Narrative

For my final project, I chose to tell the story of the Crusade for Children. All three images have a curves effect on them that made almost everything a shade of blue. I did this to symbolize the colors of the Crusade this year. Every year the Crusade has a different color theme; this year was blue, dark green, and tan. In the first image, "Collect the Money," I chose to put a boot full of money, a fire truck, and a fire hat to tell this part of the story. They show that the firemen collect money every year for the Crusade.

For the second image, "Wait to go on Air," I chose to do kind of a split-look to show what goes on in WHAS 11 and what goes on outside before each fire department goes on air. On the left side, there fire departments getting on the huge elevator to go up on stage; while on the right side, the firemen driving the trucks are waiting to drive down the street on the air. I used the boots at the bottom to kind of tie the two scenes together, and show that they are happening at the same time.

In the last image, "On the Air: Show me the Money," I also have two scenes happening at the same time. The fire trucks outside drive down the street and go right in front of WHAS 11's studio to be on air; while the scene at the bottom is of the same fire department standing on stage while on the air. The empty boots at the bottom represent that the money was given from the fire departments to the Crusade. I chose to do this story because my family is really big into the Crusade, and we work it every year.

Fortuna/Loteria

For this assignment, I chose to use games of chance as my inspiration. I used poker chips, dice, and playing cards as the basis of my images. The first image, "Let's Take a Chance," has a lot going on. The background is a scanned image of an ace of clubs duplicated over and over. I used the curves tool to get the background that color. The pile of poker chips also has a curves effect on them to make them look metallic. The flower-looking-thing is a collage of scanned items. I also used the curves tool on this collage, too. It made it look brighter and stand out. The hands that hold the cards and the hand that holds the dice have their original color. The flower also has a unique feature in that it has a piece of every other layer: die and chip in the center, and cards as it's petals.

The second image, "Read 'em and Weep," does not have as much going on. It is more simple. The background is a picture of a bunch of dice stacked on top of each other. The color of the cards has been altered. I used all the colors from the four chips to recreate the cards. This makes the cards really stand out and bring out the colors of the chips that are below them. The chips were all scanned into the computer and the image of the joker on top of them was also scanned into the computer. The joker was actually riding a bike on the joker-card, but I cropped that and selected the joker so that you could see what was underneath it. I then placed the joker over-top each colored-chip and flattened the together to give each chip a new look. I placed them at the bottom to kind of make a small border, and so that you could still see the dice background.

Surreal Landscape or Cityscape

This assignment was more challenging for me because it was hard to visualize what I wanted the images to look like. I had a hard time figuring out which images to use and what to do with them to make them look surreal. The first image, "Pop-out Louisville," is based on some surreal images I found on the Internet. I really liked the way certain parts of the scene pops out at you. I randomly chose which parts of my image would pop out. I just cropped different parts of the original image and placed them directly over the working image in the correct spots. I then added a drop shadow and made the color a little different to make the images stand out. I will say that I did forget to put a texture on this image. I'm hoping that I can make up for that in the next one because I used two different textures (see next description to find out what I used).

The second image, "Waterfall Trail," is basically an image of a house sitting in the middle of a body of water next to a waterfall. There is a trail connected to the house. The whole background has a green bush texture behind it to make the image look distorted. I lowered the opacity of the other layers so that the green bush showed through, which you can see it better on the print out. The building also has a texture. I used a clipping mask to give the building a wooded texture. The texture is actually a picture of logs I took. I lowered the opacity of the building so that the logs would show through.

Word Play

The word I chose was "effort." From the all of the antonyms the website gave me, I used "laziness" as my inspiration for the first image. The main background is a stack of potatoes to symbolize a couch potato. The other two image layers are of my mom watching t.v. in her recliner and of her laying on the couch. The text layer, "laziness," is arched and has a drop shadow around each letter. I made the whole image look dull to symbolize that being lazy is dull or boring. To make the image dull, I made another layer and painted it grey. Then, I lowered the opacity and changed the blending layer to saturation.

Of all the synonyms the website gave me, I used "exercise" as the inspiration for the next two images. The first image is the word "exercise" with a running track as the background. I did this by making a clipping mask.

The second "exercise" image also has a running track as the background, but it is different from the first "exercise" image. The image layers of my sister are of her running in different directions and of her doing a pushup. I used the vibrant colors to symbolize that exercise is vibrant and good for your body. The text layer was done using the vertical text tool and using a drop shadow around each letter.

Fortune Cookie

"Do not wait for others to open the right doors for you" was the fortune cookie that I used as my inspiration. In the first image, there are six different layers: me opening a door, my mom opening a door, my friend opening a door, me looking at my watch waiting, a "no-smoking" sign, and a clock. The colors I used have a symbolic meaning. I first used the curves tool on the clock. Then I made the layer of me opening a door in a blueish color to match the blue in the clock. Every other layer are in a red or orangeish color to match the other colors in the clock. The blue represents "good," while the red and orange represents "bad."


In the second image, there are also six different layers: a door, a clock, me giving a thumbs up, a check mark, me looking at my watch waiting, and a "no-smoking" sign. I made the door the main background of the image. Over-top of the door is the clock, which has a lower opacity so that you can still see the door. To symbolize that you shouldn't wait, I placed a "no-smoking" sign over the layer of me looking at my watch, which also has a lower opacity. The sign has a luminosity blend so that you can see what is underneath. The layer of me giving a thumbs up has a glow around it to symbolize that I did the right thing of opening the right door for myself. The check mark has almost the same color of the glow to symbolize that I did the right thing.

Soft and Paint Assignment

The first image, "Emily-posing" was used to show the softening technique and to how to hide blemishes. First, I made a duplicate layer. Using the original layer, I gaussian blurred it to 10 pixels. Then, using the duplicate layer I changed the opacity to 94% so that I could soften the image. To get the softening look, I used the eraser tool to erase all the skin; this made the skin look blurry. Next, I flattened the image so that all of the layers were combined into one. Then, I used the healing tool to get rid of any blemishes on the skin. Finally, I cloned the blue print of the background to make the image look more simple.

The second image, "Spider man," was used to show how to paint on an image. First, I made a new layer. Using the new layer only, I painted different things on the image. I used a basic brush tool and painted the background in a lime green color. Next, I used an assorted brush tool to make the design on the two circle parts of "Spider man." Then, I used a faux finish brush tool to make the border on the image. I then used two of the assorted brush tools to make the random prints of stars on the image. Finally, I colored in the eyes of the "Spider man" with an ice blue.

I have used photoshop before, when I was in high school, but I felt like I learned a whole lot on how to do the techniques I mentioned above. In high school we used these techniques, plus more, but I had forgotten how to do certain things. This really helped me recap on what I already learned. I did learn something new though, and that was how to make the skin look soft and smooth. I look forward to learning more techniques.

Blog 1

Hi. My name is Jen Beichler. This is the first time I have ever made a blog before, so I am not very for sure what to write. I am looking forward to taking digital imaging this session.