Group Assignment - Kinetic Typography

This was the video that my group and I created for our final assignment. Our group members were myself, Ahmed Patel, Aina Nurazlina and Tham Yik Foong.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaLCMvQxDj8

Enjoy.

Week 10&11

In these next two weeks, we have been focusing on chapters involving video and television as well as moving on to our next software, Adobe After Effects, to create videos instead of just pictures. We were also given our second and final assignment, to create a kinetic typography video, which I will post a link for later on.


Chapter 12

This chapter was about broadcast video standards, which are the many different standards of video in many countries. The main ones are:

• NTSC (National Television Standards Committee)
• 525 lines/60Hz
• 30fps
• North America, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan
• PAL (Phase Alternate Lines)
• 625 lines/50Hz
• 25fps
• Europe, Asia, Southern Africa
• SECAM (Systeme Electronique Couleur Avec Memoire)
• 625 lines/50Hz
• 25fps
• France, Middle East, Russia

Aspect ratio = ratio of width:height.

• NTSC and PAL - 4:3
• DVD, HDTV, motion-picture - 16:9

Chapter 13

This chapter is focused a lot on video.

Data rate = rate which information is being transferred. Expressed in amount of info / time.

Raw video data size = frame size (w*h) * frame rate (fps) * colour depth (bytes) * time (seconds).

• 8 bits = 1 byte
• 1 kilo = 1,024
• 1 mega = 1,048,576
• 1 giga = 1,073,741,824

Uncompressed audio file:

• 8-bit mono : seconds*kHz
• 16-bit mono : seconds*kHz*2
• 8-bit stereo : seconds*kHz*2
• 16-bit stereo : seconds*kHz*2*2
• 16-bit 5.1 : seconds*kHz*2*6

Factors to consider when selecting graphics in multimedia project:

• purpose - avoid using filters if unnecessary, cartoons can be distracting, images should reflect message.
• quality - image should reflect overall quality desired for product, colour depth should be considered when it comes to systems with lower quality capability.
• cost - cost should relate to purpose and ability, copyright and ownership of graphics should determine who should be paid.

Week 9

This is the last week that we learn about Photoshop. In this week, we focused more on filters and creating art from nothing by simply using filters.

Using several art tools available in the Filters section, I created this (before and after):

The Liquify tool was pretty interesting too:

And the lighting stuff:

Week 6

Chapter 9&10

This chapter is mostly about text, editing text, things we can do with text and more.

Type is made of vectors. It creates a new layer.
Options include orientation, font family, font style, size, anti-aliasing, justification, font color and warp settings.

There are two ways to type things on Photoshop:

• point text : click on the image and type.
• text box : click and drag on the image and type.

We can control the type attributes in the Character palette.

From second row, left to right, top to bottom: Kerning, Tracking, Vertical Scale, Horizontal Scale, Baseline Shift.

Once you rasterize the type layer, it cannot be edited.

Paragraph = series of words created when you start typing and ends when you press enter.

There are 15 ways to distort/warp text: Arc, Arc Lower, Arc Upper, Arch, Bulge, Shell Lower, Shell Upper, Flag, Wave, Fish, Rise, Fisheye, Inflate, Squeeze, Twist.

With what I learned this week, I made these:

Week 4&5

The past two weeks, we have covered the topics of making selections and using the layers feature.


Chapter 4&5

These chapters were about making and manipulating selections. There are many tools Photoshop provides that lets us create, change and remove selections in images to be edited.

The tools that can be used to select include:

• marquee - selects according to a shape 
  
• lasso - selects using mouse movement
  
• magic wand - auto-selects
  

There are several things you can do with a selected image, such as transformation:

• scaling
• rotating
• skewing / distorting
• changing the perspective
• flipping
• copying (holding alt)

Also, selections can be saved by clicking on Select > Save Selection.

After learning this, I learned how to turn this image:

into this image:

by selecting the man and duplicating him and transforming the Transformers logo.


Chapter 6&7

This chapter is all about layers. Layers are used to create composite images, create complex projects, correct color, add special effects and repair photos.

This is how the layers palette looks like:

There are five types of layers:

• normal layers - added on top of current layer
• adjustment layers - used to modify an image without affecting original image
• layer masks - protect areas of layer
• shape layers - vector shapes
• type layers - type elements

Merging is combining two or more layers into one.

Flattening is merging all the layers in a document in order to optimize file size.

Last but not least, layer styles can be applied onto layers to add special effects.

And I got to do this:

Used layer mask to select the cards precisely (the edges are curved) and also to create the reflection.

Gave the cards a stroke layer style to neaten the edges.

Changed the perspective to make it look like the card is viewed from different angles.

Type tool to type "Photoshop".

That type layer is given a bevel and emboss layer style to look 3D.

Week 2

This week we learned more on how to use Photoshop, including the options, tools and colors that we have the choose from.


Chapter 2

Visible spectrum = the range of colors that we can see.
Gamut = the range of colors that a device can produce.

The main color modes are:

• RGB (red, green, blue) - used to generate colors digitally; displayed on a monitor screen; additive (largest range)
• CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) - used for print; subtractive (smallest range)
• pantone - used for textile

Here are the ranges of these color modes:

Codes for colors (red, green, blue):

• (0,0,0) : black
• (255,255,255) : white
• (255,0,0) : red
• (0,255,0) : green
• (0,0,255) : blue
• (255,255,0) : yellow
• (0,255,255) : cyan
• (255,0,255) : magenta

Other color modes are:

• index - like RGB, but smaller range
• grayscale - no colors; 8 bits
• bitmap - only black and white; 1 bit

As for the tools that we learned on Photoshop, we learned about the History palette and changing the image size.

History palette - lists recently executed commands with the most recent at the bottom. It is used to undo multiple commands. 

Photoshop only saves up to 20 commands by default.

To change the image size, go to image > image size (to change both the screen size and print size).


Chapter 3

This chapter consists of more practical things, mostly Photoshop tools.

Options bar - controls how painting tools interact with the image (the bar on the top).

Blending modes - how paint interacts with the pixels underneath the painting area.
Opacity - visibility of color, pattern, etc.

Painting tools work on pixels (raster images), not vector images. They include:

• brush tool
• gradient tool
• history brush / art history brush
• color replacement tool

Gradient = smooth transition between two different colors. They include linear, radial, angular radial, reflected and diamond.

Last but not least, the eraser tool.
There are multiple different eraser tools:

• background - paints with background color
• normal - makes area transparent
• magic - automatically erases area with similar colors

After these two chapters, we were given a tutorial to do.
This is the image I worked with:

We learned how to change color modes, change canvas size, crop, use the gradient and paint bucket tool, use the brush tool and set the hue.

This is my final image:

Week 1

Hello. My name is Devina and welcome to my blog. This is where I post a summary of every class I have in the Multimedia Authoring course of LUCT.

Chapter 1

This week, we covered Chapter 1: A Quick Tour of Adobe Photoshop. Our lecturer introduced us to Adobe Photoshop, an image-editing software used to edit graphics. Here are what the logos look like, from the oldest to the newest:

In Photoshop, we can save our files with various graphic file formats, including:

• .gif (graphics interchange format)
• .jpg / .jpeg ("Joint Photographics Experts Group", the group that created this standard)
• .raw = raw image format
• .png (portable network graphics)

There are several file formats that Photoshop offers which allows the user to preserve layers. These formats include (in order of file size):

• .pdf (portable document format)
• .psd (Photoshop document)
• .psb (Photoshop big)
• .tiff (tagged image file format)

Pixels are tiny squares that make up an image. Resolution is the number of pixels that make up an image or fill up a screen, meaning width x height.

There are three types of resolutions:

• monitor resolution, the resolution of your screen - measured in ppi (pixels per inch)
• image resolution, the resolution of an image - measured in ppi
• printer resolution, the resolution of what's being printed - measured in dpi (dots per inch)

Higher resolution images print out smaller.

We were also taught how to use the basic tools in Photoshop.
This is how the default interface looks like on Photoshop CC:

On the left is the toolbox bar, which has the tools needed to adjust and edit the photo.

Several things you could do are select, move, crop, clone, brush, insert text, erase and more. A magnifying tool is also there to let you zoom, but it is much easier to zoom by pressing ctrl and +/-. There are also several other windows you could use to allow easier navigation, control the history of tasks and more.

Okay that's all for this week.