Tuesday 23 November 2010

Album Cover Research

Research

I browsed the internet for different Album Covers of different genres that would inspire my final piece below is some pictures I found while searching.
I decided to base my Genre on a metal style band and then after seeing a Japanese album cover I came to the conclusion to make a Japanese metal band. The style of the band graphics is very dark with a Gothic kind of feel to add to the scary death effect of rock/metal. I decided to use Adobe Photoshop for both my pieces as I found after researching that it would be the easiest program to use for editing my Animated web banner and Album Cover. I also decided to save my album cover as a PDF file for the best possible viewing quality and to save my web banner as a gif as it's animated and is the best file type to use for animation.
I chose my band name as "Epiphany" as I belive the meaning of the word has alot of effect and stands out by catching the eye and gets the reader to think about it's meaning.
I called the Album name Homicidal Fate as I belive it has a very strong effect on the reader and it relates to my album genre of rock/metal with a gothic evil feel to it.








Tuesday 12 October 2010

Post Secret Web Banner

What I Did - I analysed various WebBanners on the internet and how they are created I then looked at Webbanners with animations until I came up with a idea that I liked..

How I did It - I used Photoshop to design the text and layout of what I wanted I then imported the file into ImageReady and made the text as a animation. and added a few pictures from the PostSecret website and finalized with using the blur tool to blur the text and add shadows. I saved the final output of the image to GIF so the animation could be viewed over the internet with no issues.

What I Thought Of The Results - I was happy with the results and thoguht that the overall outcome of the Banner looked good and professional. For a first try at animation I think I did a good job.

Any Technical Problems I Faced - Importing from ImageReady to Photoshop was sometimes a pain because I would accidently edit somthing in Photoshop that I wanted to do in Indesign and caused me to have to re-do it. Apart from that everything was ok.

Final Piece And ScreenShots Of Work:
CLICK THE SECOND IMAGE DOWN TO SEE THE ANIMATED VERSION.





Tuesday 5 October 2010

Different Image File Types.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics are not restricted to the 256 color limitation of GIF files and work well for images with transparent backgrounds as they have more options multiple frames and simple animation.

GIF -  Graphics Interchange Format are possibly the most used on the web being used in logos and any other color images up to 256 color. For images that have text on them GIF tends to be better than JPEG as the files are usually smaller and JPEG tends to compress making the text blurry.

JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group the format is very popular due to its variable compression range. They can be used as High quality for photo printing, medium quality for web and low quality for attaching to emails. Jpegs are not so good for text as they can make it appear blurry so using them for graphs is avoided.

PDF - Portable Document Format is a file format developed by Adobe many desktop applications documents can be converted to PDF which allows for them to easily be viewed on many different machines. To view PDF files all you need is a free program from Adobe called Adobe reader.

PSD - PSD is Photoshop's native file format, It sometimes also goes under the name PDD. PSD is a widely accepted file format. And supports all available image types such as Bitmap, Grayscale, Duotone, Indexed Color, RGB, CMYK, Lab, and Multichannel. The biggest advantage of using the PSD format is that it can save images in layers (image, text, shape, etc.). This means you can edit an image one layer at a time and then go back to it at a later date you can also adjust and edit each layer independently to achieve better effects. PSD files are usually large because of the layers, but the size may be reduced by cropping the individual layers of the image. The maximum size of a PSD file is 30,000x30,000 pixels and may be saved with 16 bits per color channel. PSD image files may be opened with Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements on Windows; and Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Apple Preview on Mac OS.

Newspaper Design InDesign.

What I Did - I analysed various newspapers and then created my own newspaper front cover with the headline story based on the animal face I created earlier in the week. I used the program Indesign to creat my piece.

How I did It - I used Indesign and various tools in the program which allowed me to edit the piece how i wanted. I used tools such as Free transform tool, rectangle frame tool and type tool to get a good looking result. I saved the final peice as a PDF file format as I found it was the best format for quality.


What I Thought Of The ResultsOverall I was happy the the results and thoguht the piece came out looking how I wanted it to the only thing I would have changed would have been a few more adverts to give the newspaper more of realistic feel.

Any Technical Problems I Faced - The only problem I faced was arranging the box layout of the text and images could be a problem geting them the perfect size. Any other problems I faced I would simple google for a tutorial.









































Free Transform Tool


Box Tool

Tuesday 21 September 2010

Buster Keaton Digital Graphics InDesign

What I Did - I made a copy of an Buster Keaton Newpaper front using the program Indesign I followed a Tutorial hand out to learn on what to do and how to use the program.

How I did It - I used Indesign and various tools in the program which allowed me to edit the piece how i wanted. I used tools such as Free transform tool, rectangle frame tool and type tool to get a good looking result. I saved the final peice as a PDF file format as I found it was the best format for quality.


What I Thought Of The ResultsSeeing this was my first time using Indesign I was happy with the final product, I belive it looked professional and didn't find it to confusing to use.

Any Technical Problems I Faced - The only problem I faced was sometimes having problems creating text boxes and overlapping layers. Apart from that I found the program easy to use and wouldn't have any problems using it in the future.



Here is a Piece of work I created with Adobe Indesign I followed a Tutorial on how to cut down a image insert it and then  merge it with the text. I and also learnt how to create the page layout correctly for the piece and how to do different text layouts with using different fonts.

Below is an image of the final piece with some other screenshots of the work in progress:










Overall I learnt the basics of Indesign and didn't find it to hard to use the only problem I faced was lining up the images could be irritating and awkward.




Tuesday 14 September 2010

Digital Image - White Tiger With Human Face

What I Did - I took an high resolution image of a White Tiger I found on the internet and then merged it with a picture of a friend by inserting his eyes and teeth into picture to create a funny looking effect.

How I did It - I used Photoshop CS3 for merging the two images I first opened up both the images and scaled them down to the correct size and colour. I then used the lasso tool to cut out the parts of the human face I wanted to merge and copied them into the other image. I then used the erasor tool to go around the human features and delete any parts of the face I didn't want. I then done some finishing touches such as using the blur tool to blur out certain parts I didn't want, used the Sketch filter effect to enhance the eyes and then added some customized text to give it a nicer look.

What I Thought Of The ResultsI was happy with the overall outcome of the final product and for the time it took to do I was quite impressed.

Any Technical Problems I Faced - I already have used photoshop before so I knew alot of the features involved anything which I ever found myself stuck with I would simple just do a google search on look for the appropriate tutorial.

Final Product:
   






































Screenshots Of Work And Photoshop Tools: