In this Lab we got introduced to adobe Illustrator. Specifically we used the pen tool. Unlike what we have done so far, I wasn’t that used to working with illustrator as I have primarily worked in Photoshop. Like most labs this one was fair and straight forward with it gradually getting harder as you went from shape to shape. The easiest part would no doubt be the first tree as there isn’t much to it. What was challenging for me was the “Curved Lines with corners”. I’m not sure why but it was annoying especially trying to get the handler to show up. The picture above are the first two objects we had to construct in the exercise.

In this lab I learned more about the different ways to make textures from scratch as well as master the stamp tool in photoshop. While I am fairly familiar with many tools in photoshop the stamp tool was one I haven’t used as frequently. While this was a simple lab I’d say the easiest part was creating the first couple textures as it didn’t require much editing after it was generated. What was challenging for me was making the pattern look good and cohesive, using a lot of the stamp tool. I often found myself stepping back as I tried to make it look as natural as possible. Using an extra layer was also very beneficial as if I made a mistake it became an easy fix. The two pictures above are the cloud generation and my custom pattern which is from an early 2000’s Buffalo Sabres jersey.

In this lab I learned more about the different masking tools in photoshop. Although I’ve seen most of these tools I haven’t worked with all of them and some where more challenging than others. While this was a simple lab I’d say the easiest part was masking with the pen tool it was very straight forward and gave more control in masking. What was challenging for me was the final part, Pulling Selections. This was primarily due to me being dumb and clicking the layer and not the layer thumbnail.

For this lab we had to color correct two images. For the first image, I really wanted to enhance the deepness of the blacks and increase the green in the cats eyes. This creates a much bolder image. The second image was scanned from an old Dark Horse Star Wars comic which I plan on using in my project 1. In this case I added the grey scale in the image so it allowed the color of the lightsabers to “pop”. In this lab I learned that sometimes having too much black can be an issue, after awhile however, I feel I got the right balance of darkness. A challenging aspect of this lab too for me was the eyes with the cat. I wanted it too look semi-realistic and finding the balance between not much added and it being way over the top was more challenging than one would imagine.

While initially the photo’s look incredibly similar this is not the case. With the low end phone camera the textures of the objects are not made out as crisp compared to the high-end DSLR. The best example of this can be seen in the champagne bottle. With the low end phone camera you can’t make out the grey texture on the top of the bottle while with the high-end DSLR its pretty obvious. The lighting with the high-end DSLR is also picked up much less to that of the low end.

There are many things that effect of scanned resolution on image size. In many cases such as the magazine scan, drawing, and object, the resolution allows the object to be crisp and clear without any major limitations. However with the original photo, in this case a digital one of my dog, the resolution will only be as good as that original photo. It may look a little crisper due to the lighting of the scanner, but as stated earlier the resolution will only be as good as that original photo.

When setting up the dimensions I knew i wanted to make a landscape so I went with dimensions of 7 in by 5 in. I also did it this way as if I wanted to print it it would be correct dimensions for a traditional digital photo. I also set the resolution to 150 as thats a good median to use in an image for both web and as a hardcopy photo.