Independent Study Assignment
Learning New Skills on Photoshop
Introduction
For the Independent Study Assignment I chose to learn and discover new skills on Photoshop. I learned how to use new tools to enhance pictures or change how they look. All of the things I learned really helped me improve and get better at Photoshop.
Why I Chose This
I wanted to do more on Photoshop becuae I enjoy figuring out and creating such cool things. Whenever I finish something on Photoshop, I feel proud of what I have done and it blows my mind that I made it. You can do so much on Photoshop and I am excited to learn more.
Photoshop Is Important to Study...
I think it is important to study and be able to use Photoshop because it might come in handy one day when I have a job. Photoshop is something many people don't know how to use so it could give me an advantage later in life. I also think that Photoshop is a good way to actively engage the mind creatively and imaginatively.
Blurring Backgrounds
In this picture I took an image of boats and blurred the background so the boats really stood out. I used the smudge tool, blurring tool, and played with distorting the layers by blurring them. I also tried to make the boats look like they were part of a train set.
Grass Text
In this picture I made the words "NATURE" look like they were made of grass. To make the background, I took different pictures of paper and used the gradient tool to show the colors green and yellow. Next, I changed the opacitiy of the layers to make the background a little more realistic. I finished it off with darkening the edges. To make the text I typed out the word and selected a picture of grass. I also selected one of the letters and copied and pasted the grass into the letter.
Transparent Letters
Making the letters transparent was probably the hardest skill I worked on in this project. I won't explain step by step how to do it because it takes a long time, but I will explain the tools I used. One of the things I had to do was change the opacitiy of the letters. I also had to bring the background or the parts the letters covered, forward. The last thing I did was add color to the outside of the letters using the outline tool.
Swirls and Twirls
Making the swirls was very easy. All I did was make a new layer and then draw a path around the object using the pen tool. Then I selected the brush and chose a color. I right-clicked on the path and pressed stroke path and it filled the path with the color I chose. Finally I went back and erased some to make the swirl look like it is going around the object.
Bibliography
Here are the websites I used to help me create my pictures.
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/transparent-type/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_QJyROEHYI