I just purchased three books to help me become a better designer.  I am not going to lie, since I graduated from school I cannot seem to get my creative juices flowing. But hopefully these books will exercise my brain and tap into my inventiveness. 

I bought "Visual Literacy: A Conceptual Approach to Graphic Problem Solving":

This book deals is filled with all types of activities that work your brain. It does give you some solutions to the problems but try not to cheat too much or you won't learn anything.

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

This book looks like so much fun. I think it could be a great way to build up the portfolio. Right about now, I don't have any clients and my portfolio could use some sprucing up. I really want my portfolio to demonstrate my skills and she potentials that I CAN DO THIS! I CAN DO ANYTHING YOU PUT IN FRONT OF ME! 

Burn Your Portfolio:

I haven't received this book yet but it should be coming any day now. This book may reveal the secrets of design and how to get ahead in the art world.

8:44 PM

Composite Project

This was fun and challenging. You take items from several different photos and place them into one photo. 


The 4 images needed to be color balanced first. That pink tint had to go! These were the 4 images that I had to use:

• Crop background image to 8x10 using the Crop Tool. Crop out that black border too. It probably won't be 8x10 exactly but get close to it as you can. Like 8.10 is ok but 8.63 is not. Get as close to the whole number as you can.
  
• Fix any blemishes on the background. This is a Marble background so be careful of which ones are blemishes.
• Color Balance
• Change the background green by going to Layer>New Fill>Solid Color>OK>Pick Color>OK 

With the other images it was about color balancing and moving them onto the background image.

• Rotating and flipping the tennis racket handle and getting rid of the tennis ball by masking it out and using the clone stamp.
  

• The glove was pretty fun to do. Since it was supposed to be
  
  white I added black and white adjustment layer and masked the color of the golf club and tees back in.
   

 Here I had to put logos on the tennis ball and golf ball and make them look realistic. I wish I had proper photos to demonstrate all the steps but you know this was a project and I didn't have the time to do all of that!

This is all the work that has to be done:

After you finish editing all of the images there has to be shadows. The shadows have to be placed in the right areas and they have to be the right opacity.

This is my finished product.

I guess from a distance. I can see how the shadows would be in the wrong spot. Lol

My Grade: 87%

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4:21 PM

I'm sorry but I still do not understand Gamut. So this Video will probably help.
But I will show the before picture:

Everything is off about this! 
First, get rid of the specs and lines that happen when printing and take out whatever that thing is sitting on the left side.
Then Color Balance. This is a nice straight to the point video.

One way that I color balanced this photo was to take the color out completely and make the photo black and white.
You can do that many ways.

• Adjustment layers>Hue/Saturation>bring saturation down to black and white.
• Adjustment layers>Black and White.

Then you can mask the color back in.

• Use Quick selection tool to select part that you want to add color to.
• Select Brush Tool
• Make sure the adjustment layer is selected.
• Brush the color back in.

There was also a reflection on the bottom of the Saran Wrap box.  But if the whole image is in black and white. How can I bring that reflection back in?

Well I made a copy of the Saran Wrap Box and turned it into a new layer.

• Do Command + T or Crt + T  to transform it.
• Rotate the box and grab a corner to make the box appear slanted to match it up with the original box.
• Turn down the opacity to make it look more natural.

Play around with the Levels using the adjustment levels.

Add brighter colors by masking in colors.
Mask in a brighter yellow.

I know, it's hard to explain without pictures. But here is the finished product.

My Grade: 55%

Uuggggghhhhhh! Sucks!

1:56 PM

This past semester I took Computer Graphics 2, which is a little more challenging than 1. I'm going to show pictures from each project! And tell you my grade!

The first project was Retouching an old photo. I didn't have one so I had to borrow one from the teacher of an old lady with a glass eye.

So many problems! So first, I had to get rid of all of the scratches. 

Scratches: Spot healing tool.

Door: Clone Stamp tool (to build the door up), Patch tool (blend the colors of the door)

Glass eye: Clone stamp tool

Border: clone stamp

Skirt: clone stamp and patch tool

Viola!!! 

Now I had to add some color!

I know that there is a way to mask in the color. Unfortunately, I did not do it this way. I just added a new layer for each section.

For instance, I started with the face. 

I had to add a new layer from the layers panel. 

Then I use the brush tool and select a flesh color. I selected a pinkish color. Make sure the opacity and flow is on 100%.

Then just adjust the opacity to the color to make it look more natural. 

I did this for each layer. I had a layer for the skirt, shirt, eyes, door, floor, background, and of course skin.

You can chose whatever colors that you desire.

Next, I added a duotone. For duotone, I had to go back to the original black and white photo.

• Select black and white layer
• Go to Image>Mode in options menu>then select duotone
• Duotone Options window will pop up.
• Select Type:Duotone
• And select Ink1: any color of your choice
• Ink 2: any color of your choice.
• Ok
• You can experiment with different colors to see which ones match best.
• I chose purple and green.

Also, I added adjustment layers like curves, levels, and brightness.

My Grade: 80%

12:57 PM

I was playing around with Photoshop CS6 and wanted to learn how to do Bokeh! So I took a random photo and made it blurry and played around with the hue/saturation and the levels.

Then, I just used the brush tool on a hard round brush.

Inside of the brushes folder in the options bar: I can change the shape dynamics and check off Scattering.

Run the brush across the picture. You can change the size of the spots to give it a more varying pattern. 

Filter>Blur> Gaussian Blur to make the spots blurry.

Then you add a new layer and do all the same things but make each layer a little less blurry.

You can play around with the transparency and the normal menu on the layers panel.

1:56 PM

Yay! I got a 92% on my Final Exam!
My overall class grade was an 89%!

1:58 PM

Well class is now finished and I have to say even though I think I did a great job, some of my classmates have done an excellent job. I'm wondering if my work will ever be good enough or creative enough. Some people's work already look like advertisements. My stuff looks artistic but I feel like it is far from professional. Maybe I am being hard on myself.

I took my exam today. I practically memorized most of the terms so I better get an A! Maybe I will be able to use the terms in the future. Terms like Kerning: adjusting the space between two letters. And you can do this in Illustrator.

Next semester, I am taking Computer Graphics 2 and Web Design. So that will be a real challenge at 8:30 in the morning!!! I am so not excited about that because I have to make a 45 minute drive to the school. So I may just roll out of bed and go. lol It usually takes me an hour to get ready but it is hard to go to bed early when you are not sleepy....

But it is making me think, will I ever make it as a Graphic Designer because there is so much hard competition out there...

6:53 PM