"It's March Madness, Baby!"

In my ad banner, I used many different tools. A tool I used was the selection tool, I used this to select the photo so I could add animations to it. I also used the convert to symbol tool so I could convert the photo to a movie clip. I also used the Import tool so that I could put the picture on the "stage" of my Flash document. I also used the Align tool so I could put the photo in the middle of the stage. I used the Blur Filter to add the blur to the photo clip. I used the Free Transform tool to resize the picture to make it blow up. The text tool was used to put the text on my ad banner so you could know what I was trying to accomplish. I used the Classic Tween tool to allow the picture to have animation. I used the Key frame to signify that something is going to happen. I used the Properties Panel to get to the Blur Filter. The final tool I used was the Color Menu and it was to add a different color. I specifically used the "Alpha" and adjusted the color to 5%.

I created this to have experience in Flash and I posted in on my blog to advertise for the NCAA National Basketball Championship game coming up on April 2nd! I also created this to show a major event that is coming up. However, some people would not see this as being as exciting. Many others find happiness in watching the most exciting month for college basketball known as "March Madness." During this month, there is literally games on ALL the time. I did this ad banner because I find excitement in March Madness and I am sure many others do as well.

I got my image from: http://blog.mad4flash.com/2012/03/march-madness-2012/

Adding a Realistic Rainbow to a Picture

For this project we added a realistic rainbow to our picture. We took a picture on a dark rainy day and decided to put a rainbow in it. Below is the picture we used, and what it turned out to be. We followed the steps listed to create our "rainbow picture."

Before                              After

The steps we used to create this effect were:

1. Open the picture in Photoshop.
2. Add a new blank layer and name it rainbow.
3. Select the rainbow gradient
-click the gradient picker in the options bar at the top of the screen
-click on the small arrow on the top right.
-click on special effects then click append.
-choose Russell's rainbow.
4. Select "radial gradient."
5. Drag out a rainbow with the gradient tool.
-holding shift will make it easier to drag horizontally.
-drag out a radial rainbow gradient from right to left in the image.
-when you let go of the button on your mouse, the rainbow will appear.
6. Change the blend mode of the rainbow layer to "screen."
-go to blend mode options in the top left of the layers panel.
-change it to screen. This blends the rainbow into the picture.
7. Apply the Gaussian blur filter.
-go to the filter menu in the menu bar at the top of the screen.
-choose blur.
-then choose Gaussian blur.
-drag the radius slider at the bottom of the dialog box towards the right to increase the amount of blurring being applied to the rainbow. The rainbow should look more realistic.
8. Add a Layer Mask.

-click the layer mask icon.

9. Choose the black to white gradient.

-right click on the picture.

-click on the black to white gradients thumbnail to select it.

10. Choose "Linear Gradient" from the options bar.

-go back to the options bar and click the linear gradient, the icon.

11. Drag a black to white gradient on the layer mask.

-hold down shift and drag the black to white gradient form the base of the rainbow to the top of the image.

-the rainbow no longer extends all the way to the bottom of the photo because of the layer mask.

Advertisements: Reading Between the Lines

The advertisement at the right was created to invite anyone to the Mercy Academy vs Assumption game at Mercy for their senior night. I created this poster to get fans to attend the soccer game. The target audience is girls from any age and their parents. I would put this advertisement in the JagWire magazine. I used ten tools in Photoshop. The ten I used were transform(scale), text, text color, paint bucket, changing a picture from one page to another page, swatches, flatten image, move tool, center text, and the brush tool that made the paint look like grass. I used transform(scale) to change the size of the picture. By holding shift in this option, I made them move to either make the picture bigger or smaller. I used text to simply add text to the advertisement. I changed the text color to make the advertisement "pop." I used the paint bucket tool to paint the background of the advertisement to make it not as boring and to add more color to it. I had to move my soccer ball logo from one page to another. When I did this, I had to hold control so it would move. Once I moved it, I had to scale it to fit the page. I used swatches to color my advertisement. I flattened the image so that I could make it one layer instead of having many different layers. I used the move tool to move things around on the advertisement. I centered text to make my advertisement look more balanced. Lastly, I used the brush that looked like grass to add grass at the bottom just for looks.  

My logo is advertising Mercy Soccer. This logo communicates its purpose because you look at it and see a soccer ball but it also has "MERCY" written around it, meaning it would have to be Mercy Soccer. I used white, black and baby blue as my colors because white and black are the colors of a soccer ball and baby blue is Mercy's school color. I used shape in my design. I had to make a perfect circle for the ball shape and I also had to use hexagons to make the shapes on the soccer ball. I used lines to connect the shapes to make it look even more like a soccer ball.

From Kayla to Sandra!

With the overall transformation, I feel pretty confident. Although this does not exactly look like Sandra Bullock, I feel it is pretty close to it and you can kind of tell it is my face on her body. This changes my perspectives on magazine adds because now I know that most pictures in magazines are photo shopped and very rarely are they the real picture. Many things in magazines now come across as "fake" to me. Today's view of a "perfect image" is all fake to me. In order to have a perfect image in today's world, you have to be fixed up to look perfect. Two things I think I did really well on are my eye makeup and matching my face with hers, like matching my eyes with her eyes and my mouth with her mouth. One thing I could improve on and spend more time on is matching my skin tone with her skin tone. It took me so long to match our skin tones because I would get close but it would not get to the exact same skin tone as hers. Another thing I could improve on is making the Opacity lower so it would make the effects on my face look more realistic.

Feel, Tests, Laughs, and Friends: A Day in the Life of A Mercy Girl

Using Photoshop for me was not that difficult. It has difficult parts but in general it wasn't that hard. I liked when we made our collages because I got to put all of the pictures I took and change them anyway I wanted. Photoshop will probably be my favorite project we do the whole year.

While doing my collage I used many different tools but I used the cropping, brightness, color balance, lasso, and magenta tint the most. I cropped almost all of my photos to go where I wanted them. I used the brightness tool to make the picture brighter and to make it stand out. I used the lasso to make the picture a certain shape. I used the color balance to balance every color in the picture to make it better to see. I used the magenta tint to make it a different color other than just black and white or the normal colors. Photoshop was overall very fun and I would definitely use this again to edit pictures.

Elements of Photography in My Everyday Life

 

In the picture to the left, I used the element of Framing. The window and curtains frames the truck outside. In the picture to the right, the branch and the bush frame a yard and a house. The branch and bush forms frame like features.

In the picture above, I used the element of Simplicity. Simplicity is used here because although there are things in the background, the image still focuses on the soccer ball. You can spot and tell what the things in the background are but your eyes do not visit those objects first, they automatically visit the ball in the grass. In the picture to the right, I also used Simplicity. There is a cat in the background. However, the cat is blurry so the ring catches your eye first. The ring is clear and you can see it better than the cat. Although the cat is larger, it is in the background so the ring sticks out.