review

On your blog, answer the following technical questions:

How do you create a dashed stroke in Photoshop CS 6?
How do you make a vector shape into an exact size?
What feature can you use to move multiple layers from one file to another?
What is the difference between a Paragraph and a Character Style?

Delicious:
Tag three more sites that focus on Photoshop which refer to any of the techniques we learned in class today. Write a comment in Delicious about why you think each one would be a good resource for this class. *Make sure you also add the tag: InteractiveMediaRamapoFall2012

Photo Composition/Selection

If you did NOT finish the photo composition or selection assignments in class, please finish it for homework. Title it in the following format: 2012.9.Smith_John_photocomposition *NOTE: You are replacing Smith_John with your name.

2012.9.Smith_John_selection *NOTE: You are replacing Smith_John with your name.

NOTE: You have a choice to use the SAME ski picture OR any photo of your choice and recreate a second version of the PHOTO COMPOSITION. Use a different gradient, custom shape tool, text, font color, etc. Save it as v2.

Nautical Alphabet

Choose 10 letters of the nautical alphabet and recreate them in Photoshop. Be sure to match the colors exactly. Flatten the image and post it to your blog with the following file name: 2012.9.Smith_John_Nautical_Alphabet *NOTE: You are replacing Smith_John with your name. NOTE: Save the PSD file to your external drive or flash drive.

Read

Edward Weston’s essay Seeing Photographically
Write a 4 paragraph response, post it to your blog with the title: Edward Weston Essay Response

******NOTE: ALWAYS BRING A BACK UP OF ALL YOUR FILES IN TO CLASS ON A FLASH DRIVE. ALSO, PLEASE BRING IN HEADPHONES TO EACH CLASS SO THAT YOU CAN REVIEW VIDEOS WHILE DOING IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENTS.*******

“If you work really hard and are kind, amazing things will happen”–Conan O’Brien

(Thanks Meghan for the great quote!)

Housekeeping Items

**Over and over again I’m seeing that several people did not fill in the “about” section on their blog, didn’t theme their blog, didn’t change the blog tagline, have broken images on their blog, didn’t add a Flickr or Delicious widget or didn’t delete the initial blog posting that WordPress made. This was all homework for week one. Last chance to do it.**

Week 4 Overview

Exploring Photoshop CS6: Selections

Applying Type Style
Using the Selection Tool
Refining your selections
Transforming selections
Using the Pen Tool
Saving Selections

Fonts Not To Use – A fun take on overused fonts

Making the Best Selections

The importance of a good selection
Using the Marquee tools
Creating the square selection
Creating a selection from a center point
Changing a selection into a layer

Working with the Magic Wand tool
The Lasso tool
Saving a selection
Feathering the selection
Using the Quick Selection tool
Making difficult selection with the Refine Edge feature
Using the pen tool for selections

Photoshop CS6 » Quiz School

Making the Best Selections

Using the Marquee Tool

Open image ps0501 here. Open image ps0501_done here.

In-class Assignment #1 – Use the image above to create an overlay with text.

Select the Rectangualr Marquee tool, (the square with the dashed lines). Choose View > Snap and make sure it’s checked.
Position your cursor in the upper-left side of the guide in the care image, and drag a rectangular selection down toward the lower-right corner of the guide. A rectangular selection appears as ou drag, and it stays active when you release the mouse. You’ll now apply an adjustment layer to lighten just the selected area of the image. You are lightening this region so that a text overlay can be placed over that part of the image.
If the Adjustments panel is not visible, choose Window > Adjustments and click on the Curves icon;the Properties panel appears. (Click on the Curves button to create a new Curves adjustment layer.)
Click and drag the upper-right anchor point (shadow) straight down, keeping it flush with the right side of the curve window, until the Output text field. The rectangular selection in the image is lightened to about 20% of it’s original value.
Go back to the Layers panel, click the box to the left of the text layer named poster text; the Visibility icon (the eye) appears, and the layer is now visible. The text appears over the lightened area.
Save your file and name it as follows: 2012.10.1.Smith_John_Text_MarqueeTool
Upload to your blog and Flickr and save your .psd file.

In-class Assignment #2 – Creating a square selection

Click on the image background in layers.
Select the Rectangle tool.
Click and drag while holding the Shift key to create a constrained square.
Let go of the mouse and see the square. Notice the dotted lines. This means you can move the square around.
Click on the Curves icon and change the opacity.
Click on the Selection tool and position the cursor over the selection region. Now you’ll notice a scissors appears. This means that if you move the selection, it will cut out a portion of the photo. The pixels will be deleted.
Press Command Z to undo.
Reselect the square, then choose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation. Click and drag the Hue sliders to cange the color of the selection region.
Add text.
Save your file and name it as follows: 2012.10.1.Smith_John_Text_MarqueeToolSquare
Upload to your blog and Flickr and save your .psd file.

In-class Assignment #3 – Creating a selection from a center point

Select the Background layer in the Layers panel, then click and hold the Rectangular Marquee too and select the hidden Elliptical Marquee tool.
Draw a circle selection from the center of the image.
Place your cursor in the center of the tire, and hold down the Option and Shift key.
Click and drag to pull a circular selection from the center origin point.
Release the mouse.
If you need to nudge the circle around, use the up/down, left/right arrows.
Click Select > Transform Selection. You’ll see a bounding box appear around your selection Use the bounding box’s points to adjust the size and proportion. Note: To scale proportionally, hold down the Shift key when transforming. Press the Enter key to accept changes.
Follow the directions from in-class exercise #1 starting at no. 3 to add the opacity and then the text.
Save your file and name it as follows: 2012.10.1.Smith_John_Text_MarqueeTool_CenterPoint
Upload to your blog and Flickr and save your .psd file.

In-class Assignment #4 – Changing a selection into a layer

By moving a selection to its own independent layer, you can have more control over the selected region while leaving the original image data intact.

Make sure the Background layer is selected.
Select the tire with the Ellipse tool holding down Option/Shift.
Press the Command and J key to create a new layer. You’ll then see the new layer in your layers panel.
Apply a filter: Choose Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. You’ll see a dialog box.
Type 0 in the Angle text field and 45 in the Distance text field and press OK. You’ll see the motion blur applied.
Save your file and name it as follows: 2012.10.1.Smith_John_Text_MarqueeTool_ChangingLayer
Upload to your blog and Flickr and save your .psd file.

Photoshop Type Tutorial

Applying Type Style

The new Type Styles feature in Adobe CS6 enables you to define text styles, for both paragraphs and characters, in a very similar way as in InDesign. This allows you to change the appearance of any text you have very easily.

Character Styles: Control character attributes, such as font size, color, kerning, leading, etc (the attributes in the Character panel).

Paragraph Styles: Control both character AND paragraph attributes, such as indents and spacing, alignment, hyphenation, etc (the attributes in the Paragraph panel). These panels can be found under the Window menu, OR under Type -> Panels

Paragraph and Character Panels
Paragraph Styles and Character Styles Panels
Setting Up Type Styles
Creating Paragraph Styles
Modifying Paragraph Styles
Multiple Paragraph Styles
Selecting Paragraph Styles
Changing a Paragraph Style’s Settings

In-class Assignment #5| MAKING THE BEST SELECTIONS

The Lasso Tool

Download all project zip files below. Unzip the files and place all files in one folder on your desktop.

PS04_01 PS04_02 PS05_03 PS04_04 PS04_05 PS04_06 PS04_07 PS04_08 PS04_09

When you finish, save the file as follows: 2012.9.31.Smith_John_LassoTool.

Homework | Week 4

Making the Best Selection

Create a NEW blank document in Photoshop

Add the original car image and all the various image iterations to create one single image.

Save the PSD and upload to your blog and Flickr. Save it as COMPOSITE_FINAL.

If you did NOT finish the selection assignments in class, please finish it for homework.

Create a photo series of no less than 10 images that have a conceptual and visual cohesion, correct for color and exposure and post to blog. Choose a transportation theme. Example: cars, bicycles, skateboards, scooters, trains, planes, walking, etc.

Follow the directions above from the in-class marquee tool exercise to apply selections and text to each of the images. Try to use as many different marquee and selection options (including font choice and font/opacity color) to the images. You must shoot new images for each and use different fonts and styles for each.

Create text entries for the following phrases:
- relax
- think small
- rise up
The font and image should be in harmony with the phrase. Read this to help you choose your fonts. Note: There is no image in this exercise, create a new file in Photoshop, use color and/or texture for the background, apply and manipulate text. Post to blog. SAVE YOUR PSD’S.