Photoshop tools 18/12/12

Photoshop

By Peter Hennigan

Tuesday, 18th December 2012

Photoshop Selection tools:

Photoshop Brushes:

In photoshop, the brush tool is used to colour in pictures, similar to the brush tool in Microsoft's paint software.
The brush tool include different types of brushes.
When using brushes you can alter the options of brush types, you can increase or decrease the brushes size, you can control the opacity and flow settings which will make the brush lighter.
There are also hardness settings which control the outline of the brush, whether you want and sharp outline or a fading outline.

Above is a self-portrait I made in Photoshop.

When using brushes, you can adjust the size of the brush, giving you a wider or shorter radius to work with. You can also change the hardness of the brush, decreasing the hardness of the brush will make the outline of the trail opaque and will dissolve, increasing the hardness will make the trail's outline blocky and crisp, it will also darken the colour. 

Photoshop Layers:

In Photoshop layers there are different techniques in enchanting your image.

The layer palette is the where all your new layers and backgrounds are placed, here you can move layers into order, for example, if you want an apple to be placed over a tree layer, the apple layer must be placed above the tree layer.

Inside the palette, there are different controls and tools to change your selected layer, one for example in the opacity tool which makes the layer selected cloudier.

New Layer lets you creates a new layer that is automatically placed above the layer that you have selected.

This new layer will be blank until drawn upon or until it has a picture on it.

Opacity, as stated before, is a tool which makes the selected layer transparent, for example 0% opacity makes the layer disappear, 100% makes the layer as clear as it can be, 1 - 99% makes the layer transparent.

Visibility is the little eye icon that can be found next to layers and backgrounds on your palette, clicking on a visibility icon will turn off that layer making it disappear entirely, clicking on it again will bring it back.

The transform menu lets you edit your layer, it can let you flip your layer, rotate, turn and even warp your layer, which will deform the image.

In photoshop, you can copy and paste on the image, giving you a new layer, i did this by selecting the elliptical tool, drawing an oval and then copying and pasting, this will take the part of the layer you had highlighted with the oval and add it again to the image, in a whole layer.

Layer styles makes you do advanced editing to your image, you can add a shadow, emboss or bevel it, add glows and even add strokes to your layer.

Blending modes will make your layer that you have selected, blend into other layers. The layer will then darken or lighten to the layer.

Photoshop Adjustments and Filters:

Adjustments and Filters change the colours, size, shape, background and style of any picture.

Adjustments contain contrast and colour control which can lighten or darken the image that you are editing.

In adjustments you can lighten or darken certain areas of your picture by first selecting the type of adjustment you want (i.e. curves) than box selecting (make a box with your cursor by pressing and selecting the amount you want) the area you want to change, this box means that all that's in it can be edited. If you move the curves on the curve adjustment window, the area in the box will either lighten or darken.

Here you can see a normal looking Rubik's Cube.

In this picture, I am customising the colour of my Rubik's Cube by using the Hue/Saturation adjustment tool, this works by selecting a single colour (i.e. Blue) and turning it to another colour (i.e. Red).

This is an extended version of the Rubik's Cube customisation, here you can that in some colours there are obvious mixing of colours, this is because the colour I change a colour to, the original colour will still be behind it.

This is the end photo of the customisation using Hue/Saturation.

Filters alter the picture entirely, they change the shape, size, texture and colour of the picture dramatically.

This is the filter menu for automatically customising any picture, in this picture i'm using the filter known as Coloured Pencil which makes the picture looks like it has been drawn with a pencil.

This is a close-up on the Coloured Pencil Rubik's Cube.

This is by far my favourite filter, the Glowing Edges filter, it, as it says, makes the edges glow, whilst leaving the centre of each square blank.

Close up

This filter is called the Stained Glass, which makes the Rubik's Cube look like a picture made up of small shards.

Close Up

The final filter I used was called Patchwork, it makes the Rubik's Cube look like a grid made up of colours.

Close up

Advert review.

My production titled 'LFRS advert by Peter Hennigan' has received positive feedback from various students who have viewed in my class.

In my point of view however, there are some points in the video itself that can be made better.
One point however, can not be changed, the part showing the death of Kadeem has a sound-booth recorded script.
This is because the microphone that was placed on the camera wasn't turned on and didn't capture the audio.
We could not re-shoot this part as Kadeem, Mo and myself had taken the makeup off.

The other area which I find annoying is the tyre screeching in the middle of advert, just before Kadeem gets hit by the car. I find the tyre screeching sound effect to be prolonged.

Finally, the interview audio at the start of the 2 minute advert, has some background problems, in some parts, the audio may seem unnatural.