Tuesday 9 October 2007

Photoshop Tutorial

Yesterday we had a Photoshop tutorial, although I knew a lot of the techniques that were being taught I still picked up a few new things. A new skill I learn was how to use the pen tool.

I am now able to confidently and competently use this tool to create paths around areas of an image. I have been trying to figure out how to use this tool on my own for quite a while and although I had read many articles online my success was often limited so I am please that I now have a new skill to add to my Photoshop skill set.

We also used a Wacom drawing tablet;


This was a completely new experience for me, the drawing tablet was not a peripheral I had ever used before. I enjoyed using the tablet as it gave me more control over what I was creating on the screen than a mouse would. Even thought I would consider my drawings using pen and paper to be more aesthetically pleasing, I liked how the drawing table gave me more control than using pencil and paper, with pencil and paper you have to consider how to build up the image, where as when using the tablet and Photoshop you can put different elements on different layers. For instance you are able to fill in the main colour of an object, then add a new layer and build up the shadows and highlights on the next layer, also I like the fact that if you are building up the image on separate layers you are able to turn them on and off to see how the image is progressing, another advantage is that when erasing things there is no trace of where you went wrong. Equally as good you can delete whole layers leaving the rest of the image uneffected.

While using the Wacom Table a Scanned a photograph I had of myself and imported it into Photoshop. I placed the scanned image on the very bottom layer I then traced my features on individual layers.



When I first created the Photoshoped picture of myself I was quite proud of it, I had been trying to achieve this at home using illustrator and my mouse but the results were nowhere near as good. The next day upon reflection of the image I felt that there is a lot that can be improved and refined, but as with all things this will no doubt come with time and practice.

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