Commercial photography

For your project portion, you will capture photos of 6-10 people, things, etc. that signify 2017 to you. When you capture these photos, you will also work to capture at least 3 different shots of each "item," varying everything from exposure to focal length to point of view, etc. All photos will then be uploaded into a 'Semester Exam Hands on' folder within your shared portion of your google drive. This is due by Monday evening at 8 PM.

Brushes Practice (2 parts; be sure to read!)

The following assignment essentially has two parts. The project will involve two daily grades, and one summative. You will proceed through a guided practice of sorts, and then move on to more of a free-roaming assignment thereafter. If at any time you need help finding an item or menu, consult the image at the bottom of this assignment. Or, you know, you could always consult a classmate.

Part 1: Learning the Brushes Panel.

• Open up Photoshop, and go to the menus at top. Click on File --> New.
• Create a document with the following settings in the boxes you see:
  • 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high, 72 ppi, RGB color.
  • Background contents - white
  • Leave everything else as you see it, and hit OK.
• Now that you're in photoshop, click on the Brush Tool on the brushes Panel. You can alternatively hit the 'B' key on your keyboard and it will select it.
• Open up the Brush panel (see steps 1-3 in the image at the very bottom if you don't know how), and in the list of options on the left side of the box that pops up, make sure all options are unchecked. If smoothing is checked, though, that is okay.
• Select the standard Hard Round brush (the solid circle that is second in the list of brushes). If you place your mouse over a brush, it will tell you the name of it.
• Before you paint ANYTHING, make a new, blank layer. Why? Because we always paint in a new layer.
• Set the size of your brush to about 60 pixels. Doesn't have to be exact, but close.
• Set your brush color to a bright version of a color of your choosing: red, blue, green, orange... doesn't matter.
• In the left-hand side of the brush panel, make sure that 'Brush Tip Shape' is highlighted, and that the following settings are correct:
  • Angle: 0
  • Roundness: 100%
  • Hardness: 100%
  • Spacing: 1%
• Click and hold the left mouse button to start painting a line on your document, but don't move it. Hold the SHIFT key and then move it to paint a straight, solid line.
• Increase the spacing to 200%, and then paint another straight line. it is key that you press shift AFTER you first click. To be sure, your spacing will STAY AT 200% FOR THE REST OF THE ASSIGNMENT.
• Change the roundness to 60%, and then paint another straight line.
• Change the angle to 45 degrees, and then paint another straight line.
• Return your angle to 0 degrees, but leave the roundness as it is.
• Change the hardness to 50%, and paint a straight line.
  • Remember that you can change hardness on the fly by pressing ALT and the RIGHT mouse button at the same time, and then dragging up and down. Dragging left and right with these held was the way to quickly resize the brush.
• Change the hardness back to 100%. If this makes no sense to you, don't worry; i will show you when i get back.

your progress will look something along the lines of this:

• At this point, you're going to save a record of your progress.
  • If you haven't already, make a Photoshop folder inside of your named folderYou can do this within photoshop, but it might be easier to do it by simply going to your Named Folder in bFinder.
  • Now, go back into Photoshop. Go to the menus at the top and select File --> Save as.
  • When the Save As... box appears, make your way to your new Photoshop folder and the file will show the name you put in when we first made the document. Keep it.
  • From the 'Format' field beneath where you type the file name, pick 'JPEG.' Not JPEG 2000, but JPEG. Who uses JPEG 2000, anyway? This is 2013. Or maybe 2015. It could be 2017. This tutorial has been used in several classes for several years.
  • Save the file.

If at any point from here on out you have to save at the end of the period, then make sure you save where you are using a PSD (photoshop) file. BUT, when the instructions below indicate, save your work as a JPEG so I can see your progress along the way.

• Set your hardness back to 100%.
• Press Command + option + Z a few times (this is the keyboard shortcut for undoing actions in photoshop; command + z only lets you undo one step back, then redo that same step. you can also do this by going to Edit --> Step Backward) until you only have one painted line remaining on the page. If you don't like keyboard shortcuts, go to Edit --> Step Backward instead.
• In the Brush Panel, Click on 'Shape Dynamics.' Do not just click the check box, but the actual word.
• Make sure all your 'jitter' values on this page are set to 0%, except for size jitter. Set it to 30%, and paint a line.
• Set the size jitter to 100%, then paint another straight line.
  • Notice that the higher the jitter is set, the more variation in size occurs.
• Set the size jitter back to 0%.
• We will talk about the 'control' drop-downs when I return. The minimum diameter settings set a minimum size for each tip the brush paints... like a floor it can't go under. The ceiling is the max brush size.
• Raise the Angle jitter to 50%, and paint a straight line.
• Set the Angle jitter back to 0%.
• Set the Roundness Jitter to 100%, and paint a straight line.
  • Since your constant roundness was already changed on the Brush Tip Shape menu, it's already been affected. Take note of the fact that these two settings affect one another. The constant roundness is a 'starting point' for the jitter, so to speak. This is kind of like how your specific brush size is a starting point for size jitter.
• Go to File --> Save As again, and save another JPEG in your named folder titled '(your name) Shape Dynamics.'
• Do some CTRL+ALT+Z's again to remove all but your very first painted line.
• In the Brush Panel, Un-check Shape Dynamics (this quickly turns off all settings we had for the angle/size jitters), and then click on 'scattering.'
• Set your count jitter to 0%, count to 1, and Scattering to about 75%. Paint a straight line. Or try to, muahahaha!
• Set your scattering to 300%, and then paint again. Even better!
• Step backward (as in CTRL + ALT + Z) a couple of times to get rid of the scattered lines.
• Set your count to 4, leaving the scattering at 300%.
• Wow.
• Step backward again, and then paint at 90% scattering with a count of 4.
• Basically, each time the brush would have painted a single circle that was part of the dotted line, it's painting 4 (because the count is 4)... and it's scattering them at random.
• Save a JPEG of this step called 'scattering.'
• Do a few m ore CTRL +ALT+ Z's to clean up everything but that very first painted line.
• Un-check Scattering, and then click on the name 'Color Dynamics.'
  • Be sure 'APPLY PER TIP' is checked. This means every 'dot' of paint the brush paints will be affected by the options below. otherwise, the jitters and such affect every stroke/click of the mouse instead.
  • SKIP Texture and Dual Brush for now... you can mess around with it after you finish this, and I'll show you more of how it goes down later this week.
• Set all sliders to 0%
  • Note that the 'purity' slider is at 0% when it is in the middle.
• On your Tools Panel on the left-hand side of the page, set your background color (the swatch behind your color of choice) to another bright color.
• Turn foreground/background jitter up to 100%, and paint a straight line.
  • Notice how your paint includes both of your selected colors, as well as various mixes of the two.
• Turn foreground/background jitter back down to 0%.
• Turn 'hue jitter' to 30%, and paint a straight line.
  • Low hue jitter samples colors that are near your chosen color on the color wheel. When you use colors that are close to one another/touching on the color wheel, this is called an analogous color scheme
    • You need to know 'analogous' (look up or ask for the pronunciation) color scheme from this day forward. Trust me.
  • Turn hue jitter up to 100%, and any color is game.
  • Notice that the lightness/darkness of the colors are the same, as well as the saturation (how bright or dull the color appears).
• Turn hue jitter to 0%, and then saturation jitter to 30%. Paint a straight line.
  • The colors vary in richness, but are all the same color.
• Turn saturation jitter to 0%, and then Brightness jitter to 30%. Paint a straight line.
• Don't worry about the 'purity' slider. You can look it up on google and read about it, but for now it's more of a pain than anything. It can really screw up how your colors actually appear when painting, and then we'll be very confused when trying to put things back to normal.
• Save a jpeg of your screen named 'color dynamics.'

YOU SHOULD NOW HAVE FOUR JPEG IMAGES SAVED IN YOUR NAMED FOLDER, IN THE PHOTOSHOP SUBFOLDER.

• Lastly, turn on some brightness/hue jitters, size jitters, roundness jitters, etc, and then set your brush's spacing to about 45%. Paint a line.
• Cool!

The Bristle Brushes (the ones whose icons look like actual paint brushes) work with some different settings under 'brush tip shape.' We'll look at those later on.

Time Lapses

NYE In NYC

Microscopic Snowflakes - big wow.

Czech Landscapes - You definitely want to Czech these out.

New Zealand 4k - do it for Frodo.

Norway in 4k - There's Norway to see it other than this.

California - Why isn't the background music Tupac?

The Mother Lode of Timelapses - because Youtube is Folgers and Vimeo is Starbucks Reserve. Don't know what Starbucks Reserve is? Exactly, you peasant.