At the end of our Junior year, we took upon the Explorations project which provided us with the opportunity to explore our passions and expand on a skill set that related to one of the eight 21st century skills (visual literacy, technological literacy, creativity, self direction, high productivity, teaming and collaboration, social and civic responsibility, and risk taking).
For my project, I wanted to do something with Photoshop, since we didn’t use it a ton this year. So, I decided to pursue Photoshop compositing, which is the process of taking images from the internet and creating a single image with them. I definitely think that this deals with the 21st century skill of creativity, as you have to find a way to create a unified piece out of many separate images.
To start, I first needed to find high quality images. These are the ones I ended up using.
Then, I cut out some of the backgrounds and started to add images to the final composition one by one. As I implemented each photo, I used blend modes and adjustment layers to help them look like they belonged in the environment. I also added fog and blurred the background to give the sense of depth.
To demonstrate the importance of blending the images together, take a look below. The first image is without, and the second one is with.
After I had done all of that, I had was left with the final product below.
From this project, I really valued the experience of teaching a skill to myself, without the instruction of an actual teacher. This reflects what you will often be going through in the real world. As a digital artist, I benefited from this project because I became much more familiar with Photoshop.
One of our final assignments in Digital Media for the year was to create a short song in Pro Tools, an application that we had used previously in the year. Shortly before learning of this assignment, I had picked up the ukulele on the side and played it on occasion. I thought that this assignment would be a great opportunity to use my newfound skills for something. I wanted to create an upbeat song. This project required a lot of perseverance at times since Pro Tools is a very in-depth application with many layers to it, which can become confusing.
In reflection, I had a pretty fun time using all of the different virtual instruments inside of Pro Tools as well as going through the experience of recording my live ukulele playing. It also helped me to gain an appreciation for everybody that produces music professionally.