My Digital Media Arts Blog – Just another DMA Sites site

Image Compositing

Throughout Project Two we focused on taking images from project one and making a new image. I believe this was the best project so far. Not only did I learn how to use Photoshop a lot better but I had fun. In the beginning, I had a difficult time because my selection of images was not good. I felt a lot of restriction in creating something new but I am proud of what I have accomplished. Being able to take the letter out of the poem and put them on the page was most rewarding. Professor Licata did an amazing job with this project. Critic day really helped me to get my head on straight. I tried to apply everything told to me. This is my favorite work I have done in this class so far. I plan to continue learning about photoshop but this lesson really made me excited to continue learning and improving.

Adobe Illustrator Pen Tool

This lab was one of the more easier labs given. The professor was very clear in his lesson and provided different functions to use the pen. I believe I did well at creating the tree and the first four but after that it all went down hill. I could improve this submission by spending more time learning and practicing. At one point, I became very annoyed. Overall, I am fairly satisfied. I definitely see myself using this on future projects to create shapes.

Textures from Photos

Throughout lab four, we focused our time on creating textures from pictures. My favorite texture is the one made from the sweater. I found it very cool and I was able to use old techniques like retouching images to then create this texture. The red and blue image was created by using foreground and background colors and using a cloud effect. I can see this being useful to make flyers or tye- dye shirts. The last image is brushed metal. It was my least favorite one creating because I couldn’t understand it use. Even though I am getting more comfortable with Photoshop I find the directions are sometimes not enough to get me through the labs. Overall the lab was alright and beneficial.

Project One: Portfolio

I would like to first say, this was a lot of work but in the end it was worth it. I have learned to optimize, color correct, and retouch images. I believe my favorite part was retouching the images and seeing how people can be fooled by using photoshop but I also was able to watch as some images were brought back to life. At point in correcting the color the color felt as vivid as real life and thats something I really enjoyed. Although the process was fun, I feel like my submission can be improved. Maybe I was confident in what I was doing but I felt a little lost at some points. I believe when I become more familiar with my professor and photoshop my skills will advance. To improve project one, students should be asked to do 16 images and more like 10. This will allow the student to spend more time fixing each image rather than rushing to edit 16. I believe the quality would be much better. I will always continue to advance and use what I learned from this project.

The images I choose for this project are very sincere to me. This portfolio is about striving to be the best me I can be. Most of the images I used are on my bedroom wall so I am reminded of them everyday. These images remind me to never forget my family and my childhood because those two have made me who I am. The rewards are my constant reminder to celebrate life and keep going. I have two full walls at home but these images mean the most, thats why I choose to bring them to college.

Composite Images

As we look forward to project two, we are learning new ways to take separate images and put them together. I am familiar with some of the tools like magnetic lasso and the pen tool but I had very hard time understanding the “Pulling Selections” diresctions. In the future, the directions should be more clear just to help guide the students along. I believe this is one of the better labs I have submitted but to improve it I could have asked for help from my professor. As I said before this skill we be necessary in project two so I am excited to give it another try.

Lab Two : Retouching Images Pt.2

Welcome to Part Two of Retouching Images

The process for retouching images part two is exactly the same as part one but I wanted to reflect separately on the changes in appearances amongst these images. Part one defiently lacked color but part two is fill with different colors at the same time. The most difficult part was trying to make sure no color over powered another. I think I did well at that aspect. Before trying to correct colors, scanning this image came out very plain compared to the actual article. It lacked the color intensity as presented in the magazine. Throughout the process of color correcting I aimed to make the color as vibrant. I would say I was successful.

Lab Two: Retouching Images PT. 1

Throughout the last few weeks our class has focused on retouching images in photoshop. Throughout this experience I have gained a better understanding for color correcting images, removing blemishes and have leaerned various way of saving images. Although the process was not easy it was manageable. I believe with practice I will be able to replicate this process and advance my skill. In the future, I will use my professor as a resource to help perfect my piece. I have used photoshop prior to this class but having a trained eye look at my work will improve it more. My favorite part throughout the whole process was scanning images and correcting them to look similar to the paper in front of me.

Acquiring Images: Download

Downloading images from unsplash was fairly simple and I will continue to use this site because it gives out a lot beautiful photographs. This site can also serve as a reference of how images should to come out. It is hard to find license-free art but unsplah is very helpful.

Katara D. Willis: All about me !

Welcome to My Page!

Hello, my name is Katara D. Willis and I am freshman at Canisius College. At Canisius I study Digital Media Arts with a focus in film-making. During my high school career I attended The Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts as a theatre major and throughout my time there I have been in more than ten staged-plays including plays at professional theaters like Subversive and have done film work with WNED studios. Theatre has opened a lot of opportunities, in fact in May of 2019 I was able to perform on Broadway and earned a national title from The August Wilson Monologue Competition. After seeing my performance in New York City invited to Aspen, Colorado to speak on panel at Aspen Ideas Festival. In the future I would like to own luxury apartment and condos but also own my own production company. Stick around and watch as I learn to master the art of film-making.

Acquiring Images: Photoshop

By using photoshop I was able to mix together three images to create a postcard. Before making an attempt to create this image I decided making this image horizontal (637 by 471)with arts art boards. Honestly , I am not satisfied at all with my work and I realized the poor resolution when I zoom in. Unfortunately I was not able to fix my wrong doing because experience with photoshop is very minimal. Merging images together is as much as I know. I plan to continue working with photoshop and gain a better understanding of its ability.