FIT Fall 2002
Professor Terry Towery
PH - 406
Digital Special Effects & Photographic Retouching

 

Description-
Students will use their traditional painting skills to develop the professional applications of digital photo retouching and special effects. This advanced course will explore the commercial aspects of Photoshop and it's plug-ins. Students will achieve the technical ability to transform initial creative inspirations into powerful visual reality.

 Textbook -
Photohop 6 Against the Clock


 Other Optional books:
Real World Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop 6.0 - Down & Dirty Tricks
Photoshop 6 Visual Quick Start

  Grading - Your grades will be based on both technical ability and creativity. Creativity is your own unique approach to the assignmmnet or problem, Technical ability is straightforward and relates to how well the technique suits the imagery.
Attendance, Class participation - 10%
Weekly assignments - 25%
Book Assignments - 25%
Final portfolio 40% - Sometime around 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the course you should choose an individual direction and develop a portfolio of at least 15 images demonstrating your vision.

The most important thing that effects your grade is your final portfolio. You must submit your direction to me in writing for approval by week 10 at the very latest. It must contain 15-20 examples demonstrating your mastery of techniques discussed in class. It must be presented on time and profesionally.

Some examples include: illustrate Poe's The Raven
Coffee, non profit org, a cause, season, holiday, etc...
Week 1
9/3

Introduction

Lecture: Review Handouts & Discuss Class Projects
Class Assignments:
Homework: Magazine Assignment

 Bring in examples of digital work or special effect work that you find interesting. Either in print or on the web.
Week 2
9/10

Slides and other examples

Lecture: Tools, Menu, Layers, Transformation & Retouching Tools - Rubber Stamps, Dodge, Burn, Gradients & Airbrush

Homework: Finish Retouching Ex. & Bring Images for Scanning

 Double expose a roll of color film Midterm assignment Mixed media

Read: ATC – Chapter #2 & 3

Class Assignment: Retouching - ATC Project D-1 - Damaged Photo
Week 3
9/17

Imaging Chain

Lecture: Obtaining Images - Scanning & Corrections, Photo CD's & Web Sites, RGB/CMYK etc, Raster & Vector
Class Assignment: Scan & Correct, Download Photo CD, Web Sites Homework: ATC Chapter # 2 – Poolside

Bring Head Shot of yourself to class for scanning

Read: ATC – Chapter #6
Week 4
9/24

Transform, Distort, Liquify, filters, and Channels

Lecture: Advanced Selection Techniques - Tools, Quick Masks,
Paths, Demo Cut and Paste & Adv. Channel Operations
Class Assignment: Create Composite Image in 2 Enviroments

Create a self caricature

Read: ATC – Chapter #7
Week 5
10/1

Mixed media - Analog to digital to analog Image transfer from Xerox Adv Layer Tech.

Lecture: Advanced Layer Tech. - Layer Masks, Guides, Opacity,
Adjustment Layers, Modes, Drop Shadows, Blurring
Class Assignment: Comp Using Adv. Layer Tech. - Hand

Begin The Raven project

Bring small objects to class for direct scanning.

Read: ATC – Chapter #13

Week 6
10/8

Direct scanning- Mixing the digital and the analog realm

Lecture: Filters and Plug-ins

 Illustrate a heightened emotion.
Week 7
10/15

Compositing - Understanding Channels - inserting image into another

Lecture: Retouching & Color Manipulation - Realigning, Tonal
Range, Hue & Saturation, Color Balance, Etc.
Class Assignment: Flower and Fruit Ex.

Read: ATC – Chapter #8 

Anaglyph imagery The third dimension
Week 8
10/22

Moving between applications

Lecture: Introduction to Term Project
Colorizing Monochromatic Images - Select, Desaturate
Class Assignment: Desaturate Color Image and Colorize

Shoot an interesting location then shoot a model in the studio to go in the location digitally Focus on lighting and shadows

Read ATC – Chapter #12

Prepare projects for critique
Week 9
10/29

CRITIQUE Mixed media and caricature and The Raven

 

Read: ATC – Chapter # 15 & 16 
Week 10
11/5

retouching tools - clone, healing brush,

Lecture: Color Seperations & Duotones, Printing Options
Class Assignment: Create Color Seperation of Term Project

retouching assignment
Week 11
11/12		 Quark
Full page ad layout
Week 12
11/19		 Photoshop, ImageReady and the web - built in features for the web eg web portfolio, save for web,  
Week 13
11/26

File formats considered - gifs vs jpegs vs PNG

 Lecture: Saving for the Web - Jpg vs Gif PICT, TIFF, Sharing Files Between Different Applications, Clipping Paths

 create a web banner ad
Week 14
12/3		 animations and rollovers  
Week 15
12/10		 Final CRITIQUE - Final Web Based portfolio due - NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED. This is an absolute deadline!!!  
12/17
study day no classes
  
Links of interest:

Adobe maintains a wealth of tutorials
Computerarts.co.uk tutorials
Hotwired on photography
Doc OZone's now classic cheese page
KPT Kai's Power Tips Understandg channel operations
Deepspaceweb offers tips
PDN Pix
Photoserve
Photosource
Digital Camera Resource
Copyright info		 Graphic Arts professional organizations:

Photo Marketing Assn
Natl Assn of Photoshop Professionals
Digital Imaging Marketing Assn
Professional Photographers Assn
American Institure of Graphic Arts
American Society of Media Photographers
Digital Video Professionals Assn
Graphic Artists Guild 		Manufacturers:
Nikon
Epson
Canon
Umax
digital techniques:
Distort Commands
QTVR
Liquify
Layer Compostiting
Direct scanning
Curves
Duotones/Tri and Quad
Solarize
Shooting off the screen
Inkjet transfer
shooting for Compositing in photoshop - green/Blue screen and lighting		 Places to get prints from digital files
Shutterfly (650/610-5200),
Photo-Access (206/264-2488),
Ofoto (510/647-0514) .
Kodak also offers services from ofoto		 analog photo supplies
Polaroid materials Polaroid 59 or 669
artists paper Fabriano
Gepe Snap together slide mounts
Slide film
Inkjet paper

Analog special effects:
Polaroid processes
Double exposure
Negative and slide sandwiches
Scratching on film
Solarization
Overexposure with diffusion
Flash and Jiggle
Uelsmann's multiple printing techniques
Cross processing On Hotwired or A simple how to and how to simulate it digitally
Filtration on camera (eg Cokin), on lights (eg gelling the lights)
Alt processes - Cyano, Platinum etc...
Toning - Copper, Sepia, silver
Bleaching