Weekly Lecture Notes & Exercises

May 30, 2025

Weekly Lecture Notes & Exercises

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Week 1

Lecture

Module Information Booklet:

Lecture Slides:

I look back on the lecture notes to understand what have been taught in week 1.

In this module, we are learning Adobe Photoshop, to create graphic design, manipulate photography, express creativity and many more. Why do we need to learn these? To restore an old photograph, to express an idea, to deliver a message, to create propaganda and more. We can use it to achieve many results and goals. Digital imaging is a very creative way to do that, We basically use different images from different sources, edit it and combine it into a complete graphic design with meaning. It's like a mix and match.

Past Students' Works:

Tutorial & Practical

I register into this module late; I missed 2 weeks of classes. So, this week 1 class exercise is done in week 3. I already have a blogger account, so I just add a new label for this module, named as Digital Photography and Imaging. This post is for class notes and exercises only. Information about assignments will be written in other blog posts.

Pinterest board link: https://pin.it/miZ3pRmHM

I also have several accounts in Pinterest, so I use one of them to create a Pinterest board only for this module, named as DPI. I saved some pins, and I chose 3 of them to express my point of view.

Pinterest board

This is actually a moving picture, it looks so incredible and magical. I think this collage gives a kind of fairy, time, dimension vibes, like a beautiful fairy from a different dimension, moving across time, travelling to different places.

This is a graphic design of someone on Pinterest, I’m unsure of the author, but it should be LunaCr3ativa as shown on the graphic design. This poster is expressing an old soul (which indicates a younger person with an old soul), has an interest in beautiful vintage thingy and ideas.

I think that this is a fan edit poster for Melanie Martinez's song, Tunnel Vision. The concepts are really dreamy, fully represent the visuals from her music style, her story for the song. It gives off a secret fantasy garden overall. The old keyboard is covered with plants, makes us think that is this world existed after a downfall of modern world now, the human is no longer existed, the earth is now a world lived by aliens or new species. Or this is purely a different dimension.

The world ' Enter the game?' suggests that this might be a game world, and it is now an entering portal, player need to choose whether they want to take this adventure or not. I really like the outer world vibe.

This is a fan edited poster for Haerin. Haerin, a member from the K-pop girl group named as NJZ or formerly known as New Jean. I was immediately attracted by this poster because of its colour. The bright orange stands out among all the other graphic designs. The design is very clean, straightforward. The concepts should be expressing the characteristics of Haerin.

I like the way the artist uses bubbles, goldfish and fishbowl to create this visual. It’s like Haerin herself is a goldfish inside a fishbowl. It has a very refreshing live energy. The only thing that is not perfect is that the way the artist arranges the letter for her name is a little bit misleading. People who don’t know Haerin might read it as Haenir, the placement of the letter can be better.

Week 2

Lecture

Again, I look back on lecture slides to understand week 2's lecture.

Lecture slides:

Introduction to basic composition

Basically, we learn about composition this week. We can use basic components like focal point, manipulate scale and hierarchy, use of white space/negative space and creating balance to create a nice composition. These applied to all graphic design, not only photography but also drawings. We have some simple rules that had been used for graphic design like Rule of Third and Golden Ratio. By using these two rules, we can achieve a very good and balance composition.

Rule of Third:

Golden Ratio:

Tutorial & Practical

Do Project 1: Physical Collage.

Week 3

Lecture Slides:

In today's lecture class, we have a small introduction in using Photoshop. We learn about pen tool, lasso tool and layers. We also use a website name The Bezier Game to practice on using the pen tool. It was fun, even though not easy to do so. We use pen tool to draw things, use lasso tool to select and cut things while use layer to do layering and separate components clearly.

The Bezier Game: https://bezier.method.ac/

Tutorial & Practical

I have completed the physical collage before class, Mr. Fauzi comments on my products and we continue on in digital collage.

I have my first class in week 3. We are to watch tutorial videos prepared by the lecturer and learn Adobe Photoshop. We also need to create 3 digital collages for our task 2. I practice and try to create a collage in class.

My first collage is quite complicated and is way too crowded. The concept I go for is a fishbowl effect, it's like watching the world inside a fishbowl, from the perspective of a fish. Pretend to be a fish, we watch the busy train station, filled by with people, bustling. But they have freedom, but as a fish inside a fishbowl, we are stuck here.

First try:

During the class session, I ask for opinion from lecturer. Mr. Fauzi suggest using golden ratio as a guide to create this collage. And ask me to turn the collage into vertical as most of the poster are in vertical. I should use less layers, less elements, so it won't be too messy like this. I change the design according to the comments given and have the final outcome as below, it does looks neater than the last one.

In this collage, I use:

- layering and blending

- object selection tool.

Final outcome:

Week 4

Tutorial & Practical

We are to follow the tutorial video or slides prepared to complete an exercise that teach us about selection tool, layer mask, filters and colour correction.

Hearst Mansion with Shazam

In the first part, we need to follow the lecture notes or video to do the exercise. We need to add in Shazam to Hearst Mansion environment. First, I need to crop out the image of the Shazam, then, paste it in the hearst mansion. I need to adjust its scale to match the hearst mansion scale. Then, I adjust its colour to match the Hearst Mansion and added noise.

I add shadow and reflection for it. The below is my product following the tutorial.

Product:

2. Recolouring B & W photo - Demo exercise

Following the tutorial notes, first, I extracted the colour from the image given. I need skin colour and hair colour. Then I use quick selection tool to select the hair and click 'Select and Mask'. This will lead me into a selection page, where I can use brushes to brush over the edge to refine the edge that I selected. Then, I create a solid colour layer mask and add in my selected layer in. The colour will mask onto the hair like picture shown below.

I repeat the same steps for the skin and cloth. Then, the lips, earrings, teeth and eye colour. (I adjusted the skin colour after finish most of the masking, because the skin colour was a too greyish).