Photoshop Exercise Part I

Here is one example of my photoshop practice work:

This Champion Sandplum Ridge Pot of Gold named Pogo from Azle Texas has his eye on the prize at the 132nd Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. (WILLIAM PERLMAN/THE STAR-LEDGER)

I cropped this image to fit the 280px X 100px dimension configuration, brightened the image with the curves application and also sharpened it. I tried to emphasize the dogs stare to give him a competitive aura.

This Champion Sandplum Ridge Pot of Gold named Pogo from Azle Texas shows off as he has his photo taken after the show at the 132nd Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. (WILLIAM PERLMAN/THE STAR-LEDGER)

I cropped this image 332px X 220px to capture his whole "costume." I also brightened the image with curves and sharpened it.

The complete assignment is on my personal blog space.

Soundslides assignment

Important updates:

Remaining work time: You will get one hour of class time today and one hour of class time on Wednesday.  At the end of that hour on Wednesday, your project must be copied to the folder named below or it will be considered late.

Sizing: The standard output size for Soundslides is too big for a Blogger blog.  Follow menu commands Modify > Output Size to make the output size of your show 380 wide and 285 high.  This must be done before you export.

Finishing and exporting: When your project is the way you want it, you need to carefully follow the "Publishing basics" instructions in the Soundslides manual for how to export - you will be following "Someone else will be uploading the files to a server."  The place to put those files is explained in the next note here.

Turning it in:  When you are finishing your slideshow, you will create a "publish-to-web" folder. Rename that folder to your name (no spaces, all small letters) and put in the JRN320 Liss folder on the journalism drive in a folder called "Soundslides folders here." Paul will be moving all those folders to webspace he controls and he will give us the URL for obtaining the embed code.

Due date: Wed., March 12, end of one-hour work period.  Late work will be penalized two letter grades.

Value: 10% of your grade for the course

Turn-in method: Post it to the class blog; link to it from your blog.  Instructions for posting to a Blogger blog, like ours are in the Soundslides manual. (You will need to size the slideshow to the right dimensions for a Blogger blog.)

Objective: In this assignment, you will create a Soundslides presentation of at least 3 minutes, including at least 40 images (more on image-to-time ratio below).  The presentation should be on a local, national or international news event, trend or personality of significance.  If you have any doubt that your topic is appropriate, please discuss with me.

Additional notes:

• Your photos can be from any source, but understand that unless you have the rights to the photos (most likely because they're either your shots or they're AP shots) this presentation cannot be submitted for publication.  Except for your own images, you must include the source of your images in your credits. Use some style to attribute photo source (MLA, Chicago, etc. Here's a useful link).  
• For shooting your own images, there are nice digital cameras available for sign-out. See Paul in the newsroom.
• Your music can be from any source, but, again, in order to be publishable outside class, you must obtain the web rebroadcast rights. You must cite your source here in one of the accepted styles.
• You will need some Web space for this assignment.  There will be a solution for the class that will be detailed here.  For anyone who wants to work independently on this, you may open your own free account on webng.com.  Soundslides offers tips and a demonstration for how to export your slideshow to webng. This is a very good solution and it may become the class solution, so you are encouraged to explore this option.  Update (March 5).  Webng is presenting some problems - Uploading files from the newsroom seems to not be happening.  Our webspace solution is going to be some help from Paul.  When you are finishing your slideshow, you will create a "publish-to-web" folder. Rename that folder when it's been created to your name and put in the JRN320 Liss folder on the journalism drive in a folder called "Soundslides folders here."  Paul will be moving all those folders to some webspace he controls and he will give us the URL for obtaining the embed code.
• Your presentation should include panning movement in a high percentage of your images.  The image movement and flow should be "choreographed" to the music to some degree. The better the image movement and music work together, the better.
• Your topic should be something of significance in the very local world of SBU (a campus incident, a basketball game, a guest lecture, etc.) or of some news significance in the larger world.  Your selection of topics will have to be determined to some degree on the availability of images.  Some of your images can be multiple crops of the same image, keeping in mind that the tighter the crop, the more important it is to have a somewhat hi-res version of the image. We will spend some time brainstorming topics.
• Your music should be appropriate to the topic. Length must be at least three minutes, but as you go longer, you should look to include more images.  You shouldn't dip below an average of one image every six seconds.   Soundslides will import an MP3 or several other audio types, but you cannot edit sound for length or anything else inside the program - once it's imported, other than killing a song and trying a new one, that's it. Follow instructions here for shortening an MP3 file using applications available in the Newsroom.

Monday, Feb. 18 - Class topics

Today in class:

• Prepare for 7:30 iChat with Kevin Whitmer, managing editor of the Star-Ledger.  Here's how I explained to him what I'd like to do today:

  I want to focus on the advent of the CND, what it meant to the paper to get that started on as many levels as you can cover – what it has meant to the mindset of the newsroom, what it’s done regarding resources, etc. We can do this as Q&A, and I want my students to be asking questions. We have spoken in general about some issues I’d expect you to cover, but we haven’t delved deep. I think I’d also want to bring up some issues around interactivity and blog comments – to contrast our way of working as opposed to how the NYT is handling comments and how you and your staff have discussed this and feel about it.
  
  Finally, I’m thinking about spending some time before you arrive to talk about the set of news-biz-related articles in today’s NYT biz section and maybe getting some react from you on whatever issues that might raise for us. In case you haven’t seen, here are a few links – interesting stuff - Times to cut 100newsroom jobs,  - 4th LA Times editor in 3 years, Companies combine to sell ads on the web 

  I'd like to spend some time preparing for this as if it were an interview, and if there's a little more time, we'll read those articles and discuss.

• wrap on this chat
• time on Photoshop (exercise 1 and 2) and Soundslides exercises.

Layered Photoshop flag exercise

Photoshop layer practice

1. Open one of the docs in the JRN320 Liss folder called “Photoshop templates” These are layered templates for 175x126 images that include various effects and a text overlay. Save-as the image with your name on it so you are not modifying the base image the class is working with
   
2. Toggle the eyeball icon for some of the layers to become familiar with what each one does to the image
   
3. Double-click some of the effects and play around with them.
   
4. Cut an image of your own and paste it in as a new layer. Most of the templates have a “paste image here” layer that should be selected when you paste. Otherwise, paste it in anywhere and experiment with dragging layers up and down in the layer menu to get it “under” the various effects. (Be prepared to delete steps in your “history” if you get stuck.
   
5. Experiment with the text layer. (Go to Window > character to make sure the character window is visible) – font size, letting, color.
   

When you have practiced enough, create two layered images of your own starting from one of the templates. Your overall mission is to create a pair of “flags” that each tease a story and create a package as if it were going to go on a Website homepage.

• Select an image and text that start to tell a story. Create your layered image
  
• Upload the image to your blog and position it in a blog entry along with a headline and some copy that teases a story for a reader to read and interact in some way – comment, upload their own photo, etc.
  

Photoshop practice Exercise

Hannah Rocks, as well as others, during a night full of music!

I cropped the picture to 220x332 pixels.  After cropping it I then took the image and changed the lighting, following up by sharpening the image.  I wanted to show her enjoying herself while rocking out on stage and I wanted to show how a person who was equally as happy to rock out.

Photoshop practice exercise - example 1

University of Newark's Quianna Trawick (left) and Tiffany Green try to grab a rebound from Murry-Bergtraum's Shakira Washington during the Prime Time Shootout at Friday.  (FRANK H. CONLON/THE STAR-LEDGER)

Here's what i did in photoshop and what I was trying to do to tell a story

Photoshop practice exercise - Part I

Cropping, resizing, simple adjustments, saving for web

In your own blog, create an entry for this exercise and call it Photoshop practice exercise I.  We will use part of class on Feb. 11 and Feb. 13 to work on this.  Use the tips we have discussed in class and that are available in this blog

Using 5 images in our class space on the Journalism drive "Photoshop practice images," practice cropping and sizing images for maximum effect. Create 10 images by cropping each source image two different ways.  Under each image, write a caption that includes a credit (look in "file Info"). In italics below that, indicate what Photoshop tasks you performed on each image and what you were trying to do to tell a story with that image.

Notes: 

1. Your images should all be one of the following dimension configurations: (width x height) 332 x 220, 220 x 332, 135 x 101 or 280 x 100 - and you must use all of these sizes at least once
   
2. These images may NOT be distributed beyond this class and the assignment you are doing. They are the property of the Star-Ledger.