This week in my Introduction to Information and Library Professionals class, we finished up a project in which we were instructed to make something. That was it. Just "make something." The point of the project was to get rid of the stigma surrounding librarians-you know, that old stereotype of the old lady with the severe look and pursed lips and thick glasses who shushes you.
My classmates and I took this challenge and ran with it in every direction imaginable. We had a "fair" today in place of class where we were able to share our creations. Among many other things were the following creations: home-brewed beer, a family tree, hand-made runes, an impromptu ukulele performance, a children's book about librarians (that I swear is going to go viral soon), wood etching, paintings, a "choose-you're-own-adventure" book, a number of crocheted, knitted, cross-stitched, and needle-pointed projects, a hand-made long-board, videos, blogs, websites, self-published books, and more. It was truly a sight to behold, and the one random underclassman girl present who was working in the cafe we were taking over really seemed impressed.
For my project, I chose to teach myself how to use Photoshop. Below you can read about my experience (I posted the following on the class website):
"Like many of my classmates (I'm sure), I don't usually do well with vague instructions when it comes to schoolwork. I like to know exactly what is expected of me so that I can do exactly what is expected of me exactly as it is listed. As you can imagine, taking 511 has helped me to get over that mindset.
When we were assigned the Maker project, I was at a loss. We were supposed to make something. What? Make what? Make something how? Where is our rubric? Where's the rest of the prompt? Is that really it? Fortunately, when discussing the vagueness of the assignment in class, I had a spark. We were supposed to make something, or create something to share, or cultivate some skill. I had been wanting to learn how to use Photoshop for a while, and had been planning on using the iSchool's computers to do so, but hadn't had the time. Learning Photoshop for the purposes of a project, however, was doable. I started devoting an hour or two to Photoshop after classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I knew I didn't have anything else to do. It was in these "precious" few hours that I worked on what was simultaneously the most frustrating and most enjoyable school project I've had in a while.
Photoshop is not intuitive. It's not user friendly. My human interaction with the computer was not the most enjoyable experience. And yet it was still something I looked forward to every week. With "The Mowgli's" playing on my iPod and several tabs open to tutorials on Google Chrome, I got work done. I ended up with about 8 projects that I completed start to finish. They ranged from whatever struck my fancy to the things that popped up when I Googled"Cool things to do in Photoshop." The most challenging and time consuming projects were, of course, the most ambitious: the landscape fold and the watercolor paint effect. Each of these pieces took about two and hours to complete (though they would probably only take 20 minutes for someone who really knew what they were doing). Of course, the first projects I did also took a ridiculously long time because I was learning the ins and outs by pressing random buttons to see what would happen. Some things I picked up on pretty quickly but, I swear, there were times when I think the program was messing with me for fun.
Overall I ended up enjoying this project, in spite of the hair-pulling issues that I sometimes had. Before I go, I'd like to thank all of the random Photoshop wizards who live on the Internet, solving people's problems on message boards with step-by-step tutorials and example videos and patience. Thank you."
As you can imagine (and as I've stated above), this project wasn't easy. Yet in spite of it all, I'm proud of myself, and my finished products. In case you're curious, here they are:
My very first attempt at Photoshop, this picture was the first stupid idea that popped into my head, and I ran with it. I was learning the basics of isolating figures, putting in text, manipulating objects, and using layers, among other things.
I wanted to try my hand at making a movie poster, and since it was pretty close to Halloween, I picked CLUE. I had a much grander idea in my head that I put together, and then quickly realized that it didn't look very good. It was too busy, so I took a more minimalist approach.
I created this watercolor effect using only Photoshop, and I'm very proud of it. I took a black-and-white picture and used Photoshop to turn it into a watercolor picture. Pretty cool.
This typographic was actually a lot of fun to make once I picked a topic for the text. I ended up writing about UNC because the Heels were playing Wake Forest the next day.
I call this picture "Hold Me Closer, Tiny Camper." Using a bunch of stock photos, I created a tiny camping trip, complete with a lighter and tiny tents and a little dog. I don't know why.
Color isolation was one of the things I wanted to learn as soon as I started using Photoshop. Fortunately, it turns out that it's actually remarkably easy.
Recently, this trend ("folded landscapes") came about because of a picture of a panorama photo that glitched out and created the effect you see below. Not to be outdone, a bunch of PS wizards decided to recreate the effect with the program. My version is far from perfect, but I still think it's really cool.
I wanted to practice manipulating a green screen, so I found a picture of a news anchor sitting in front of one and decided to put her in space. Then, my imagination ran away with me and it turned into QUSR Alien News at 9:00.
The last project I ended up working on was a photo manipulating black and white and color. Not too shabby.
End log.
No comments:
Post a Comment