REFLECTION PHOTOSHOP

Creative Media Yr 9 - Photoshop – Term 01 2011

Mr Andrews

Avatar Reflection/evaluation:

Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

· Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during the creation and editing of your avatar. These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, knowledge of Photoshop tools issues. etc;

I had no problems with saving files. Each lesson I would bring my USB and save whatever I had done on it and on my school account.

· Explain whether your planning and organisation (of ideas, files, inspiration) helped during the technical creation;

I knew I wanted to do a fairy type picture at the start. As I loved the magical type of things I could add to the image! I straight away learnt off by heart how to do sparkles as I knew this could be useful. I also looked at a few fairy images to get ideas and work out colour schemes. All this planning process helped as I knew what I wanted the end result to look like!

· Discuss whether you made effective use of the provided profile template to organise and prepare the required image assets and assist in the creative decision making process;

Doing the character profile really helped in creating and understanding of the type of picture I was creating and the emotion of the avatar. When it came time to take the pictures I knew what type of emotions I had to show.

· Clarify any time-management issues you encountered during the process and describe the steps you implemented to improve in this area;

At first I was really confused on how we had to actually create two completely different avatars. So I spent a lot of time on my first avatar making sure it was perfect and adding in little details to create a great photo. Then I only had one weekend to start my second avatar. I think it could have been a bit better if I had more time, as I rushed it a little bit.

· Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs/journals and think about whether it looks like a whole terms worth of work);

During making the avatars I kept the blog updated. The first avatar I did I kept forgetting to save as a jpeg after I did something. So the blogs for that are a bit jumpy. However by the second avatar I was used to it and after every few things I did to my image I saved it for web devices as a jpeg and labeled it in order.

· List any skills, techniques or tricks you have discovered during the project.

The main trick I have discovered is how to create sparkles! I also became very familiar with the mask tool as I used it very often. Another thing was the effects of the layer. When I was doing the little flower bush in the first avatar I needed all different flowers. It was taking a while to get the flower cut it then resize it. I figured out that if you get one of the layers of the flower duplicate it then apply the difference effect the flower would turn all different colours. This created the effect that it was a different flower and was less time consuming to just change the colour tones!

Discuss your feelings about the Avatar task:

· Are you satisfied with the final result?

I am very happy with my first avatar! It was so good to find that little girl fairy that I could put my head on and I changed the colors in our skin to blend. Then all the things around her really just make it a fairy scenario! The second avatar was ok I think if I spent more time on it it would have been better!

· Would like to change any aspects of your avatar?

In the first Avatar I would of liked to done it so it was clearer. That is were I went wrong. I dragged everything in to the background image and not to the one Mr Andrews took which was really high res.

· If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

Next time I would definetly come dressed in the outfit I wanted in the image to take the photo in. As it was really hard to find the right body that was under creative commons and a clear image.

· Are you pleased with the progress you have made in using Photoshop?

Yes very pleased! I am very good at using it now and it will be very useful for any photo editing that I want to do!