Digital Photography and Imaging - Exercises

01/04/19 – 30/04/19 (Week 1 – Week 5)
Chan Qian Hui (0334447)
Digital Photography and Imaging

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INSTRUCTIONS

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EXERCISES

Week 1: Hearst Mansion

For the first exercise, we were introduced to the basics of Adobe Photoshop. We learnt a few skills for Adobe Photoshop such as :

• Selecting image using Quick Selection
• Zoom in, out and panning images
• Copy and Paste
• Deselect Images
• Undo and Redo
• History
• Layers
• Deleting Layer
• Duplicating Layer
• Rearrange Layer
• Opacity Layer
• Transform Layer
• Hue and Saturation
• Match Color
• Move Tool
• Shadow Painting
• Filter > Noise

For our first exercise, we were given a interior photo of Hearst Mansion. We were required to select one full body picture of ourselves, then place the picture of our body in the Hearst Mansion while making it look as realistic as possible.

Fig 1.0 Full body picture of myself

Fig 1.1 Background Picture Hearst Mansion

Fig 1.2 Final Outcome

Week 2 : Ghost Mansion + Sky Replacement Exercise

For week 2, we learnt about masking. Masking allows us to mask or show parts of a picture which we wish to blend in to another background picture. We can use brush tool, fill tool, or gradient tool to mask an image, using only black colour to erase parts of image and only white to parts of image.

A few skills we learnt in class :

• Adding Layer Mask
• selective masking
• brush masking
• Creating Smart Object
• Rasterizing Image
• Blending Mode
• Cycling through blending mode with keyboard
• Invert mask
• Gradient Tool

For this week's exercise, we were required to work on 2 pictures, one is to replace the sky for a house's background, the other is to place the house into another background, then add a ghost into the house.

Exercise 2A : Sky replacement
For the sky replacement exercise, we were given a picture of a house and a picture of a sky with clouds. We were required to mask the sky into the background of the house, then blend the 2 pictures together.

Fig 2.0 Original picture of house

Fig 2.1 Picture of sky with clouds

Fig 2.2 Final outcome

Exercise 2B :
For this exercise, we were given another picture of an abandoned house, a night scenery, and a ghost bride. This time, we were required to mask the house into the night scenery and then blend the picture of the ghost bride into the house.

Fig 2.3 Picture of abandoned house

Fig 2.4 Picture of night scenery

Fig 2.5 Picture of ghost bride

Fig 2.6 Final outcome

Week 3 : Photo Recolouring

For this week, we learnt about recolouring black and white photos using the brush tool. We could choose and add colours to the brush tool and colour it on top on the part of the picture which we wish to recolour. Then, we blend the colours of the brush into the picture using blending mode - soft light.

It is important for us to make sure that the picture is black and white first before adding the colours so the colours we added won't mix with other mixture of colours.

For our class exercise, we were given a black and white portrait of an old man and we were tasked to recolour his portrait.

Fig 3.0 Black and white portrait of old man

Fig 3.1 Portrait of old man after recolouring

Then for our weekly exercise, we were tasked to choose one black and white portrait and recolour it to make it look realistic. I chose to recolour a black and white photo of Jean Simmons.

Fig 3.2 Black and white portrait of Jean Simmons

Fig 3.3 Portrait of Jean Simmons after recolouring

Week 4 : Displacement mapping

For this week, we learned how to add texture to a certain object using Filter > Distort > Displace in Adobe Photoshop. We have to save the base picture as black and white photoshop file first in order for the texture to know where they should wrap and stretch in the background picture.

For this week, we had 2 class exercises. First, we were given a picture of a fabric and a picture of a flag. We were required to wrap the flag on to the fabric.

Fig 4.0 Picture of fabric

Fig 4.1 Picture of flag

Fig 4.2 Final outcome of flag wrapped in fabric

For the other class exercise, we were given a male portrait photo and a photo of snake skin texture. Then, we required to wrap the snake skin texture onto a human's face.

Fig 4.3 Portrait of old man

Fig 4.4 Picture of snake skin texture

Fig 4.5 Final outcome of snake skin texture on human

For our weekly exercise, we were tasked to choose a picture of our desired texture and wrap it on a human or an animal. I chose to wrap the texture of fish scales on to a frog because it seems interesting but still not very outrageous at the same time.

Fig 4.6 Picture of scale texture

Fig 4.7 Picture of frog

Fig 4.8 Final outcome of scales texture on frog

Week 5 : Castle of Pyrenees

For this week's class, we were required to use the skills we have learnt throughout the past weeks and applied it on our final exercise task. This is to check on how we apply the techniques and skills that we learnt on our final exercise.

We were required to recreate our own version of floating castle.

Fig 5.0 Example of Castle Pyrenees

Fig 5.1 Picture of castle

Fig 5.2 Picture of mist effect

Fig 5.3 Picture of Rock

Work Progress :

For my first attempt of the work, I realized that the masking was not very well executed and the colours of the rock did not blend well with the background. So I decided to redo my work.

Fig 5.4 First attempt of work

 For my second attempt, I decided to focus more on masking the rock and adjusting the hue and saturation as well as matching the colours with the background so it seems more well blended together.

After that, I also adjusted the hue and saturation of the castle and masked it. I then added both the rock and the castle to the background picture. For the final touch, I added the mist into the pictur, adjusted the opacity and blended it with the background.

Fig 5.4 Final outcome of Castle Pyrenees