During my senior year of college, I took free electives related to art and graphic design. In the fall 2022 term, I took a Digital Imaging (ARTS 342) course. I had some experience with Adobe platforms before this course. However, working with Photoshop was new and exciting to try!
My professor was very positive about my work and encouraged me to keep pushing and creating the projects. Listed below are the assignments I made and edited; some pertain to color, and others to basic editing techniques. I enjoyed the creative freedom from the projects, and now I am better equipped in Photoshop.
All images used within the projects were from my photo library, and others were from Unsplash, a free photo website. https://unsplash.com
Design Project 1: Photo Collage
The photo collage was interesting to create. I first battled with the object selection tools, although as I continued to edit the project, things became easier to navigate. It was my first piece, and I can see the difference in style and precision that eventually grew as I continued the course.
Design Project 2: Panorama
The panorama project was familiar to me as I have experimented with editing images together. The only requirement was to use a minimum of five photos to blend with the Photoshop bridge program. I used ten for the final design; this project was fun and came at the perfect time when the fall trees were at their peak.
Design Project 3: Layers
Layering images together gave me the most creative freedom from all the course projects. I found a few photos from Unsplash and blended them to create this final piece. I envisioned the women in yellow reaching down from the sky, grabbing the Empire State Building. In the final design listed below, I used only three images, object selection tools, a pen/eraser, and drop shadow effects.
Design Project 4: Color
The color assignment took me the longest time, as I wanted each detail to be clean and precise. I took a black-and-white rose image and added red on top, cleaning up around some water droplets to keep the black and white visible. The assignment allowed me to work with after effects, such as drop shadow, the multiply color setting, etc.
Design Project 5: Retouching
I was apprehensive about going into this design project, as I have plenty of experience with retouching, although never from Adobe programs. I found the clone and healing brush tools helped me achieve the final three images, and I can understand how something so small can affect the overall design.
The first retouched image (1: Pigeon) was the most challenging and time-consuming. I cleaned up where the pigeon had been and added lines for the previously unknown brick spots. The second image (2: Canyon) originally had a woman and a dog sitting toward the view. Editing them out worked in my favor, as the lines and patterns of the rock blended in. However, looking closely at the edge of the cliff drop, I could clean it up even further. Lastly, the third retouched image (3: Ocean) was the easiest to work with, as the figures were smaller than the other edited images. After only working with retouching tools on mobile apps, working on a higher-level platform (Photoshop) was different. Photoshop had many more options for editing the image than free social media mobile apps that distort the image.
Design Project 6: Movie Poster
I was excited about this assignment (I have always admired the complexity of Marvel and Star Wars movie posters) and enjoyed using what I learned in class to create this design. Going into this project, inspired by the example given by my professor, I wanted to mirror the same sci-fi/dystopian theme in my design. In total, I used nine images from Unsplash. The background layer (the sky) was from an ocean picture, and I cropped and blended the blues. The city skyline was made from 5 different buildings images, which I cut out, cleaned up, and applied a blue blended overlay to complement the sky. The path was from a forest photo, and the runner was from another ocean photo on Unsplash. After assembling the background, I found fonts on another free program, where I created all written content, including the “nominated” icon (bottom right). However, the movie rating icon (bottom left) was from Google Images.
