Symmetry Essay

The purpose of this assignment was to create a building-looking image that was also symmetrical. To do that, we first took pictures of various things on campus. From those images, I selected the big red tent-like thing and duplicated the layer. I applied Flip Horizontal to give it the symmetric look and applied a certain filter. Then I took of a picture of a blue flame and kept copying and resizing to give it the symmetric, large flame look. I then made a layer mask of a "Wet Floor" sign and duplicated it to make it symmetrical. I then made copies of it and rotated them to give them the curved shape seen in the picture. A layer mask of a staircase completed the structure as it connected the two "arches" of the signs. The image was finalized with a background of the rocky pavement around Richland which was blurred.

Rotoscopy Essay

Rotoscopy, a technique used to add various effects and animations to movie clips, sounded difficult at first but turned to be not only easy, but one of the most interesting projects as well. I first filmed a 10 second clip of myself walking up to a mirror and then walking away from it. In Photoshop, I opened the Animation Window after diving the clip into 110 frames. Each frame was a layer of its own. The point of rotoscoping is to add a small effect to each frame. So I started with a Gaussian blur that thickened as I went through the first 10 or so frames.Then I added a small red brush stroke that moved around and turned different colors with each frame. When I was close to the mirror, I started adding filters like Photocopy, Dark Strokes, Glass, Diffuse Glow, etc. To make it more professional and interesting, I would contrast light colors after dark ones and add dark filters after brighter ones. I also used the Liquefy tool a few times when I was really close to the mirror to make it seem like I was morphing into some unknown creature. The climax came when I was nose-to-nose with the mirror. To those frames, I added a wide array of psychedelic, flashing colors, faded and strikingly clear filters, and glowing, expanding and contracting brush strokes. After that, it was more mellow with less colors and more blur effects toward the end.

Rotoscopy Assignment

Symmetry Assignment

Vehicle Essay

This assignment required me to take a photographed vehicle and transform it using symmetry, brushes, and my creativity. After putting a picture of Staples Center as my background and blurring it, I duplicated the layer that had my original car (the blue Nissan 350Z) on it. I used Flip Horizontal and integrated the two parts together to make a symmetrical vehicle. I then took the doors of a white SUV and integrated it into my image, placing them at near the tires. My third change involved creating a layer mask of the two doors of a hippie van and placing them in the center of my car. To embellish the image somewhat, I created a layer mask of the tires of a Ford F-150 and replacing the 350Z's tires with those.

With the gist of it done, the only thing left was to add effects. I took a picture of an antenna and a Dallas Cowboys banner, and combined the two to make it look like a flag. I downloaded a classic rock brush off Brusheezy.com and painted some classic rock images on the doors. Then I grass-brushed the entire top of the car to give it a fur-like effect. I then added Dark Strokes and Fresco texture effects to the doors, as well as Plaster effect on the tires, to give it a more flashy, unique, and surreal look.

Vehicle Assignment

Value Range Essay

My value range images were taken near the Richland canal. A classmate took pictures of me in various poses, all while keeping the camera focused on the same spot. So I had to make sure to stay within its range, as well be aware of the lighting.

The main challenge for this assignment was to integrate all three images into a single one and change the lighting for each image to give the final image a uniform blend of consistent lighting; that way, it would look more believable. The main tools I used were the Dodge and Burn tools. The dodge tool was used on the left and right images (on my face and arms), since they were partially darkened by shadows. The burn tool was used on the shadows. As well, I went to Lighting Effects and used different spotlights (such as Normal and 2'o clock) to focus more light on the left and right images. The finished product looks, in my opinion, pretty believable.