In this session, the first part we looked at how we can improve and manipulate an image by changing the exposure, levels etc and looking at the colour range on Photoshop.
The first thing I learned was how to get the grey scale look by going to 'Image' - 'Mode' - 'Greyscale' and also how to get specific colours for the printer to print by pressing 'Duotone' instead of 'Greyscale' and choose specific certain spot colours for the printer to print certain inks.
What I also learned was how to change the colour and tone of the whole picture at the same time by going to 'Select' - Colour Range' then from there, I would choose which area I want it to be dark and darker than others, after that, I would go to 'Layer' - 'New Fill Layer' then from there, I would select 'Gradient' or 'Solid Colour'.
The first image is the original image and the other two is the ones that I experimented with using the colour range and as you can see, in some areas of one picture is darker than some areas in the other picture.
I find this a useful technique if I ever want to change the colour and tone of an image and I could choose which area I want darker or lighter. I find this technique easy to manipulate an image.
I have learned a technique that has solved a problem that I had with Photoshop like when I want to rotate an image in Photoshop, the background in Photoshop is shown but not of the image, I have learned how to cover the empty spaces with the background of the image by going to 'Spot Healing Brush Tool' and fill in the background.
This is my experiment, as you can see, the image is slightly rotated but there are no empty spaces and the background in Photoshop can't be seen, just the background of the image..
Let's say I want to highlight a specific area of the image, I would use the 'Dodge Tool' and focus on the area that I want highlighted.
For the second part, we used Illustrator to make an object look 3D by creating a curved line and copy and pasting it so I had two curved lines, one placed underneath than the other. I then went to 'Object' - 'Blend' - 'Make' then to 'Object' again then 'Blend Options' - 'Specified Steps' and change to 50 which created the look on the image below. I could change the position of the lines by using the white arrow and move the anchors.
The image above was created in Photoshop by copy and pasting the object from Illustrator to Photoshop and I just included a background and changed the colour of the object. I created different effects to it by using 'Layer Style' and I could make it glow or change other parts of the object.
In conclusion, I thought this session was useful as I was taught techniques that I didn't know and have never used before and it was useful because they are tools that I can use in my project to help me like if I ever wanted to improve the way an image looks especially with images that I took which can sometimes not look good, and I have solved a problem that I had with Photoshop. I feel confident enough to manipulate an image.
Task
The task is to improve a self portrait of myself using what I have learned in this session.
This is what I have produced. I have decided to use what I first learned in the session by converting the image into greyscale then used the 'Duotone' to pick two specific colours for this image and I tried to make it look vintage by using dark red and abit of yellow then changed the brightness and contrast of it to make it slightly less dark.
