Contact Sheet

For this assignment, we needed to find different photos form the Internet and use Adobe Photoshop to alter the pictures. Then we were to put them on a contact sheet via Microsoft Word.  In the beginning, I wanted to try and have all similar pictures, making the contact sheet flow nicely.  I found my six pictures on morguefile.com using the descriptions on blackboard.  There was one with vibrant colors, a few landscapes, a wide angle with a lot going on in it, and a portrait.  I was excited that all my photos were beachy and the colors seemed to flow. However, once I got to class, I learned that not all of my photos were of the correct Resolution.  I was under the impression that all the pictures from morguefile.com were already 1200 dpi, however, some of them were as low as 72 dpi. I was very frustrated to realize that not one of the photos I found the night before would work for the first image.  Luckily, Professor Shiebler has already put a 1200 dpi photo on blackboard. Most of my peers were having the same trouble.

 To put each photo onto the contact sheet, I did the same thing. In order to save the photo correctly, I had to take multiple steps; First, I dragged the photo into Photoshop, and resized it to be 1x1.  At first, I could not resize the photo.  Every time I tried, the image would get distorted. Eventually I realized I needed to click off of the scale image option under image size. Once I resaved the new size, the image showed up on the desktop, instead of just a blank document.  Then I dragged that document from the desktop onto the contact sheet and dropped it in the proper grid box.  It was crucial for all the images to be the same size so the sheet would look right.

I used a monarch butterfly for the Resolution section of the contact sheet. I just dropped the resized image into the 1200 dpi slot.  For the next three boxes, I reduced the Resolution in half.  I did this by going to Image->Image Size.  Then I changed the resolution from 1200 dpi to 600 dpi.  I saved it again, dragged it to the contact sheet, and reduced it twice more, eventually having the last image be 72 dpi.  This image was much blurrier than the 1200 dpi version.  Once I figured out how to save everything, I did not have too much trouble with the Resolution portion.

 For the second row, I needed to find a picture that had a lot of color.  I chose a really cool picture of vibrant surfboards all lined up with a 300 dpi.  I changed the photo to CMYK mode by going through Image->Mode->CMKY. I saved it to the desktop and put it on the contact sheet.  Next I put it in Color RGB mode. I did not see much of a change, except for the colors were a little bit more vibrant. When doing the duotone, I was confused because I was unable to click on the duotone option.  Eventually I realized I needed to change the photo to grayscale before I could use the duotone effect. Once I did that, I played with different colors and eventually decided on a light red and yellow.

 For the third row, I had to change the orientation. I used a beach landscape with a blue sky and mountains in the background.  For this row I Photoshoped the photo to be a perfect square and then a portrait format.  This part was not difficult, and I cropped the photos to get the right sizes.

 For the fourth row I focused on framing.  I worked with a photo of a wooden deck with white rocking chairs.   I had to crop the photo to the right, then to the left.  Then I had to crop and do a close up.  I chose to zoom in on the wooden panels on the deck.

 The fifth row was titled Content and I chose to use a photo of a hippopotamus.  Again I had to crop the image to the left and the right.  This was more challenging than the framing row because the hippo took up more space in the photo.  When I was cropping, it did not seem like I was making much of a change.  However, once I actually cropped it, it did look different.  The last box was supposed to be abstract, so I chose to zoom in on the hippo’s mouth.  This is the thing I am most proud of, because I feel like a really did a good job at making the picture unrecognizable.   

 Finally, I chose to do a photo of Stacy Crain for my Purpose row.  I had a blast using all of the artistic effects, and had trouble deciding which ones to use.  I eventually decided on Fresco, Neon Glow Purple, and Glowing Edges. 

Font Poem

This font poem uses my version of a quote from poet William Blake. I changed his word “mirth” to laughter because I could relate to it better and thought it would be easier for people to understand. I love this quote for two reasons. I like the way it sounds, with the repetition of words. I also agree with what Blake is saying. I love to laugh, have fun, and of course, be happy. I translate this quote to mean that both fun leads to laughter, and laughter leads to happiness. In my opinion, someone’s cannot be happy without being able to let loose, have fun, and enjoy life.

The three main words I wanted to focus on in this font poem are laughter, fun, and happiness. I tried to make these three words stand out amongst the others, and catch the viewer’s attention off the bat. I also positioned the words a certain way for a reason. Since the quote is so repetitive, I wanted the similar words to have a mirror effect on each other. That is why I aligned it so that the two laughter’s are in similar positions, as well as better and some of the smaller words.

The word laughter is designed to contain some humor. I used a font called giddy up std make it look different from the other words. I also wanted it to jump off the page, so I applied yellow cover overlay to the hot pink font color. These are both very vibrant colors that stand out and combine with the font to make it look unique.

For the word better I used Copperplate Gothic Bold to make it look powerful. Better is a very strong word, and the red text with an outer glow effect seems to give it that powerful feel.

When photo shopping the word fun I decided to have fun with it. I played with many different effects and texts until I found the right one. I used Marker Felt text to make it look immature. Then I used a Nebula Texture style to give it the combination of colors inside the letters. I added a hot pink outer glow to make it stand out against the black background. I like the way it turned out and think it looks wild and fun.

In my opinion, happiness is the most important word in the font poem. I wanted this to be the word that stood out most on the page, so I used a cursive font instead of print like all the others. The font is called Zapfino and is much different from the other fonts that are all print. I think the font makes it looks fancier compared to all the other simpler fonts. It also has an outer glow and is paired with a light yellow font color. It makes the word jump off the page against the black background. It glows against the black background and is the first thing I notice while looking at the poem.

There are a few other words in the font poem that were not as important as laughter, fun, happiness, or even better. For these words, I used darker colors and applied no effects. I did not want the simpler words to take away form any of the bigger words. The word is appears twice in the font poems, and is green with Nueva std as a font. I have it tilting to the side and close up to the word that it is paired with. Than is a dark purple is in a simple myriad pro font. There is no effect and is placed under better to the right both times. Instead of using the word and I used the symbol & to conserve space. I also think it looks better with the other words, and fits perfectly next to fun and happiness. It is also dark purple to help balance and match the than’s.

I arranged the words so that laughter and better are on the same side of the page, aligned up with each other. I put fun and happiness together onb the right so that they are close and right on top of each other.

I like this quote, and think that the effects and fonts that I added to the words really bring it to life. I made each word unique, trying the bring out the qualities of each word to the screen.