Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Repetition and Cloning

Next you are going to learn about repetition and cloning. Photoshop can do many great things and cloning is something you will use very often. It is an effective tool in the manipulation of photographs and a skill you will add to your arsenal tonight!

Read over chapter 10 - Repetition and Cloning in your textbook and do the exercises. Take your time and make your project files look as realistic as possible. As you'll find, cloning in photoshop can produce some crazy and unnatural results! (See image at left!) You will turn in your final photoshop file on my flash drive at the beginning of class on Monday.

HOMEWORK:
• Read Chapter 10 - Repetition and Cloning in your textbook
• Do all the exercises in chapter 10
• Save your final photoshop file and name it: lastname_cloning.psd
• Turn it in on my flash drive at the beginning of class on Monday

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Collage projects

Tonight you will be working on your collage projects. Make sure to READ the instructions CAREFULLY and follow them if you want a good grade! You will have the entire class period to be working on these. Make them good, because we just might hang the up outside the classroom when you're done!

Don't forget to bring your: Textbook, sketchbook and flash (usb) drive! I'll be grading you on it!

NO HOMEWORK

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Taking your collage one step further

This week's project is going to be your first real "project" of the semester. I hope this project will yield some great work, worthy of hanging on the boards outside the classroom.

We are going to do another collage project. This time you will be using ALL the techniques from chapter 5 through chapter 9. I want you to spend some time thinking about it.

I want you to start with chapter 5's lesson and think about color theory. What colors will you choose to use for this project and why? Chapter 6 talks about creating line art and using flat graphics in Adobe Illustrator. What sort of line art and flat graphics will your collage contain? You MUST include at least ONE clipping mask in your project at a minimum. If you want a great grade, you will want to include MORE than one! You will use chapter 7's lesson on resolution to make sure you have HIGH QUALITY images to use in your collage. Any image you use must be at least 300ppi in the full size you intend to use it. NO upscaling! This rule applys for your clipping mask images, too! You will use the exercises in Chapter 8 to adjust the tonal range of your photographs, adjust the curves, sharpen the images, etc using Adobe Photoshop. After that, you'll use the knowledge you gained in chapter 9 to compile multiple images into your final collage. You MUST use layer blending modes in some form in this project. And remember, you can combine chapter elements! Perhaps you'll want to create a clipping mask around a photo and THEN use a blending mode on it!

This project will require some thought and planning. So, you will start by making a DETAILED sketch in your sketchbook of your composition. That means you'll need to pick your photos first, or at least know what sort of photos you want to use, so you can include drawings of those photos in your sketch. Your sketch will be due at the same time your project is due. You will have the entire week to work on these and they will be due next Monday.

HOMEWORK:
• Create a detailed sketch of your collage in your sketchbook.
• Create a collage in Adobe Photoshop using ALL techniques from Ch5-Ch9.
• MUST include some type of color theory. (You will be asked to explain your choices.)
• MUST include DRAWN line art (not live traced) and at least ONE clipping mask around a photo.
• MUST include full-size, high resolution (300ppi) photographic images.
• MUST include some form of altered tonal range, sharpness or curves in ALL of your photos.
• MUST include a MINIMUM of FIVE photographs in your collage.
• MUST alter at least some of the photographs using layer blending modes.

In order to get an "A" on this project, your collage must contain everything listed above. These projects are due on Monday, March 28th. You will have the entire class time during both classes this week to work on these. Make good use of the time and impress me with your projects!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Ch 9: Layering and Collage

Tonight you are going to learn about layering and collage. Collage is a way to combine multiple images into a single document. Collage is not a new technique, but we will be using the newest technology to create ours!

Please read Chapter 9: Layering and Collage in your textbook and do the exercises it shows. These exercises will teach you how to combine images using Adobe Photoshop and use blending modes to make them blend together.

Once you complete the book's exercises, I want you to go online and find three separate images: one animal, one architectural and one object. Then, I want you to combine these three objects into one document, or collage, using the techniques learned in chapter 9. Put some thought into this and make it look good. Don't just throw together the first three images you think of!

HOMEWORK:
• Complete all the exercises in Chapter 9: Layering and Collage
• Save your exercise files in a FOLDER named: lastname_layering&collage
• Find three images online. One of an animal, one of a piece of architecture and one of an object.
• Use those three images to create your own collage using techniques from Chapter 9.
• Save your PHOTOSHOP DOCUMENT (filename will end in .psd) as: lastname_collage.psd
All of these assignments are due at the beginning of class on Monday!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Chapter 8: Tonal Range

Tonight we will be learning about tonal range in an image. There are tricks to keeping the blacks black and the whites white, but also subtle variations of your middle tones. When working with tonal range, a light hand and a less-is-more attitude will give you the best results. We will talk about adjusting tonal ranges for the entire image as well as adjusting each individual color channel for optimum results.

For tonight's class, I want you to download the images used in Chapter 8 of your textbook and complete the exercises in that chapter. These exercises will show you how to adjust the tonal range of your images, how to set your black and white points and how to adjust each color channel of a color image. At the end of these exercises, you should have a grayscale image and a color image to turn in. Please flatten all images save all final files as JPGs!

HOMEWORK:
• Complete the exercises in Chapter 8: Tonal Range of your textbook
• Turn in both a grayscale JPG and a color JPG of the images you work on.
• These are due by the BEGINNING of class on Wednesday!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Class will NOT meet on Wednesday - but you still have HOMEWORK!

Due to a significant number of students telling me they will not be in class on Wednesday, I have decided that rather than going over something in class for the few that show up, and having to re-teach it to the missing students after break, that I'm just going to cancel class for Wednesday, March 2nd.

HOWEVER, you STILL have work due TONIGHT!

Your homework is a quiz on Chapter 7 in your textbook entitled Image Acquisition and Resolution. You may download the quiz here.

Please Email me your quiz answers in the following format:
In case that link does not work, please send homework to: tjthemaxx(AT)cox.net

Subject: ART 133 - Quiz on chapter 7

1) ANSWER
2) ANSWER
etc.

You MAY use your textbook to do this quiz, but don't be fooled, it's a HARD quiz! Take your time and search carefully for your answers! Please email this quiz to me NO LATER THAN midnight on Wednesday or you will have points deducted for being late. I will be checking time stamps to see when these are emailed!

No other homework other than the quiz. I hope all of you have a fun and safe spring break!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Image Acquisition and Resolution

Tonight we are going to talk about ways of getting an image into your computer. There are several ways to do this and your book discusses each in detail.

We will be learning these methods in class tonight and we will have a quiz on them at the beginning of Wednesday's class.

HOMEWORK:
Study Chapter 7 of your textbook and be ready for a quiz on Wednesday!