Digital Photography and Imaging - Exercises

30/8/18 -  22/10/18 (Week 1 - Week 9)

Jasmine Teoh Lee Suan (0331993)

Digital Photography and Imaging

Exercises 

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INSTRUCTIONS:

Assignment Brief

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EXERCISE 1:

Week 1 (27/8/18)

We learned the basics of Photoshop on our first week by photoshopping Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh into Hearst Mansion. It was a fun experience even though it was hard to adjust to all the short cuts at first. I learned:

• to always use 1920p x 1080p for this class' exercises, 
• that there are several work spaces on Photoshop, 
• many shortcuts and 
• how to apply a basic mask on Photoshop. 

Figure 1.1 Christopher Robin

Figure 1.2 Hearst Mansion

Figure 1.3 Layers

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EXERCISE 2:

Week 2 (3/9/18)

We worked on our Christopher Robin photoshopping and gave it reflections on the pool. Mr Hafiz taught us about destructive editing and non- destructive editing, and if we wanted to have an easier life we should always practice non-destructive editing so that it's easier to edit later on however you want. I learned about the free transform tool where you can transform, rotate, scale, flip horizontally and vertically on the layer, and also the match colour option where you can match colours from two different pictures so that they blend in and look the same.

Figure 2.1 Christopher Robin File

Figure 2.2 Background Layer Hidden

Figure 2.3 Pooh in front of Mask

Figure 2.4 Pooh Behind Mask

After submitting the Christopher Robin exercise, we photoshopped ourselves into Hearst Mansion. We were allowed to use any part of the caste online and took pictures of ourselves. I took an old picture of mine doing a jumpshot while I was on holiday in Korea. I also gave myself a reflection on the water to make it look more realistic. I tried out other interiors and poses as well to get the hang of photoshop.

Figure 2.5 Layers for Exercise 2

Figure 2.6 Exercise 2 Attempt 1

Figure 2.7 Exercise 2 Attempt 2

Figure 2.8 Exercise 2 Attempt 3

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EXERCISE 3: 

Week 3 (10/9/18)

We learned how to photoshop the ghost bride into a house and gave it a dark background. All the files were prepared for us in a drop box file and we had a short gif tutorial on how to do it. By this time, I kinda got the hang of how to mask on photoshop already and to refine the picture to look realistic.

The files given to us: 

Figure 3.1 Old House

Figure 3.2 Dark Sky

Figure 3.3 Ghost Bride

 Results: 

Figure 3.4 Layers for Exercise 3 Ghost Bride

Figure 3.5 Exercise 3 -  Ghost Bride

We also did one more which combined the house, sunset and land together. In these exercises, I used match colour a lot to match the colours of the layers easily but I had to rasterize the layers first in order to use them, which resulted in the layers not being smart objects anymore.

Figure 3.6 Layers for Exercise 3.5 Sunset House

Figure 3.7 Exercise 3.5 - Sunset House

I did an extra one more where the ghost bride is on top of the roof instead of inside the house, for practice.

Figure 3.8 Extra for Exercise 3

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EXERCISE 4:

Week 4 (17/9/18)

We learned about blending modes in this week. We had to recolour a portrait of a man that was in grayscale and created layers and set them to multiply to colour the man. I finally know how Korean pop idol fansites recolour the idols' pictures when only black and white photos were released. :') We used the multiply blending mode to colour on the portrait then used Hue and Saturation (Ctrl + U) to change the hue as we wanted. We also made sure to keep all objects in different layers so that it would be easy to change the colour later on.

Figure 4.1 Grayscale Image of Portrait Man

Figure 4.2 Portrait Man Recoloured

Figure 4.3 Layers of Portrait Man Recoloured

To play around with this new skill, I tried it on one of my favourite idols as well.

Figure 4.4 Grayscale Image of Korean Idol

Figure 4.5 Korean Idol Recoloured

Figure 4.6 Layers of Korean Idol Recoloured

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EXERCISE 5: 

Week 5 (24/9/18)

We learned how to use the clone stamp tool and healing tool this week. We had to erase the red spots and rashes from the little kid's face using the healing tool, and man it worked like magic. After that, we gave the kid an extra eye, nose and mouth using the clone stamp tool. This class was fun.

Figure 5.1 Original Image of Baby

Figure 5.2 Healed Image of Baby

Figure 5.3 Layers of Healed Image of Baby

[Disclaimer]: The following images may be flagged as inappropriate or disturbing to some people (but it looks funny to me so): 

Figure 5.4 Layers of Healed Image of Baby with Extra Nose and Eyes

We also turned a flat flag into a flag that looks 3D-ish with the wavy flag texture. First we had to get a gray scale image of the texture and a flag picture and save both images as psd files, then displace the texture to the flag file using the displace then distort option in the filter options. We then used Gaussian blur to soften the effect on the final outcome.

Figure 5.5 2D Flag

Figure 5.6 Grayscale Texture Image

Figure 5.7 Flag + Texture

Figure 5.8 Layers of Flag + Texture

I also tried this on an American flag just to truly get the hang of it.

Figure 5.9 Grayscale Texture Image

Figure 5.10 American Flag

Figure 5.11 Flag + Texture

Figure 5.12 Layers of Flag + Texture

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EXERCISE 6: 

Week 6 (1/10/18)

We met the old man from the portrait recolouring again and this time we decided to give him a snake skin texture. First we tried blending the texture layer in using the multiply blending option, but the texture looked flat on his face.

Figure 6.1 Snake Skin Texture

Figure 6.2 Portrait Man with Snake Skin Texture (Multiply)

Therefore we did the same thing as what we did last week and the texture followed the contours on the man's face, which looks more believable. I also coloured him and gave him a snaky makeover just for fun.

Figure 6.3 Portrait Man with Snake Skin (Distort, Displace and Coloured)

Figure 6.4 Layers of Portrait Man with Snake Skin (Distort, Displace and Coloured)

We also had a task to create a hybrid animal out of a few different animal parts / objects using the skills that we've learned for the past few weeks. I decided to create a lion cheetah eagle hybrid and even included Daenerys from Game of Thrones to make it look like a scene from a movie.

These are the files I used:

Figure 6.5 Lion

Figure 6.6 Bald Eagle

Figure 6.7 Cheetah Skin Texture

Figure 6.8 Daenerys from Game of Thrones

 Results:

Figure 6.9 Exercise 9 Hybrid Animal

Figure 6.10 Layers of Exercise 9 Hybrid Animal

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EXERCISE 7: 

Week 7 (8/10/18)

For this week, we learned about the Caste of Pyrenees and had a whole week to work on recreating a floating castle in the sky. I decided to make mine look like a fantasy castle that you could see from a Barbie movie (HAHAHAHA). 

 In class, I listened to the lecture about this while attempting to create it, and this was what I got: 

Figure 7.1 Pyrenees Attempt 1

Figure 7.2 Layers of Pyrenees Attempt 1

I wasn't really satisfied with it so I went home to make another piece.

Figure 7.3 Layers of Pyrenees Attempt 2

I didn't really like the blue hue either so I decided to play around more.

This is my final outcome after adding all the elements, masking, colour matching, adding shadows and highlight, and everything else learnt throughout the class. 

Figure 7.4 Exercise 7 The Castle of Pyrenees

Screenshots of my layers:

Figure 7.5 Layers of Exercise 7 The Castle of Pyrenees 1

Figure 7.6 Layers of Exercise 7 The Castle of Pyrenees 2

Figure 7.7 Layers of Exercise 7 The Castle of Pyrenees 3

Figure 7.8 Layers of Exercise 7 The Castle of Pyrenees 4

Here are the files that I used to create my own floating castle in the sky:

Figure 7.9 Source Files

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EXERCISE 8: 

Week 8 (15/10/18)

For this week, we had to recreate a surrealistic artwork of Dali Atomicus. This is how it looks like:

Figure 8.1 Dali Atomicus Reference

We had the opportunity to use the green screen and took pictures of our classmates jumping in front of the green screen. Here are some of the pictures that I took:

Figure 8.2 Pictures of Friends

 And these are the rest of source files used in my composition:

Figure 8.3 Source Files

I saved them each into photoshop files in case I needed to edit them individually later on.

Figure 8.4 Saved into one file each

 Result:

Figure 8.5 Exercise 8 Dali Atomicus

Figure 8.6 Layers of Exercise 8 Dali Atomicus

After getting the composition and most of the elements on photoshop to look like a recreation, we then edited the images easily in After Effects using the Keying option, and even made our classmates move in the image. It was fun! I hope to learn more about After Effects soon.

Figure 8.7 Exercise 8 Dali Atomicus in After Effects

Notes I took during the lecture on After Effects:

Figure 8.8 Notes for After Effects