Final Project.

So, for my final I re-edited old photos. The final product will be presented in a "book" form, but since I'm not entirely done with it yet I've made some triptychs to post here. Each set begins on the left with the photo completely unedited, straight out of the camera. The second, or middle photo, is the first edit I had done whenever it was taken. And the photo all the way on the right is the new edit that I did to show the techniques I learned in class. (The book is set up a tad differently, with each set of photos taking up two pages; the original and old edit will be on the left as 5x7 photos, and the final edit will be on the right as an 8x10).

Admittedly, it is a bit hard to see the differences in some of the photos when they're next to each other. It's much easier to tell on-screen when you're flipping through them, but I liked the look of a book better.
I believe there are twenty-three sets of photos in all, but I've decided to only post four on here so as to not make this the longest post ever.

Here ya' go:

1)


2)


3)


4)

Future of Photography.

Currently my computer won't load the video, so I can't watch it before class, but I'll comment on where I think photography could be headed:

Photography has advanced exponentially in the past ten years or so. The movement from film to digital happened so quickly that it's actually difficult to fathom the advancements. I feel like the coming age of photography has so much potential to improve; as time passes the cameras will become quicker, the images will be of better quality, the span of colors will broader, etc. But I also think that there will come a point (hopefully not anytime soon) when photography in itself will be obsolete. Eventually people will be able to make video recordings of absolutely everything, and will then be capable of going through the videos and choosing individual frames, thus eliminating any need for the still camera. It's an incredibly sad thought, but when it comes to technology nothing is sacred, and everything can be "improved" and replaced.

Final Project Idea

I wasn't sure what my final project should be, and I'm still not 100%, but I was thinking since I've learned a lot about retouching that I would take a bunch of my older photos and edit them using the new techniques I've learned. I figured I could show the original, the old edit, and the new one so the improvements would be clearer.

These are some of the photos I was considering using (They're all pulled from facebook, so they're not of very good quality, and they have an obnoxious watermark, but just go with it.)

Retouching.

Before:



After:





(Sorry it's late!)

Collage.

Okay, so just a small disclaimer before I throw the collage in here; this project snowballed out of control, really quickly.

So I started with this lovely picture of what I thought was the moon, but now I think it's Pluto?


Anyway, after that I decided there should probably be some people thrown in there, so I added this nice group photo to the mix:


Then I figured it could use a little bit more finesse, and threw some fireworks in there:


Now there needed to be a little something to go with the 6 Flags sign, so I figured a roller coaster and some monuments would help that out:


So then it was looking a bit barren in the foreground, and I figured another little scene was necessary: (Fun fact about that scene: That Hilary Clinton barista was actually already photoshopped, I just found it on google. The convenience was a little scary...)


See, I thought I was done at that point, but like I said, it snowballed. It looked finished, but then I realized there was way too much usable space in the middle for it to really be done. Hence, this was born:


Now, I really thought I was done after that, but the sky just really looked like it was missing something. So here's a scene of my brother riding Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time...:


Alright, now this time I knew I was really done, but it was actually missing one more thing. Which brings us to the final product:


So that's my collage! It's 70 layers, and comprised of around 60 images.

First Assignment.

I've been using photoshop for around 3 years, I'm not very experienced though since I generally stick to the same few basic edits. Mainly I do portraiture, so my editing revolves around lighting changes and cleaning up skin.

I'd like to learn to do more in photoshop, such as changing backgrounds, editing out items that I don't want in the photo (power lines, shadows, stray people, etc.). I'd also like to learn how to improve the simple editing skills I already have. Being able to adjust lighting without it actually looking photoshopped would be great to learn. I also tend to have problems with skin editing when I use the stamp tool, so learning how to blend better would be really useful.

Learning new programs would be great to know as well. I use photoshop and lightoom, but both programs have so much potential for my photos, and I'd love to learn more about both. Learning how to use Adobe Bridge and Adobe RAW (they may be the same thing. I have no idea...) would be really useful also. I just want to get whatever I can out of this class. Editing pictures can get really time-consuming, especially when you're not positive on what you're doing, so I just want to learn whatever I can to make the process simpler and more effective.

If we're going to be learning about using the printers, that would be great too. I used them a bit last year, but I want to get more in depth with that.

Honestly, just anything computer-wise that this class has to offer is going to be really helpful.

If you wanted to get the general idea of what I shoot, this is my Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephaniekatz27/