CLASS NOVEMBER 18TH

DUE DUE DUE DUE DUE
Six unflattened .PSD files for the portrait assignment are due by the end of class. I will clarify what folder on the scratch drive at the beginning of class. There's some strange things happening to the storage of our files in the lab. I'll know more about this Friday and will keep you notified.

If you haven't printed your portraits yet, please select 3 images to print during lab time. The 18th is the final day to do so.

AND.... WE'LL BE DISCUSSING THE REMAINDER OF THE SEMESTER.
There are only three classes left......

The clock is ticking.

Throughout the semester we’ve learned that there are many ways for a digital images to originate. They can come from a digital camera, scans from negatives or old photographs, searching the Internet for images – the possibilities are almost endless!

The way digital images can exist is also equally diverse. Images can become zines, fine prints, posted on the Internet.

A possibility for the final project is to produce a portfolio of no less than seven finished images. The number of final prints will depend on the design of your final project. You have 480 square inches of paper and ink to make prints. This can be one Large print, or several small prints. It's all up to you. Seven finished image files are due for this project.

Please do not hesitate to ask me about this.

The origin and content of the images is your choice but they MUST be yours, and they must be cohesive.

The remainder of the semester will be open lab AND some lectures, all with the ability to print at EVERY class meeting.

Think about the ways we have worked and look over the technical assignments. Are there ways of making images that you would like to learn more about? Are there ways of making images that are more enjoyable to you than others?

Our final critique will be during finals week. Your final prints and your files are due in the drop box by the beginning of our final class meeting on December 16th.

What do you think? Maybe too much? Let's talk.

MAGICAL BLURRING TECHNIQUE

1. Duplicate the Background layer. Do this by first selecting the layer in the layers palette, then choosing Layer -> Duplicate layer.

2. Select the duplicate layer and choose Filter -> Blur -> Lens Blur. Choose the desired blurring radius and click OK.

3. Make sure the blurred duplicate layer is on top of the non-blurred layer.

4. Attach a layer mask to the blurred layer by choosing Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal All.

5. You can now reveal and hide the blurry layer just as you would on an adjustment layer mask.

6. Presto. See below for a before and after example.

MAGICAL SHARPENING TECHNIQUE

1. Make a copy of the background layer, or the layer you want to sharpen. To do this, click on the layer in the Layers Palette, then chose Layer -> Duplicate Layer..

2. Click on the duplicated layer in the Layers Palette to make it active, then choose Filter -> Other -> High Pass. Enter 10 in the for the radius and click OK.

3. Things now look a little odd, huh. Click on the layer you adjusted with the high pass filter, then from the drop down list on the Layers Palette, select Soft Light. Magic.

4. Adjust the opacity of the high pass layer to achieve desired sharpness.

COLOR BALANCE TUTORIAL

PORTRAIT ASSIGNMENT UPDATE

CLASS ON NOVEMBER 4TH.

We'll start printing our portraits and continuing to work with them in Photoshop.

You'll be turning in six files and making three prints for this assignment. The six uncompressed, unflattened .PSD files are due on November 18th. We will also be printing during class on the 18th.

ANN HAMILTON AGAIN

WATCH THE VIDEO STARTING AT 13 MINUTES.

CLASS 10/28/2011 !!!

Hi All,

We'll be looking at some addition approaches to portraiture as well as working on our portraits! If you have yet to print your panorama, we'll be working on that too.

See you in the LAB!!!!!!!

ANN HAMILTON

Watch the full episode. See more ART:21.

LARRY SULTAN

SALLY MANN

CLASS CANCELLED

Hi All,

I'm headed to the doctor.
Class is canelled today, Friday October 21, 2011.
Sorry for any inconvenience.

-Sean

PRINTERS!!!!!!!!!

Hi All,

I just received word that the printers are up and running. Looking forward to a productive class tomorrow!

PORTRAIT ASSIGNMENT

We've looked at several different approaches to portraiture. Your assignment is to define what you feel makes a successful and interesting portrait.

Produce six images, all portraits.

One must be a portrait of some one without including them in the image, and one must have some kind of artificial/altered light.

Bring your photographs to class on Friday, October 14th. We'll be working on them during lab.

SCANNING ASSIGNMENT

Scanning Assignment
There are several different pieces of software used for scanning images. Some are made for a specific scanner, some are third party applications. Even with the differences, the steps for scanning anything are the same...

1. Place your object/image on the scanning bed.
2. Preview your scan.
3. Determine the resolution of the scan.
4. Choose the area of the scanning bed to scan.
5. Modify any additional settings such as the descreen filter.
6. Scan.

Here are some tips for how to scan different types of documents, photographs, objects, etc. We'll cover film scanning later...

Photographs - Always scan as full color (even if the original image is black and white). This will add resolution. You should not apply any filters or special adjustments when scanning a photograph.

Three dimensional objects - Scan the same as a photograph.

Images from print media (postcards, magazines, newspapers) - use the descreen filter. This will abate the presence a moiré pattern in the final file. Most scanning software contains a descreen filter with settings for magazine, newspaper, fine art print, etc.

Please being the following to class on Friday, October 14th.

-A translucent object, no larger than 8x10 inches. A piece of photographic negative film, or positive (slide) film will work also.

-A three dimensional object no larger than 8x10. Please nothing made out of sandpaper or other abrasive material. Please nothing wet and disgusting, like a sandwich.

-An old photograph that needs to be altered or repaired in some way. It must be optically printed and not from a magazine, etc.

-An image from a book, magazine, newspaper, postcard or other print media that you find particularly interesting.

You will be turning in three images total. All images are to be scanned at 600dpi or higher.

You'll be turning in...

1. One photograph scanned and free from dust and scratches (use the clone stamp and healing brush tools).

2. One image from some type of print media that requires the use of the descreening filter.

3. One three dimensional object.

ALL FILES ARE DUE BEFORE THE END OF THE SEMESTER! PLACE THEM IN A FOLDER LABELED LIKE THIS: "scanning_last name_first name. PUT THE FOLDER IN MY FOLDER IN THE DROP BOX.

IMPORTANT!!!!

BRING YOUR BLACK AND WHITE PRINTS TO CLASS ON OCTOBER 7TH!

WE WILL BE HAVING A CRITIQUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS.

THIS IS A REQUIREMENT!!!

ASSIGNMENT - PANORAMA PART II

After constructing and editing at least 4 different PANORAMAS. Flatten and save them as .JPG files.

Bring all four to class on October 7th. They are to be turned into my dropbox by end of that class.

Place all four in a folder labelled "your last name_pano". Then place that folder into the dropbox.

Also, chose one of the panoramas for print. We will be printing at our next lab section.

GEORGE LAWRENCE

ASSIGNMENT - PANORAMAS

Some simple guidelines to photographing panoramas

Tripod - Whenever possible, use a tripod. This will make the construction of the image in photoshop much easier. It will also slow down the process of photographing - allowing more time to contemplate the scene being captured.

Vertical (Portrait) - Whenever possible, make the photographs vertically (portrait). This will maximize the resolution of your final image.

Overlap - For each exposure that is made, the next exposure should share about 20% of the frame as the previous one. Photoshop and you will need reference points to match up the images.

Start Simple - Avoid visually complicated scenes at first as they are more difficult to construct/fix later.

Constructing panoramas using Photoshop CS4 and CS5 - THE EASY WAY

1. Open all the images in your panorama.

2. Find the left most image in the panorama, copy and paste the image onto a new canvas.

Do this by choosing, Select -> All, Edit -> Copy, File -> New, Click OK, Edit -> Paste.

3. Find the next image, copy and paste it into the canvas that was created in step 2. Repeat this process until the new canvas contains as many layers as there are images in your panorama with the left most image as the bottom layer and the adjacent images stacked one upon the other. Delete the Background layer.

4. Select all the layers by clicking the bottom layer, holding down the Shift key and clicking the top layer.

5. Chose Edit -> Auto-Align Layers, Click OK.

6. Chose Edit -> Auto-Blend Layers. Make sure Panorama is selected and Seemless Tones and Colors is checked.

7. Crop and save the image. Boom!

8. Check for any layer blending problems by viewing the image at 100%. You'll notice that Photoshop, even thought it does a wonderful job, is not perfect. Correct all the errors that you find. Save the the image.

9. Make any adjustments to contrast, tone and color. Save the image. Boom!

FOR OUR NEXT CLASS MEETING ON 9.30.2011

Make photographs to construct at least four seperate panoramas. Also, please bring all your prints from the BLACK AND WHITE ASSIGNMENT. We will be discussing them at the beginning of our next class meeting.

ASSIGNMENT TWO - IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Chose three images from the 300 you made for assignment two.

Look at each images / scenes you've chosen. For each image / scene, find the exposure that has the best balance of detail in the shadows and in the hightlights. You should have five exposures for each scene / image.

In Photoshop, convert each image to black and white - click here to read how .

Then, adjust the tonalities in each image until you have made an objectively good photograph - one with detail in the shadows and highlights, with good contrast, etc. Do this by making a Levels Adjustment Layer.

Next, examine the image. Are there areas in the image that could be brightened, darkened, or have the contrast adjusted. If so, create another Levels Adjustment Layer and modify the adjustment layer mask. Watch these videos for a refresher.

Have your three adjusted, finished images ready for print on 9.16.2011. Do not change the resolution / image size of the file. Do not flattened the images. Bring them as unflattened, full resolution .PSD (photoshop document) files.

See you all on the 16th!!!!

IMAGE ADJUSTMENT TUTORIALS

Here are three informative videos (all using pets) on image adjustment using Adobe Photoshop. They are made using a windows interface and a previous version of the software, but remember, all the same menu items exist on the Apple computers we are using in class.

DESTRUCTIVE VS. NON-DESCRUCTIVE EDITS

Photoshop edits files in the following two ways. They are...

Destructive edits - changes modifying content in a way that it cannot be changed back to its original state. An example of a destructive edit would be to make a levels adjustment to an image by modifying a layer directly, thus altering it's content permanently.

Non-destructive edits - changes modifying content that modifies the edits rather than the original content. An example of a non-destructive edit would be to make an adjustment layer. Changes can be made to that edit, or adjustment layer without altering other layers or original content. A real world analogy would be walking outside and putting on sunglasses. In doing so you make the world appear darker without actually making it darker. Once you remove your sunglasses, everything is the same as when you put them on.

Destructive edits are BAD! They destroy data, which is information, which is ultimately resolution. Use non-destructive editing techniques whenever possible.

Here's a few types of Adjustment Layers you can add to your image using Photoshop. Please note, these are not all of them, we'll get to the rest later! If you only use adjustments layers to edit your images, you will be making non-destructive edits!

Levels - Adjusts the brightness and contrast using a histogram that represents the tonal values in an image.

Color Balance - Adjusts shifts of color in an image. If an image appears too blue you can make it warmer or more yellow using this tool.

Hue Saturation - Hue is the name of a color, saturation is a color's intensity. An image with no saturation contains no color information, only information on the brightness or darkness of each pixel. This tool adjusts the saturation of any particular hue in an image, or the overall saturation of all the hues.

To make a New Adjustment Layer in Photoshop?

Chose Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Levels (or any other desired type of adjustment from the list)

CONVERTING COLOR TO BLACK AND WHITE

Please note. This is one of several ways to convert your images to black and white. We'll be working with other methods later in the semester. For this first assignment, please follow the instructions below.

1. Open your image in Photoshop.

2. Chose Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Black and White...

3. A dialog box will appear. Click OK.

4. Chose File -> Save As.

5. Save your image as a *.psd file. This will preserve the black and white adjustment layer that was created. Make sure you provide your image with a filename that will not overwrite your original file.

Below is a video tutorial that describes using this tool in depth.

I came across the COMPLETE list of Photoshop CS4 shortcuts. It's a bit overwhelming. Feel free to use it, but need some endless patience and a magnifying glass. They are almost identical to the shortcuts used for CS5.

LINK TO EVERY SINGLE PHOTOSHOP CS4 KEYBOARD SHORTCUT

The handout provided in class provides a much smaller list of useful keyboard shortcuts. No magnifying glass required.

Also.... Here's a link to some Photoshop CS4 tutorials.

POWERS OF TEN

ARTIST - JOHN CHIARA

ASSIGNMENT TWO - LIGHT

We will be looking at light. Photographing light. What hides in shadows, what makes your eyes squint. Photograph the things in the world that you can't touch, or see. Stop where it's warm or where it's cold and make a photograph. How is the temperature changing the light, if at all?

Re-visit the same scene throughout the day or the next.

For each exposure that you make, photograph the scene again, underexposing 1 stop, then two stops. Then overexpose the scene by 1 stop, then two stops. For each scene there will be 5 exposures. This will be covered in class on 8.26.2010.

Make no less than 300 exposures. Bring the images to class on Friday, September 2nd. Three 8x10 inch black and white prints will be due at a date to be announced.

ASIGNMENT ONE - PART TWO

Please turn in the images for #27 along with the three other assignments you chose from the Learning to Love You More website.

Re-size your images to be 800 pixels wide and save them as .jpg. This will be covered in class on 8.26.2011 and again on 9.02.2011. There is also instructions on how to do this below

On the desktop, make a folder labeled with your first name, last name, and LTLYM. Place that folder in DropBoxes -> Sean McFarland. Like this: Sean_McFarland_LTLYM

This procedure will be followed to turn in all assignments throughout the semester.

All images are due no later than at the end of class on 9.02.2011.

TERMS, DOWNLOADING, RESIZING

Terms to know:
Resolution = Information
PPI vs. DPI
Megapixel
Monitor Resolution vs. Printer Resolution
Bit Depth
Grayscale
RGB
CMYK
JPEG
TIFF
RAW (NEF, CR2)
PSD


Downloading images to the computer
1. Turn on and plug your camera in the computer.

2. iPhoto may automatically launch and ask if you'd like to use it to download your photographs. You don't. Quit iPhoto when it launches.

3. Make a new folder on the desktop named with the date and your name. For example, I would make a folder named "8.26.2011_mcfarland".

4. Click on the hard drive icon on the desktop and navigate to the applications folder. Double click and open the application "Image Capture". It has a camera for an icon.

5. It should recognize your camera. From the "Download To:" drop down box, chose "Other", navigate to the folder you just created on the desktop and click the "Open" button.

6. Click the "Download All" button. Your photographs will begin downloading to the computer, into the folder your designated. You may chose to only download some of the images on the camera. If so, click the "Download Some" button, select the images you'd like to download.

Resizing images for the web using Photoshop
1. Save a copy of your image with a new name. You'll want to do this to avoid overwriting a high resolution image with your new smaller re-sized image. For example, the original file might be named "landscape.jpg", the new file could be called "landscape_for_web.jpg"

2. From the menu, chose Image -> Image Size

3. A dialogue box will appear. In the top of this box is a section labelled "Pixel Dimensions". Change the width to somewhere in between 500 and 800 pixels, make sure the "Constrain Proportions" option is checked.

4. Click "OK" and save your image as a jpg.

ASSIGNMENT ONE - LTLYM

Go to http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com.

Look over the assignments. Complete assignment #27, along with 3 others of your choice. Document the results using your digital camera.

DO NOT alter or adjust your images before we meet in lab. Instead, spend your time and effort on photographing! Remember to bring everything you need to get your images off your memory card/camera and onto the computer.

Please bring your images to class on Friday 8.26.2011.

P.S. this one is really amazing.
http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/reports/47/hearn_kara.php

PHOTOGRAPHY AND US

SYLLABUS

Diablo Valley College – Fall 2011
ARTDM 136 – Beginning Digital Photography
Location: A-303
Meeting Time: Fridays, 10:00pm – 3:50pm
Instructor: Sean McFarland – smcfarland@dvc.edu
Office Hours: Friday, 3:50pm - 4:50pm

Course Objectives
1. Identify, discuss and apply the basic principles of digital photography, as well as comparable concepts in traditional photography
2. Acquire skills necessary to capture images digitally
3. Evaluate creative content development
4. Critically evaluate and interpret digital photographs
5. Apply creative visual communication using digital photographic images
6. Acquire necessary skills for resolution management and output of digital files to print
7. Apply lighting techniques for digital photography

Expected Course Outcomes
1. Students completing the course will be able to apply lighting techniques for digital photography.
2. Students will be able to critically evaluate and interpret digital photographs.
3. Students will be able to acquire necessary skills for resolution management and output of digital files to print.

Required Text
There is currently no requirement for purchasing a textbook. Most, if not all readings throughout the semester will be provided.

Attendance and work expectations
Regular, on-time attendance and active participation in class discussion and critiques is required of all students. Expect to spend an average of at least 1-3 hours a week outside of class time photographing and working in the lab. If you miss a class you are responsible for obtaining all notes and handouts from that day – you MUST let me know if you have to miss class.

All handouts can be found at the class blog: http://dvcdigitalphotography.blogspot.com

If you miss a lab, you are responsible for finding the time to make up the work on your own. Absences and lateness can result in a lower participation grade, potentially lowering your final grade. Please show up for class on time and come prepared. Students are expected to produce original, independent work. Plagiarism is against school policy and will not be tolerated.

Assignments
All assignments must be handed in complete and on time. In the rare case that work is handed in late your grade will be lowered by 20% for each full week it is late. Work handed in more than two weeks after the due date will not be accepted and/or graded as an F.

Grading
75% - Participation and Studio Project Assignments (all equal in weight)
25% - Final Project

A Inspired Growth and/or consistent excellence, strong contribution to class critiques, punctuality and appropriate class behavior

B Consistent, high quality response to assignments, active participation in critiques, punctuality and appropriate class behavior

C Average response to assignments, average attendance and participation

D Unsatisfactory or missing assignments, unsatisfactory behavior, poor attendance

F None of the above

Required Equipment
Digital SLR or Equivalent – must be able to perform manual adjustments of focus and exposure.

Flash Drive – at least 1GB of portable storage. If you already have a portable hard drive, you are welcome to use it.

Email Account – if you haven't already, please activate your DVC inSite account.

Tripod and Cable Release – these are not required but are highly recommended.