Digital Photography and Imaging - Week 4

13/5/2024 - 17/5/2024 / Week 4

Tay Yue Chern / 0373215

Digital Photography and Imaging / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media

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Lecture: Adjustment Layers and Filters

Adjustment Layers

- a group of useful yet non-destructive image editing tools

- able to add colour and tonal adjustments to the image w·ithout permanently changing its pixels

- can edit and discard the adjustments or restore original image at any time

- types of adjustments layers

    · Brightness / Contrast

        → make adjustments to the tonal range of the image 

        → brightness slider: adjust the highlights

        → contrast slider: adjust the shadows

    · Level

        → modify the tonal values by adjusting the levels of shadows, midtowns and highlights

    · Curves

        → enable you to adjust as many points as you want throughout the entire tonal range of the image

    · Exposure

        → enable you to adjust exposure levels with 3 sliders

        → Exposure: adjust only the highlights

        → Offset: adjust only the mid tones

        → Gamma: adjust only the dark tones

    · Selective colour

        → selectively modifies the amount of a primary colour without modifying the other primary colours

Filters

- change colour, add blur, create completely new image effects, etc.

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Tutorial & Practical

Instructions

Using the same Photoshop file, improvise the WEEK 3 digital collage (best composition out of three) into WEEK 4 by using Adjustment Layers & Filters on Photoshop.

Fig 4.1 Pen tool exercise digital collage composition #2 (week 3 7/5/2024)

This is the composition chosen by Mr Fauzi, which is also my personal favourite as well. In this collage exercise, I attempted to create a contrast between black white grey and highly saturated colours. On this basis, I chose a light-coloured building and a dark-coloured camera as the black-and-white elements, matching the overall colour tone of the textured background. Additionally, I added signboards with highly saturated red and yellow to give the composition a visual centre while maintaining a balanced colour contrast. The basic concept behind choosing the elements for this collage was to create a blend of modern and retro vibes, aiming for a harmonious result.

Fig 4.2 Adjusted digital collage (week 4 14/5/2024)

For this, I wanted to try a slightly different style, so I made some minor adjustments to the collage. Firstly, I lowered the brightness of the camera and the building to match the background colour tone. For the signboards, I also reduced the brightness to give them a retro look and decreased the saturation to see if it fits the overall vibe better.