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Monday, November 29, 2010

Adobe Illustrator and Pixels & Vectors

The main assignment today was to play in Adobe Illustrator. Another name for this program would be...well, something not very nice. I thought Photoshop was bad...Illustrator is an entirely new beast. It's like figuring out the most complicated math problem in the world and then finding out that they made another one while you were solving it.
Yeah..I don't like Illustrator. All of the tutorials that we looked at were either too complicated or not helpful at all, because they were outdated. I ended up with this somehow...

What IS that? I think it could be a piece of lost alien technology, but who knows?
Anyway, we also needed to look at the difference between a picture made of pixels, and a picture made of vectors. Vector based imagery is based on using lines (vectors) to draw an image. The vectors are resolution independent, because scaled, they are still the same resolution (As sort of demonstrated above). Pixel based imagery is based on using pixels, which are individual units in the image, to make an image- they're resolution dependent, because if you scale a pixel, it becomes blurrier. Each pixel has its own place in the picture in pixel-based imagery, while in vector-based imagery points, lines, curves, and polygons are used to make an image.

Finished Foods of the Week

I finished my Foods of the Week chart and self-portrait:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9aIgWEtuCXgYjJlY2I3MjYtODgxZS00NDc4LTlmN2ItZGM3ZWNlNzE3MjQw&hl=en&authkey=CMq53KoJ


Heheh. Citations:
    Johannalg. Tic Tacs. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 27 Jan. 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/91577>. Kilian, Zsuzsanna. White grapes 1. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. . HAAP Media Ltd., 9 Mar. 2010. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1266300>. Kirk, Rachel. Grapefruit. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 22 Jan. 2007. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/703510>. Obazee, Thorpe. Banana. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 6 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1252810>. Owen-Wahl, Rob. Green Lettuce. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd. , 25 Oct. 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1097218>. - - -. Healthy green broccoli vegetables. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 28 Mar. 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/977600>. Popa, George. Wheat fields. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. . HAAP Media Ltd., 12 Mar. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1158913>. Zacharzewski, Michal. Snacks. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. . HAAP Media Ltd., 1 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1154344>.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Reflection Today

Today, I finished my "Foods of the Week" chart (Apparently, a week only has six days now. ;).. Also, I skipped breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, as you may have noticed.)
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9aIgWEtuCXgYWFjZmY5NDAtZmVhYS00NDhhLTg5ZjQtN2JlMmI4OWUwNGZl&hl=en&authkey=CIn-vMMM

I'm also almost done with my human-made-out-of-food. I need to finish it after Thanksgiving Break.
(Will post citations later)

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Reflection - Nov. 18

Today, I started making my Foods of the Week Numbers chart. We're supposed to document everything we eat for an entire week, and then make a picture of ourselves out of the foods we ate. Unfortunately, that means that I have to go eat some foods I don't normally eat now. ;)...
Anyway, today, NoodleTools decided to be unusable (Every time I tried to log in, the screen would freeze.), so I couldn't really do much with the foods. I found a picture of lettuce, though, and I was able to cite it so that I could use it for my hair. This seems like a really fun project to work on, if I can get my citations to come through. (Sorry, I can't post my progress because I'm not about to show my picture to you guys. :D)
Also, I decided to use my mustache cat for my desktop background, if it matters at all. I was told that if a hippie walked in right now, he'd think it was really psychedelic.

Edit: At the end of class, I did end up getting NoodleTools working again. I got one or two citations for next period, so yay for me.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Reflection -Today

Today, I did the small essay below on the article "Inside the War against China's Blogs". Then, I worked in Photoshop until I finished my Text Cat, shown in the right. Text Cat also appears to be wearing a jacket, which is perfectly fine if you think about it since cats are evil masterminds anyway.
Guess what this is?
I'll consider putting a background on the cat, but for now that's my end result. Enjoy! (P.S. The green Cats are eyes.)

The War against China's Blogs

I'd never thought there was such a thing as dishonest blogging. Unfortunately, the news in this article about groups that 'help' multinationals around the web has changed my mind completely.

Companies around the world have started a business in helping multinational companies such as Nike and McDonald's control the web by monitoring blog posts and 'killing off' any negative comments. They also provide positive feedback through bloggers that get paid about $0.015 each post or topic they make, a decent incentive for making up propaganda that helps or criticizes a company. Actually, they don't even have to make it up- the company even writes out the posts, and they just have to copy it somewhere.

Honestly? That's just wrong. I understand that they're trying to make a business out of things, but there are probably many other ways to do something more honest than what they're doing now. I'm pretty sure that there's an evil mastermind that writes up all of the propaganda that's laughing evilly right now, actually.
Sure, some companies are doing this for a good reason. Daqi, for example, helped Metersbonwe Group, a retailer in the Forbidden City, get a lease for a larger store after the group got evicted from its old space for a Nike store. However, I believe that it's only a matter of time until the groups are there purely for the purpose of getting companies to hire them to ridicule their enemies. Groups like these, in my opinion, destroy the very structure of the Internet and violate one of the unspoken rules of honesty in the blogging world. Why should they be given the power to just, as the article put it, 'squelch' negative information? I understand that bloggers seldom change their minds about a subject (Unless, of course, offered a large amount of money), so asking them to change their posts would be very difficult. However, just destroying their opinions is very dishonest, in my opinion.

In conclusion, my opinion is that the companies doing this for 'good' (Good is, of course, by perspective) reasons, such as Daqi does on occasion, should (by ethic morals) keep doing it only for 'good' reasons, like helping domestic retailers. However, the companies that hire people to post negative feedback about another company should be stopped. People are entitled to their own opinions, and they shouldn't be influenced by the amount of money they can be paid to express it.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Typography

Today, we learned about typography in class. Typography is what language looks like; it is the art of using letters and words to design a visual display on a page. Web designers, artists, and other people who work with art can specialize in typography to make works of art. This includes any form of words. Obviously, people who specialize in this type of work are sought after by big companies to design displays, because they can make the words pop out of a page or attract the attention of a person seeing it. For example, my attention would be more caught by a large neon board with words that seemed to pop out then, say, a normal advertisement with exactly 14 type font across the paper. Even graffiti, illegal as it is, is still a form of typography- to be honest, some types of graffiti catch my attention more than any billboard.
I think that typography is a large part of any industry or company, since it gives a way for the consumer to see the product easily. Typography can also be used in company logos. Certainly, I appreciate all the typographers in the world who can catch my attention with a well-designed advertisement.

I've also provided an example of a form of typography below. If you scroll all the way down on my blog, you can see an example of a program called 'Spell with Flickr'. It lets you type in anything you want, and then Flickr will spell it out for you. It's a pretty decent program to use, and it's certainly something entertaining. I didn't expect the HTML code to be so long when I copy and pasted the script over, though!

Next, we had to identify #1-16 in This Diagram.
1) Tail                                 9) Stem
2) Spline                             10) Finial
3) Apex                              11) Link/Neck
4) Serif                                12) Loop/Lobe
5) Bowl                               13) Ear
6) Spur                                14) Extender (Ascender)
7) Eye/Counter                    15) Diagonal Stroke or Diagonal Stem, Arm?
8) Extender (Descender)      16) Crossbar

I'm not sure about #3, I couldn't find it anywhere. Even Googling it, the best I could find was a 'vertex', which was because the top of an A is similar to the bottoms of a 'w'. Also, I'm not sure about the orders of #4, #6 and #10.

I've also started working on a cat text image. It's not turning out as well as I'd hoped, but I think it's okay so far. I don't think I'm that good at this typography stuff...

That's the beginning, anyway.
(For the original, see the Devil Cat's original picture below.) 
See you next time!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

What I did today

Sorry! I didn't do anything today at all. We had testing today, so we only had a half hour in class (Not even that much, to be honest.) Our 'assignment' was to finish anything we didn't finish last time, and since I finished, I didn't have anything to do. I slept for an hour and a half after the test, so I'm tired. Anyway, see you next time!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Photoshop Today

Today, we followed a tutorial in Photoshop to learn all the skills that a novice at Photoshop needed to know. We transformed this picture...
öztürk, Yasin. business business. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock 
     Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 22 Aug. 2007. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. 
     <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/855434>.
Into this picture...
Not too bad, I think! To make the second picture, we used a lot of the tools in the 'Image' tab in Photoshop. I used the 'Auto Levels' tool in the Adjustments tab, learned how to use contrast to make the image look better, used 'Soft Light' for my layer, and made it black and white. Then, I cropped and resized my image (I made it a bit bigger only- The tutorial told us to make it about 800 x 600. I made mine about half that size...) Also, I added a small black border around it. 

I did the same thing in this picture: 

Maeda, Michiru. A Kitten. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography 
     Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.
     <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1308349>.

To:
The border was a bit bigger, and I changed the curves a bit more to my 
liking. 
It's not a mustachioed cat, but it's still cool!

~PaulyD

Reflection

So, twelve weeks total have passed since I started taking this class. So far, I have to say that I'm enjoying the second set of six weeks more than the first. The beginning of this six weeks was finishing the project in Pages, and now that that's over, I'm really happy. I didn't mind the project as much in the end, since it was mostly research and creativity to create the itinerary. The Hex-Code, RGB and CMYK ideas interest me a lot, since I've done hex-code before. We've also played with a spectrometer, which I didn't understand for a little while until I found out why people used it. Right now, we're learning about Photoshop, a program that I respect for its many uses. At least, I don't have it messing me up yet (Key word there, of course, being 'yet.').
I think I've been on task for the majority of this six weeks. All of my blog posts have been very detailed, and I spend all of my class time working (Or learning by playing around) in Photoshop. It's really helped me to stop playing games and to keep learning just by playing in a program. I think that I've also learned things faster and easier by focusing more on the task at hand.
Hope for a great last six weeks before Christmas!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Photoshop

I'm starting to love Photoshop again...
Anyway, today, our class started out by taking a small quiz on the Principles of Color. It was pretty easy, and I got through with it pretty fast.
Then, we went into Photoshop to start using the "pen" tool. We started out with an original picture (As shown below) from a stock image website, and added a white layer. Then, we added another layer, and went over the outline and details in pen. Then, we stroked the lines with a pressured brush to give it a good effect. Finally, I used the brush tool to fill in a background and words. You can see my result below!


Original: Wuertemberger, Matthias. A cat in garden 1. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free 
     Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 29 June 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. 
     <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1290764>.

Photoshopped: 

Yes, the intended effect was a devil-cat. With a mustache, of course.

Next, we used the same process as above, except we used Photobooth 
and edited an image of ourselves.
Say Hi to Me!
Photoshop is so much fun, isn't it?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Color Box

Today, I got to play with a color box. "What is a color box?" You ask. This is a color box. http://cybercollege.com/colors/tabbedcolorbox.html

At that link, you get to merge different types of colors to make new colors. We can mix the original shades of light- RGB (Red, Green, and Blue), pigments (CMYK- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and mix them all to get K, Black.) Then, we could 'print' things, to show how real publishers control the color in their articles and to show what happens if the colors used are unbalanced.

First, I went to the Mixing Light tab. Then, I combined colors to get the following:
1 Cyan = Blue + Green
2 Magenta = Red + Blue
3 White = Blue + Green + Red
4 Yellow = Green + Red
5 Black = No colors

Then, I went to the Mixing Pigments tab. I combined pigments to get the following:
1 Red = Yellow + Magenta
2 Blue = Cyan + Magenta
3 White = No colors
4 Green = Cyan + Yellow
5 Black = Cyan + Yellow + Magenta

(Note: The first three colors are the ones we were told to find; the rest are just for reference later on.)

Finally, I went to the 'Color Printing' tab and changed the colors to find out how a printer works.
When Yellow was slowly tuned down (This printer just used CMY), the black turned slowly from black to a shade of purple and then blue. With no yellow at all, there's a brighter shade of blue- probably something like a 'royal blue' color.

As Cyan was turned down, the black combination turned to a shade of dark brown, then brown, then a dark red, and finally, with no cyan, yellow and magenta made a bright red color.

That was all we were told to do, but I turned down Magenta to see what happened anyway. The yellow and the cyan did pretty much what I expected, making a dark and then light shade of green. 

For the rest of the period, I spent my time looking at photoshop tutorials. I can't wait to start here, since I know that photoshop is essential for my animation class as well, for designing templates. It's definitely going to be a useful thing to know how to do.

(My photoshopped Knight)
Original Turton, Kamilla. Knight on a Horse. N.d. Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock 

     Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 12 July 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. 
     <http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1208374>.