Ds2
- 1. Digital skill report. over the past academic year, as a class we have been studying computer software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and very briefly InDesign. All of which are commonly used within the Advertising industry. During this period we have partaken in a number task’s and exercises that have allowed us to acquire many new skills related to the chosen programs. These skills will in turn allow us to broaden or knowledge of such programs and how they could be used within the industry and also allow us to bring or ideas to life. The creative software system Illustrator is an object-orientated drawing application. It allows you to create documents that are composed of strokes and fills, apposed to individual pixels as with an image editing application. ‘The Illustrator work area is arranged to help you focus on creating and editing artwork.’ It can also be used to create digital artwork, lay outs and fabric designs. Being completely new to the program I had no knowledge of how it worked or even what it is used for. I found this extremely daunting at first, as many other people do so when they begin something new, however we were helped with guidance to allow us to complete the tasks in hand. We were given five tasks to complete that allowed us to use and get used to the different components the program has to offer. Within this section we mainly focused on layering, pen tools, shapes, pathfinders and 3D images. The creative software system Illustrator is an object-orientated drawing application. It allows you to create documents that are composed of strokes and fills, apposed to individual pixels as with an image editing application. ‘The Illustrator work area is arranged to help the user focus on creating and editing artwork.’ Being completely new to the program I had no knowledge of how it worked or even what it is used for. It is extremely daunting at first, as many other people do so when they begin something new, however we were helped with guidance to allow us to complete the tasks in hand. We were given five tasks to complete that allowed us to use and get used to the different components the program has to offer. This section mainly focused on layering, pen tools, shapes, pathfinders and 3D images. It could not be stressed enough that when working with these programs, no matter what project it is your working on, you must always use layers to structor your work. Using layers on both photoshop and illustrator is extremely useful as they allow you to edit sections of work without having to edit whole images. The shape tool allows the user to reconstruct patterns and objects, a good tool to begin with by giving you a basis to work. The shape tool, pathfinder and layers all work simultaneously together in a step by step format. step one create a layer, step two place shapes together in the style of image or pattern the user wants to recreate step three after selecting all the user can use pathfinder to ‘merge’ all together as one or isolate shapes to create ridges and straight lines. The pen tool allows use to create images to accurate standard. It is often used in many cases to create copy based images. The 3D revolve tool allows the user to create 3D images helping the image really come to life. We were set a number of tasks related to Illustrator to help us broaden our knowledge on the program, after completion I realized that it was not as hard as I had first assumed. I found that I had strengths in all aspects of what we have learnt on illustrator, however I found weaknesses in wrapping text around image and remembering to keep my work layered effectively. I feel that being a copywriter myself I feel that this particular program would be more suited in helping me with my work then that of photoshop, one of the exercises we had to complete was that of creating a typography advertisement using the new skills we had obtained, I found this task both simple and fun as I now have more knowledge about the software and how to use it. In the future I will make it my goal to grow further in confidence and practice on a regular basis on various images and projects to help me gain a greater understanding of Illustrator. ‘Photoshop is primarily geared toward digital photo manipulation and photorealistic styles of computer illustration, while Illustrator provides results in the typesetting and logo graphic areas of design.’ (wikipedia. 2007) I had some, but little knowledge on the Photoshop program. Over the
- 2. may be damaged, for example an old photograph with rips and creases in. The patch tool again works in a very similar way, being able to adjust the colour and contrast of an image can change the whole feeling surrounding it all together, this tool gives you to bring an old dull photograph back to life by giving it life again through colour. I found my strengths in photoshop were adjusting and retouching images, I thoroughly enjoyed the retouching tasks as you get a taste of what an image once was. I feel my weaknesses lye in alfa channels although I now understand that the whole purpose of a channel is to brake down an image so that if any mistakes are made it can easily be corrected without having to edit the whole image, when i was trying to complete the task in hand i found myself so much so that even after guidance I was still struggling. I will make it my main aim to understand alfa channels as I feel that they are one of my major downfalls. Photoshop would help in the advertising industry because it can be used as a way of bringing the most unrealistic and surreal ideas to life through careful editing. InDesign appears to be used for producing more informative forms of work such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books. Out of all three programs that we looked at this is the one that I was most intimidated by. I had not even heard of InDesign before I started the current course. We only briefly looked at the program and I must add that I already feel as though my confidence in it is growing. During a brief time we studied placing images, the linking together of text boxes, kerning, tracking, leading, windows and orphans. Placing images within InDesign instead of importing them allows them to be edited outside the software on programs such as Photoshop but to be automatically updated within it. The chose of linking text boxes together allows you to spread text across a page in different sections. kerning increases and decreases the space between letters within words. Tracking allows letters to be spaced out equally. Leading adjusts the spacing between lines. A window is the term used to decide the line of a paragraph that falls at the top of a column that has been cut off from the rest of its paragraph, where as the term orphan is used to describe the first line of a paragraph that falls at the bottom of a column which get s separated from the rest of its paragraph. as we had only touched on InDesign we were given to task to complete, the first was a one page advertorial in which we had to demonstrate placing and linking text boxes. I found this task straight forward and easy to follow. The second task was to complete a two page advertorial using the skills we have learnt. I also found this task simple and fun to do because it allowed us to experiment more with the software. In the future I would like to gain more knowledge on InDesign as I feel that we have not fully studied all the aspects of the program yet and would like to see what else it has to offer. I feel that this program would be useful within the industry, however more so in marketing, fliers and magazine editorials ect. Over all I have truly enjoyed working with new software and tasking part in the chosen tasks. I feel that I have gained knowledge in them and now feel that I have to confidence to use such programs to help me progress my work next year. I also feel that I have learnt more about me learning style. I have recently been diagnosed with the dyslexia and one of the things I found during this module is that I have difficultly keeping up with the class, however I have learnt that I learn more in one and one tutorials and through written and illustrated instructions such as the worksheet hand outs. I have decided that I will see if there is a way for me to get print outs of what we go over within the lessons to see if that would further my learning as I would like to do so.