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| Before |
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| After |
In our first session using the Adobe Creative Suite we were tasked with changing the picture on the left and making it look something resembling the one on the right.
Firstly we had to clean up the background on the base layer - the one with the bulb. I did this by creating a new layer above the bulb layer, then using a feather edged white brush I 'painted over the areas to the right hand side and to the bottom of the bulb to hide all the undesired parts of the background. I then placed the screw piece layer into position on top of the original image, adjusting the size and position so that it fitted seamlessly, before using the patch tool to remove all the filament from the bulb, as well as the rest of the layer surrounding the base of the bulb. The clone stamp tool was used to remove the stamp at the top of the bulb and replace it with ordinary glass from the area around the top of the bulb, the same tool was also used to remove the filament from the top of the screw layer - to make it appear as if there was never a filament within the bulb..
The trunk of the tree was then placed over where the filament would have been, before the magic wand was used to select the areas around the tree. These areas where then put under a layer mask to be hidden from view (white shows, black hides). The head of the tree was then put into position before the branches on this layer removed - to make the bits with the leaves fit with the other tree layer.
We then proceeded to add the reflections of the tree to the inside of the bulb. This was achieved by duplicating the layer with the leaves in, adjusting the size before warping to match the curvature of the bulb and reducing the opacity down to around 30 or 40 %. A small section towards the bottom of the reflection was masked off to avoid clashing with the 'real' tree or appearing outside of the bulb.
The lower reflection was made using a similar process but was first rotated through 180 degrees to give a realistic reflection.
I then played around with the brightness and contrast settings with the bulb to make the glass and metal bright and shiny. I also played with the hue settings of the tree layers to give the tree an orange-y tint to it.
If I were to reproduce this pece I would take more care with the background, as there is a clear difference between the right hand side which is very white and the middle and left hand sides towards the top of the image where still have a light grey gradient at the top. Also at the bottom you can see the effects of using the stamping tools.
And on closer inspection you can see where I have used the clone stamp tool on the screw element.
Creative Suite T1 S2 - Mazza
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| My attempt at an Illustrator portrait of Marilyn Monroe |
My version of a portrait of Marilyn Monroe made in illustrator is relatively easy to imitate, and only really uses the pen tool.
Firstly we found a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the internet and placed it into Illustrator. Then we created a new layer and started tracing the outlines of specific features of Marilyn's head such as the shape of her head, hair, and neck, using the pen tool. To get the lines to match the curvy bits of her hair and body you would need to play with the arms that came from the anchor points when you clicked and dragging whilst keeping hold of the initial click (instead of just clicking). To make it easier you may need to drag away from the body and make the arm longer, or delete one of the arms by converting the anchor to a point with only one arm.
Each element should have its own outline (ie the hair should be different to the rest of the head and face, which should be in turn different from the body and neck etc).
Each feature of the face should also have its own outline (the eyes, eyebrows and nostrils should be one each). The eye is made up of multiple elements. The iris and pupil are two different circles overlaid on top of each other as well as on top of the white of the eye. The general shape of the eye is made by lines and changing the curvature and the brush option to have a thicker middle and a thinner end, the same method can be followed to get each of the eyelashes but instead choosing an option that has a wider end at one end. The shape of the eye and the eyelashes are placed on top of the rest of the components of the eyes to hide the top of the circles.
Once all the elements have been drawn with an outline you can fill them with the appropriate colour. The shading is created by following the edge of one of the shapes that would cast a shadow (ie the head onto the neck, or the collar of the dress onto the shoulder) and following the line of the shadow from the picture underneath Once the outline is drawn fill with a grey or dark tone and I have chosen to turn down some of the opacity because I think it looks more realistic.
I then gave the picture a coloured background to make it stand out.
The key to this method is handles, points, and layers.
If I were to reproduce this piece I would try to get the shape of the arm, nose and eyes closer to a more real shape, I would also try to add more depth to some of the features by creating more shadows.
Creative Suite T2- InDesign
Term 2's first workshop in the Creative Suite, was to do with InDesign, and primarly looked at getting used to using InDesign and establishing good design practices in relation to copy, as well as setting up paragraph styles.
We were asked to create a quick booklet in InDesign with no real effort being put into styling it, more effort should have been concentrated on the layout, so I decided to create my booklet around the American Football team The Baltimore Ravens. Here is what I created initially without much in the way of styling.
So I opened the paragraph styles panel, changed the style name to title (because I was going to use it to stylize the title) and it could be used for any other article title if this were a magazine in order to give a consistent style throughout the document. I changed the font (in this case to Performa, even though I later changed it to Agency FB with a bold style). I set the point size to 36, with the leading at auto (which at 36pt is 43.2pt).
I then went through the little sub-categories in the list on the left hand side, tweaking some of the settings such as turning hyphenation of (leaving it on is considered bad practice, any hyphenation should really be avoided but if it needs to be done it should be done sparingly and by hand). I also changed the font colour to white as I feel that this is more visible on the purple background, white is also further up on the hierarchy of colours used by the team.
I then set new styles for the rest of the text such as the sub-headings (the player name, position and squad number) - which is in 24pt agency bold, with a 27pt leading and is in a purple colour to help with the contrast with the rest of the body.
The main body is in 12pt agency regular, below is how the spread looked after styling was added.
The next step was to look at the layout of the body more carefully, and removing all the stuff that made it look unprofessional such as any widows (a line that is separated from the rest of the paragraph that it is a part of - this wasnt a problem as all my copy fitted within one column) and orphans (any one word lines at the end of a paragraph), as well as looking at the tracking and kerning to remove any large gaps (known as rivers). Adjusting the tracking and kerning within a paragraph can also help fill out a line and make the ends of lines within a paragraph look less ragged.
Doing this helps with the readability of the body copy by removing any large gaps between words or paragraphs, as well as making the shape of the copy look better to the eye.
We were asked to create a quick booklet in InDesign with no real effort being put into styling it, more effort should have been concentrated on the layout, so I decided to create my booklet around the American Football team The Baltimore Ravens. Here is what I created initially without much in the way of styling.
It features a two page spread with 3 columns on each page. It has the team name as a title in the top left of the page in all caps, the main body of the spread is 6 of the teams players. Each includes a picture, the players name, position and squad number, as well as body of placeholder text in lieu of a interview or in-depth player profile or bio. The title is in 36pt, the player names, position and squad number is in 24pt, and the main body is in 12pt. All text on this page is in default 'times new roman'.
So I set about styling the text using paragraph styles.
I then set new styles for the rest of the text such as the sub-headings (the player name, position and squad number) - which is in 24pt agency bold, with a 27pt leading and is in a purple colour to help with the contrast with the rest of the body.
The main body is in 12pt agency regular, below is how the spread looked after styling was added.
Doing this helps with the readability of the body copy by removing any large gaps between words or paragraphs, as well as making the shape of the copy look better to the eye.
Here is the final spread after all the adjustments and styling has been added to it.
Creative Suite T2- Illustrator
In our illustrator session of using creative suite, we were tasked with creating a rocket ship using only 5 shapes. We started with an ellipse for the main body of the rocket. We then adjusted the anchors at the top and the bottom to give the rocket a more traditional rocket shape with a pointier nose and a wider base at the bottom. We then adjusted some of the appearance attributes for the rocket - mainly the stroke settings. I made the stroke of mine orange, I also increased the weight to 5pt. I then added another stroke using the setting in the appearance menu. I offset this so that it was inside the main stroke, I then changed this so that it was a black dotted line.
Next I created one of the fins. This came about by creating a fin like shape using the pen tool before following the same process as the body in terms of adding the multiple strokes. After this I then duplicated the fin, and flipped the copy so that I had a fin for either side of the rocket.
The next step was to create a pattern fill for the ship. this was made by creating a cross with two boxes of the same colour and a lowered opacity, laid on top of each other at 90 degrees. We then added this as a pattern swatch to the swatch pallet, applied this to the fill of each of the different parts of the shape and adjust the scale of the patterned fill until it looked good.
We then added a porthole to the ship, this was made by simply adding a circle to the body of the ship, and then adding a couple of different strokes. I added 1 white dashed stroke, before adding alternate strokes of orange and white (to match the stroke already on the outside of the ship and the accent colour in the pattern fill).
Once all this was done we grouped the parts of the ship together, before adding another wider white stroke and a drop shadow to finalize the design. And this is what I produced...
Next I created one of the fins. This came about by creating a fin like shape using the pen tool before following the same process as the body in terms of adding the multiple strokes. After this I then duplicated the fin, and flipped the copy so that I had a fin for either side of the rocket.
The next step was to create a pattern fill for the ship. this was made by creating a cross with two boxes of the same colour and a lowered opacity, laid on top of each other at 90 degrees. We then added this as a pattern swatch to the swatch pallet, applied this to the fill of each of the different parts of the shape and adjust the scale of the patterned fill until it looked good.
We then added a porthole to the ship, this was made by simply adding a circle to the body of the ship, and then adding a couple of different strokes. I added 1 white dashed stroke, before adding alternate strokes of orange and white (to match the stroke already on the outside of the ship and the accent colour in the pattern fill).
Once all this was done we grouped the parts of the ship together, before adding another wider white stroke and a drop shadow to finalize the design. And this is what I produced...
As part of the same session was also created a pear in Illustrator using some of the tools to make it look 3D realistic.
We started with a picture of pear off of the internet and put it into Illustrator, before creating a new layer on top and locking the layer with the original pear in it. In this new layer we began to trace around the outside of the pear using the pen tool (and adjusting the anchor/handles points to match the curved bits of the fruit). Once this done we added a mesh inside it using the mesh tool. We then moved some of the lines within the mesh to match the contours of the pear. After this we then added more points/lines to the mesh before switching to outline mood. Using the gradient mesh tool we started to add colour to the new layer. This was done by selecting the point on the mesh with the direct selection tool and using the eyedropper tool to select a point nearby on the real pear in order to give it a realistic colour and shading.
The same technique was then applied to the stalk.
Once this was complete as well we switched back to preview mode before adding a texture to the pear. The texture was found on the internet before being placed over the top and the blending mode changed to multiply or overlay, then going into live trace and altering the threshold to make it look like it was part of the pear.
And this is my food for the man in the rocket.
