Thursday, February 17, 2011

Digital Portrait


Original
 
Digital Portrait
 
Digital Portrait (Plastic Wrap)




My goal was to take an original photo of my sister and create a new photo using expression and movement.  I wanted to make my photo unique by using different colours and textures to complement the movement.  To complete my goal I began with taking several pictures of my my little sister outside.  I downloaded the pictures of my sister onto my computer once I was finished and then saved them all under a new folder.  After, I opened up the picture I chose to use onto Photoshop and then copied and pasted it onto its own layer.  Since I wasn't exactly sure of what I wanted to do, I started experimenting with different colours and textures for my sisters hair and clothing.  After experimenting, I then decided that using enhance, then adjusting the lighting and also adjusting the colour curves it made my sister's hair look defined and stringy.  Once I was finished the adjustment to my sister, I took out  the background around my sisters hair using the magic wand tool, and then used the eraser tool to remove the rest.  When the background was gone, I made a new layer and used the paint bucket to make a plain black page to replace the old background.  Last I searched Google for musical notes.  When I found the notes that I wanted to use, I saved them and then went back to Photoshop to open them up.  I created a new layer for each set of notes.  Then I used the magic wand to remove the white from around the notes. For my third picture I added a plastic wrap over the final picture just to experiment once again.  I like the look that the plastic wrap gave because it added a glow to the background.  Overall I'm happy with the way both of my pictures turned out.  My goal was to make a picture using movement and I feel that I accomplished it by using the affect of her stringy defined hair with the musical notes.  I also like the colour of the notes up against the black background because it makes them stand out.
Original



Black and White (Original)
 

Black and White (Newspaper)



For this assignment I decided to take pictures of my sister outside, because I thought that the light from the day sky would help with the lighting on her face.  I chose this picture because I like the fact that she has a gap and braces.  To make this photo more interesting I first converted it to black and white, and then on the same adjusting sheet I changed the contrast to newspaper with more contrast.  By doing this, the picture of my sister looks more defined and interesting.  Her hair is darker in this version then in the original black and white one.  I think that her dark hair brings out the colour of her pale skin and braces.  After changing the contrast, I then cropped the picture leaving part of my sisters face out.  I chose to crop it this way so that you would be more focused on her smile then her eyes.  









Friday, February 11, 2011

Digital Landscape









The goal for my digital landscape was to alter photos using Photoshop to create an abstract using the city of New York.  I kept in mind digital landscaped photos that were created by Karin Kuhlmann because I liked the idea of creating an abstract photo.                                                                
To create my own digital landscape I began by looking on Google for pictures.  At first I wasn't sure what kind of landscape I wanted to create so I saved pictures of all kinds.  When I finished looking for pictures I decided to take my favourite ones and make them blend.  I Chose New York City, a picture of the moon and a beach sunset.  To make them one landscape I first opened the picture of New York City and pasted it on its own layer.  I used the Magic Wand to separate the buildings from its night sky.  Since I didn't remove all the night sky I used the eraser to remove the remaining from the tricky spots that the magic wand didn't pick up.  Once I was finished with New York City, I opened up the beach sunset and pasted it on a separate layer, then I erased the grassy beach, so I was left with the sunset.  When I put both, the sunset and the New York buildings together I realized that the pink part of the sunset wasn't as noticeable behind the buildings.  To fix the problem I used the Clone Stamp to put in more of the pink sky which made the sunset more visible behind the buildings.  For the picture of the moon, I opened it up and pasted it on its own layer.  Then I erased the sky from around it and moved it into the top left hand corner.  After that I decided to add some stars to the night sky using the eraser tool.  Randomly I put dots into the sunset background, and put larger stars closer to the moon.  Once I was finished my picture I changed up the colours of the sunset using the adjustion of the saturation and hue button.  I also changed the buildings by using filter and the plastic wrap.  I used these two final touches to add more detail and to make it unoriginal.  As you can see in the second picture from the top, without these adjustments, my picture was close to being the same as the original one.   
Overall I was hoping that my photo would be more creative.  I'm glad that I changed the colour of the sunset and the effects of the buildings to make my picture look more creative.  Next time I hope to have more time to put together a digital landscape so that I can put more thought into it. I would also like to find more pictures to alter and distort to create the final image.   

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

question# 1

I'm excited about this course because I enjoyed the media arts class in grade 11, and I think it will be interesting to learn more about photoshop a photography in the 12U course .  I also think media arts is a good course to end the day.  Yes, I agree with the rules.  They're all basic and understandable rules to follow