I'm very excited about our Summer Enrichment Program!
Our Digital Art Course is short (three weeks - eleven days), but we will use our time
wisely and learn the basics of Adobe Photoshop - the image-editing
application. If time permits we will also use iPhoto and iMovie (Mac Applications). We will use Mac computers (in the Mac Lab) and we will create original
digital art work. This course is an introduction to these great programs.
The
goal is to cultivate artistic talent and encourage creativity, while
completing some interesting exercises. We will also print some of the
digital art work created. We will have fun learning and creating this
"cool" work.
Photoshop is a powerful image-editing application
with a wealth of tools and commands for working on digital images or
bitmaps. There are utilities for retouching, color correcting, cropping,
rotating, resizing and more. There is also a great number of creative
filters to change, improve and customize our pictures. Photoshop is used
in advertising agencies, publishing companies and many other jobs;
check: possiblejobs. The latest versions of Adobe Photoshop are Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS6.
First,
you will familiarize yourself with the Photoshop "Toolbox;" especially
the following tools: The Move Tool, The Rectangular Marquee Tool, The
Elliptical Marquee Tool, The Magnetic Lasso Tool, The Magic Wand Tool, The Stamp Tool, The
History Brush Tool, The Crop Tool, The Eraser Tool and the Type Tool.
You
will learn the importance of creating "layers" in Photoshop and how to
manipulate these layers in the Layers Palette (or Layers Panel, as it's sometimes called). The "Layers Palette" is
your essential tool for working with layers. Photoshop's layers can be
considered separate films or transparent sheets. These layers can be
visible or hidden. You will also learn how to use Blending Options (a
great feature to add shadows, inner glows, outer glows, patterns,
embossing, and other effects on your images and text). There's a lot to
learn in a short period of time; so we will concentrate mostly on
creating some fun exercises while learning how to use this fun program.
Vocabulary:
digital, digitize, binary, bit, byte, bitmap, pixels, resolution,
kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, JPEG, digital cameras, megapixels,
multimegapixels. Review the handout "Digital Art." All the information we put into our computers,
iPods, digital cameras and other electronic gadgets (numbers, text,
sound, music, pictures and videos) is converted into "digital codes" -
digital language, the language of the computers - which is really just a string of ones and zeros, or
binary numbers. Since we live
in a "digital" world, we must at least learn what this term means.
Also check: What Is Digital Art? | eHow.com (just click on the left side - blue)
I
hope this course encourages you to learn more about new digital
technologies and the many wonderful applications out there that allow us
to create great digital art. Enjoy!
