PROJECTS DIRECTIONS
FIVE MINUTE WALK:
The Five Minute Walk Project
1. After taking photographs for this project, open them all in Preview and select what you think are the strongest 5 or 6 images. Base this decision on thecomposition of the objects in the photograph, the relevance of the subject matter, as well as the feedback received through formal and informal critiquing.
2. Once final images are selected, edit them in Photoshop by cropping, correcting for levels, and adjusting the size/resolution in order to fit into the new document you will be making in the next step.
3. Create a new document in Photoshop (File > New) at a size of about 8 inches high by 10 inches wide, with a resolution of 150 pixels.
4. Resize your pictures in Photoshop (Image > Image Size) to about 3" x 4" at 150 resolution. Drag each picture from the OPEN PICTURE (not the icon from the folder!!!) into the new document using the MOVE TOOL. DO NOT drag the small thumbnail picture that shows up when browsing through the Finder menu, as it will be a low resolution images which will not be editable. Ask me if you are unsure about what this means. After all images are on one document, immediately save the document as follows: "yourname_5minwalk" into your art shared folder.
5. Arrange the images on the page, further adjusting the size or cropping if necessary. Again, consider the composition of the arrangement of the photographs on the page. They should "flow" from top left to bottom right, and utilize the "rule of thirds". Overlapping is okay, but not so much that important parts of images are cut off. Rotating images is also okay, but only when it is done skillfully and with the overall composition in mind. Critiques will help to identify the overall success of the composition.
6. Create a "pattern" in Photoshop by selecting an interesting part of one of your pictures with the rectangular marquee tool. Go to (edit > define pattern) and name your pattern something you will remember. Apply the pattern into a new layer (Layers Pallette > New Layer) by (Edit > Fill > Use Pattern). Afterward, blur the pattern layer (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) adjusting the amount of blur to maximize the images while "pushing" the background pattern back. Experiment with levels on the background pattern to make it complement the images, or to prevent it from being distracting form them.
7. Make any final adjustments to each image (levels, color balance, cropping, sizing, etc.), flatten the image (Layers Pallette > Flatten Image), and save the flattened version as follows: your name_5minwalk_flat. Do Not save the flattened version as the unflattened one (yourname_5minwalk) when closing the file...so DO NOT save changes to (yourname_5minwalk) or the unflattened version will be overwritten by the flat one.
PANOGRAPH:
Panographs: Panoramas on Steroids
Do you ever look up at the sky, a towering office building, or an expansive landscape and wish your photographs could capture everything you can see with your eyes?
This project introduces a digital photography technique called panography. After taking dozens of photos of a scene, you’ll assemble a patchwork of images that more accurately represents what your eyes see when you're not looking through a viewfinder.
Panographs are wide-angle pictures composed of many individual photos manually layered together. When these component photos are assembled, they give the impression one would get standing in one place, looking around and unconsciously putting the pictures together in one's head.
STEP 1: SETUP
Go out into the world and find something interesting to shoot. Once you've found something, pick your point of view and make sure you can see everything you want to shoot without moving from your position.
Manually set the focus, f-stop, and shutter speed on your camera. This ensures that it doesn't light meter every shot and your photos aren't all differently exposed. Just get a general meter reading and stay with that exposure for all of the photographs that you take of that scene. If you want your panography to consist of many individual photos, zoom in a bit.
STEP 2: TAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
Shoot. Don't move from your position, but do move your lens in all directions. Try tilting your camera to different angles to soften the straight panorama look. And keep in mind that the more your shots overlap, the easier it'll be to assemble your panography later.
Make sure you cover every spot with at least one picture. We tend to only photograph the interesting spots, like lines and busy areas, and oftentimes forget to get the plain areas. Leave a shot out and you'll be left with a hole in your final piece with no way to fill it!
STEP 3: PREPARE YOUR FILES
Unload your camera and, using Photoshop, resize your photographs to 800 pixels by 600 (or whatever the shorter side comes out to). It's tedious to do this manually for each photo, so to expedite the process, record the resizing and saving of one photo as a new Photoshop Action (see bottom of this page for more about Photoshop Actions). Then go to File > Automate > Batch to select the new action and apply it to your entire folder of panography photos.
NOTE: If you want to save the originals, don't forget to duplicate your folder before you resize.
STEP 4: PREPARE YOUR CANVAS
Create (File > New) a large (11.7 x 16.5 @ 200 resolution) new RGB canvas to work on. If it turns out the canvas is too small, you can always add some space later (Image > Canvas > Canvas Size). Copy (open in Photoshop, use move tool to drag opened file into new document) the new 800px versions of your images into your canvas--5 to 10 images at a time ought to be manageable.
STEP 5: ASSEMBLE YOUR PANOGRAPHY
Set the opacity of each photo to about 90%. Using the Transform function (Show Transform Controls should be checked), start moving and rotating each photo to fit the ones next to it. Be careful to make sure you're rotating (you should see a curved arrow tool when you're near a corner) and notdistorting the photographs. Now go photo by photo and assemble your panograph like a puzzle. It will take a while to get it right, so be sure to save your work often as you go along.
STEP 6: FINALIZE YOUR PANOGRAPH
When you're finished assembling the photos together, and before you make final color, contrast, and levels adjustments, we’re going to keep the transparency overlapping look by doing the following: Adjust the “fill” of each layer by selecting and dragging the slider on the layers palette so that the images all have good contrast and color. After this is done to each layer, go back and readjust the brightness/contrast, color balance, and, if necessary, the levels of each layer to compensate for any light images created by adjusting the fill.
When everything is complete and finalized, combine all the layers (layers palette arrow > flatten image), and “save as” (last name_panograph_flat). Close original file, don’t save changes.
Do you ever look up at the sky, a towering office building, or an expansive landscape and wish your photographs could capture everything you can see with your eyes?
This project introduces a digital photography technique called panography. After taking dozens of photos of a scene, you’ll assemble a patchwork of images that more accurately represents what your eyes see when you're not looking through a viewfinder.
Panographs are wide-angle pictures composed of many individual photos manually layered together. When these component photos are assembled, they give the impression one would get standing in one place, looking around and unconsciously putting the pictures together in one's head.
STEP 1: SETUP
Go out into the world and find something interesting to shoot. Once you've found something, pick your point of view and make sure you can see everything you want to shoot without moving from your position.
Manually set the focus, f-stop, and shutter speed on your camera. This ensures that it doesn't light meter every shot and your photos aren't all differently exposed. Just get a general meter reading and stay with that exposure for all of the photographs that you take of that scene. If you want your panography to consist of many individual photos, zoom in a bit.
STEP 2: TAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
Shoot. Don't move from your position, but do move your lens in all directions. Try tilting your camera to different angles to soften the straight panorama look. And keep in mind that the more your shots overlap, the easier it'll be to assemble your panography later.
Make sure you cover every spot with at least one picture. We tend to only photograph the interesting spots, like lines and busy areas, and oftentimes forget to get the plain areas. Leave a shot out and you'll be left with a hole in your final piece with no way to fill it!
STEP 3: PREPARE YOUR FILES
Unload your camera and, using Photoshop, resize your photographs to 800 pixels by 600 (or whatever the shorter side comes out to). It's tedious to do this manually for each photo, so to expedite the process, record the resizing and saving of one photo as a new Photoshop Action (see bottom of this page for more about Photoshop Actions). Then go to File > Automate > Batch to select the new action and apply it to your entire folder of panography photos.
NOTE: If you want to save the originals, don't forget to duplicate your folder before you resize.
STEP 4: PREPARE YOUR CANVAS
Create (File > New) a large (11.7 x 16.5 @ 200 resolution) new RGB canvas to work on. If it turns out the canvas is too small, you can always add some space later (Image > Canvas > Canvas Size). Copy (open in Photoshop, use move tool to drag opened file into new document) the new 800px versions of your images into your canvas--5 to 10 images at a time ought to be manageable.
STEP 5: ASSEMBLE YOUR PANOGRAPHY
Set the opacity of each photo to about 90%. Using the Transform function (Show Transform Controls should be checked), start moving and rotating each photo to fit the ones next to it. Be careful to make sure you're rotating (you should see a curved arrow tool when you're near a corner) and notdistorting the photographs. Now go photo by photo and assemble your panograph like a puzzle. It will take a while to get it right, so be sure to save your work often as you go along.
STEP 6: FINALIZE YOUR PANOGRAPH
When you're finished assembling the photos together, and before you make final color, contrast, and levels adjustments, we’re going to keep the transparency overlapping look by doing the following: Adjust the “fill” of each layer by selecting and dragging the slider on the layers palette so that the images all have good contrast and color. After this is done to each layer, go back and readjust the brightness/contrast, color balance, and, if necessary, the levels of each layer to compensate for any light images created by adjusting the fill.
When everything is complete and finalized, combine all the layers (layers palette arrow > flatten image), and “save as” (last name_panograph_flat). Close original file, don’t save changes.