Photoshop Tutorials Year 10

Task 1: Open this blog using Safari: http://dlsa-ms-2016.blogspot.co.uk

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editor, a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them as "bitmap" or "raster" formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF. 
Work can also be saved as a Photoshop document (PSD), this means that the separate layers of an image can also be served.

Photoshop is now so well known that it has become a verb.
Images can be said to have been 'photo-shopped' rather than digitally enhanced or manipulated.

The Photoshop Interface

Task 2:

a. Open Photoshop by clicking on the launcher to the bottom left of the dock at the bottom of your screen and locating The blue 'Ps' icon.

b. Ps has a black interface by default. 
This can be altered to suit by holding down shift and hitting F2 or F1

c. Once open, check the tools panel is visible. Hit Window>Tools if not.

d. The tools panel can be a single column or a double column and can be adjusted by clicking the double arrow at the top left.

e. Check that the layers window is also open. Window>Layers or just hit F7.

Tools introduction

When you start Photoshop, the Tools panel appears at the left of the screen. 
Some tools in the Tools panel have options that appear in the context-sensitive options bar at the top. 
You can expand some tools to show hidden tools beneath them. 
A small triangle at the lower right of the tool icon signals the presence of hidden tools.

The Toolbar

We're not going to take a look at every single tool but we are going to look at almost all of them. This overview will give you an idea of what each tool does. 

First, you need to go and find a photo to experiment with.  

In PS: File>Open>StudentShare>Media>10-Photoshop1>Neeson-1.jpeg

Task 3: Save it to your home area and name it PS-1-test.
*Always save work to your home area rather than the desktop*
Have Photoshop open as well as this blog. Minimise pages by clicking the yellow button, top right. 

1. Move Tool (Keyboard: V)

The move tool simply lets you move objects in a given layer around the Photoshop canvas. To use it, click anywhere on the canvas and drag. As you drag, the selected Photoshop layer will move with your mouse.


-Select the top layer
-Move the top layer around. 
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z 

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It is important that you don't cramp your own style when you are working in Photoshop.
Use these tools to manipulate the image so you can work comfortably.

17. Hand Tool (Keyboard: H)

The hand tool allows you to click and drag around the Photoshop canvas. If the entire canvas currently fits on the screen, this tool won't do anything. This tool is for easily navigating around when you're zoomed in, or a picture is simple too big to fit on the screen at 100%.

18. Zoom Tool (Keyboard: Z)

The zoom tool lets you zoom in and out of the Photoshop canvas by clicking on a given area. By default, the zoom too

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2. Marquee (Keyboard: M)

The marquee lets you select part of the canvas in a specific shape. By default you get a rectangular (or perfect square if you hold down shift while selecting), but you can also select in the shape of an ellipse (or a perfect circle if you hold down shift while selecting).

-Select an oval area using the marquee tool
-Use the move tool to move the selected area
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z 


3. Lasso (Keyboard: L)

The lasso is a free-form selection tool that lets you drag around the canvas and select anything the lasso'd area covers. Within this tool you also have access to the polygonal lasso, which lets you create a selection by clicking around on the canvas and creating points, and the magnetic lasso, which works the same as the regular lasso but attempts to detect edges for you and automatically snap to them. 
-Select Liam Neeson's head and body using the lasso tool.
-Create a new layer when the area is selected: Layer>New>Layer via cut.
-Turn the new layer off and on in the layers window by clicking on the eye icon.
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z 

-Select Liam Neeson's head and body using the lasso tool.
-Create a new layer when the area is selected: Layer>New>Layer via copy.
-Turn the new layer off and on in the layers window by clicking on the eye icon.
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z, cmd+Alt+Z repeated until you get back to where we were.

4. Magic Wand (Keyboard: W)

Clicking an area with the magic wand will tell Photoshop to select the spot you clicked on and anything around it that's similar. This tool can be used as a crude way to remove backgrounds from photos.



-Check you are working on the correct layer, the top layer called Neeson
-Use the magic wand tool to select the white window area behind Liam Neeson
-Delete the area you have selected by hitting delete.
-Deselect the area selected by hitting Cmd+D or Select>Deselect 
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z, cmd+Alt+Z repeated until you get back to where we were.

5. Crop Tool (Keyboard: C)

The crop tool is used to (surprise!) crop your pictures. You can specify the exact size and constrain the crop tool to those proportions, or you can just crop to any size you please.


-Working on the top layer-use the crop tool to select and crop Liam Neeson's head and hands, giving him some 'breathing space'.
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z, cmd+Alt+Z repeated until you get back to where we were.
-Crop an area using the perspective crop tool. Adjust the edges to suit the shape you want.
-Undo by clicking cmd+Z, cmd+Alt+Z repeated until you get back to where we were.

Close the JPEG neeson-sky.psd

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From within Ps, open the file Cameron-Diaz1.JPEG

6. Eyedropper (Keyboard: I)

The eyedropper tool lets you click on any part of the canvas and sample the color at that exact point. 
The eyedropper will change the foreground colour of the Colour selection tool (19) to whatever colour is sampled.
The foreground colour can be seen in the squares at the bottom of the tools. This is the colour that affects what you can paint with.

-Use the eyedropper tool to select the red area behind Cameron Diaz.
-You will notice the foreground colour of the Colour selection tool changes.
-Click around the face, eyes, lips to see the foreground colour of the Colour selection tool alter.

7. Healing Brush (Keyboard: J)

The healing brush lets you sample part of the photograph and use it to paint over another part. 
Once you're finished, Photoshop will examine surrounding areas and try to blend what you painted in with the rest of the picture.




-Select the Healing brush tool.
-Alt click to sample an area central to the forehead.
-You will see your cursor change to a target to show that this is the area you are sampling.
-Use the Healing brush to smooth out the wrinkles and blemishes on the rest of the face.
-Keep an eye on the sampled area and Alt click to select another suitable area.

8. Paintbrush and Pencil (Keyboard: B)

The paintbrush is a tool that emulates a paintbrush and the pencil is a tool that emulates a pencil. The paintbrush, however, can be set to many different kinds of brushes. You can paint with standard paintbrush and airbrush styles, or even paint with leaves and other shapes as well.

-Open a new, blank document.
-File>New
-name the document 'Test-1'
-Width 1000 pixels - height 800 pixels
-Resolution - 150
-Background - White
-Save to your home area

Select the paintbrush tool.
At the top left of the interface you can see the many options available for the paintbrush tool.
You have the option to adjust the presets here.
Try out the options on the document 'Test-1'.
Use a few different colours by clicking on the foreground colour of the colour selection tools.

Select the Pencil tool which also has options for you to choose from.
Try out the options on the document 'Test-1'.

Scroll down to the Type Tool section

9. Clone Stamp (Keyboard: S)

Like the healing brush, the clone stamp lets you sample part of the photograph and use it to paint over another part. With the clone stamp, however, that's it. Photoshop doesn't do anything beyond painting one area over a new area.

10. History Brush (Keyboard: Y)

The history brush lets you paint back in time. Photoshop keeps track of all the moves you make (well, 50 by default) and the history brush lets you paint the past back into the current photo. Say you brightened up the entire photo but you wanted to make a certain area look like it did before you brightened it, you can take the history brush and paint that area to bring back the previous darkness.

11. Eraser Tool (Keyboard: E)

The eraser tool is almost identical to the paintbrush, except it erases instead of paints.

12. Paint Can and Gradient Tools (Keyboard: G)

The paint can tool lets you fill in a specific area with the current foreground color. The gradient tool will, by default, create a gradient that blends the foreground and background tool (though you can load and create preset gradients as well, some of which use than two colors).

13. Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge Tools (Keyboard: None)

All three of these tools act like paintbrushes, but each has a different impact on your picture. The blur tool will blur the area where you paint, the sharpen tool will sharpen it, and the smudge tool will smudge the area all around the canvas. The smudge tool is very useful in drawing for creating nicely blended colors or for creating wisps and smoke that you can add to your photos.

14. Burn, Dodge, and Sponge Tools (Keyboard: O)

The burn, dodge, and sponge tools are paintbrush-like tools that manipulate light and color intensity. The burn tool can make areas in your photo darker. The dodge tool can make them lighter. The sponge tool can saturate or desaturate color in the area you paint with it. These are all very useful tools for photo touch ups.

15. Pen Tool (Keyboard: P)

The pen tool is used for drawing vector graphics. It can also be used to create paths that can be used for various things that we'll discuss in a later lesson (although if you watch the video you can see a type path being created).


16. Type Tool (Keyboard: T)

The type tool lets you type horizontally. Tools hidden beneath the horizontal type tool will let you type vertically and also create horizontal and vertical text masks.

Open the file neeson-sky.psd

Select the Type tool.
Use the options at the top to select the font called Impact
Change the font size to 120pt
Change the colour of your type to yellow (Similar to the poster on the wall).
Reproduce the text that is on the promotional poster.
You will notice that Ps automatically creates a new layer for type.

Scroll back up to the Clone Stamp tool.

19. Color Selection Tools (Keyboard: D for defaults, X to switch foreground and background colors)

These tools let you manage the colors you're using. T
he color on top is the foreground color and the color in back is the background colour. 
The foreground color is what your brushes will use. The background color is what will be used if you delete something from the background or extend it (although now, Photoshop CS5 will give you the option for using your foreground color instead in some circumstances). 
The two smaller icons up top are shortcut functions. 
The left one, showing a black square on a white square, will set your foreground and background colors to the defaults (Keyboard: D). 
The double-headed curved arrow will swap your foreground and background color (Keyboard: X). Clicking on either the foreground or background color will bring up a color picker so you can set them to precisely the color you want.

Representation of Age in the media today

Learning objectives: To consider the representation of age within texts.

Key words: Representation, stereotypes, Identify, children, teenagers, 20’s-30’s, 
middle aged, elderly, positive, negative.

Starter: 
Identify the visual / technical codes evident in this image from Waterloo Road.
Write in orange books, bullet points, work in pairs.

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STEREOTYPING

Stereotype - dictionary definition:

A standardised, often simplified, mental picture or attitude that is held in common by members of a group about other groups, individuals, places or events.
For example: Americans, Paris, funerals.

A stereotype can be a simplification that the media use to make sense of a real person or group which is much more complicated. 

German stereotype

In reality, there are many different kinds of Germans who are all individuals, but it is much easier to fool ourselves into believing that all Germans drink beer, cheat with beach towels and eat strange sausages. 
The example that I have just given may seem harmless, but in fact it would be offensive to many people.

Stereotypes are potentially dangerous but stereo-typing and generalising itself is impossible to avoid — it is a natural function of the human mind 
— something that we all do in order to survive mentally in the confusing world around us. 

Representation — How we stereotype:

The fact that we naturally see the world in this kind of shorthand way, with connections between different character traits, allows the media to create simplistic representations which we find believable and eventually accept as the truth.

Stereotypes are often assumed to be negative as:

1 The judgement making the basis of the stereotype is usually (but not always) a negative one.

2 They do not allow for individual characteristics to exist in members of the group.

3 They are created by those outside the stereotyped group and are often seen to be an exertion of power – the stereotyped group often has no way to answer back.

4 The stereotype gives a ‘complete picture’ about the group and implies that a knowledge and understanding that can be applied to all members of the group.

All of this distortion happens naturally in our minds before the media have had their chance to simplify and distort. We do a lot of the business of stereotyping ourselves. It is almost as if we conspire with the media to misunderstand the world.

How can the media construct a stereotype?

 With any group of people, there will obviously be an enormous number of things that can be used in a stereotype, but because stereotyping is a form of simplification, normally the most obvious things are used. These are:

1. Appearance — this can include, physical appearance and clothing as well as the sound of the voice. e.g. “all teachers wear dreadful old clothes”

2. Behaviour — typical things that people in this group might do. “Grannies like to knit”

These first two features of media stereotypes are the same when we make our own stereotypes. They simply involve us thinking of something that may be true of some of the group in question and applying it to everyone in the group.

The third feature of media stereotyping is peculiar to the media:

3. The stereotype is constructed in ways that fit the particular medium.

This is more difficult to understand but it is crucial for you to look for it. 

If you watch the feature film Silence of the Lambs and then look at the tabloid coverage of Fred West, you are seeing the same stereotype (the typical Serial Killer) being used, but there are obviously big differences which will depend on the specifics of the media used:

The film will use close ups of the killer’s leering face, soundtrack music and reaction shots of terrified victims to create their version of the stereotype.

Hannibal Lecter

The newspaper will use emotive headlines, blurred pictures of victims and police mug-shots of the killer along with shocking text and interviews with survivors.

Fred West

In each case the text will create a stereotype which it’s audience will find familiar, but it will do it in very different ways.

4 There will always be a comparison whether real or imaginary with “normal” behaviour.

The features which make up a stereotype are always those which seem somehow different from everyday behaviour. In fact you could almost start any stereotyped description by saying: “this group are different because they...”

Of course the idea of what is normal in any society is an absurdity and therefore in order to make it clear to us that the stereotyped characters in the text are not behaving “normally” there will frequently be “normal” people used to act as a contrast to them.

An 'ideal' life

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TASK 2: Using handout 1.

Create your own chart of stereotypes based on those that you have encountered in different media (for example, television, newspapers or games). Work in pairs.

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Stereotype                                   Appearance          Behaviour        Media examples

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Teenagers (age)
Old people (age)
Scottish people (nationality)

Women (gender)

Mentally disabled (disability)
Scousers (regionality)
Wimbledon (events)

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Representation of age in the media

The representation of people of different ages has changed massively over the years.  Up until the 1950’s, there were really only two age groups shown in films and television (adult and child).  This was because that most children left school at a young age and went straight to work and became adults.  

In the 1950’s more young people started staying in education and began leading very different lives from both children and adults and so developed the idea of the “teenager”.

There are still some stereotypes associated with different ages:

·     Children – often shown as being young, innocent, naive, pure, sweet, helpless, powerless.

Childhood
British children are often depicted in the British media in positive ways. Content
analyses of media products suggest that eight stereotypes of children are
frequently used by the media.

• As victims of horrendous crimes – some critics of the media have suggested that white children who are victims of crime get more media attention than adults or children from ethnic minority backgrounds.
• As cute – this is a common stereotype found in television commercials for baby products or toilet rolls.
• As little devils – another common stereotype especially found in drama and comedy, e.g. Bart Simpson.
• As brilliant – perhaps as child prodigies or as heroes for saving the life of an adult.
• As brave little angels – suffering from a long-term terminal disease or disability.
• As accessories – stories about celebrities such as Madonna, Angelina Jolie or the Beckhams may focus on how their children humanise them or make them seem to have family values.
• As modern – the media may focus on how children ‘these days’ know so much more ‘at their age’ than previous generations of children.
• As active consumers – television commercials portray children as having a consumer appetite for toys and games. Some family sociologists note that this has led to the emergence of a new family pressure, ‘pester power’, the power of children to train or manipulate their parents to spend money on consumer goods that will increase the children’s status in the eyes of their peers.

Task 2: Indicate the particular use of children's stereotype on the handout provided.

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·    Elderly – often shown as being unattractive, slow, weak, ill, confused, pathetic, powerless, not important, dependent on others.

Sociological studies show that when the elderly do appear in the media, they tend to be portrayed in the following ways.

• As grumpy – conservative, stubborn and resistant to social change.
• As mentally challenged – suffering from declining mental functions.
• As dependent – helpless and dependent on other younger members of the family or society.
• As a burden – as an economic burden on society (in terms of the costs of pensions and health care to the younger generation) and/or as a physical and social burden on younger members of their families (who have to worry about or care for them).
• As enjoying a second childhood – as reliving their adolescence and engaging in activities that they have always longed to do before they die.

When considering age in a text, you should be thinking about the following things:

• ·       Can I identify what approximate age the characters are?
• ·      Are people from different age groups shown as having different interests, personalities,      attitudes, behaviours?  If so, how?
• ·      Is their age represented as being important in their life?
• ·      Are people from particular age groups portrayed as being better, more powerful, than others?
• ·      Are people from particular age groups portrayed as being abnormal /weaker/ more pathetic than others? 
• ·      How do other characters in the clip treat the characters from different age groups?
• ·      What is the message the clip is trying to portray about age?
• 
  

      Task 3: -

      How are young people and elderly people represented in this clip of the film Harry Brown?

      Do they challenge or conform to stereotypes?

      What do you think the reaction of the audience would be to the clip?

      Write your answers in your orange books using properly constructed sentences.

     Homework: Use the handout provided to identify age representation in the media.

                        Submit Thursday July 9th.