Retouching in Adobe Photoshop

This was my first attempt at retouching an old photo, using the clone tool and patch tool. I also arranged the colour levels (highlights, midtones, shadows).

                                                                           Before

After

Qualitative and Quantitative Research

To carry out Qualitative Research you have to ask questions which give a description:

Eg: Where do you meet your friends?
      Why do you go to school by bus?
       Why do you like to watch TV Drama?

To carry out Quantitative Research you have to ask questions which give you numbers and statistics:

Eg: How many people are there in the house when you return home?
      How many pets do you have at home?
      How many hours do you sleep everyday?

Then one can do pie charts, bar graphs, or tables to illustrate the results.


Information from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research

"Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed, rather than large samples.Qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses (informative guesses). Quantitative methods can be used to verify which of such hypotheses are true."

 

Information from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research

"In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their relationships. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.
Quantitative research is used widely in social sciences such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Research in mathematical sciences such as physics is also 'quantitative' by definition, though this use of the term differs in context. In the social sciences, the term relates to empirical methods, originating in both philosophical positivism and the history of statistics, which contrast qualitative research methods.
Qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses. Quantitative methods can be used to verify, which of such hypotheses are true."

Coming Soon...

Some of my first works using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are to be published soon.

Adobe Illustrator CS4

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editing program commonly used nowadays.

"Illustrator CS was the first version to include 3-dimensional capabilities allowing users to extrude or revolve shapes to create simple 3D objects. To reflect its integration with the Adobe Creative Suite, Illustrator CS2 (version 12) was available for both the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the last version for the Mac which did not run natively on Intel processors.

Among the new features included in Illustrator CS2 were Live Trace, Live Paint, a control palette and custom workspaces. Live Trace allows for the conversion of bitmap imagery into vector art and improved upon the previous tracing abilities. Live Paint allows users more flexibility in applying color to objects, specifically those that overlap.

CS3 included interface updates to the Control Bar, the ability to align individual points, multiple Crop Areas, the Color Guide panel and the Live Color feature among others.

CS4 was released in October 2008. It features a variety of improvements to old tools along with the introduction of a few brand new tools. The ability to create multiple artboards is one of CS4’s main additions, although still not equal to the true multiple page capability of Freehand. The artboards allow you to create multiple versions of a piece of work within a single document. Other tools include the Blob Brush, which allows multiple overlapping vector brush strokes to easily merge or join, and a revamped gradient tool allowing for more in-depth color manipulation as well as transparency in gradients.

CS5 was released in April 2010. Along with a number of enhancements to existing functionality, Illustrator CS5's new features include a Perspective Grid tool, a Bristle Brush (for more natural and painterly looking strokes) and a comprehensive update to strokes, referred to by Adobe as "Beautiful Strokes"."

                                                           From: Wikipedia

Audience Research

Before planning and doing a TV advert, we need to keep in mind who is our target audience.

Mainstream Audiences:

• a media product that has broad appeal, even if not everybody likes it. e.g. Blockbuster movies.

Alternative Audiences:

• the opposite of mainstream audiences
• people who like new or different media products with different or unusual tastes.

Niche Audiences:

• a very specialised group of people
• not a large group of people

One can find out more about a target audience by carrying out an audience research:

• the process that the Media Industries go through to study audiences
• they do so by asking them questions to get to know their likes, dislikes, lifestyle, etc.
• they use methods like questionnaires, focus groups, surveys, etc.
• they find out their target audience.

Form and Structure of TV Adverts

Advertisments vary in structure and form, depending on what needs to be presented.

Structures:

1. form
2. style
3. codes and conventions
4. computer graphics
5. special effects

Form:

• realist narrative
• anti-realist narrative
• animation
• documentary
• talking heads
• stand alone
• series

Media Audiences

Who is the audience?

• a group of people who is targeted by the media
• how does the media knows the likes and dislikes of such a diverse group of people?

Market Research:

• research is a very important process
• all media products have been carefully planned and researched to try to make them as successful as possible.

Groups of Audiences:

• data gathered through research can be broken down into DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPINGS.

The Media Industry uses the categories to distinguish between different groups of people:

1. socio-economic status
2. interests and lifestyle
3. gender
4. age-group
5. location.  

Adobe Photoshop CS4

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing programme used most of all to edit all types of photos and pictures.

"Photoshop has ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring.The .PSD (Photoshop Document), Photoshop's native format, stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .EPS or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. PSD format is limited to a maximum height and width of 30,000 pixels. .PSB (Photoshop Big) format, also known as "large document format" within Photoshop, is the extension of PSD format to images up to 300,000 pixels in width or height. That limit was apparently chosen somewhat arbitrarily by Adobe, not based on computer arithmetic constraints (it is not close to a significant power of two, as is 30,000) but for ease of software testing. PSD and PSB formats are documented.

Photoshop's popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used, and it is supported to some extent by most competing software. The .PSD file format can be exported to and from Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects, to make professional standard DVDs and provide non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the Web. Photoshop is a pixel-based image editor, unlike programs such as Macromedia FreeHand (now defunct), Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape or CorelDraw, which are vector-based image editors.

Photoshop uses color models RGB, lab, CMYK, grayscale, binary bitmap, and duotone. Photoshop has the ability to read and write raster and vector image formats such as .EPS, .PNG, .GIF and .JPEG."

                                                     From: Wikipedia 

http://www.javascriptbank.com/javascript/article/More_100_Super_Helpful_Cheatsheets_for_Web_Designers_Web_Developers/adobe-photoshop-shortcuts.jpg 

Media Producers, Products and Audiences

'Media Producer', 'Media Product', and 'Media Audience' are 3 terms which are all related to each other. The media producers are those people or companies who create media products for their target audience.

Media Producers:

• the companies in the media industry that create communication through mass media
• like other business industries, their purpose is to make money
• they know how their target audienceuses their media products and what are their likes.

Media Products:

• a tangible or electronic 'message' that the media conveys through its channels of distribution to the audience. Examples: magazines, newspapers, TV programmes, radio transmissions, films, books, music tracks, podcasts, websites, audio-books, e-books, etc.
• it is affected by the way the media producers think about their audiences.

Target Audience:

• a group of people targeted by the media industry because they broadly share similar characteristics and interests.

Mass Media

What is mass media?

It is the various means of communication that can easily reach large numbers of people. It includes television, radio, Internet and newspapers amongst others.

"Mass media play a significant role in shaping public perceptions on a variety of important issues, both through the information that is dispensed through them, and through the interpretations they place upon this information. The also play a large role in shaping modern culture, by selecting and portraying a particular set of beliefs, values, and traditions (an entire way of life), as reality. That is, by portraying a certain interpretation of reality, they shape reality to be more in line with that interpretation."  

 From: Wikipedia

Mass media can be used for various purposes:

• Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political communication.
• Entertainment, traditionally through performances of acting, music, and sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through video and computer games.
• Public service announcements.

Electronic media and print media include:

• Broadcasting,example: radio and television.
• Various types of recorded discs or tapes.
• The Internet - examples include Blogs and podcasts
• Mobile phones
• Publishing, including electronic publishing
• Video games, which have developed into a mass form of media.

Advertisements

An advertisement, or advert in short, is a poster or a short promotional or commercial video, done to promote something. An advert in the form of a video can be of any length but the most common length is that of 30 seconds. It is very costly and expensive to advertise on television, but this will leave great satisfying results, as television is one of the most popular media products which influences a very large audience. Many printed advertisements use a lot of colours and different font styles and sizes in order to catch the viewer's eye easily. On the other hand, video adverts use catchy music, special effects and famous people in order to reach the audience quickly and maybe sell the product fast if it is a commercial advert.

This is an advert which inspired me when I first saw it on TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6GGO51YNDg

Research about Infographics

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. With an information graphic, computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians develop and communicate concepts using a single symbol to process information.

Information graphics are visual devices intended to communicate complex information quickly and clearly.
The basic material of an information graphic is the data, information, or knowledge that the graphic presents. In the case of data, the creator may make use of automated tools such as graphing software to represent the data in the form of lines, boxes, arrows, and various symbols and pictograms. The information graphic might also feature a key which defines the visual elements in plain English. A scale and labels are also common. The elements of an info graphic do not have to be an exact or realistic representation of the data, but can be a simplified version.

Read more information on: Wikipedia


Examples of Infographics:

From: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/coffee














From: http://www.lab38.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/1268926213.jpg




From: http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/freeway-infographic.png

 


Examples of websites about Infographics:

http://www.coolinfographics.com/
http://www.good.is/infographics
http://theoatmeal.com/

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