Shstechlab's Blog

Photoshop October 22, 2018

For my first station I chose to do Photoshop. My goal for this project was to combine a bunch of effects and make a wallpaper for a Chromebook. I started out watching Photoshop videos and decided on using the double exposure and decay effect. If either of these effects interest you I believe the most important things I learned were how to get a detailed outline of an object in an image, and how to get a black layer mask which were key to getting the decay effect right. To get a good outline of an object you can use the magnetic lasso or the quick select tool, if you are short on time, the outline then becomes a silhouette for the double exposure. In one of the videos the artist decided to go to channels, make a copy of the darkest channel, fills the entire section of what he wanted to select black, and then he used the quick select tool. (You should be able to watch this in the double exposure video below). Doing this technique helps you to get a more detailed outline, especially if you are working with hairs. I will note, there are a lot of ways to accomplish the same thing in photoshop, the technique you use completely depends on the image you choose. Another important thing to keep in mind, that I struggled with, was that when doing the decay effect the layer mask needs to be black for the liquify filter to work for the purpose of the decay. You do this by holding down ALT while you click on the “create a mask” button on the bottom right of photoshop. The most important thing with photoshop is knowing the tools, I did this by following along to tutorials and watching photoshop videos, because you can see exactly how artists are creating the effect which allowed me to figure out how photoshop works and learn techniques to create my final. (I would highly suggest doing this)

Videos to watch:

Smoke Effect: https://www.instructables.com/id/Photoshop-smoke-tutorial/

Double exposure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbf-QXCCXgM

Decay effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfz0hDdYl0A

Lukas C. Photoshop (TRIGGER WARNING) May 30, 2017

This is my Photoshop project. I personally think there was no major challenge to the project. The tools were easy enough to learn on their own, if not there was twenty thousand tutorials online for it. I think the hardest part would have been understanding graphic design principals to make something look interesting. If there are any recommendations to students who are about to do this as a project, it is get familiar with the tools by playing around with them, what’s the worst that could go wrong.

Cydney Hurlbert Photoshop blog post April 27, 2017

During my Photoshop station, I learned a lot. Although at times it was frustrating getting the image to do what I wanted, it always worked out in the end. In the beginning i found it difficult to resize an image. In order to solve this problem I looked it up and found this helpful link https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/how-to/resize-image.html. On my next project I didn’t know where to start, so I looked up Photoshop tutorials, and I had an idea.  In order to add contrast in the eyes I had to look it up, and I found this tutorial http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/lighten-eyes/. I then wanted to add a filter, but I had no idea how so I once again looked it up, and found this very helpful website https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/filter-basics.htm. Although at times this station got frustrating the final project always look well done, and professional.

Photoshop March 21, 2017

For my second station I started with basic easy skills in Photoshop such as transferring photos I would recommend doing this so you can begin to see how the program works before you begin doing more complicated edits. Due to the large amount of tools available on Photoshop you can create practically anything if you know what tools to utilize. To makes this easier I recommend using  the Photoshop folder inside the Tech lab folder in google drive this was the best resource I found and I used it through out the entire station. Also I found this website which helped me a lot with learning the basics and I would recommend visiting this if you have not used Photoshop before . Both of the resources outline a few different tools and what you can do with them. From the skills I gained on those few tools I used them for different edits combining different effects to create something new. The part of this station that I struggle with the  most was the inspiration and ideas on what to create since there are so many different possibilities. However I found that if you just google Photoshop photos it provides so many ideas that you can adapt into your own , I found this website particularly helpful in helping me come up with ideas and create the effect.  I would recommend this station because of the freedom to create anything you want.

Photoshop March 13, 2017

For my second station I did Photoshop.

My suggestion to people who aren’t familiar with Photoshop should watch this tutorial, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS5uh5TCXcU. when using Photoshop, it is fine to mess up because you can always “step backward” or pretty much the undo button. Also the magnetic lasso tool is very helpful in making an image’s background translucent. Also the color picker tool and the paintbrush help a lot if you need to get rid of some white spots, and add outlines. Overall this was a very fun station.

Photoshop Katerina Lee Station 1 March 10, 2017

For my first station I decided to do Photoshop. My final project was a collage of national parks I have been to, to be used as a computer or other device screen. I think it turned out very well and I am well able to use it. My suggestions for anyone interested in Photoshop would be to experiment. Don’t worry about ruining your picture because there is a fantastic “step backwards” option. There are some amazing Photoshop features that you won’t find unless you just click around.  I highly recommend using the lasso tools they are amazing for inserting pictures into your image and are extremely helpful.