Introduction to Adobe Lightroom

Black & White preset in Lightroom

Sepia present in Lightroom

Using a radial filter to add additional light to the subject

Adobe Lightroom is a program that can be used to color correct images and add additional effects loaded as presets on to your images.  Lightroom also has the ability to make books of your images or a slideshow as well.  Lightroom is another editing program that can be used instead of photoshop when editing photos.  There are free preloaded presets that come with Lightroom on the left side of the screen.  Additional presets can be purchased on the internet from multiple designers. When opening Lightroom you must import your images using the import button at the bottom of the left hand side or using File, import images or video.  In order to begin editing you must switch from the Library tab to the Develop tab located in the top of the right hand side of the screen.  There are many features such as a split screen that enables one to see the changes made to the selected image.  Lightroom also is able to apply the same editing preset to multiple images at the same time.  In order to save the image, the image has to be exported using file, export.  The screenshots above demonstrate the use of the black & white preset as well as the sepia preset applied to one of my original images.  The last screenshot demonstrates the use of the radial filter, located on the right hand side, indicated by the highlighted circle.  When placed on the image the black center circle indicates where the filter has been used.  If you do not like the adjustment the filter made you can simply delete it by clicking on the black center button and hitting delete.  These are just a few examples of the many options for editing in Lightroom.  

Introduction to Adobe Bridge

 Working with color correction and noise reduction

Screenshot demonstrating how to change the dpi to 72 and 300.

Screenshot demonstrating the crop tool feature in Adobe Bridge

Using Adobe Bridge the robin's nest image was color corrected and edited to reduce the amount of noise in the eggs.  The image was then changed to 300 dpi for printing purposes and also saved in 72 dpi for the purpose of posting on the web.  Finally the image was cropped to better show a close up of the eggs giving a different perspective than the original image.  

Introduction to Adobe Acrobat Pro

 PDF created in Adobe Acrobat Pro

Screenshots working in Adobe Acrobat Pro

Using Adobe Acrobat Pro a PDF was create using page images from my Graphic Design Portfolio 2016.  The screenshot above demonstrates how the images were uploaded in Acrobat and then placed in a PDF file.  There was an option to create a binder pdf of multiple pages but I chose to create a single page pdf with all four images combined for easier viewing.  The pdf was then saved in both pdf and jpg file formats.  The pdf was then printed and placed in my portfolio as well.  

Introduction to Adobe Edge Animate

In the Introduction to Adobe Edge Animate assignment I used the Adobe Edge tutorial on how to build a web banner.  Both png and svg files were used to create the final animated mov file.  After uploading both the png and svg files, the images were moved around and then placed into the best positions to see depth by layering the foreground, middle ground and background.  The foreground of the grass was then made to animate from dragging the selection left to right as well as set to blur as the image moved.  Additionally the middle ground and the Impala were selected to animate and begin as being blurry but then ending as a sharper image.  The final result appeared as the all the images were moving together from left to right.  This assignment was harder than the tutorial made it seem to be.    

Photoshop Tutorial: Selective Coloring Effect

Nicole Leal and Jennifer Humlicek collaborated on this selective coloring effect photoshop tutorial we wanted to showcase on our blogs. We started out by selecting the Robins Nest photo taken by Jennifer and opening it in Adobe Photoshop.  Using the selection tool (Lasso tool, Quick Selection Tool, or Pen Tool) draw a selection outline around the robin's eggs.  You should see a selection outline (marching ants) around the eggs.  

Invert the Selection.  Go up to the Select Menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen and choose Inverse.  A selection will appear around the outer edge of your photo.  Add a black and white adjustment layer by clicking on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.  Then choose Black & White from the list of adjustment layers.

Photoshop adds the Black & White adjustment layer and we have our selective color effect! The photo is converted to black and white except for the robin's eggs that was selected in the beginning step which remains in full color.  For an added bonus we changed the robin's eggs to purple by selecting a new adjustment layer and edited the Hue & Saturation. 

This is the original Robin's Eggs photo along with the final result of the Selective Coloring Photo.

Introduction to Adobe Muse

In the introduction to Adobe Muse assignment, both Jennifer Humlicek and Nicole Leal worked together to create our design infographics website.  Adobe Muse is more similar to using Adobe InDesign in the way we were able to manipulate the program by moving around the selected graphics.  We did not need to know how to write html code in order to create this website like is necessary in the Adobe Dreamweaver program.  The screenshots above show the Master page as well as the home, about, and portfolio pages of the website we created using Muse.  A slider showcasing the design infographic images previously completed by Jennifer and Nicole was created on the portfolio page. The font, color of background, buttons, and images placed into the website were easily manipulated making Muse a much easier program to learn than Dreamweaver.  The website shown above was created in three hours of working on it.  Both Nicole and I agree that we like Muse a great deal more than Dreamweaver.  

Introduction to Adobe Dreamweaver

During the introduction to Adobe Dreamweaver assignment we learned various methods used to create our own website.  Dreamweaver uses html code in order to design websites.  Templates that are already loaded into Dreamweaver or those that can be found on the internet are an easier way to create your website especially if you are not familiar with writing html code.  We quickly found out that understanding and knowing how to write html code is key to using this program.  Jennifer Humlicek, Nicole Leal, and Kate Barnes (graphic design students) worked together as a group to learn the basics of Dreamweaver.  We found a template on the internet that we liked and then attempted to manipulate the template to showcase the design of our "website".   Although we had a template, it was still necessary to change parts of the html code in order to get the template to respond how we wanted.  Colors were changed by adding them into the code as well adjusting the look of the font.  This was very tedious and would take a long time to create a fully working website.  This gave us a better understanding of the basics of the Dreamweaver program as seen in the working screenshot listed above.