tylahjaydegreen

[tylahjaydegreen]

Reflection for Software Fundamentals

What process(es) did you use?

I used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop that I had a basic amount of knowledge behind me, and also InDesign which is something i had never used before.

What did you know about this process before you started?

Not a huge amount, i was still very much a noob but i feel a lot more confident in my abilities now

What did you learn during the process?

I learnt how to successfully use the pen tool in a competent way

One thing I would like to improve on ...

I would like to improve on my InDesign layouts

What did you enjoy most about this project/process and why?

I think i just enjoyed learning new tools and techniques that i was then able to use in other classes and projects

What resources did you use to investigate/complete this project?

Funnily enough TikTok was a huge help with learning wee trick and tools that became useful and helped me stay ahead in this class

How would you use this process again?

I would use all of the tools i learnt this semester again and again and again

What were your goals for this project/exercise? Did they change?

My goal at the start was to just make it through this class but then it became to have fun and enjoy that work i was learning and producing

What were some of the most challenging moments?

I think keeping up with the tumblr was really difficult, i found myself getting home on a friday and going straight into weekend mode and then feeling like i ran out of time by the time classes started the next week

How did I help others during this process? 

I found myself always helping those around me when they were stuck on what we were doing in class as i seemed to pick up the processes easier than some

How did others help me? What was useful?

I got feedback and advice from my immediate peers that I felt was really useful.

26.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

KeyBoard Shortcuts

Illustrator Shortcuts

V = Selection Tool A = Direction Tool P = Pen Tool Z = Zoom Mode O = Reflect Tool I = Eye Dropper Tool +/- = Add/Remove Points when using Pen Tool

Space + Left Mouse = Pan

Pen Tool + Drag = Curves

Layers > Double Click Thumbnail = Change Point Colour

Command + Y = Show Bezier Lines Command + = Close App with Save Command + : = Show/Hide Guide Lines Command + R = Show/Hide Ruler Command + 7 = Clipping Mask Command + Shift + p = Place Image Command + Z = Undo Command + Shift + z = Redo Command + Left click when using Pen Tool to Deselect Command + X = Swap Stroke and Fill Command + Shift + v = Paste in Place Command + J = Join Points Command + G = Group Command + Shift + G = Ungroup

Photoshop

B = Brush Tool E = Eraser Tool X = Swap Background and Foreground Colours V = Move Tool Option = Colour Dropper [ + ] = Reduse / Enlarge Tool 1,2,3,4... = Tool Opacity

Command + Delete = Fill with Foreground Colour Command + D = Deselect/Drop Command + T = Transform Tool

InDesign

A = Direct Selection Tool V = Selection Tool Z = Zoom W = Preview T = Text Tool Space = Move Command + A = Select All Command + Shift = To Mover or Resize a Image and Border Command + E = Export Command + Return = Soft Return (In Text)

Essential

Command + N = New Finder Window Command + 3 = Screenshot Command + 4 = Screengrab Command + X = Cut Command + C = Copy Command + V= Paste Shift + Return = Tab

[tylahjaydegreen]

Children's Book Project 4/4

Below is my final book, i got feedback from a few mothers who said they really liked how i have a page with lots of white space next to one that was very busy to break up the visual content.

I really enjoyed making little characters and illustrations that goes along with the content of my book. I originally did struggle with picking my content as i'm very indecisive so i decided to ask a few children what there favourite nursery rhyme was to help me get started and from then on it came pretty easily.

Created using a4-brochure-mockup-free-800x526pxfrom ZippyPixels.com

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26.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Children's Book Project 3/4

Here i used paragraph styles to create bullet points and assign them to the correct pages (which admittedly took longer than it should have)

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26.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Children's Book Project 2/4

From here i found the content i wanted and proceeded to create my own vector images in Adobe Illustrator that i felt fit with each story ( The only images that aren't mine are the brick wall; that was downloaded and image-traced in illustrator, and the hiker on Twinkle Twinkle)

I then went through and created simple paragraph styles for both Even pages and Odd pages and applied them to make the process of formatting the book easier and faster

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I then took some of the main images from some of the nursery rhymes i picked to create end pages using Illustrators pattern tool

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26.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Children's Book Project 1/4

As our Software Fundamentals class comes to an end, We were given the task to make a children's book using the skills we have learnt throughout the semester.

I started off by making my book file in InDesign, and going into my parent pages to create multiple parents with varying column layouts.

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Here i went into each parent page to create page numbers by using the type tool to create an A at the bottom outer corner of each page then highlighted it and went to the Type bar and found Current Page Number.

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26.05.23 (My Birthday)

[tylahjaydegreen]

Adobe InDesign 3/3

In this section we went about learning how to place and wrap text around an image

we first placed an image into InDesign and then opened it into Illustrator to edit the image in some way to see the effects placing an image has.

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To move and resize the image is a case of using the keys Command and Shift. Once the image was in the position we liked, we use the properties window to create a text wrap and boarder around the image

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We also learnt that you can create a shape and place an image into it is you wish for a different look or flow.

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05.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Adobe InDesign 2/3

In this section we learnt how to change the columns to create different layouts of text.

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We also learnt how to use Paragraph styles to create bullet points

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05.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Adobe InDesign 1/3

Today we learnt how to use InDesign, an app i only tried to understand days before.

This lesson is in regards to columns, paragraph and character style options.

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In this first part we learnt how to make a text box and fill it with placeholder text.

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We were then introduced to Styles (Character and Paragraph) and how they can be used to simplify the process of keeping consistent styles of body, heading, pull quote text etc when creating large projects with multitudes of text. We started with Paragraph styles

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Here is we started on how Character Styles work and how to use them

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05.05.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Show and Tell Part 2/2

My second image was of a digital drawing i did at the start of the year on my ipad

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Using the pen tool i traced the edges of each section, eg Skull, Red Flowers, Ferns, etc on seperate layers (as you can see by the different colours on the second image)

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Next was to start adding colour, Sticking to the theme of he original image, i did the fill in the same colour (using the eyedropper tool) and then made the stokes a slightly darker or lighter colour.

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Progress shot. At this point i was really questioning myself as to why i picked an image with so many little curved lines.

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Here i am playing with the gradient tool to create shadows and depth within the skull.

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I found the eyes to be super tricky to get right, it was really hard to find the right placement and length of gradient.

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Im now adding in the small details like cracks and fusions of where the bones meet.

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I went around the image with the brush tool and creates lots of dots around the image, i then added Gaussian Blur which is the same one i used when creating the original image

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Heres the final product with a side by side. I had a lot of fun recreating this piece of art, there were definitely a lot of struggles and points where i wanted to give up but it was overall a very fun and eyeopening experience. I dont think i let myself see how much ive advanced with the pen tool but this activity has really opened my eyes.

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[tylahjaydegreen]

Show and Tell Part 1/2

Todays homework was the task of creating two drawings or finding pieces of art and recreating them using the pen tool in adobe Illustrator. the first piece we made has to be a silhouette and the second had to have colours and shadows to show our learning so far.

My first one was a drawing i did of a pickle. i drew it in my workbook and then scanned it so i could drop it into illustrator. I then created a new layer and created my vector image over top.

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Here you can see my original attempt along with the anchor points and handles.

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I then went through and refined my handles until they got to a point i was happy with

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Once i was satisfied, i filled my image and changes the inner lines to white so they could be seen.

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28.04.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Composite Image Homework Activity

For this homework we a=had to add two additional subjects to our image

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Heres a recap of the image im working with

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I then found some imaged of a skateboard and a basketball that i object selected

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I then dragged and dropped the new subject images into my file and played around with their position and sizing as well as adding some adjustment layers to have them match the lighting and theme of the rest of the image

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Friday 31.03.23 - Thursday 06.04.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Composite Image Creation 3/3

This is a direct continuation of the previous post

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Once we completed the previous steps w saved out the as a PS file and opened it in Adobe Illusrator

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From there we added a layer and created a weaving shape over our subject using the pen tool, hid the image layer and saved the file

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We then opened our original Ps file and linked in the Ai file

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We then duplicated the Ai layer and used the marquee tool to select and mask the section we want to appear to wrap forward around the subject

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Next i went back into my Ai file and played around with some lines and images in the same shape as the weaving line and saved the file

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The linked file then updates on the Ps file. I was then able to remove the image file with the original background and add in a background image as well as some adjustment layers

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Friday 31.03.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Composite Image Creation 2/3

In this section we are using our knowledge of different selection tools to isolate the subject

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First we duplicated the image, Object selected the subject and added a colour layer imbetween the two image layers to add contrast then editing the small hard to see details

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I then used the pen tool to create a path around the subjects arm that was then turned into a selection layer to be masked.

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I used the brush tool to refine around his shoes and hair to create a sharp outline.

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When i was happy with my outcome i added selected all the mask layers and combined them into to a single object

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Friday 31.03.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Composite Image Creation 1/3

Much like last week we are using masks and selection tools

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We started off with using the clone stamp tool to get rid of the impurities on the lemon (our main subject for this section)

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We then used the pen tool to create a path that was then turned into a selection

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We are now able to create a mask the lemon and image adjust it

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Friday 31.03.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Layers, Masks and Selecting Homework Task

For our homework we had to select an object and paste it onto a background and adjust it to match using our new found skills

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I decided to choose this image of Hot Sauce Clubs Bassist Rory that was taken in Christchurch

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I used both the object selection tool and the brush tool to isolate Rory. I had to go over the lose bits oof hair with an opaque brush so they would be able to be blended into whatever background i use

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This is the background i've decided to use.

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Here im adjusting the mask layer to match the chosen background. I needed to saturate and dull my subject

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This is how it turned out with the adjustment layers, but im still not done.

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I decided to add some typography and use the brush tool to darken the bright outline that was around his arm on the right

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Friday 24.03.23 - Friday 31.03.23

[tylahjaydegreen]

Layers, Masks and Selecting Part 5/5

Now we get to put all our masking tool skills to the test

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We used the Object selection tool to initially selects out humming bird and found the problem of the wing, It no longer looked real and organic as if being captured mid flight. so we had to use the pen tool to essentially clip the wing.

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This looks a lot better but now opposes the problem of that it still doesnt feel organic, its too static.

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In the mask layer we used the brush tool at a low opacity to create a kind of blur effect with a gradient of intensity from the least amount at the base of the wing and the most at the tip.

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Now we had to fix the problem of this light outline around our image. We used the brush tool at a low opacity again but set the blending mode to either darken or lighten depending on the area we are working on.

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We then flipped the image and added a background and scaled and moved out humming bird to suit.

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Friday 24.03.23