Give Your Picture a Comic Book Effect

     Photoshop can be used to change pictures into many different things. It can change your picture just a little bit or maybe even totally. We found that Photoshop can change your picture to look like it just came out of a comic book. You may think wow, that sounds difficult but it actually wasn’t very hard if you just follow our instructions. We found this idea on this website with Photoshop tutorials. The steps to changing your picture to be like this are:

1.      Open photo

2.      Go to image – adjustments – levels

3.      When on levels make the input level 60, 1.00, 220 

4.      Go to filter- artistic – film grain

·         Make grain: 4, highlight area: 0, and the intensity: 10

·         Click “okay”

5.      Duplicate layer and name it “ half tone”

6.      Go to filter – pixelate – color halftone

·         Set max radius to 15 and leave the rest alone. ( you may need to change for your picture)

7.      Go to layers window and set drop down box ( that says normal) to darken

8.      Select the halftone layer, then click the “fx” button on the bottom of the layers window – stroke

·         Make the size: 70 px (may be different), position: inside, then change the color ( to do that click the color square and then type next to the # “f5ecel”), click “okay”

9.      Add new layer and name it “rectangle”

10.  With the rectangle tool make a small orange rectangle box at the top

11.  Go to the “fx” button and select stroke

·         Make size 3 px

12.  Draw a larger white rectangle in the bottom corner

·         Make sure stroke is at 3px

13.  Add new layer above the rectangular layer

·         Name “border”

14.  Select the rectangular marquee tool

·         Select from the top left corner to the bottom right corner

15.  Go to edit – stroke

·         Set size to: 4 px, color: black, location: center

·         Click “okay”

16.  Deselect everything

17.  Go to filter – blur – blur more

18.  Go to filter – distort – ripple

·         Make the amount: 20%, size: medium

19.  Go to filter – sharpen – sharpen more

20.  Select the text tool

·         Type the date in the orange box (except for the first letter of the month)

·         Make the color: black

·         Size everything but first letter: 120, ( maybe different according to your picture)

·         Font: Mv Boli

21.  Make another text box and type the first letter of the month

·         Add stroke with the “fx” button

·          Change the color of stroke to red

·         Change the size to: 170 ( could be different for your picture)

22.  Write a caption in the white box ( optional: bold some words to add more effect)

23.  Flatten image and save as a jpeg

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Advertisement

     After making a logo for the Service Outreach club at Mercy Academy we were asked to make up an advertisement to go along with our logo. My advertisement is asking people to come and join us at a bake sale to help the homeless. The audience intended for this ad is mostly people in the school because the bake sale is after lunch during school, but other people could donate money if they wanted. Even though making an advertisement doesn’t take very long there are many tools that we could have chosen to use but I only used a few to make mine look nice.

     The tool that I used the most was most likely the text box tool because there were many places where I needed to type things out. Also, I used the paint bucket to make the whole background blue. Using the paint bucket is a lot easier than painting the entire canvas with a paint brush. Then, I used the crop tool to get rid of a part of the picture that was not needed. Another tool that I used a few times was the dropper, the dropper helps you choose the same exact color if you need to use it for something else. Also, I was able to use different styles on my text; one of the styles that I used in particular was the outer glow. This made the text have another affect and it made it have different colors in the words. The move tool was also used in making my advertisement it helped move all of the different objects on the page to their space. Drop shadowing is when you give a picture a small or large shadow behind it; I used drop shadowing on both of my pictures. I used the rectangular marquee tool to select both of my pictures and drag them into the window I was using. Then there was the transform scale that was used to change the size of the pictures and make them fit into the space needed. Then lastly I used the shape tool, I added a heart to the advertisement to show the love that Service Outreach has for everyone they help. 

     If there was not all of these tools to use in Photoshop then many of the project we do would not look as good as they turn out to be. Each tool helps do a special job and it may change a lot or maybe just a little of a picture.

Helping the World

     In class we were talking about how different companies use logos to get across what they are selling through a picture or image. We looked at the different elements that help make a logo look better and get more attention. It is important to use these different elements so that people enjoy it and may convince them to look more into what you are trying to promote. We were asked to make a logo for a club or an organization that did not already have a logo that they use. I chose to make my logo for the club Service Outreach; they do service and help make things better for the world.

     When making my logo I put into consideration what goes on in the club and what would best be used to display their actions. Also, I thought about that the different colors and what they mean. To display the club I used a world with two hands holding it to show that people are reaching out and helping others. I also had many people around the outside of the world to demonstrate the people that are helping make a difference. When thinking about the colors to use I used blue and green for the world because those are the two colors that people think of when you refer to nature and water. Another reason I chose to use these two colors is because they are not directly next to each other on the color wheel so they will not mix and will show up on top of each other. Also, when I was making the people I tried to use bright colors that would seem happy and not make people sad when they looked at it. Each and every person is a different color to show how everyone is different in their own way. I remembered talking about the lines technique and how you should use curved line and also straight lines. I used a curve line when making the earth and then I used a straight line when adding the hands to the earth. Balance is also something that you should have when making a logo. I used balance when having the same amount of white space and also there are the same numbers of people on each side of the world.

Perfect Body Image

     Have you ever heard about how people edit their photos to make their picture look better? For the past few weeks we have been working in Photoshop learning how to fix blemishes, add make-up and change your whole face into someone else’s. I did not realize how much work that it takes just to change someone’s picture to make it look perfect. Even though some pictures do not need to be edited much or even at all but celebrities always have their body changed if their picture is going in a magazine or into the public. We were to choose a celebrity that we wanted to look like and put our face on theirs. I chose to look like Selena Gomez and this is the picture that I used of her.

     As we were working on editing our picture I realized that you have to be careful because if you don’t then your skin will start to look non- realistic. After we worked on each picture very hard they started to look real again and looked like it was meant to be. I feel that it did end up turning out better than I thought it would in the beginning when we first started. I was thinking to myself, there is no way that we can put our face on another person and it turning out looking normal. Once we did this I now realize how fake everyone in the magazines really are and how much work is done on someone so they have the “perfect” body image. I think that this project shows me that no one is perfect, there is something put into everyone to make them look better. I think that if people knew what actually goes into each celebrities face when it is in a magazine then they would not do as many bad things to their skin just to try to look like better, like tanning. Most of them wish that they had better skin so that is why they use Photoshop on a lot of their pictures.

     I really enjoyed doing this project even though it was a lot of work and stressful at times just because I wasn’t for sure on what to do. One thing that I did well on was whitening my teeth and adding my make-up. I believe they both look good because I spent a lot of time on each to make sure they are perfect and looked nice. Then there are also things that we all struggled with as a class and individually. One thing that I had a hard time doing is making sure that after I put the picture of my face on Selena’s was that both of our skin matched. Matching the skin was difficult because there were different parts of her skin that was not the same as the rest. Another thing that I think I could have spent more time on was fixing the redness in my face but because it was so hard to get the colors matched I thought that once I fixed one section the other side would get off balanced.

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A Day in The Life of a Mercy Student

     During the past few classes we have been talking about photo shop and all of the different things that you are able to do.  One of the major things that we have been talking about is the tools that you can use to make your pictures better from the beginning. Also, we learned how to make a collage in photo shop and ways to shape your picture so you are able to make it look nice and fit pictures on the paper. We had to think back to what we learned about the elements of photography so that the pictures we were taking would look superb. A few of the elements that I used while taking my pictures were balance, lines, framing, and angle.  

     In making my collage I edited each of my pictures in some way to make them look better or give them a different affect. In each of my pictures I cropped out everything that was not needed and just added space to the picture. Also, some of my pictures were turned the wrong way so I had to rotate them, so that they were facing the right way. When you take a picture there may not be enough light in the background, but in photo shop you can fix that by just brightening the picture. A picture may have too much light in it and problems like this can be corrected or edited in photo shop. I had to darken one of my pictures because the lighting was so bright and it was causing you not to see the picture as clear. I then changed one of my pictures to black and white just to give it a new color. Black and white does not do much to the picture; however, it just changed the colors of the picture to a subtle black and white. Then one last thing that I did was change the perspective of one of the pictures. When you change the perspective of the picture it gives the picture a new shape and can make it look like it is popping out. There are many more things that you can do to a picture but those are only a few that I chose.

Elements of Photography

     In class we have just begun talking about the different elements of photography. When taking a picture you should remember each of these different elements. They will help your picture look a lot better, and when using these elements you can enhance the object and it will stand out more. When you are taking your pictures remember to use simplicity, lines, the rules of thirds, balance, framing and avoiding merges. The rule of thirds is when you have the main parts of your pictures at different intersection points. Avoiding mergers is when you need to make sure there is nothing in the background of your image that is intruding with the main item of your picture. 

     In this picture of my dog I am using the element lines. Lines is when you take a picture diagonally and it gives it more emphasis rather than taking it straight on. The diagonal lines in the background give the picture more meaning.

     Then the picture of the basketball it is using the element simplicity. Simplicity is when there is nothing else in the picture but the main object. In the picture there is nothing else to distract from the main object.

     Then this next picture of my dog, I am using the framing element. My dog in this picture is being framed by the window. She always lies up in our window and looks out into the neighborhood. Framing helps your picture not look as plain, and it adds effect to the main image. 

Views On Piracy

     During the past few classes we have been creating our own podcast to demonstrate our understanding of what piracy and copyright laws are. Our group acted like we were a radio show and we had three different special guests on our show. We had country music stars Carrie Underwood and Scotty McCreery, and then we also found a lady who got in trouble for stealing someone’s music illegally. When we were creating our podcast we were making sure that we did not take anything from the computer illegally. We did not take anyone’s work that was created previously. We did use Picnik to edit our picture, but it was our picture so there was nothing wrong with it.

     Have you ever wondered if downloading music was wrong? Well, here is your answer; downloading music is not wrong if you buy it or if you get permission from the artist who created the music. However, if you do not get permission or buy it, then it is wrong, because you are taking money from the artist that they have earned. Have you heard of copyright laws? If then, you know why they exist and why we should follow them. I think that people should follow the laws because, if you think about it, we are taking money away from the people who produced the music. If we start paying more for the music and not just downloading it the artists would make more money to possibly produce new music. I think that piracy is so prevalent in our society today because people do not know how big the consequences are if they are caught and what we are really doing when we take music from an artist.

     I don’t think people have thought about how they would feel if they made something and people took it without permission. I am sure that many people would not like this done to them and I know if I were the artist I would not like it. I know that I would be upset because we put a lot of time in making our podcast and tried really hard to make it unique. After making our podcast I now understand how the music artists feel when people take and “steal” their music.  

Do You Know the Law?

    Many people do not actually know what Copyright is prior to learning; everyone has a different answer because they are not so sure what it might be. Before we learned about Copyright and Piracy I only knew a little bit from what we learned in English class. After we had talked in class I realized that my definition was close to what it actually is but not nearly as detailed. I didn’t think that the fine for copying someone’s work was as high as it is. If people realized how big the consequences were maybe it would limit the number of people who copy things illegally.

    Many artists have had issues with Copyright infringement probably because most of them do not know that there is another song out there that is like theirs. For example in 2007 country singer Tim McGraw was filed with a 20 million dollar lawsuit. He was being filed with this because the singer and song writer James Martinez said that Tim’s song “Everywhere” was like his song “Anytime, Anywhere Amanda.” I do not think that it is right because he filed this many years after the song was written and Tim’s song writers should be the ones taking the blame because he did not even write the song. Tim even said that he has never heard of Martinez’s song. This case is still pending but, according to the copyright law and fair use it clearly says that he is breaking the law if he is found guilty. He is breaking the law because he used some of someone else’s work without their permission and he did not change enough of it to make it his own.

Advances in Our Society

     Over the years technology has had many advances in our culture. Many people in our world only depend on using different sources of technology.  In our society today you cannot go one day without using some sort of technology. Other countries who do not have as much probably think we are crazy for depending on it as much as we do. They can get by perfectly fine without all the different technology that we take for granted. Everyone has gotten used to it now and if something happens where it stops working people would not know what to do. There is even some technology that we do not have access to that the government controls.

     As a teenager all of us use technology for everything. Some time it can become a little overwhelming with all of the new things that are out these days. What can you do though, it is a part of our lives, which we have an odd connection with? We use technology for school work, talking to our friends, just having fun, and for many other ways. Also, there is much more progress in the making of video game graphics and the new systems that are causing people to become addicted.

     I think that the future of technology is going to overpower the rest of our nation. I believe that when our children and our grandchildren are around there will not be much use for paper or pens. People will be typing everything and not doing much writing down on paper. Then I see in the near future that students will not be using schoolbooks, because now we are not using books for some of our classes, they are online. I also see the medical field having more cures for different diseases from using all of the new and advanced technology. In the future there could be many different ways of imagining things and even feeling like you are there. I can see many new inventions coming out over years to come.