DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGING - PROJECT 1A

 April 22, 2024

22 April 2024 - 26 May 2024

Bertrand Alden Gani (0370471)

Digital Photography and Imaging

Project 1A / Physical Collage

List:

• LECTURES
• TUTORIAL
• PRACTICAL
• REFLECTION

Module Information Booklet:

Lectures

Week 1: Briefing

First, Mr Fauzi explain about the subject outline and expectations for this module. Then he briefed us about our first assignment which we are required to make a physical collage. We need to make a physical collage by using pictures from magazine. He showed us some example of physical collages and he also shared a videos explaining how to make a physical collage. Here is the video:

Week 2: Introduction to Composition

Introduction to basic composition:

- Focal Point: a key element to help viewers' eyes naturally settle on the important pieces of your design

- Scale & Hierarchy: scale often used to help communicate hierarchy by drawing attention toward and away from certain elements

- Balance The Elements: A good technique for mastering asymmetrical balance is to think of each element as having 'weight' to it

- White Space: mostly known as "empty space" to balance up the main focus of a composition

Rule of Thirds:

Rule of Thirds is the process of dividing an image into thirds, using two horizontal and two vertical lines. This imaginary grid yields nine part with your intersection points.

When you position the most important elements of your image at these intersection points, you produce a much more natural image. It is also suggested that any horizon is placed on either the top horizontal line or bottom horizontal line.

Golden Ratio:

The Golden Ratio is a mathematical ratio. It is commonly found in nature, and when used in a design, it fosters organic and natural-looking compositions that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

In design, the Golden Ratio boils down to aesthetics — creating and appreciating a sense of beauty through harmony and proportion. When applied to design, the Golden Ratio provides a sense of artistry.

Composition (Framing & Cropping):

Week 3: Introduction to Photoshop

Lasso Tool:

The Lasso Tool allow you to draw and pinpoint specific areas of a document. When you click on the Lasso Tool from the Toolbar, you will see three different tool options: 

• Lasso 

• Polygonal Lasso 

• Magnetic Lasso

Here is the video explaining How to Use the Lasso Tool

Pen Tool:

When it comes to actually creating a path from scratch, the pen tool is the most common option.

The pen tool is the way that you add these points and the way you drag the tool as you create the points determines how they will look.

Variation of Pen Tool

- Straight line paths

- U shaped curves

- Simple S curves

- Complex S curves

Here is the video explaining How to Use the Pen Tool:

Layering:

Layers are different images stacked on top of each other. You can use each layer without affecting another one to make adjustments. The advantage of using Layers is that you can save a Photoshop file with all the layers included. This means you can use layers for non-destructive editing. Your adjustments in Photoshop will never destroy the original image. 

Here is the video explaining How to Open Image as Layers in Photoshop:

Week 4: Introduction to Photoshop

Adjustment Layer:

The Adjustment Layers in Photoshop are a group of a super useful, non-destructive image editing tools that add color and tonal adjustments to your image without permanently changing its pixels. 

With the adjustment layers, you can edit and discard your adjustments or restore your original image at any time. This will make your workflow in Photoshop more flexible and efficient, and is an absolute must-know.

1. Brightness Contrast

Brightness / Contrast makes adjustments to the tonal range of your image. The brightness slider is for adjusting the highlights in your image and the Contrast slider is for adjusting the shadows in your image.

2. Level

Levels modify the tonal values in an image by adjusting the levels of the shadows, midtones, and highlights. It’s one of the most used tools in the adjustment layer panel, and using just a touch of levels will go a long way in correcting your images.

3. Curves

Curves let you adjust as many points as you want throughout the entire tonal range of your image, and is the most powerful and precise tool for editing the tones in an image. 

4. Exposure

Exposure lets you adjust exposure levels with three sliders: Exposure, Offset and Gamma. Exposure will adjust only the highlights of the image, Offset adjusts the mid tones and Gamma will adjust the dark tones only.

5. Selective Color

The Selective Color adjustment layer selectively modifies the amount of a primary color without modifying the other primary colors in your image.

Filter:

Filter is used to change colour, add blur or create completely new image effects.

Tutorial

Week 1:
Mr Fauzi briefs about student responsibility, assignment, and assesment methods.

Week 2:
Mr Fauzi taught us how to make a good composition

Week 3:
Mr Fauzi taught us how to use some of Photoshop tools

Week 4:
Mr Fauzi taught us how to use blending mode

Practical

Week 1:

We were instructed to make our e-portfolio blog, register pinterest and list down our 3 favorite graphic design composition work from Pinterest. We need to explain why we like the design.

I like the artwork because it contains many abstract elements as well as the simplicity of the colors. Those combination make the artwork look interesting to see.

I chose this artwork because I like the idea of the design, it really shows the creativity of the maker.

I like the artwork because of the colors combination, it highlights the denim theme really well. It does its job as promotional poster.

Week 2:

In this class, we are instructed to make a physical collage.

Here are some of my designs:

Week 3:

In this week, we were given some pictures and we were instructed to make digital collage using those pictures. We were suggested to use different layer type and blending mode to enhance the visual.

Here are some of my designs:

Week 4:

In this week, we needed to do some adjustment to our best composition collage.

I experimented with many different adjustment and filter. For the upper part, I chose really bright and blinding colors and for the lower part, I mainly used dark colors as contrast. For the background, I used the cinematic blue mood. I also used blending mode, for example the man and woman, I used color dodge, while for the boy I used linear burn. For the leaves and the machine I used divide.

Reflections

Reflecting on my experience designing both physical and digital collages, I find that each approach offers its own unique set of challenges and rewards. Physical collage challenges me to think spatially and practically, considering how each physical piece contributes to the overall aesthetic and message. In contrast, digital collage challenges me to think conceptually and technically, leveraging digital tools to explore complex layers of meaning and visual impact. In conclusion, designing both physical and digital collages has deepened my understanding of artistic processes and broadened my toolkit as a visual communicator.