Animation postcard- Assignment #2

The second assignment called for an animation postcard. For starters it seemed pretty interesting and simple, however, I thought many of the steps seemed to be difficult. The picture below is the first animated picture slide of my postcard. I love the way the colors compliment each other and how it just looks awesome.

The picture consists of my sister and step sister playing, a baby's crib,background of South Boston and a flower. All these pictures I took myself and I thought they fit nicely into what my poem said.

The crib represents being born, the city is where you grow up and face hardships, the girls are going through a happy life and the flower is hope for promise everything will

be ok once you go through hardships.

I hope everyone can get some type of message between the poem and the pictures.

I was able to do the animated pictures, that didn't seem to be a problem once I followed Professor O'Connell's directions and also

the ones online. It didn't become difficult until the animation poem had to be done. I was stressing about what to do because first I didn't know how to put the words into animation form, which I think makes the poem look bland. But the pictures bring it all together at the end. I asked a fellow classmate how to put the words into animation and I was grateful she helped me. Also my boyfriend loves to play around on photoshop so he knew a thing or two which was nice.

The most enjoying part was being able to successfully complete this project. I stressed about the project, but in the end I was able to make a project I'm happy with.

If I had more time I think I would've been able to make the words animated. I wasn't sure how to do it and it became too late to fix it . I don't have photoshop on my laptop and I commute to RWU which leaves no time to work on these types of things.

Contact sheet- Assignment #1

For our first assignment we had to work in Photoshop and the different functions in it. First thing ran in my mind, "uh oh I don't know how to use Photoshop". Luckily for me I pay attention and take notes in class so my anxiety went down. While Professor O'Connell was explaining the steps and doing everything with us I thought "hey piece of cake I can do it" , well, even with my notes by my side, I couldn't remember exactly how to do the steps (I also don't have the book). I had forgotten how to change the DPI and forgot that I had to save the original and constantly save off that. What should of been an hour work, turned into two hours in the library trying to fix my mistakes.

Row 1 (Resolution): In this row, we worked with resolution (dpi), of an image that we chose in four different frames. Each frame had an increasing resolution from 72 dpi, 300dpi, 600 dpi and 1200 dpi. The picture I chose was one I took from my friend's baby shower. It is a crib full of the gifts she received. I didn't have too much trouble with this row because I was able to refer back to my notes (even after forgetting the directions after class).

Row 2 (Format/Mode): The picture I used in row 2 was of a flower I took. We were able to learn about the different colors in Photoshop and how we use them. I first changed the original picture to RGB (red green blue) for web. I then changed it to CMYK (cyan magenta yellow black) for print. Third, the picture was changed to gray scale (black and white). Lastly, the picture was changed to Duotone. I used yellow and purple as my two colors. I think I preferred learning about the Duotone because I was able to change it how I wanted and my creativity came out.

Row 3 (Orientation): The picture I chose for row 3 is a picture of my cousin Kayleigh and my step brother David. Using the crop tool I was able to change the original picture to portrait (where the kids are the main focus),square (where there is a bit more land in the background) and landscape where both sides were equal in background). For landscape, the dimensions were 1" x "1.33", for square they were 1" x 1", and for portrait they were 1" x 0.75".

Row 4 (Framing): The framing row was about taking an image and making it start off with one focus object and "zoom out" until you get a wide angle shot. The picture I used was one I took of South Boston. I had begun the first box with a picture of a building in the background. As I worked my way out I brought in more street lights, tree branches and the sunset. I thought it came out beautifully once it was complete and it was my most enjoyed line.

Row 5 (Content): The picture I used for this row was of my 20th birthday cake. For the same basic process as row I took one piece and kept zooming out till I had the whole picture. The difference between row 4 and 5 was that instead of focusing on one object, I relied on abstract thinking rather than focus.

Row 6 (Purpose): I enjoyed this row very much because my creativity came out. The picture I chose was that of my step brother David at the children museum. I changed the pictures three different ways with three different filters. The filters I used were Artistic Palette Knife, Ink Outlines and Accented Edges. Journalistic was when the picture had no filters and that was the last box.

Over all the rows I enjoyed were format (row2), framing (row4), and purpose (row6). I worked very hard on every row but those three where the ones I worked on with ease and creativity.

Below is a close up of my favorite picture. It's my step baby brother at the RI children museum and the way I chose to edit this picture was through Accented Edges. I think the color really comes out and makes it very eye catching.