Thursday, December 4, 2014

Final Video Documentation

The link to my video is : http://youtu.be/bubPugw4kbk

Proposal

This video was made as part of my IMM110 class. I am in a club called Lions Television on campus and they focus on learning television and working as a news outlet for TCNJ. As an executive member of Lions Television, I am in charge of public relations and media. I have made their website http://www.tcnj.edu/~LTV/ , worked on their social media, and have now began a huge project to cover and document every single student organization on campus. This project will be kicked off with this video that I have created and will be sent out to the student organization list-serve that exists on campus. 

Planning

Planning happened for my project in two phases. First I met with the president and the public relations person from LTV and we decided what was really important and what the main goal of the video was. After this meeting I went and planned out the video by making a storyboard for the video. I utilized this to gather my thoughts and organize my video before I made it. I utilized pencil and paper and jotted down general ideas of shots and sections of the video so that it would be quicker and more efficient in editing. The video will start at the upper left box then move across then jump back down to the bottom left box and then all the way across. This storyboard helped in creating the storyline as well and aided in actually going into the video production process. 


Production Log
            This video was a long process because of the amount of clips that it contains. The longest step was actually obtaining all of the footage. I went through ltv’s youtube channel and searched for specific categories of videos that I knew I would be using in the video. I singled out the chemical spill that happened in April 2014 and a video we had made covering the progress being made in campus town as the headlines and then used the categories of concerts, comedians, and student organization events on campus as organization for the entire video.
            After finding appropriate footage for each, I created text slides that were relevant to the entire idea. I searched for music that was really dramatic and would be very quick so the video would move very quickly. The hardest part was then taking all of these clips, texts, and music to line up in sync. After a couple of hours of straight editing, the video was finished and I began to look over and tweak everything. One important tweak was making the text slides visually appealing by making or finding separate graphics for each text slide. 
Self-Evaluation
I believe that I did a very good job on this final assignment. I am confident in my Photoshop and video production skills. I created the video to advertise for this campaign and I believe once I use this video that it will portray the message that it was originally intended for. I believe I was able to get student clubs to understand the scope of LTV’s involvement in the campus community. I also think that they now have the confidence in LTV’s ability to shoot video and then cover events. When this video is sent out to the student organization list-serve on campus, the idea is that organizations will go and research LTV and then use us in the future.  

The link to my video is : http://youtu.be/bubPugw4kbk

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Midterm Documentation

1) Image Composition

The example I used for image composition is a composition of the famous paint, The Last Supper, and many TCNJ things. It features TCNJ campus town in the background, which was done by selecting the window space and deleting it and then putting the picture of campus town behind it. On top of the picture of campus town, the letters TCNJ are sketched very subtly above Jesus' head, which was done by creating text and then utilizing the brush tool to color the text the same color as the wall. A logo of TCNJ and the athletic logo was also added to the top right  and bottom center of the photo through the same process.

2) Masking
The example I used to show off my masking skills was a picture of a river in which I utilized masks to take the original picture and make it nighttime. I created a mask over the original photo in the sky portion and made it transparent. Then I selected the water and utilized a mask to give it a light gradient of opacity to give the impression that there was a reflection of nighttime. I then utilized the blur tool to subtly darken portions of the photograph including the rock and the trees. 
       Before:After: 
3) Color Correction
The example I used to show off my color correcting skills was a picture I had taken of one of the TCNJ buildings. This picture originally had a very dark look to it because of the way that the shadows were distributed. I took this picture, analyzed it utilizing the levels tool (image/adjustments/levels) and then adjusted some of the shadows utilizing the same tool.  This made the picture look much brighter and more vibrant. To also just touch up the color, I used an auto-color on it to just even out the color scheme.
Before:After:
4) Volvox Technology Logo
The Volvox Technology Logo was created completely from scratch. I used the text tool to write out the words Volvox and Technology separately and then positioned the technology underneath the Volvox so that I felt it was aesthetically pleasing. I added a slight drop-shadow to both texts. Next I had the idea of making the O’s in Volvox look technological and so I created octagons that took the place of the O’s. I colored the octagons green and added a drop-shadow and found a vector of a computer chip pattern that I utilized as the fill for the octagons. This was done by giving the Octagon no fill and then just moving the computer chip pattern behind the octagons. After a little bit of tweaking with the spacing of the letters, the Logo was done. 

5) Post-It Blog post
This picture was created completely from scratch. It was created for a blog post abouta new mobile application coming out about post-its that I am making for IMM 140. The first layer is an outer layer of an Ipad. Then within the Ipad is two post-it notes. These post-it notes are clipart images from online. I then added text utilizing the text generator to represent different things that post-its can do. After this I added the computer chip pattern behind the post-it to represent the post-it company coming into the technology generation. This effect was created by putting a picture of the computer chip pattern behind the clipart post-its and then lowered the opacity of the post-it so it just barely is visible. The only last effect that needed to be completed was the brightness at the lower right corner and the darkness in the upper left. To account for this I simply used the dodge and burn tool respectively to adjust the brightness and shadows slightly. 

6) Silicon Valley Blog Post
This picture was created completely from scratch. It was created for a blog post about Silicon Valley startups spending too much money resulting in a business bubble that will break, that I am making for IMM 140. This picture was created through a couple of different layers. The first layer is a background picture of money. In front of this is a layer of bubbles, which were created utilizing the shape tool and then coloring them. The opacity was then lowered so that we could show the picture of Silicon Valley, which is blurred slightly to give it an almost dreamlike effect. This is to emphasize the fact that the success of Silicon Valley startups is dream-like and very unrealistic which is a highlight of the article.
Self-Evaluation
I believe that I did a very good job on this midterm assignment. I am confident in my photoshop skills. My favorites and what I think was my best work were the Volvox Technology logo and the Post-It. My least favorite and what I think was my worst work out of the group of 6 is the Silicon Valley blog post. This picture was cleverly tailored to reflect the ideas of the blog post however it is not as aesthetically pleasing as the other work that I have done. I believe that my skills in the first three pictures are clearly very good and I tried to utilize some of the skills in the first couple projects to showcase them in realistic scenarios, such as the blog posts and as a logo.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Masking

The first picture where masking was used is seen in the two pictures below. I basically utilized masks to take the original picture and make it nighttime. I created a mask over the original photo in the above portion and made it transparent and then selected the water and utilized a mask to give it a light gradient to give the impression that there was a reflection of nighttime. I then utilized the blur tool to subtly darken portions of the photograph including the rock and the trees. 
Before:
After:

The second picture where masking was used is seen in the two pictures below. I utilized a mask after selection to place an american flag in the background of a picture of me to simulate a picture that a presidential candidate might take. 




Before:
 
After:



Thursday, September 18, 2014

Color Adjustment



The first picture I color-corrected was a huge crab claw that I had taken a picture of before...

Before:

After:
I mainly used the histogram for this one and noticed that there is a slight reddish hue in the original picture. I then adjusted it. 

The next is a picture of a tcnj building that I took a picture of...
Before:
After:
This picture originally had a very dark look to it because of the way that the shadows were distributed. I simply took this picture and adjusted some of the shadows and it looks much brighter and more vibrant. 

 The third picture is a picture I took with my girlfriend in Connecticut under a lot of light.

Before:



After:
This picture originally had very unevenly distributed shadows and I simply took this picture and adjusted some of the shadows and it looks much brighter and more vibrant. 




Thursday, September 11, 2014

Image Composition Project 2

The three pictures for the image composition project (2) is below. 
The first picture is of an explosion happening in the background of a football field. I achieved this by selecting the background of the football field utilizing the magic wand and the quick select, and then making it transparent. I then moved the picture of the explosion in the background behind the original football field picture. 

The second picture is of patrick from spongebob being surprised by US military members. This type of photo is actually an internet phenomenon. I basically took a picture of patrick with this face and rotated it so it looked like it was going to be facing the correct way. I then selected that piece of the wall and moved that selection in front of Patrick. so it appeared as if patrick was peeking out from behind the wall. The last finishing touches came when I used the burn tool to simulate patrick's shadows. 

The third picture is a TCNJ last supper. It features TCNJ campus town in the background which was done by selecting the window space and deleting it and then putting the picture of campus town behind it. Also TCNJ is sketched very subtly above Jesus' head which was done by creating text and then utilizing the brush tool to color the text the same color as the wall. 

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Image Composition Project

For this project we had to take more than one image and composite them together to make one pictures. We had to make a total of three composites. 

The first composite was made by taking two images from the Image Acquisition Project and compositing them together. I took my face from the selfie that we had to take and got rid of the background and made it so it looked like I was peeking out from the top of the building. To get this effect I had to cut the top piece of the building into a new layer and then put it over all of the others while keeping the layer for the face above the background layer. The finished product and the layering of my images are below. 



The second composite was made by taking two reusable images from the internet (checked for usage rights), getting rid of the background for the one image and compositing them together so it seems that the picture of the sun was already in the image of the planet. The finished product and the layering of my images are below. 


The third composite was made by taking a photo of the two previously made composites in the photoshop window and compiling them together with each image getting smaller every layer so that it seems that there is an infinite amount of them within eachother. I call it Picception. The finished product and the layering of my images are below. 



Sunday, August 31, 2014

Image Acquisition Project

For our first project we had to take pictures of a person, the environment, and an action. We then had to take or make an abstract version of these pictures and lastly we had to make a digital painting of what was photographed.

The first set of pictures that I did was a picture of me. The abstract picture is just of my nose and the digital picture is an attempt at drawing myself. (i'm not good at drawing) This is below.
The second set of pictures that I did was of the environment which happens to be of a tcnj building. The abstract picture was made taken really really up close to the sidewalk in front of the building and the digital picture was made utilizing shapes from Photoshop. This is below.


The third set of pictures that I did was of an action. The abstract picture is of the middle part of the fan and the action I chose is of a fan spinning. The digital painting is a drawn fan with arrows representing the action of the fan moving. This and the final is below.