Visual Communication Lesson 9

So, on the 9th lesson of Visual Communication, we continued on in Photoshop. In this lesson, we focused abit more on enhancement of pictures and editing by adding different elements to it. We are introduced to a new tool, the magnetic lasso tool. This gives a more precise tracing of an object, much better than us manually, trying to trace an object, because it is near impossible to trace an object without any gaps at all. The magnetic tool helps is trace along the line automatically. One of the things we had to do is to add elements into a photo/picture. We have to add in a ladybug, polar bear & Birds to the picture. For the polar bear, to make it so that it doesn't look so out of place, we had to make it seem as if its feet are in the water. We had to first crop is and adjust the clarity and exposure, and carefully put it back so it doesn't look amputated. This gave us the opportunity to use the magnetic lasso tool, which I personally like because it is must easier than having to do it using the lasso tool, which requires us to trace it exactly, and it is not easy. This is the end result.

Personally, for a beginner, I think it's not too bad. 

Next, we learnt how to make a old photograph look brand new. We use the hue/saturation tool and also curves tool. This is basically a practice for us to revise the tools we learnt last week. This is a great trick if we have photos we like but overtime has became old and has a annoying yellow-ish or orange/red sheen over it, we can just use photoshop and correct it, and reprint it, and it'll look good as new. I am quite amazed at it to be honest. Because I thought once it's old and yellow-ish/orange/redish, there's really nothing much you can do.

Honestly, the difference is quite amazing. 

Back to element adding, out next activity is to add a few elements and change the colour/tone. The original picture was a fish bowl with a gold fish, we had to make the water slightly blue instead of it's clear water colour and also add in other elements into the picture, I added another fish and water plant. Initially, To change the colour we had to use the lasso tool, again with the magnetic tool. But before that, we have to crop the goldfish out.  I was panicking and when I changed the colour of the water the area selected just changed colour and it looked like a patch of opaque colour there. But after trying, I realised I didn't adjust the opacity and exposure, however once I have done that, everything else went smoothly. This is the end result.

As you can see, it is definitely not well done. The water opacity was adjusted so that it still looked natural and not as if the fishes were swimming in the ocean water. 

Another assignment was to created a 'Polaroid'. Initially I thought it would be a chore as it didn't seem easy. But it turned out this is one of the easiest of the day. Firstly, we have to choose a background. And I chose stripes with polka dots. Then we have to use the rectangular Marquee tool, and crop out a rectangle and colour it white. Next we have to select a photo and resize it so that it is smaller then the rectangle. Next we fit is nicely in, and using the text tool, we have to caption it. The end result, looks like this. 

Not bad in my opinion.

Our homework was to have a background photo and add elements into it. The background I chose was a classroom. And guess what I added in?