Digital Photography & Imaging - Exercises/ Weekly updates/ Final Reflection

Week 1

Lecture

First lecture was about the basics of Photoshop. We were assigned to play the Bézier game, a game designed to help us become familiar with the pen tool. Next task was to pick out 3 of our favorite Photoshop work and to write why we picked it.

Bézier game experience

The Bezier game is a web game based on helping people learn the basics of the pen tool. First tutorial levels were really easy to get past as the lines were guided. The first real level which was the car, was difficult as i got stuck for more than 30 minutes. Finally had to resort to youtube which helped me really understand how it works. After I finished that level, everything else was pretty easy to finish. Finished with a final score of 29 nodes to spare

Bézier game score

Favorite Photoshop Works

Source : @fabienbarrau

First image is by a digital artists by the name of Fabien Barrau. I came across his work on Instagram have been pretty intrigued by it. This particular image gives off a very post apocalyptic feel. I really enjoy games such as Last of us and Resident Evil so i really like this picture.

Source : @followmeaway

This one is from a travel photographer and digital art mixed account known as @followmeaway. Most of this page is grand landscapes with a medieval theme. Me being a huge fan of Fromsoftware games like Darksouls, I decided to pick this image which shows the subject standing next to a huge dragons skeletal remains.

Source : @fabienbarrau

Another one by Fabien Barrau, This image instantly reminded me of the DreamWorks Animations movie, Madagascar. I picked this one because it shows very realistic looking animals in a setting which is very unlikely to happen in real life.

Exercise 1 (Hearst Mansion)

Shazam to be Photoshopped into mansion

Hearst mansion - The background

The goal of this task is to crop the image of shazam into the mansion and to make it blend well into the backdrop.

Quick selection tool crop

Masking and converting to smart object

Copy paste into the backdrop

 I cropped the Shazam image using quick selection tool, which was really easy because it automatically does most of the job for you. Next i had to google to actually figure out how to remove the background because the tutorial video had a cut in it which completely skipped that part. Basically I had to create a mask and then convert it into a smart object to completely get rid of the background. I selected the cropped image and pasted it into the mansion backdrop.

Resize and color match

New shadow layer

Using Cntrl+t to the select the cropped image with the free transfrom tool, I resized it to my desired sized and put the image against a wall. Holding shift while resizing holds the aspect ratio on lock while you change the size of it. Then I used the color match tool to adjust the brightness and colors to blend it well against the mansion image. Then, in a new layer I added a shadow using the paintbrush tool.

Reflection layer

Rotated reflection

Pentool path

Copied the the Shazam layer and rotated it using the free transform tool to create a reflection in the water. I created a path using the pentool and masked it to remove the unwanted part of the reflection.

Masked reflection

Darkened and blur

The reflection was then darkened using the Brightness an contrast tool and a Gaussian blur filter was added to make it seem realistic. I checked to see if everything looked good and with that I was done.

Finished Image

Overall the image looked and I was surprised I managed to do this without much trouble considering this is my first time using Photoshop.

The next step was to take a self portrait and edit that picture into the mansion.

Image I decided to use. I flipped the image because my window was on the wrong side

I followed the exact same steps as when I did the shazam, and edited myself into the mansion.

Final edit

I was finding it difficult to blend the image into the mansion and I think it had something to do with contrast. I did the best I could to adjust the tones without overdoing it.

Pentool Exercise

This exercise requires you to use the pentool to mask out shazam from the given image. The aim of this exercise is to get more practice using the pentool.

Pentool process

Masking out the path

Final image, converted to smart object to isolate completely from background

The final image looks pretty good, but using the dedicated selector tool in photoshop is more convenient and time saving compared to the pentool.

Week 2

Exercise 2 (Ghost House)

This weeks exercise was on Photoshop as well. A little bit more advances than Hearst mansion but still more or less the same techniques were used, with new tool being introduced such as lasso tool and blending. We also used 3 images instead of 2.

Background used

The ghost house

The ghost

First we used the lasso tool, instead of free selection tool to mask out the house. I found it to be a bit harder to use than free selection, but still not as difficult as the pentool.

Masked using lasso tool

Added to background and resized using free transform tool

Here I ran into a problem, I couldn't match color as the option was grayed out. I looked it up and rasterizing the image fixed the issue for me.

Match color grayed out

Rasterize option which fixed the issue

Matching color

Adding ghost image and blending it in

Rectangle mask to place the ghost inside the house

While applying the gradient for the glow of the ghost, in a new layer I noticed that It a black fading into white rather than white to black. So I ticked the reverse option to fix the issue.

Reverse option on the right side

Adding a blend to glow and reducing opacity.

I noticed that it took less time for me to complete this exercise compared to the shazam one. Definitely getting used to the tools and working around the tools on Photoshop.

Final completed image

Week 3

PART 2 ( Sunset Cowboy)

This one is very similar to The ghost house, Just the temperature is on the warmer side, and I used some blending techniques because it looked nicer.

Sunset Sky

Cowboy

House

I started by cropping the house and grassland out and adding it into the sunset picture. I experimented with different blending mode and noticed that the darken blending option gave the look of a lake house and I really liked it so i kept and removed the unwanted areas with the brush to clean it up.

Cropped house

Darken Blending mode added

Final edit

Finally I added in the cowboy and masked it to remove the white background. After that was done I added a gradient layer as a finishing touch.

Exercise (Composition Collage)

The goal of this exercise is to get familiar with composition and visual hierarchy.

First composition

This is the first composition i came up with but to me it looked like it was fitted in a box so i wanted to change it up.

Second composition

Obviously this one was too big and i wanted to comeup with something smaller.

Third design

This is the one i liked the most. I made the collage pop a bit by making the ends of the pieces move out of the paper. What i tried to capture here is the panic and current state of the world during this pandemic. So I added a lot of words to make it a bit chaotic, while focusing on the subjects in the middle which are the police officers. I initially wanted to make the subject a doctor or nurse but the newspaper didnt have any image large enough to be a subject. The point of making the police officer or doctor the attention point is that they are the people working hard during this pandemic so we must recognize their effort and the risk they are putting their life in.

Part 2 (Photoshop Composition)

We were given 12 images to come up with 3 compositions in Adobe Photoshop. We were to use pen tool for masking and different blending modes.

Composition 1 - Pentool masking for the buildings, blended in background confettiu

Composition 2 - re used the cropped buildings and blended in the texture for background

Composition 3 - Blending modes and quick selection cropping on human subjects

I personally like the third composition best. First second one sort of has a story as in it makes sense in a way. First one is a man doing parkour, and second one sort of represents a city within a fish tank. The third one has nothing direct like that. I mostly focused on making the subject pop making it more vibrant and everything else very washed out or monochrome.
After getting feedback in week 4, I was told to adjust the third compositions cat to blend the edges in more so i added a blur to make it less harsh. Feedback everything else was good.

Composition 3 adjusted

Exercise 3 ( Colorize)

This exercise requires us to colorize a black and white photo of a human subject in Adobe Photoshop. I followed the tutorial video provided and finished it without too much trouble.

Photo to colorize

Adding skin color

Background mask

I started by making a new layer for each area of to be colored and then adding the preferred color to its layer. For the back drop I used the quick selection tool to create a mask.

Final Finished image

Week 4

Colorize Part 2

Part 2 of this exercise is to color another image of choice from the given pictures. I chose the picture of Willow Smith.
I used the brush to color her face, lips, eyes and hair. I used i dropper to select color from a color picture of hers and adjusted the tones accordingly. Her hair color is black so i used a very dark brown to highlight some areas.

Selected picture

Skin, eyes lips and hair colored, Her hair is black so not much to be added there.

I used a layer mask to add the background. I personally think it looks better without a background but I just added it in.

Refining edges of layer mask

Final with background added

Week 5

Exercise 4 (Displacement)

This exercise teaches us to apply textures to an image using blending modes and displacement filter.

Malaysian Flag

Fabric texture to be applied to flag

We have to apply this fabric texture to the flag. We started off with making a black and white pic of the texture and then applying a gaussian blur to it. After that we save it as A PSD file. Next we reopen the default fabric pic again and bring the flag image onto it.

Adding flag on top of texture

After the flag is on, We make it into a smart object so that we can make adjustments later on. Then we at the displacement filter and open the PSD file we saved earlier when prompted to do so.

Displacement filter added.

Then we play around with different blending modes to see which one fits well. I went with multiply as it saved most of the whites. After blending mode is set I made a mask and them erased the background using the brush tool and later added some contrast and color adjustments to finish up.

Final Image

Next part of this task is to do the same, But on a portrait of a lady and the liverpool logo. I followed the exact same steps. only difference is that a pinch filter was added to give a bit of shape.

Portrait

Liverpool logo

Final image

I decided to keep the white parts a bit soft because if its too white i feel it takes a ot of the details of the face away.

Part 2 (Hybrid Animal)

Part 2 is to make a Hybrid animal. Basically take the textures of one animal and put it into another animal. I followed the exact same steps as the last 2 exercise to make horse zebra.

Zebra texture

Horse

Final Image

I used 2 blending layers so that I can darken the black parts of the zebra fur.

Exercise (Photoshop Collage with self)

For this exercise we were to create a collage as before using the given samples and a picture of ourselves. I used some pictures that were taken before and I had edited for my Instagram. I used the pen tool top crop myself and then the select and mask option to refine the edges.

Composition 1 - I put myself in the middle and used the blue texture to make it pop and offset it with green of the plants.

Composition - Went with something simple but very colorful neon feel

Composition 3 - A bit more complex with alot more samples, while sticking to with a neon theme

Week 6

Exercise 5 (Healing Brush)

Very straight forward exercise today. We had to clean up a few images using a mix of the healing brushes, patch tool and content aware tool and stamp tool.

First image to clean

Used a mix of stamp, spot healing and healing brush

Second image

Used spot healing and healing brush

Third image

Used a mix of patch tool and spot healing brush to remove watermark

Fourth image

Used a mix of patch tool and content aware tool, Finishing touches with spot healing brush

Week 7

Project 1 demo

In class exercise to get an idea of project one and some techniques to be used in it. We had to follow the exercise and turn the Kpop stars leg into a cyborg leg.

Cyborg leg sample

Image to edit

Edited picture

To gap in the leg was made by pentool and then masking it. Content aware was used to fill in the background and then once again pentool to create the cross section. Added the cyborg part and then added lines using pentool.

Consultation for project 1 cyborg was also carried out this week (Project details in project blog)

Cyborg

Week 8

On week 8 we did consultation and progress on project 2, The project details are in the project 2 blog.

Self titled

Week 9

For this week we I was coming up with a composition for project 3 and consultation for it.

First composition for project 3

Week 10

We had consultation for project 3, more details in the blog.

Final composition for project 3

Week 11

Parallax effect exercise

We did an exercise in Photoshop about parallax effect and how to animate it using key frames.

Image used 1

Image used 2

Animation 1

Animation 2

Week 12

More consultation for project 3, But I had finished so I did not attend the class for consultation, I was working on my project blog.

Week 13

Some students attended studio lighting class at campus, I did not attend, I looked at the video posted on it. The video covered different lighting techniques for portrait photography in a studio setting.

Recorded video

Week 14

Week 14 was final consultation for blog and reflection.

Reflection

Before I joined this course, I picked up photography as hobby and taught myself lightrooom. But I always struggled using photoshop. This module has taught me the basics of photoshop enough for me to get around it comfortably and implement into my photography post processing. This module taught photoshop in a very beginner friendly method, which was also very enjoyable. Slowly starting out from the basics of photoshop like layers and masking, then moving into more complex functions of the app. This is exactly why I joined into this course, To learn more apps and skills that I can implement into my Photography and hopefully in a career. This module also went into some basics of animation, which was very important information as I was able to use the knowledge in my other modules as well. Overall it was a very enjoyable and knowledgeable experience. The exercises and workload was adequate and not overwhelming. The lecturers were very helpful and happy to teach instead of being strict