Experimenting with Photoshop CS6

Experimenting with Photoshop CS6 had benefited me to confidently use CAD, (computer-aided design), as I would be expected to use this form of design in the creative

industry. 

My task was to crop and add a person within a room. This might sound simple but for someone who struggles to use CAD, it can be difficult.

To start off I had to opened up an image I saved on my picture files.

I then selected an image to use as the background image.

To practise my cropping skills on Photoshop, I had selected the crop tool from the toolbox on the left-hand side. This option had highlighted all the areas of the image with arrows to allow me to crop any corners.
  






























From using each corner I dragged down the arrows around the image to crop the areas I didn't need and to just get the clear viewpoint of the seating area in the image.

Then I pressed Enter on the keyboard for the cropping to complete and then used the move tool to put the image in the centre.

To add the person into the background image, I had opened up another image from the picture files.

This was a multi-image, so I used the crop tool to only crop out the area of the image I didn't need.

After cropping out one part of the image, again I used the arrows to crop bits of the overall image and then clicked on enter to complete the cropping process.

Because I was going to work on a new image I created a new tab for and changed the resolution to 300 for a higher quality image and clicked OK. 

Because I was working with more than one image at the same time, I selected the Windows tab at the top of the page and then from the drop-down menu selected Arrange and then 4-up to show up all my images I was working with and leaving a blank space to work in.

I had already cropped out parts of the image of the person, but to show what I've done I repeated the process by dragging the image into the blank space.

To just work with one image I clicked on the Windows tab then Arrange and then selected Consolidate All to Tabs.

Afterwards I had to make sure that the image was in a layer to allow me to make alterations found on the right-hand side of the window.

To highlight the exact areas I wanted to remove, from the toolbox I selected the magic wand tool.

 From selecting the magic wand tool it had selected areas of the image that I can start to remove. 

Using the magic wand tool to highlight areas whilst pressing the delete button on the keyboard allowed me to remove parts of the image.

Also using the shape tool and selecting areas you want to remove whilst pressing the delete button is also a quicker method.

Now all the little bits of the image is gone from using the quicker method.

From the toolbox, I had used a different method called the Polygonal Lasso Tool which allows you to outline the parts of an image you want to remove.


























I had outlined one area of the image which was between the person and the desk as this would be quite a difficult area to remove carefully, but using this tool allows you to be flexible whilst outlining the areas.

From using the Polygonal Lasso Tool it had carefully removed some bits of the image.

I had continued using the Polygonal Tool to remove the rest of the bits of the image until each part was clear for the overall image to be added into the background image.

I clicked on the Windows, Arrange and then 4-up to bring up all the windows to drag the person in the empty background image.

To allow me to work in a new window I had to create new layers each time to make alterations, but the layer I was working on to drag the person into the background image was Layer 4.

Once I did that I went back to the Windows tab, Arrange then Consolidate All to Tabs to bring up the one window I'm working in.

After dragging the person into the background image it came up small. 

Using the keyboard, I held CTRL+T and shift to change the size.

After I had dragged the person into an area where it looks like a work space in the background image.

From using all the methods it had resulted me in using appropriate skills to complete a task on Photoshop which is to crop and add an image within an image.

How Design can change the world

How Design can change the world

Design is a vast word as it could mean anything. If you put design into categories you would think of typography, colours, furniture, architecture, interiors, vehicles, products, clothing, patterns, even the living is a form of design.

Design history is an important source for the development of modern design. Hauffe (1998) makes a significant point that looking back to the industrial revolution you would need to look further into the pre-industrial era to fully understand the existences of today’s modern design. The passage by writer Thomas Hauffe from book, Design A Concise History explains to develop design you would need the background knowledge as this improves the designers understanding of how things work in terms of reinventing products.

Today there are many aspects of design that can possibly change our quality of life. Technology has progressively changed the way how we operate as we communicate through using devices such as computers and smartphones. Also such use of these devices speeds up our everyday agendas. Online shopping is a great example as it involves not many shoppers not having to go out and they can do this in front of their computer screens or on the go. The process of applying for a job has changed as many applicants now apply online and occasionally applicants get a job offer. The traditional way of attending interviews still persists, but applying online speeds up the process. Technology has also changed the way how we communicate. Instead of lengthy telephone calls, we now people communicate via email which provides a quicker response.

Trends Now Changing the World: Technology, the Workplace, Management, and Institutions by Cetron, Marvin J.; Davies, Owens from a book called The Futurist, Vol. 35, No. 2 states the features of technology. Cetron et al. (2001) clarifies that the use of computers are rapidly dominating the world and our way of life and the use of manual tools are overlooked in society. Cetron exemplifies that the use of wireless connection on portable devices gives us a much quicker access to the internet on the go. Due to the expansion of design it has changed some of our products.

GSM Classic Mobile Cellular Retro Vintage Brick Phone,(Google Images)

For example the GSM Classic Mobile Cellular Retro Vintage Brick Phone by Motorola used in the 20^th Century had only the features of LCD Colour Display Java applications, a keyboard background LED light for easy use at night, and handfree communication.  

The latest version of the Motorola range called the Moto X 2nd - gen is in a form of a smartphone, (a device that performs many functions as a computer). The design of this model is more ‘sleeker and slimmer’, has a bigger screen which now works as a touchscreen, high quality display, contains a larger internal memory of 16GB or 32 GB being able to download millions of apps and has an outstandingly high quality camera feature of 13 megapixels.  Mobiles phones today are designed in a way that you can do everything on one device as the internal memory is larger and the camera is powerful that people wouldn’t need to invest in a camera anymore.

Moto X, (2ND Generation)

Cetron et al. (2001) explains that the creations of new technologies require a higher level of education and training to be able to use them appropriately along with new opportunities to form businesses and jobs. Designers and students progressing into the design industry have to work much harder as new software’s today require the skills to use them appropriately. Adobe Creative Suite, Vectorworks, AutoCAD and Rhino3D are all the superior CAD software’s that many designers use to produce high quality work and to reach the best standard. Although the traditional methods of hand drawing is used but the CAD platforms makes it easier to alter work and convenient to send to other designers.

The Designers in Residence 2014 programme at the Design Museum, London provides designers across many disciplines the chance to reflect, research and study new ways of developing their practice. They had to work towards a brief based on disruption. The theme enabled each designer newer ways of thinking and unexpected ideas. Christian (2014) comments that he prefers the traditional techniques of drawing such as using pen and ink to have a better understanding of his research material. However Christian uses the digital techniques to help him understand working at a scale correctly and is the dialogue that occurs between the digital and physical techniques. The traditional techniques of materials is vital as it allows the designer to be physical with their work and battles between the use of traditional techniques the digital methods as digitally produced work is higher quality and increases your design skills.

From the early stages of design to today, it has changed drastically and has made numerous improvements in terms of the modernisation of technology; designers are producing better design ideas which create better job opportunities as well as benefiting the economy. Overall the progression forms a conclusion that design can change the world.

References:

Cetron, Marvin J., Davies & Owen, 2001. Trends Now Changing the World: Technology, the Workplace, Management, and Institutions. In: The Futurist. s.l.:The Futurist.

Engadget Score, 2014. Moto X 2nd- gen. [Online]
Available at: http://www.engadget.com/products/motorola/moto/x/2nd-gen/specs/
[Accessed 15th December 2014].

Hauffe, T., 1998. Design: A concise History. s.l.:Laurence King.

Nikingstore, 2014. GSM Classic Mobile Cellular Retro Vintage Brick Phone. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nikingstore.com/shop/gsm-classic-mobile-cellular-retro-vintage-brick-phone-56.html
[Accessed 15th December 2014].