Project 2 Color

Bummer
I've redone this assignment at least 4 times over the last week. Always with the same result - a photo that looks over manipulated. But I think I'm getting closer. Here's what I did for my last attempt. I started with Auto Color correction because I thought it wouldn't hurt and it might help. From there I went to Variations and increased Red one time. Next I went to Levels by color and changed them to Red: 0, 0.37, 222 and Blue 1, 2.12, 159 and Green 12, 0.73, 214 and RGB 6, 0.72, 255. I also changed the output on RGB to 22, 255. And the output on Blue to 0, 233. All of these adjustments were made with trial and error - just playing around with the Level slide bars. I also tried using Curves - but I messed up more than I improved.

By this time the colors were looking better, but not great. The red bedspread isn't red enough, the blue curtain isn't blue enough and the wall is too dark. But I've noticed that the more I finagle the colors, the more the contrast, brightness and sharpness degrade. So I'm stopping here and will wait to learn how others in the class overcome the very yellow retro room.

Mine is on the top. John's on the bottom right.

Project 2 - Adjustments

I tackled this one first because I thought it would be easy. Of course I was wrong. I started off well, duplicating the color image so I have a working copy. I put that working copy and the goal photo on a split screen and off I went trying adjustments to Levels, Hue/Saturations, Variations, Curves. My first frustration was that I get in a hurry to try the next thing in my bag of tricks and I forget to write down what I'm doing. I know the goal here is to learn how to make adjustments, not just duplicate John's photo. So even if I get everything just right with a hit and miss approach, it does me no good if I can't remember how I got there. So I have to keep reminding myself to slow down, think about what I'm doing and write it down as I go. Thank God for the history window.

I started off adjusting the Levels - it looked heavy on blue. Then I adjusted Hue/Saturation and reduced the saturation to almost, but not quite, black and white. Next I spent a lot of time in the Variations window. I like the variations window and find it easy to work with because it gives me a preview of the changes with my options before I select them. But I'm frustrated that the window is so large that it blocks the goal photo that I'm trying to match. I played around with the midtones, adding red, too much red, adding cyan, overdoing darkening then lightening it up. Then I revisited Levels and Hues/Saturations. I ended up with Hue 34, Saturation 18, Lightness -17. By this time I thought the street looked pretty close but the sky was too dark. I used the Curves function, selected a point on the sky and lightened it up without messing up the rest of the work I had done. (My input was 136 and output 186 on the Curves)

I'm about 85% happy with the way the photo turned out. But I've learned a valuable lesson to slow down and document what I'm doing.

So here's my adjusted photo:


And here's the goal photo:

Lesson 1 Open and Organize

This week I've been distracted from school lessons because of a recent flood at my home and emergency move. But I was able to setup my laptop according to the suggestion in our text. It was a lot easier than I thought. That's good because I'll have to do it all again as soon as I find the hard drive of my desktop. I have about 22 boxes left to look through.

I thought the text book instructions were very clear and thorough. I'm finding Photoshop CS4 a lot more complicated than my old baby Photoshop Elements 2. But of course that means the possibilities are boundless. I went through Lesson 1 using the text CD as the practice samples. I love the bridge function, and the loupe for zooming in on details. Being able to adjust the size of thumbnails and rate photos will be a big plus for me. I have a tendency to take too many photos so I'm sure to have a good one. That's part of why I love digital photography. Unfortunately I end up with lots of rejects. This bridge and the rating system will save me lots of time looking through photos.

This evening I finally got up the courage to plug my external hard drive with all my photo into my laptop. This external hard drive has about 6 years worth of photos filed away without a backup. I was afraid it had been damaged in the flood. But my photos are all still there. So I have material to work with this semester.

My experience this week has taught me two valuable lessons. 1) Invest in good surge protectors. My entire desktop system was on and plugged into a surge protector that was totally submerged under water. And so far my system seems to be okay. 2)Backup, just in case.

My next task is to figure out how to post photos onto the blog. I'm enjoying seeing every ones blog photos. I'll try to add one to this post. See you all Thursday on-line.
Ann Wilkinson

Orientation Quiz

A. What is something that is going well in your life?
I have great friends who have helped me tremendously this week.

B. What are your specific goals for this class?
To become proficient at Photoshop CS to the point that I can work for paying clients and meet their needs.

C. What was your first experience with computers and imaging technology like?
I first experience with computers was in 1977 when I took a course in programming. Back then our biggest concern was to not drop our punch cards. If you dropped a stack of punch cards with your program coding and they got out of order, it was a disaster. As for imaging technology, I took several classes in digital photography that also covered Photoshop. The last class was the year that Photoshop CS-1 was released. That class was a very positive experience.

D. Do you usually work on a Mac or a PC and why?
I'm a PC chick and have been quite happy with PCs until I got a new laptop recently with Vista on it. Maybe next time I'll cross over to Mac.

E. What is your experience level with Photoshop or image editing programs?
I've done some "just for fun" work with Photoshop Elements (version 2 or 3 I think). I've had some limited class work with Photoshop CS. I've also used JASSC which came on my desktop computer. It's pretty basic, but for adjustments like brightness, contrast, saturation, it's fine.

F. What is something you liked about your day today?
Tonight I got everything out of my house that flooded Monday. I packed and moved my entire household in less than 3 days - with the help of some very generous friends. So starting in the morning I can concentrate on my new place and getting everything in order for a fresh, dry start on higher ground.

G. How do you plan to use what you learn in this class?
I can play with Photoshop and photo manipulation for hours. But what I really want is to be able to do web design and some computer graphics and desk top publishing professionally.

H. What would make this class go very well for you?
A balance of pacing - fast enough that I learn as much as possible - slow enough that I don't get lost. This is a massive software package with a lot to learn.

I. How do you plan to make this class go very well for you?
First, try to stay on target with assignments and deadlines. This is not the type of class I could easily recover from getting behind in my schedule. Second, learn from others. Whether it's a program issue or a new appreciation for another photographer's style, I can always learn something from my peers as well as my instructors.

J. What do you do for creativity?
I write. I'm a member of Write Women, a writing group in Sitka that meets weekly. Also I do a variety of artist dates to fill the inspiration well.

K. Who are John and Thomas Knoll?
Brothers who created Photoshop.

L. Do you own or have access to a color image scanner?
I did Monday morning. I don't think it was damaged in my flood, but I won't know for sure until I find and set up my desktop computer system in my new place.

Welcome to fellow UAS students - CIOS 152

I created this blog to document my progress learning Photoshop CS4. This is the second blog I've created. See you in class.