Digital Photography & Imaging - Project 1: Collage & Digital Imaging
Project 1: Collage & Digital Imaging
03/04/23 - 15/05/23 (Week 1 - Week 7)
Digital Photography and Imaging (GCD61204)
Class 01 Sec 01
Ilhan Khairul Anwar (0361205)
Instructions
Practical
Project 1A: Physical & Digital Collages
The first half of our Project 1 was to create two collages, the first being a physical collage using magazines, newspapers, and any other physical elements we could find and put them together in any way we wanted. The second being a digital collage using elements provided by our lecturer to create something interesting.
Physical Collage
When we started I had no idea what I wanted to do for my physical collage so I went shopping at Amcorp mall with two other classmates to see what we could find as Amcorp mall had a lot of vintage items that we could use. While looking through one of the many record stores that they had there I discovered a magazine from 2010 that gave me an idea of what to do.
.jpg) |
| Figure 1.1: Classic Rock Magazine |
I was genuinely surprised to see this at the store as Ronnie James Dio was one of my favourite vocalists due to his distinctly powerful and beautiful voice. For context, Ronnie James Dio was the lead singer for the metal bands Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and his own band Dio before he passed away in 2010. RJD is often regarded as the greatest and most influential metal vocalists and figure of all time as he was the one who popularised the iconic "devil horns" hand gesture in metal culture. He had such a distinctively beautiful and powerful voice with his music that I knew immediately that I wanted to make my composition about him using what I could find in the magazine.
Because I didn't want to cut up the magazine yet as I didn't know what elements I wanted to use, I took pictures of everything that interested me and compiled them on Procreate where I could create three different pre-compositions without wasting any additional elements from the magazine as I wanted to keep most of it intact.
Figure 1.2: Three Pre-Compositions
After I came up with the three different pre-compositions, my lecturer Mr. Fauzi said that I should use my second pre-composition (the middle one) as my main composition.
FINAL Physical Collage
Figure 1.4: Final Physical Collage Composition PDF
I had a lot of fun making this collage, though the glue that I used wasn't strong so the pieces would start to unstick after a while but what I was able to create was great. I couldn't get the RIP element from the magazine as it was on the backside of the "I still can't believe he's gone" strip that I cut out. Other than that the rest of the collage turned out fine.
Digital Collage
For this exercise we were given a set of sixteen pngs that we could use to create any sort of composition that we wanted. We weren't required to utilise all the elements but we were allowed to take them apart and use specific parts from them. Because our Adobe accounts weren't activated yet, I made my three pre-compositions on Procreate so that I could get them done without having to wait.
Figure 1.5: Three Digital Pre-Compositions
After submitting my three pre-compositions to my lecturer, he chose my second pre-composition as my best one and allowed for me to move onto the next step, which was to make additional adjustments to it using the different effects available and submit it as our final submission for Project 1A.
FINAL Digital Collage
Figure 1.6: Final Digital Collage Composition JPG
Figure 1.7: Final Digital Collage Composition PDF
When I was designing this one I originally started with designing the background since I wanted to create an idea after making that. After adding in the zebra coloured circle onto the back, I decided to make this collage be symmetrical in design. I still wanted to utilise the fish as they provided a unique contrast to the black and white colours that were already present. While I was experimenting with how I could lay them out, I noticed that the teal/cyan coloured fish was quite circular in design so I cut out another circle using one of the flat images that was provided and placed it underneath the fish. From there I came up with the idea to place the blue fishes around the centrepiece to create a sort of rotating design. I wanted to use eight fishes but I realised that there wouldn’t be enough space between each fish to make it look nice so I brought it down to six instead.
For the adjusted version, I wanted to reduce the contrast between the blue fishes and the rest of the image which primarily had blacks, whites, and greys. To do this I changed the Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Exposure, and Selective Colours very slightly so that the contrast would be less sharp.
Project 1B: Digital Imaging Exercises
The second half of our Project 1 was dedicated to the two photoshopping exercises we did during from week 5 to week 8 since we were given an extension due to two of our classes being cancelled because of public holidays. The first exercise we did was the Hearst Mansion, where we had to photoshop in a picture of the character Shazam into the Hearst Mansion before making our own version where we photoshop ourselves into the mansion instead. The second exercise we did was a recolouring exercise where we had to take a black and white image and re-add the colour to the image using outside sources.
Hearst Mansion (Follow Tutorial)
.jpg)
.PNG)
Figure 2.1: Shazam Poster & PNG
To start, we had to take this poster of Shazam and remove the background and text so that we only had the outline of the character. From there we had to take the png file and place it inside of the Hearst mansion near the pool.
.jpg)
Figure 2.2: Hearst Mansion
Figure 2.3: Hearst Mansion with Shazam
Once he was inserted into the mansion, our next steps were to add in a shadow and a reflection in the water. For the shadow, we had to use the brush tool to create a basic shadow before applying a gaussian blur and reducing the opacity to 66% to make it look less sharp. With the reflection, we had to duplicate the shazam layer and reflect him horizontally into the water as a base for the reflection. From there we had to adjust the hue/saturation to a blueish grey so that it fit in with the water before distorting it using a ripple filter; once that's done we're finished with the first part of the Hearst Mansion exercise.
FINAL Hearst Mansion Composition (Shazam Edit)
.jpg)
Figure 2.4: Finalised Hearst Mansion Composition (Tutorial Edit)
The next part for the Hearst Mansion exercise is to create our own personal edit using a full-body image of ourselves in place of Shazam.
Hearst Mansion (Personal Edit)
Using my father's art studio since it had plain white walls, we took a few photos of me in different poses so that I had some variety with what I could do. I didn't want to wear casual clothes in my photo as it felt too boring so I wore one of outfits from my wardrobe to give myself a bit more character.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Figure 2.5: Three Photos of Me
After looking through the photos we took, I ended up going for the photo in the middle as I felt that it worked best with the background. After I had selected my image, I followed through with the exact same process as the tutorial exercise only this time I had to use my own image.
FINAL Hearst Mansion Composition (Personal Edit)
Figure 2.6: Finalised Hearst Mansion Composition (Personal Edit) JPG
Figure 2.7: Finalised Hearst Mansion Composition (Personal Edit) PDF
As stated previously, once this exercise was done we moved onto our next one which was to take a black and white image and reintroduce colour to it using other images.
Recolouring Black & White (Follow Tutorial)
Figure 2.8: Black and White Photo
Using this image as our subject for this exercise, we had to follow the provided tutorial and reintroduce colours by starting with the skin and working our way to the rest of the photo. Fortunately, we were allowed to use any colours we wanted for this exercise so I decided to go with a simple tan colour. Using the brush tool, I drew over where his skin was and applied a blending mode, we could choose between applying a Soft Light or an Overlay as the blending mode. I chose to use Overlay as it provided the photo with more colour as opposed to the Soft Light.
Figure 2.9: Brush Tool Before & After Blending Mode
Once that was done, I repeated the same steps with the eyes, hair, lips, and shirt.
Figure 2.10: Recolouring Composition Without Background
The next step for this exercise was to add in the background using the method provided in the tutorial, which was to create a new layer, fill it in with a colour, highlight the rest of the layers and turn them into a background layer mask. However this method was not working for me so I opted to use an alternative method which was to instead create a new layer, fill it in with a colour and erase any parts that overlapped with the rest of the layers.
FINAL Recolouring Composition (Tutorial Edit)
Figure 2.11: Finalised Recolouring Composition (Tutorial Edit)
Once this was done, we moved onto the next part of this exercise which was to choose any black and white photo from a folder provided to us and reintroduce colour to that photo using pre-existing photos that already have colour, as well as following a new tutorial that showed us a different process. From the folder that we were given, I decided to recolour a photo of Barack Obama as he would be fairly simple to recolour.
Recolouring Black & White (Personal Edit)
Figure 2.12: Photos of Obama
Using these photos of Obama, I followed the new tutorial that had us create a layer mask using the quick select tool and replacing the layer mask with a solid colour.
Figure 2.13: Obama Recoloured (Skin Only)
Once that was done, we repeated the same process with the rest of the photo until it was completed.
FINAL Recolouring Composition (Personal Edit)
Figure 2.15: Finalised Recolouring Composition (Personal Edit) PDF
Reflection
For our first project for DPI this semester, I found it to be quite an interesting experience as it was great being able to learn Photoshop for the first time as I've always wanted to pick it up however Adobe accounts are quite pricey and buying them for personal reasons wouldn't be the best experience. Along with that, having our lecturer be there to guide us also helped as the tutorials on the application itself aren't the best. I found our exercises and assignments for this project to be interesting as well, it was helpful that we went through different aspects and tools of photoshop one at a time and having us follow a tutorial and then create our own version helped to solidify the process in our minds which made learning a lot more digestible.
I would say my favourite assignment from this project had to be the physical collage, though I may be biased as Ronnie James Dio is an icon for me but besides that working physically with real elements made for an interesting experience as our lecturer explained to us that if we can create something good physically, we can create anything digitally.
Overall I found this project to be pretty interesting, it was a unique introduction to the kind of work we would be doing this semester and it was great being able to learn the basics of Photoshop easily.
Comments
Post a Comment