Digital Media

The next Photoshop assignment we had we to take a black and white photo from the images we were given and turn it into a colored photo via Photoshop. I used different layering options to get different affects of the colors as that were transparent over the original photo. With adding a little extra shading at the very end with the paintbrush, I think I created a realistic looking color version. My final product is not the original photo I chose. It wasn't until the end of the last day we had in class to work that I decided to change my photo. I had all Thanksgiving break to work on it, so I knew I would be able to get this one done easily. For the colors I chose, I mostly just went off what I thought they might be. I did do some googling to see what colors Amish people wore and that influenced my clothing colors. Originally I had googled a skin tone color code but it was looking a bit more orange that I'd like so I played around with different tones, and finally came to ...

With our sixth assignment, we moved into Photoshop. To familiarize ourself with the basic functions, we were to take at least 15 images and crop, cut, and paste them onto a canvas. No white space could be left visible and only living things such as people, animals, and plants could be used. We given a set amount of tools to use to get the final image we were looking for. For my images, I choose movies characters, musicians, and some animals and plants that I liked. I really focused on overlapping to show depth and to make sure no white space was left open.

Our fifth assignment, and probably the one I enjoyed the most, was to create a self portrait in Illustrator. To do this, I took a picture of myself with my digital camera. I ended up choosing to do a selective color photo so that only the blue shirt in my picture was colored and all else was black and white. Our goal was to use different paint brushes so we could create interesting and somewhat realistic looking portraits. I mostly did this with how I created my hair and the background. To get the illusion of depth in my hair, I used different values of gray and different brushes. I did a translucent dark grey area over where all my hair would be and then began drawing each individual strand of hair until I was satisfied with my results.

Our fourth assignment was to create a calligram in Illustrator using a self portrait. We were to write a four page letter to ourselves that would be from our future selves. Then we were to pick a font and use different tools within illustrator to manipulate the letters to fit the area we were working on. The eyedropper tool was used to get right color of the picture As you can see, mine is not finished. Even though I put a lot of hours outside of class into this assignment, I underestimated how long it would take. I also out way to much detail into my hat which did not give me enough time to work out the other parts of my portrait. I would like to eventually finish this and my plan is if I have free time over winter break, to get this done so I can add it to my portfolio. I think with what I have done so far, the final product will look really neat. I am not usually one to not get assignments done late, but like I said before, I underestimated myself.

The next program we learned was Adobe Illustrator. With this assignment, we were to choose from the selection of cartoon characters and make vector version of them via Illustrator. This was done by taking the original image and embedding it into Illustrator and then using the pen tool to trace over the character. The eyedropper tool was used to get the exact color from the original photo.

Assignment 2 was to create a landscape using Dreamweaver. We had to include gradients, a living thing, a house, a sun, a cloud, and a flower. We had learned how to code quadratic and bezier curves and make shapes other than triangles and rectangles.