For this home work we are going to read Chapters 2, 7 and 8.

Chapter 2  covers copyright and sampling as well as what is considered “Fair Use”.   This will prepare us for discussion on which images we find online that we are legally entitled to use as well so you might want to review.

In addition we will also cover Chapters 7 “Image Acquisition and Resolution” as well Chapter 8 Tonal range in which we will begin to discuss the idea and habits involved in Non-Destructive editing Techniques.

We are moving forward from our study of Adobe Illustrator into Photoshop and digital imaging. I did mention that those of you with digital cameras and card readers should please bring them or their corresponding USB connecting cables to class. Also we will be doing work on the scanner so also bring a photograph  from home the older the better so we can use our individual photos to do the exercises in Chapter 8. And please bring in your flashdrives.

Also read this brief blog post (by one of our text book’s authors Xtine Burrough) about email etiquette, this is the one reading not from the Digital Foundations wiki that I warned you about: http://designeducator.info/?p=193

STUDY QUESTIONS:

• Once you’ve conducted a Google image search, how do you save an image from the web to your desktop (on a Mac)?
• On a Mac, what do you need to do to safely eject your flash (USB) drive before pulling it out of the port?
• What is a creative commons license? How is it different from traditional copyright?
• What are  the main points that xtine burrough makes in her blog post about email communication.

• In what units is the resolution of a digital image measured? What does abbreviation this stand for?
• How are raster graphics and vector graphics different? Name one computer program that uses each.
• If I have two image files that are both 300ppi, is it safe to assume they are the same size? Why or why not? Is it safe to assume they are the same resolution?  Why or why not?
• What is the significance of the “resample image” checkbox in photoshop?  What difference does it make if it is checked or unchecked when you make changes to the image size?
• When you scan in an image that you plan to edit in Adobe Photoshop, what type of file should you save your scan as?
• What is a histogram (in digital imaging)? Where can you see it?
• The bit depth of an image determines how many _____________________________ there can be.

• Name two techniques for adjusting the tonal range of an image in Photoshop.
• If you wanted to duplicate one part of an image and use it to cover up another part, how could you do that in Adobe Photoshop?
• When you are working on a file in Photoshop, why should you save it as a PSD instead of a JPG?

I know this is a moment that you have been waiting for but our final exam files are now live and available for to you to use through Blackboard. Follow all specific direction for the Final Exam Materials if there are any questions email me directly at steven.hager@csi.cuny.edu.

There are directions under the Information page/link on how to download Adobe Creative Cloud to your home computer/ workstations. I still have not heard back from all of you regarding whether you have the ability to distance learn/ use Blackboard you must email me and let me know so that we can make alternative arrangements for you. I will be posting this announcement on the class blog as well please respond so that you can finish the course.

You will have till 11:59 PM on April first to submit everything.

Stay safe,

Steve

The department chair and the campus administration have decided that for everyone’s own safety we should not be congregating in the 1P-231 laboratory during this period. At first the university was going to allow our lab to remain open but that decision has since been changed. You should all continue to study for the exam for now using the study questions, quizzes I have returned to you and chapters we covered in class.

The final will now have to be online through the Blackboard platform, there will still be exercises you will need to finish in addition to a timed multiple choice exam instead of my customary short answer portion that you will need to submit through Blackboard. I am still working out some of the exam and the logistics. I know this will be an adjustment for many of you but I am sure we will all get through this together. I will send out another email when more info is available. However it is very important that you all, in all three sections for the first half of the semester contact me at my email: steven.hager@csi.cuny.edu, when I sent out emails en mass after the “Instructional Recess” began last week more than half of you never responded. From now on I will be using the Blackboard platform to contact you.

It is important for you to know that you must finish the timed exam in the time allotted and that leaving that window will cause Blackboard to submit your exam even if it is not completed. I will allow you time to complete and submit the practical exercises separately and you will be able to work at your own pace on these but there will most likely be a time and date these must be submitted by.

It would be very helpful to me if you could let me know if you have a lap top or desktop computer? Mac or Windows and if you know whether the machine has at least 8gigs of RAM? Also whether you have already exploited your 1 week free trial of Adobe Creative Cloud? Right now Emmanuel our Senior CLT in charge of the facilities has been working with the office of Information Technology to get students access through their CUNYfirst credentials at home but we have not gotten a final resonse from them as of posting this. I also need to know if you do not have acess to a Windows or Mac computer and are only able to access email,the blog and readings through your smart phone or mobile device. All of this info will be kept strictly confidential.

Next we  will continue on to the software known as After Effects read chapters 18, 19 and 20  on the Digital_foundations Wiki.
http://wiki.digital-foundations.net/index.php?title=Chapter_18_CC18

The following is a pdf containing terminology for Adobe After Effects

Motion Graphics Terms

motion-graphics-terms2

and study the following questions:

• What kind of project might you use Adobe Animate or Adobe After Effects for?
• What file types are associated with “After Effects”?
• Does “After Effects” use vector or raster graphics?
• What are key frames?
• What is “tweening” (transitions)? Provide an example of how tweening is used from our reading.
• What is the frame rate of an animation? What units is it measured in? What happens if you change it?
• What is the timeline? How do we use it to adjust pacing?

After completing our classwork on photoshop I am giving those who are interested an extra credit assignment: If you come to lab and complete the project in  Chapter 10 on your own and turn in your assignment to me it will be worth an additional 10 points (same as a quiz!) I look forward to seeing your happy faces during lab time. Yes you could also do the project at home if you download the software from Adobe.com and use the student discount.

I also will want to see the final product on your usb drive so that I can inspect your work on the individual layers (i.e. save the.psd)

Okay, you’ve all come very far in the space of four lessons now we are going to take another leap forward. Next you will all learn how to make a basic web page and edit it using Adobe Dreamweaver, but first you will read Chapter 12,  because I want you to understand some concepts in this chapter on editing graphics for the web as well as Chapter 15, Chapter 16 through Chapter 17 as there will be a quiz.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

• According to our authors what is the difference between a .gif file and a .jpeg
• Be able to define the following terms:

1. an optimized file format
2. root folder
3. domain name
4. URL
5. hosting plan
6. server
7. universal Link
8. relative link

• What does URL stand for? How do we define it and how is does it differ from a domain?
• What does WYSIWYG stand for? What is one advantage of using a WYSIWYG program like Dreamweaver to create webpages?
• How could you construct a web page if you didn’t have Dreamweaver?
• What does “split view” show you in Dreamweaver?
• Identify two or more ways you can use hyperlinks when building a website. (What can you link from? What can you link to?)
• Identify two or more ways you can incorporate  an image when building a webpage.
• When constructing a web page, how can you separate the page’s style from its content? Why would you want to?
• What is CSS? Identify two ways in which it can be utilized.
• What code or language is this? What are the the words inside the <> brackets called?

For next class we will dive a little deeper into Adobe Photoshop and it’s inner workings, through our readings and the exercises we will see just why this software package has become the industry standard for Digital Image Editing. To that end we will read Chapter 9, Chapter 10, and Chapter 11 which covers using layers, repetition and cloning and non destructive editing.

Also you might want to review Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 because we may need to be running through some of those the exercises that we did not get to fully complete today.(I will be adding another post which will utilize the images from the chapters so we can easily save them from our blog in class for tomorrows exercises)

also if you did not read it yet, the link for Xtine Burrough’s article can be found here:  http://designeducator.info/?p=193 (there might be a study question about it being reused today).

STUDY  QUESTIONS: (you’ll notice that some of these questions are repeated from last week)

1. What are  the main points that xtine burrough makes in her blog post about email communication?
2. If you wanted to duplicate one part of an image and use it to cover up another part, how could you do that in Photoshop?
3. What do we mean by screen resolution? Why is this sometime preferable?
4. If are working on an image with multiple layers, how do you know which layer you are working on at any given time?
5. How are Clipping masks in Photoshop and Illustrator similar?
6. What does it mean to edit “non-destructively”? What is one technique that allows you to edit non-destructively?
7. If you were going to use Adobe Photoshop to edit a portrait, for instance, to remove red spots on a persons skin, why would you want to make a copy of the background layer first?
8. What can you use “masking” for?
9. What effect does it have to adjust the “opacity” slider in the layers palette?
10. What are “adjustment layers”? How are they different from regular image layers? What kinds of things are adjustment layers good for (why would you use them)?
11. What does the “unsharp mask” filter do? (Chapter 8)
12. Describe a non-destructive technique for making an image appear black and white in Photoshop. Why is this preferable to using the black and white setting on your camera or in the scanner settings?
13. When you are working on a file in Photoshop, why should you save it as a PSD instead of a JPG?

I want you all to try to use lab time to complete chapter 5 exercises 2, 3 and 4 … it is not a lot exercise 4 you make changes to the file you make for exercise 3 and then do a save as and give it a separate file name changing 3 to 4. I f you come during my tutoring hours I will provide assistance.