Digital Photography & Imaging - Project 1

25.9.2023-7.11.2023 / Week 1- Week 6
Aliah Farhana Binti Mohd Fauzi / 0357957
Typography / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Task 1: Collage & Digital Imaging

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LECTURES

Week 1

Introduction To Digital Photography & Imaging

The importance of Photoshop for the Graphic Designer :

• Express your creativity
• Create graphic design
• Restoration of old images
• Integrate graphics with text artistically 
• Make use of brushes
• Change photo colour
• Rectify mistakes in photographs 

Top 10 Tips of Successful Graphic Designer :

1. Follow the tutorials
2. Experiment
3. Memorise All Keyboard Shortcuts
4. Try to Replicate Others Work
5. Do Participate in Design Competitions
6. Subscribe to Online Galleries
7. Smart Objects for smart Designers
8. Scaling Artworks and Proportions
9. Use Actions to Personalise Work
10. Organise the Files Properly 

Week 2

Introduction to Composition

Introduction to basic composition :

• Focal Point
• Scale & Hierarchy
• Balance The Elements
• White Space

Rule of Third : The process of dividing an image into thirds, using two horizontal and two vertical lines. This imaginary grid yields nine parts with four intersection point.

The Rule of Thirds is a way to :

• Use composition techniques that are in line with what's naturally pleasing to the eyes.
• Creatively use negative space.
• Create conversation between the subject and background.

Golden Ratio 

A mathematical ratio. It is commonly found in nature, and when used in a design, it fosters organic and natural-looking compositions that are aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.

In design, the Golden Ratio boils down to aesthetics — creating and appreciating a sense pf beauty through harmony and proportion. When applied to design, the Golden Ratio provides a sense of artistry.

The Golden Ratio is a useful guideline for determining dimensions of the layout. One very simple way to apply the Golden Ratio is to set your dimensions to 1:1.618.

Week 3

Introduction to Photoshop 2

In this week lecture we learnt about How to use The Lasso Tool and Pen Tool in Photoshop.

Lasso Tool 

• Allow you to draw and pinpoint specific areas of a document. 
• Great to use with a graphic tablet because it is similar to a pencil.

Pen Tool

• The way that you add points and the way you drag the tool as you create the points determines how they will look.
• The fewer points, the smoother a path will be.

Week 4

Introduction to Photoshop 3 - Adjustment Layer & Filters

Adjustment Layer

• Brightness / Contrast - makes adjustments to the tonal range of your image.
• Levels - modify the tonal values in an image by adjusting the levels of the shadows, mid tones, and highlights.
• Curves - adjust as many points as you want throughout the entire tonal range of your image, and is the most powerful and precise tool for editing the tones in an image.
• Exposure - lets you adjust exposure levels with three sliders: Exposure (highlights of the image), Offset (adjust the mid tones) and Gamma (adjust the dark tones).
• Selective Colour - adjustment layer selectively modifies the amount of a primary colour without modifying the other primary colours in your image.

Filter

There are filters to change colour, add blur or create completely new image effects. 

Week 5

Digital Photography

In this week lecture we learnt about the Camera Settings and DSLR vs SMARTPHONE.

Week 6

Poster Design

The 7 principles of poster design :

1. Emphasis
2. Balance and alignment 
3. Contrast 
4. Repetition
5. Proportion
6. White Space
7. Movement

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INSTRUCTIONS

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qCzt219ubfCoSIZeIFlkgCV3g-Hr1pxm/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>

PROJECT 1A : COLLAGE (PHYSICAL & DIGITAL)

Physical Collage

Figure 2.0  Composition #1, Week 2 (03/10/23)

Figure 2.1 Composition #2, Week 2 (03/10/23)

Figure 2.2 Composition #3, Week 2 (03/10/23)

Digital Collage

Figure 2.3 Composition #1, Week 3 (10/10/23)

Figure 2.4 Composition #1 + Golden Ratio

Figure 2.5 Composition #2, Week 3 (10/10/23)

Figure 2.6  Composition #2 + Rules of third

Figure 2.7  Composition #3, Week 3 (10/10/23)

Figure 2.8 Composition #3 +  Golden Ratio

Final Physical and Digital Collages

Figure 2.9 Final Physical Collage, Composition #3

Figure 2.10 Final Digital Collage, Composition #3

I would like to call this work of mine “The world full of lies”. Each of the pictures that I've used for this collage have meaning behind it, for example, the typewriter and the black texture liquid depict the news that have been going around the cities (the blue building). To add more, the background as the sky that has been polluted and the plants that seem to grow less each day because of human activities. Lastly, the fish scale on the left top is to show the boring world could be changed with mere entertainment in this world. As for the humans in that collage, he depicts the human population where we just watch the world change as time flies. 

Figure 2.11 Final Digital Collage, Composition #3 (After editing)

For this collage of mine I decided to use the golden ratio to ensure the hierarchy. Therefore, I edited this collage by brightening up the layers a bit and I toned down the color to make it look pleasing to the eyes. I chose this collage because it seems to have harmony in my point of view and the color makes this collage look coherent since it has kinda the same color palette. Furthermore, the editing tools that I have used for this collage is ‘Level (Darker), Vibrance (-33), Saturation (-13), Brightness (-19) and Contrast (17)’.

Project 1B, Part 1 : Digital Imaging Exercise

Figure 2.12 Practice - Heart Mansion n Shazam, Week 6 (31/10/2023)

Figure 2.13 Heart Mansion n Me, Week 6 (31/10/2023)

Project 1B, Part 2 : Recolouring Black and White 

Figure 2.14 Recolouring practice, Week 7 (8/11/23)

Figure 2.15 Recolouring practice, Week 7 (8/11/23)

Figure 2.16 Recolouring practice, Week 7 (8/11/23)

Figure 2.17 Recolouring practice, Week 7 (8/11/23)

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FEEDBACKS

Week 3

Good practice. You may choose Composition #3 for your final collage submission in Project 1 later on.

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REFLECTION

All in all, these activities have greatly aided my Photoshop learning. It was difficult for me at first because I was using Photoshop for the first time, but thanks to Mr. Fauzi's explanation, I was able to pick things up gradually and found that using Photoshop was actually enjoyable.