Assignment #1: Cropping Digital Images
Cropping photos, or adjusting photos in any way is always fun. I tend to do a lot of size adjusting when I am taking the picture rather than with photo enhancing software, so most of the images I had to work with did not require much cropping. I do agree though that any image can take on a whole new look when the focal point is altered or changed entirely after photo enhancing. This activity was very helpful since it forced me to crop images in a different way; changing the meaning of some of the photos was difficult, but the results were worth it. The photos were edited using Pixlr Express and the video was made with iMovie, including the voice over.
This video is 2 minutes.
Assignment #2: Color Echo
Working with color this time was easier. After selecting a custom hue, I decreased the saturation of the image colors and adjusted using the value bars. I used the analogous palette of yellow, green and yellow green taken from my image. I notice now with the three images together that the stem and leaves appear to be different colors in the left picture with the green background as opposed to the other two that have yellow or yellow and green backgrounds. The striped background gives the image a 3D look, but the left stands out the most because it has a crisper look. It did have a difficult time matching the yellows, which may be part of why they don't stand out as much. I also used Photoflexer.com to cut the white background away from the image. It was as easy as Katie said in her screencast, so I highly recommend this tool for photo adjustments. The posters themselves were created in Google Drive: Drawings.
Assignment #3: Typographic Conveyance
With this assignment we had to convey the meaning of the words through typography. I started off by looking at a slew of photos and graphic images to see if any made me think of the word. Then I tried to make the font or image within the font match that image. This required some playing around with styles, sizes, colors and spacing. I applied the technique of kerning to all but the top two. With shred I initially think of skateboarding and taking a nasty fall off the board, but realized that is not how most people would think of the word so I changed the look, to make it recognizable to a wider audience. I also used Fotoflexer to achieve the lines in the text. Atom was the one I like the best because using part of the image within the word was new for me and it was actually easy. I made a total of three separate text boxes. On a previous assignment I had done a dropcase letter in the same fashion, separate from the other text. Because you are trying to convey one message with typography alone, this was a difficult assignment.
Krause, Jim (2004) Design Basics Index. Cincinnati: HOW Design Books
Images in Activities 2 & 3 courtesy of stock.xchng
Your photo cropping experiment was so interesting. I especially liked the last photo you shared of the hands holding the globe. How interesting that the perspective moves from one of working together to fighting. I also like the effect you used to blur part of the photo with the lamps to shift the viewer's focus to where you wanted it to be. I never realized how much control one has over the viewer's perspective with photography. I also have never experimented too much with photo editing software beyond enhancements of my photos.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I thought your typography experiment went well. I understood how the message was conveyed with each one. I thought the word lightly worked well. It makes me think of tip toeing or floating.
Hi Brandi,
ReplyDeleteThanks for presenting your cropped photos in a slideshow format. It was so much easier to understand the reasons behind the choices you made because you were explaining it while the movie played. I love how you use fading and black and white to create focal points. I also like how you showed multiple versions of the same picture. Finally, I especially liked seeing how the one of the pond and the lily pad was altered when you changed it to black and white.
I also liked your conveyance exercise. It’s funny because I made some of the same exact choices when I did mine.
Overall, great blog post this week! I enjoyed viewing your artistic choices ☺
Brandi, I really enjoyed your blog this week. I like how you chose to display your cropped photos in video rather than just posting the pictures. For the second exercise, I really was able to get a feel of how an ad can look completely different when messing around with the colors. You explained how the picture all the way to the right stood out the most. In my opinion, I thought the middle one stood out the most with the light yellow background. That one was my favorite. Your final typographic exercise I did as well! I LOVED this assignment. I had so much fun doing it. I like the way you displayed your words. Shred and lightly really jumped out at me. The way you made the letters look like it went through a shredder machine was awesome. The word lightly actually looks like the words are light and floating. WELL DONE!
ReplyDeleteGreat video! I like how you explained multiple ways to crop each photo and using iMovie was a great way to pull it together. I tried using iMovie, but I couldn't seem to create a slideshow as opposed to the Ken Burns type of moving image. I'll have to keep practicing! Also, your typographic conveyances are spot-on;great job! I especially like "atom" because I was playing around with circular images for the "o", as well. I like that yours has a robotic feel to it.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The Ken Burns option annoyed me to no end with this assignment. I had to google how to get rid of it. I believe I used the inspector tool, the i in the circle and then deselected it. When I make the video for this week, I will let you know if it was a different step.
DeleteIt is actually the crop key, then select any other crop choice to deselect the Ken Burns option. Unfortunately you have to repeat this for every picture as this option is the default.
DeleteThanks everyone for the compliments. I decided to use iMovie to show the images because I need to develop my moviemaking skills to prepare for the MMP. I’m hoping that the more I use it the better I will get with it. I still need to master using audio, the robotic/monotone voice that I seem to have switched to once the microphones is on is not good.
ReplyDeleteTo Vanessa: I looked over your typographic conveyances and we really do have extremely similar examples. Great minds think alike ☺