Digital Photography and Imaging Exercises

Digital Photography and Imaging - Exercises 

27.08.2019 - 24.09.2019 (Week 1 - Week 5)
Wong Kai Yi (0340236)
Digital Photography and Imaging
Exercises

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1. INTRODUCTION

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2.EXERCISES

Week 1 (28.08.2019)

Lecture 1:
We got a brief introduction regarding the module requirements. The actual term for "photoshopping" is photo manipulation.

We started off with the basics and masking technique, match color, blur etc. Our exercise in class was to paste a character into Hearst Mansion.

Our first assignment was to paste ourselves into the Hearst Mansion.

Fig 1.1 Hearst Mansion

Fig 1.2 Picture of me

Fig 1.3 First Edit of me in Hearst Mansion

My reflection was too big and it was opaque. Mr Jeff told me to add noise, match color and adjust lightness to make it darker. Hence, below is the final edit of the photo.

Fig 1.4 Final work 

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Week 2 (03.09.2019)

Lecture 2:
We did a recap on week one's exercise. Then, we learnt new tools such as gradient tool, blending modes, difference between smart object and rasterised layer.

Exercise 2: Ghost Bride / House at Sunset

Our in-class exercise was to edit a glowing ghost bride into a haunted house. Fig 2.1 shows the final result.

Fig 2.1 Glowing Ghost Bride in Haunted House

Our assignment was to paste a sunset background (Fig 2.2) to the old house (Fig 2.3).

Fig 2.2 Sunset Background

Fig 2.3 Old House

I used match colour, masking, gaussian blur etc for this photo manipulation. Final photo is as seen below.

Fig 2.4 Final photo for exercise 02

Week 3 (10.09.2019)

Lecture 3:
We did a short recap on week 1's exercise. Then we started to do photo recolouring with a black and white portrait of a man. Masking and blending modes technique is mainly used for this technique.

Fig 3.1 Original black and white photo of a man

Fig 3.2 Final edit of the man

I used two layers for most of each part (skin, eyes, clothing etc.).

Assignment 3 was to search online for black and white portraits to do recolouring. I did several photos. Below are the before and after recolouring.

First:

Fig 3.3 Old man black and white portrait

Fig 3.3 Old man recoloured portrait

Mr Jeff said that this one looked very realistic. The skin tone was realistic. I used two layers for the skin recolouring.

Second:

Fig 3.4 Woman black and white portrait

Fig 3.5 Woman recoloured portrait

Mr Jeff said that this was the second best. Previously, I did not fill in the eye white so I edited it so that the eyes looked brighter. I did not edit the colour of the background because her hair and background are both black so it is very difficult to recolour the background.

Third:

Fig 3.6 Man in black and white portrait

Fig 3.7 Man in black and white portrait

Mr Jeff stated that the original background was weird which makes the persona pop out. He also stated that the man's skin tone looked like "copper", so I changed the skin tone to what you can see in Fig 3.7.

Week 4 (17.09.2019)

Lecture 4:
Mr Jeffrey taught us how to do "paste" a texture onto another image.
Steps:
1. Open the image (used as background) in photoshop and desaturate it to black and white (adjustment > desaturate)
2. Save this file as disputed_map_imagename.psd (this will be the displacement map)
3. Open the image in new and paste (Ctrl+A Ctrl V) the textured image (opened in another file previously)
4. Go to filter > distort > displace (px is subjective to your image)
5. Choose displacement map and open it
6. Use mask and blending mode to "paste" the texture onto the background image
7. Use multiple layers with different blending modes (multiply, screen etc)

In-class exercises:
1. Flag on cloth

Fig 4.1 Golden cloth

Fig 4.2 Flag

Using the steps stated above, I "pasted" the flag onto the cloth.

Fig 4.3 Final flag on cloth

2. Snake skin man

Fig 4.4 Norman Lindsay black and white image

Fig 4.5 Snake skin as texture

Fig 4.6 Norman Lindsay with snake skin texture

The pixels for displacement maps for these two exercises are different (5px and 10px) so there is no default number for it.

Assignment:

I chose to put crocodile skin onto a beluga. Below are the original images.

Fig 4.7 Original image of beluga in the sea

Fig 4.8 Crocodile Skin

Fig 4.9 Beluga with crocodile skin version 1.0

After doing my first photo manipulation (Fig 4.9), Mr Jeffrey stated that the texture needed the "bumps" on the skin. Hence, I edited the image further and below (Fig 4.10) is the final result.

Fig 4.10 Final beluga with crocodile skin texture

Week 5 (24.09.2019)

Recreating "The Castle of the Pyrenees" by Rene Magritte

Our task was to make an inspired photo with the similar concept as The Castle of the Pyrenees (Fig 5.1).

Fig 5.1 Original artwork of The Castle of the Pyrenees

I downloaded many images from the Internet (Fig 5.2) before starting to edit the images. They include seashores, castles, clouds and stones.

Fig 5.2 Images from the Internet

Out of these images, I chose several for my photo manipulation.

Fig 5.3 rock

 

Fig 5.4 beach 1

Fig 5.5  beach 2

Fig 5.6 clouds 1

Fig 5.7 clouds 2

For my first try with the background, I merged Fig 5.5 (beach 2) with Fig 5.6 (clouds 1) and Fig 5.7 (clouds 2). I used the masking technique. I also used match color because the colors were very contrasting. Image shown below is not the final background used.

Fig 5.8 background

After getting Mr Jeffrey's feedback, the colors still do not match and I he suggested me to use gaussian blur to make the background less clear to show a field of depth.

For my final work (Fig 5.9), I changed the beach picture to Fig 5.4 (beach 1) because the colors matched better. Fig 5.5 (beach 2) is a beach at sunset so the colors were warmer and did not match the blue sky. I added the stone and castle. I used displacement method on the castle to make it look like a stone castle connected to the stone. I used several layers with different blending modes for the castle. I also put gaussian blur on the castle and stone to make them look like they are farther away.

Fig 5.9 final work