Graphics+Activity+2



First of all, I ended up enjoying this assignment. It took me out of my comfort zone and I learned a lot from it. Please take the following write up with a grain of salt. I hope you get a good chuckle out of my struggles J

For my second project, I decided to work on a real world collage that will be used for a non-profit that I volunteer with. The Palmetto Character Council was created to assist schools, communities, businesses, and individuals with civic, ethical, and service education. We have just gotten our 501(c)3 status and will begin publicizing our efforts.

I will start with the challenges. The main challenge was wrapping my mind around what a layer was. I “knew” what a layer was but getting that knowledge in practical usage took some time. I read and reread articles on how to use them, but I finally just plunged into the Adobe Photoshop. (I am using version 2.0 since I had a free full copy).

My next challenge was finding photos. I had a vague idea of the subject matter I wanted to use, so I did a quick sketch and went to Creative Commons. Now don’t get me wrong, I love that there are free photos to use, but it was a nightmare finding the specific photos I wanted. Try looking up “smiling woman” and cougars (pumas, cats) show up. Ha Ha. I finally gave up looking and just browsed through hundreds of photos. All photos in the collage excluding the Character Grows Deep logo were taken from Creative Commons. I will site specifically below.

New things I learned include:
 * Resizing and file size. I did my first collage at 600 x 480. Then I read the directions again (duh) and had to resize to 500 x 360. When I went to change the size, I had to take the check mark out of the Constrain Proportions box. Luckily, It did not distort what I had started working on. I was having trouble figuring out file size until I went to an online forum and they gave you the steps. File – Save As – Jpeg – and adjust the image quality until you get close to your file size.
 * “Fuzzing” the edge of photos to blend them into the background. For this effect you draw a selection box or ellipse around the picture, Go to Select – Feather – set the margin to 9 and press Ok. Next you press Ctrl+Shift+I and hit delete.
 * Layers! Just do a new layer for everything you want on the collage and then you can manipulate things nicely. Just make sure to name your layers according to what you are doing on that layer.
 * Text. This is something I need a lot of work on. I finally got close to what I wanted, but I know there are a lot of text effects that would have helped me that I did not use.
 * I think that the most important thing I learned had nothing to do with the software. I learned that I can’t just open up a program and make a Picasso! I have a lot to learn. There is a lot I would like to do to the collage, but it will take time and patience to get there.

The following photos were used for this collage. All came from Google through Creative Commons except the Character Grows Deep logo.
 * Carolina Wren - Dan Pancamo
 * Child with Hat - Pink Poppy Photography
 * Palmetto Tree – IllinoisHorseSoldier
 * Children Playing – Strocchi
 * Capitol Building - D.Hilgart
 * Character Grows Deep Logo – Palmetto Character Council