Theme: Graphic Manipulation (Intermediate)
 

Prerequisite: Photoshop 1

Description: Students are introduced to graphic design and photo manipulation using images obtained from the internet, hardcopy and digital capture devices (scanners, digital cameras).

Parameters: Access to a computer, software (Adobe Photoshop CS2, Photoshop CS2 Video Files), scanner and/or digital camera.

Notes:  

You have 18 classes to complete this module.

In this class, time is of the essence and you will not have time to chat with friends, play games or do other assignments. You are allotted 1 class period for each day. If you fall behind, you are responsible for completing all module components outside of class time (before class, lunch, after school) or for homework.

You must NEVER flatten your final images unless specifically told to do so. If you do flatten the image, you will receive and “F” for the assignment.

All assignments are considered due at the end of the class on the due date. Assignments handed in after these times are considered late. All assignments handed in late will receive the following deductions. There are no exceptions.

1 day late – deduct 10%
2 days late – deduct 20%
3 days late – deduct 30%

More than three days late – 0% for the assignment (although the assignment will receive a grade of 0%, it must be completed in order for the student to receive credit for the module).

If the assignments are due on the Wednesday and are not handed in until the Saturday, this will be considered as one day.

Plagiarism or any other form of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Students caught trying to copy the work of others will receive an automatic “0%”, and be referred to the administration. In addition, the offence will be recorded in the student’s permanent file.

Grading: Grading your work is straight forward task for your instructors as rubrics are used for each and every assignment. Components for these rubrics dictate what grade you will receive in several specific areas. These component grades are then tallied up and a final grade for your assignment is recorded. Your grades are nonnegotiable.

Tonal Corrections

One of the great uses of Adobe Photoshop CS is the ability to correct images that are either too dark or too light. Using and understanding the Tonal Controls is essential to know how to manipulate Highlights, Shadows and Midtones. Today you will have a chance to sit back, watch some videos and do two quick assignments.

Lesson Overview
 
At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

Use the Brightness & Contrast Controls
Understand uses of Tonality
Know how to manipulate Shadows & Highlights.
Let’s Begin!

Start this section by watching the following videos.

Feel free to work along in Photoshop with the video by using the pictures that are used in the videos. Getting hands on will help you learn Photoshop! You can find the exercise folder for this lesson below.

The Evils of Brightness/Contrast
Using the Histogram Palette
Improving Tonality with the Levels
Using the Auto Contrast Command
Improving Tonality with Curves
Creating an "S" Curve to boost Contrast
Shadows & Highlights
 

Exercise Files

ShadowHighlight.JPG

ShadowHighlight_S_Curve.JPG

When you initially open the picture to work on for each assignment, make a quick copy so that you have TWO identical pictures in your Photoshop Screen. Work on the copy and when you are done, take a screenshot of both the original picture and your completed work on top of each other. This means to Tile Horizontally!

Save this JPEG as Assignment1. Here is an example of how it should look.

*Note: You don't need to put the 'worked on image' text in the bottom picture.

For Assignment 2 you will use the same method as Assignment 1. This time you will use the picture of the mother and daughter on the beach and save it the same as you did Assignment 1. You can find the pictures here.

Create 1 folder within your Photoshop 2 folder on Schart. It should be labeled: Assignment 1 and 2. It should have 2 JPEG's in it taken by using SnagIt. Each JPEG should be named as either Assignment1 or Assignment2 respectively.

Remember, you can find the two pictures that you need for this in the exercise files listed above. They are the bottom two pictures.

Click here to see the rubric for Assignment 1.
Click here to see the rubric for Assignment 2.

Pick Colors
Use the color palette
Sample colors
Understand Auto Color
Use Hue/Saturation appropriately

Start this section by watching the following videos.

Feel free to work along in Photoshop with the video by using the pictures that are used in the videos. Getting hands on will help you learn Photoshop! There is only 1 file used for the four movies below. It can be found here.

Using the Color Picker
Using the Color Palette
Saving Custom Colors as Swatches
Sampling Colors with the Eyedropper Tool
 

Now watch the following videos. Follow along with them by using the exercise files. These files can be found below.

Removing a Color Cast with Auto Color
Adjusting the Auto Color Settings
Adjusting Color Balance
Selective Desaturation
Using Hue/Saturation
Matching Color Across Multiple Images

Exercise Files

AutoColor.JPG

Color_Cast.JPG

ColorBalance_Red.JPG

ColorBalance_Blue.JPG

Desaturate.JPG

HueShift.JPG

MatchColor.PSD

Here are a couple of important tricks to keep in mind.

You do not need to select and cutout the image you are masking. This defeats the purpose of Layer Masking. Simply drag the whole image into the layer you desire to add a mask. 

Rule of thumb: Always work zoomed in, big brush and with a soft hardness.

When dealing with headshots, match the eyes first. Simple adjustments after can be made by using Free Transform mode.  Try blotching the paintbrush when in mask mode rather than painting with strokes.

Lesson Overview
 
At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

Crop and use free transform mode
Effectively use Layer Masking
Correct skin tone differences that might occur
Use skills and techniques when applying Layer Masking with paintbrush

• With the pre-selected photo of a young child, you will successfully use your layer masking technique to achieve a convincing picture of you as a young kid. Layer masking, selection tools, and text tools will be used.
• This project will only take two class periods, so stay focused and have fun!
• Create a new document and set the DPI to 150 and the document size at 4 x 6 inches.
• Place the Boy or Boy2 or Girl or Girl2 photo (whichever is appropriate for your gender) onto your new document and resize it so that it fills the new document window.
• Make sure you do not stretch the image. In order to prevent this from happening, you may need to crop the kid photo so that it fits in the desired document size.
• Take a new photo of your head to place it over the child’s face. Use layer masking to accomplish this.
• Correct any existing blemishes on your face. Adjust color and skin tone to match the color of the child.
• If redeye is apparent in your photo, use the redeye removal tool.
• With the text tool, write "Once a Kid, Always a Kid!" at the top of the page.
• Under Image... Canvas Size, add a black 1/2 inch canvas around the entire photo (0.5 in on BOTH sides) using
• Save the assignment in your Photoshop 2 folder as a 'always a kid.psd'.

Here are some excellent examples:

Click here to see the rubric for this project.

PROJECT 2: Understanding Thresholds and Colorizing - 2 Days

Lesson Overview
 
At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

Adjust thresholds for controlling shades of gray
Effectively select areas of a photo for coloring
Use the Color Overlay blending mode in selected layers

Andy Warhol was a famous contemporary artist of the 20th century. Starting his career as an advertising illustrator he soon became one of the most famous and contributing artist of his day to what we know as Pop Art. He was famous for many well-known pieces of work such as the one seen below. In this painting Warhol produced iconic silkscreen paintings of a variety of subjects.

The silkscreen technique forces paint onto canvas through a high-contrast negative stencil attached to the fabric. The resulting image features strong blacks from the photograph, which can be simulated using Photoshop's Threshold adjustment.

Threshold adjustment in Photoshop that convert all shades of gray to pure black or pure white. Any shades of gray brighter than the threshold value will become white, and any shades darker than the threshold value will become black. So no need to silkscreen onto a canvas anymore, simply use Photoshop's Threshold adjuster!

In this project you are going to take a headshot of yourself from an existing picture and make it into a piece of art. By following this linked tutorial, you will have step by step instructions for how to mimic a Warhol silkscreen painting.
 
Make sure your follow these guidelines for this project:

• First, create a 5 x 6 inch of 4 headshots of yourself which are to be colorized in the ‘Andy Warhol Style’.

• Each picture must have a solid plain colored background.

• Each picture must use at least 4 colors, not counting black or white.

• Each picture should measure 2.5 inches wide by 3 inches in height.

• The PS document, measuring 5x6 inches, should contain 4 duplicated pictures.

• Shadows and Highlights should be visible.

• Details are important. Notice Marilyn’s mole, her earrings and the lines in her hair.

Here are examples of what your final product should not look like.

Here is an example, done by one of our student's of what  it should look like.

For your four color breakdown, try using a different color for each of the following.

• Background

• Hair

• Skin

• Lips

• Clothing (if seen)

Name the project 'Warhol' and flatten the PS Document for the final picture. If you flattened the image correctly it should show as a JPEG once saved. When finished, save the picture in a new folder named Andy Project. This will go in your Schart folder.

You may need to split the image in half and use the threshold tool on the different parts.

Click here to see the rubric for this project. 

ASSIGNMENT 3: Major Color Changes - 2 Days

Lesson Overview
 
At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

Adjust color by using Hue/Saturation

Realize when and when not to use the Lightness slider
increase and decrease brightness by using Curves

Have you ever wanted to own a black Mini Cooper? How about a white one for the weekends? Well, you might never own two Mini's but you can control what people see in your photos.

In this lesson we are going to manipulate colors by changing them to what we would them to be. Follow the instructions below and learn how to replace color's, even on your Mini Cooper!

• First, click here load up the photo of a black mini cooper into Photoshop. The Pen tool is a great way to isolate specific objects, such as the black body of this car. To save time, we have provided you with this path so that we can move on to adjusting color.

• Now with the body paintwork made into a new layer, it needs to be changed from its original black to a strong red. You could use Curves to do this, but for an operation like this the Hue/Saturation adjustment is far more suitable. So open up Hue/Saturation under Adjustments on your main menu and check the Colorize box. Adjust both the Hue and Saturation sliders to get the right effect.

• Because the bodywork is so dark, you might think of raising the Lightness slider will do the trick, but this produces a pale, washed-out version of the original. So instead, click OK after you have made the color change and than open up Curves (also under Adjustments) to increase the brightness.

• By clicking the on the midpoint of the RGB curve and raising it, we're able to increase the brightness of the midtones without affecting either the shadows or the highlights for a more natural result.

• Now for the flag. The roof is selected from the red layer, and made into a new layer; then desaturate using ctrl+Shift+U.

Here is where it gets a little tougher!

• With all the color knocked out of the roof, duplicate the layer (we'll need the original later) and brighten it up to near white, once again using the Curves dialog.

• Now we can return to the original desaturated roof, and draw our Union Jack outline. The path has already been created for you - to select it, simple CTRL+ click on the thumbnail of the path. Create this in a new layer, and move place it on top of the white layer.

• With the new layer now isolated, we can apply a blue coloring to it using the Hue/Saturation dialog once again. The procedure is exactly the same as in step 3, using a combination of the Hue and Saturation sliders to achieve exactly the color you want. Beware of increasing the Saturation slider too far, or you'll produce a color that's unprintable.

• The red portion of the flag is created by drawing its outlines, and then deleting that area from the white roof to reveal the red coloring that's already beneath it.

Click here to see the rubric for this project.

PROJECT 3 - Clean the Streets - 2 Days
 
In this project, you will be responsible for “cleaning” the street in a provided photograph.

You will be provided with a picture of a street-scene. This street-scene will contain cars, people, and a variety of other objects that will need to be removed or altered in some way in order to “clean”-up the picture.

Make sure to rename all your layers to coincide with the object removal/addition. When you create your document, make sure to duplicate your original image and work on the duplicate - make no changes on the original (background).
 
Tools you may need to use are:

• Patten Stamp tool / Clone Stamp tool.

• Various selection tools (i.e. magic wand, quick mask, magnetic lasso).

• Paint brush.

• Gradient tool.

• Transformation tools (warp, resize, rotate, etc) .

You will need to choose one of the 4 different photos provided by the teacher:

• Due to the large size of these pictures, once you have chosen one, change the print size to a 5x7 and the resolution to 300 (notice how large these photos are. They were taken with a 9 mega pixel camera).

• Change the color of 5 objects in such a way that they maintains all tonal variations and shadows. It needs to look realistic.

• Seamlessly remove one person entirely.

• Remove 5 other objects.

• Add 5 objects that fit well into the surrounding of the photo.

• Save this project in a Project 3 folder in your Photoshop 2 folder.

Once you have completed your work, create a final layer (atop all the others) named Changes. On this layer you will circle all the changes. Use red for object additions, blue for object deletion, and black for color changes. 

Below are links to the pictures.

Bangkok

Bangkok 2

Luxor

Luxor 2

Click here to see the rubric for this project.

ASSIGNMENT 4: Adjusting Existing Shapes - 1 Day

Lesson Overview
 
At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

Apply the Liquify Filter effectively to covert object shapes.
Use the Mesh box for checking alterations more in detail.
Apply Gaussian Blur to a particular selection.
 

Photoshop has the powerful ability to take an object's shape and transform it into many different shapes. With the use of filters such as Liquefy, the ease and simplicity of pushing and pulling objects to morph into a new shape is no great challenge. Horns can be stretched out of a persons skull, superstars can be made thinner, and apples can be made square, all with the incredible Liquify Filter.

By clicking here, you will find a great tutorial by Photoshop Creative Collection Vol. 1, this is one of the many great resources available for simple and creative ideas in Photoshop. We are going to use one of their tutorials for our Square Apples assignment. Open up the PDF of this article, follow its step by step instruction and make your apple square!

Click here for your round apple file. Make sure you have applied every step of this tutorial for full credit on this assignment.

Important: You will have to take SNAPSHOTS in the history palette. Take one after Step 7, one after you complete the Advance Feathering, and one after Step 11. You do not need to take a snapshot for the last few steps.

Click here to see the rubric for this project.
 

Lesson Overview:

At the end of this lesson, the student will be able to:

Use effectively multiple Filters within Photoshop such as: Gaussian Blur, Clouds, Twirl, Noise, Emboss, and Spherize.

Understand the need for duplicating and creating multiple layers.

Switch between different Layer Modes such as: Normal, Screen, Color Dodge and Linear Dodge.

Apply the Smudge and Cloning tools for a texture effect.

With Photoshop you can always create something out of nothing. Just like the Universe was formed from void, you can create stars and planets with the click of a button. Prepare to be swept beyond this galaxy to your very own conceived solar system. This project will take several days to complete and trial and error is the only way to successfully finish your solar system, but once you’ve completed it, you will be amazed with what you completed!

*** A little bit about Blending Modes ***
(information taken from Adobe Help Center)

A layer’s blending mode determines how its pixels blend with underlying pixels in the image. You can create a variety of special effects using blending modes. By default, the blending mode of a group is Pass Through, which means that the group has no blending properties of its own. When you choose a different blending mode for a group, you effectively change the order in which the image components are put together. All of the layers in the group are put together first. The composite group is then treated as a single image and blended with the rest of the image using the selected blending mode. Thus, if you choose a blending mode other than Pass Through for the group, none of the adjustment layers or layer blending modes inside the group will apply to layers outside the group.

Here are the different blend modes you will be using in the project and their primary functions.

Normal: Edits or paints each pixel to make it the result color. This is the default mode. (Normal mode is called Threshold when you’re working with a bitmapped or indexed-color image.)

Screen: Looks at each channel’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The result color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other.

Color Dodge: Looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by decreasing the contrast. Blending with black produces no change.

Linear Dodge: Looks at the color information in each channel and brightens the base color to reflect the blend color by increasing the brightness. Blending with black produces no change.

Project 4

Click here to open up a PDF from Photoshop Creative Collection and walk through every step outlined in this tutorial. You will need to carefully follow each step in order to complete this project but the values may not give you the desired effect (use your judgment when assigning values to the various steps) . At several different stages you will be prompted to commit to what you have created thus far by merging layers or flattening your entire project. So pay attention and don’t be afraid to try certain steps out more than once.

Create a document at 72 dpi with the following documentation: 10 inches wide by 8 inches high.

Important:

Save this project in a Project 4 folder. When finished, your project should include a JPEG and PSD for the following:

• Your star field called ‘student’s_name Star field’ (this is up till Step 8)
• Your star field with added starburst called ‘student’s_name Starburst’ (this is after Step 11)
• Your planet called ‘student’s_name Planet’
• Your rings saved separately called ‘student’s_name Rings'
• The final product called ‘student’s_name Galaxy’

In addition to having the above files in your project folder, you will be graded on how well you follow each of the steps in the ‘Create Space’ tutorial.

Try to pace yourself with this project. Creating the star field could easily take 1 to 2 classes to complete well. The planet and rings is another day. The Nebula is also another day at least, however this part of the project is up for Extra Credit for anyone up for a celestial challenge!

Click here to see the rubric for this project.
 

PROJECT 5 - Superstar Movie Star! (Making a DVD Cover) - 3 Days

For this final project, you're going to create a DVD cover insert (front AND back AND spine) for a fictitious movie starring you! Use your creativity and scour the internet for other DVD covers that will spur your imagination. Your teacher also has several DVD covers (good and bad) created by students from previous classes.
 

You will be making your DVD cover from scratch! You are not simply manipulating an existing cover! Your movie may be a spoof of a pre-existing movie or it may be a title created by you. You cannot use the title of a previously made movie. Your DVD cover must meet the following parameters:

• Resolution must be 150 pixels per inch (You must measure a sample DVD cover to find the correct size or find it on the internet).

• Use Guides to define your back, spine and front covers.

• Use a pre-existing DVD cover as a layout guide to help you with the design. Save it in your Project 5 folder as original.jpg. Using the original, replicate your own DVD cover by finding various elements on the internet (or from your photo collection) and importing them into your NEW DVD cover. You are NOT to use any of the original cover's images.

• You should utilize Layer Masking

• All layers must be renamed to identify what the layer represents.

• The DVD must have all of the elements found on a typical DVD Cover. If in doubt, ask your teacher.

• All elements of the DVD (Dolby, the DVD logo, Surround Sound, etc.) must be either recreated or 'cleaned up'. Any pixilation of pasted graphics will be very detrimental to your grade. You can find all these elements on the internet.

• You must have a picture of yourself somewhere on the front cover of your DVD. If you are replacing an existing character's face with your own, you must do so wherever that character appears.

• Do NOT flatten the image.

• Name the PSD file myDVD. Save the myDVD PSD into your Project 5 folder.

Click here to see the rubric for this project.