Print skills development
- 1. Jasmine Lakhani – Print Research Skills Development Digital Stills Camera Techniques Keep It simple: Identifying the subject of interest and avoiding distracting backgrounds will help to keep the picture clear. Zoom in to clear out irrelevant parts of the scene Rule of Thirds: This rule proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines. Important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Aligning a subject with these points means that you can guide the viewer’s eye to portray the image exactly how it was intended. Lines and Shapes: Applying simple shapes or lines to your subject matter can help to simplify complex scenes and add a visual interest. Vantage Point: Most images taken by amateur photographers are taken at eye level. By taking a picture from a lower level (crouching or lying on the ground) can add importance to the subject, while getting more height (from climbing steps or ladders) will reduce the importance of the subject in your scene. Balance: Symmetrical balancing, where objects of equal size are positioned on either side of the picture's centre. Asymmetrical balancing, where objects of different sizes are used on either side of the picture's centre. This adds depth and creates a visually stimulating image as the viewer's eye moves from object to object instead of having one focal point. Framing: Framing is a way of drawing attention to the subject in the picture by blocking off or framing parts of the scene using natural or artificial barriers. This can distinguish the subject, and help add a sense of depth to the photo.
- 2. Jasmine Lakhani – Print Research Photoshop Techniques: The Photoshop Workspace: Photoshop’s workspace consists of the following components: Menu bar – This runs across the top of your Photoshop window. It contains various menu options for Photoshop’s tools. Options bar – The options bar sits beneath the menu bar. It holds contextualized options for different tools. It also contains the workspace menu, where you can save and load arrangements of palettes. Toolbox – By default, the toolbox sits to the left of your Photoshop window, and contains shortcuts to Photoshop tools. Palettes – Individual “panes” that hold information or options for working with your file, known as palettes (or panels), float on the right-hand side. Each palette is labelled with a tab, and can be minimized, closed, grouped with other palettes, or dragged in and out of a panel dock. Document windows – Each open document has its own document window with a status bar along the bottom. Spot Healing Brush Tool The Spot Healing Brush is used to quickly remove blemishes, imperfections or other unwanted elements from an image. To use it, paint over an imperfection you’d like to get rid of using a suitable brush (brushes selected from options bar). This tool will automatically try to repair the imperfection by sampling the surrounding area.
- 3. Jasmine Lakhani – Print Research Healing Brush Tool The Healing Brush Tool performs a similar function to the spot healing brush tool mentioned above. Instead of automatically trying to repair the imperfection by sampling the surrounding area, the healing brush tool lets you manually select a source, and then paint over an imperfection. To select a source, hold alt and click the desired part of the image. Then paint over the area you wish to replace. Clone Stamp Tool The final tool we’ll cover in this tutorial is called the Clone Stamp Tool. The Clone stamp tool allows you to paint with a sample of an image. Replacement Tool This tool works like a regular paint brush, it manipulates the colour on your image while the underlying texture stays unaffected. If you select the tool in the Toolbox, you'll get to see the various options in the Options bar like different Modes to work with in which the Replace Colour Tool can be applied: Hue, Saturation, Colour and Luminosity.