Lesson review 14/12/2010 - Alex Nugent

Today we began actually transforming our idea into a finished digipak. This process involved taking the photos we had taken yesterday and placing them up onto editing software and arranging it into the desired format. We divided responsibility evenly, I did the front panel which used the photo of the male character looking angry at the the gorilla and the female character. Firstly , I uploaded the photo's then dividing each photo equally in the group we edited each one to create each panel. We started to create 3 panels in today's lesson. I uploaded the image and then dragged it into industry renewed technology called 'photoshop'. This software allows images to be cropped , altered , change of brightness and colour, ect. Each image had to be extracted , taking each figure out . I had to extract the gorilla, female character , whilst Matt did the male character. The extraction was quite a strenuous process , we had to use a tool called a lasso which allowed me to whiten out the background of the image. Below is an example of what it looked like :



Here the images is taken out by drawing around each figure. Then copy and paste the image onto a template which was previously set up . It is also important to note i made the background transparent meaning we can alter layers of information . Then we took Matt's figure and placed it onto the same template and played around with it to make it fit. This process was quite straightforward , all we had to do was transform it to scale and drag the corners to make it smaller. The main problem i counted today was the fact we decided to extract each character from different photos. This was a problem as the lighting in each one was very different and you could tell it was two different images. Therefore, I used the 'brightness /contrast' setting which allowed us to lessen the differences between the two figures. Now it looks like the photo was taken in one as opposed to placed in separately. After this we then added in text on top for the title and the critics. Overall , the process was quite stress free, it took a bit of time to get my head around the software however I managed. I also found the change in idea a very good one as I think it will make the finish outcome look much better. Each member in the group did the same thing meaning we have successfully started 3 panels . We still need to the 'dedication to Joe Jackson ' , the back panel and the CD holder. After looking at the finish we might have to tweak the idea further as we feel using the white backdrop throughout may look boring and people might not understand the simplicity of the design emphasises the nature of the narrative.