Response to Tutor Report for Assignment 5

Thank you for my Tutor Report for this Assignment.  I haven't submitted the before and after images, just stayed with the final images.  I have however kept the Black and white images as although I understand that they may not flow as a set, black and white was a large section of this course and so I felt it relevant in my final personal project, using all areas.


With the green head I have gone by the instructions given and reproduced with 'repairs' and am very pleased with the results.  Its so easy when someone shows you how.  My frustrations are not knowing enough information so everything takes twice as long as it should.

I have bought the book you recommended - Photoshop Lightroom 4 by Martin Evening

so now I shall carry on learning with this book also.  I have now submitted all my assignments for assessment in July...

Response to Tutor Report - Assignment 4

Thank You for your comments.
The two main problems this time were colour management and Image resolution.

Im really glad you did point this out for me.  As I am new to most things photographic I find it difficult to learn all those basic things like ppi ... and they seem obvious when someone tells you but sometimes you can read and read and never find the points you are looking for.  I do need very basic instruction and I find it extremely useful.

I shall reset up my document and see how to do this properly, I shall set the correct ppi and remember for the future.

Re the screen calibration - today I purchased a Xrite i1Display Pro - (from Calumet ) which will be with me very soon so I will be able to calibrate my screen correctly, and I appreciate the importance of this when you want to print work.


Also I have booked a course to make a 'website for photographers', as per this part of the course which looks at 'A Web Gallery'.  I have been looking at doing something, but as always, get stuck due to lack of knowledge.  I am booked at Photofusion next week and they say we will have a website after the 2 day course - so we will see !!

Im actually excited about going ... I do get frustrated not knowing enough to do things.

I will add to this blog if there is success...

So I think that is all I am now ready with Assignment 5 and will be adding more to the blog before assessment.



MY PURCHASES ARRIVED ....

ASSIGNMENT 5 - A PERSONAL PROJECT

All of my images, along with my final 10 images, and my word document for assignment 5,
are here in dropbox ....


They are covering everything that we have learnt in this section of the course.



FINAL TEN IMAGES - BEFORE AND AFTER


WILLOW

EGGS

GIRL

PLANT POTS

YELLOW TABLE

GREEN HEAD

TREE  (LADDER REMOVAL )

BUTTERFLY SIGN

FERN 

BLUE BUTTERFLY

ANTS

I may, after my tutor feedback, add this picture of the ants.  It was one of my shortlist as you can see below and I like the picture.  If I make a replacement it will be for the EGGS, I still like this shot but was less pleased with the picture when printed it seemed a little flat.  I shall give it some thought.

Short list for Assig 5

This is a short list of photos I have in mind for the assignment ...

Exercise - Sharpening for Print / Website

SHARPENING FOR PRINT

I can notice the difference when sharpening and it is slightly easier on the screen I feel.  When looking at prints the difference is minute.  My eyes were struggling here I must admit.
My preferred choice was 'two' - I was looking around the eye area especially and the picture did sharpen, but I felt it went over in the last picture not looking so good.

I expect it would vary from picture to picture.  I cant really say exactly what it was doing but I did get a preference.

For this exercise I started at the lowest point of sharpening, then went up a quarter for each picture, with the last picture on maximum. I have typed the settings that I used alongside the photos below.

ORIGINAL

ONE   -    + 48 
Here the eye was a little darker and more defined.

TWO  ( my preferred choice ) + 100

Better definition, all round.

THREE  + 150

Here the eye was darker but on the screen the skin seemed to sparkle rather, not a desired effect.. this
actually doesn't show on the print so much but I felt this was too much for this picture.

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WEBSITE

I am attending a course to learn how to set up a web site and will come back after May 23 - hopefully with a functioning website ... Exciting.

I had a really good time on this course and learnt loads .. I have written up my notes for future reference
which can be viewed, in assignment 5 folder, and called Website Course ...View here ....

My new website .... which is still under a bit of construction, I'm still experimenting a little with the Theme ... But it will be ( when the domain name transfers ) ...

www.traceyfield.com





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Assignment 4 - Design a Book Cover

ASSIGNMENT 4  - DESIGN A BOOK COVER 





I have two word documents, a summary of the course, and the document which is for Assignment 4,
which can be found here ....



Here is my final book cover which I have designed.

The imaginary book is about a man who has moved to the country, and is trying to covert his old life to the new country life, it is like cycling in snow...

This is a new book cover, saved in 300 ppi, as the one above was too small, done in error.

Exercise - Alteration

ALTERATION

Well I was actually quite terrified at the prospect of doing this exercise, I thought it would be beyond me.. or my limited skills.. anyway I am quite chuffed with the outcome.  This is the first time I have even attempted something like this and now feel confident to attack another project.  And it wasn't as daunting as I expected, as like most things, once you get going on them they are fine.

Here is my first attempt, I thought it was simple in its set up, and I felt I could isolate the person and remove from the shot.  However I wasn't taking into account the complicated wall that would be picked up to replace the missing area.

This was how the result was before any adjustments, you can see that it has picked up some of the leaves from the floor and are up where the wall should be.  Also the top of the wall isn't too bad, slightly raised, this could be lowered, but I felt the other part of the wall was a bit muddled, probably if I had spent more time on this I could have perfected it. The trees were very good and you would never have known there had been a person there before.

This was my second attempt, tried to find a photo without the complicated wall. I tried again with this shot below.

I used the lasso tool and selected the person, then pressed the delete / backspace button and the content aware box will pop up and click OK and the computer magically removes the selected person in this case.
The first result is the one below, as you can see the pathway has been selected where the grass should be.  This was easily adjusted by using the clone stamp tool and colouring the pathway with the grass and perfecting the puddles a little.

I was actually pleased with this result, I expect maybe if you inspected very closely there may be imperfections, but to look at the picture you would except that this is how it should be.
Im glad that I have managed to do this as it give me confidence to try more.
Whether it is acceptable or not ... I think it is a useful skill to have if you need to remove something that is ruining a picture but I still would prefer to take the picture how you want it if at all possible.
Im not a great fan of photo trickery although I can see the benefits.

Books used Lightroom and Photoshop , page 274 ...