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art540:advanced photo imagery green_rule.gif

spring 2007
instructor: naomi spellman
email contact: spellman (at) 34n118w (dot) net
instructor's professional website http://34n118w.net/

Tuesday/Thursdays Art 418 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. Open lab hours are available in the Art 216 and Art 213 computer labs. Check the posted hours in the lab.

syllabus in pdf format

Computer Lab info

Safari Computer books online - free access for SDSU students to electronic books. Do search for Adobe Photoshop CS2 on Safari homepage.

Facilities Manager Oray Nicolai has an office in Art North # 421. He has digital cameras, tripods, and video cameras for the class.

Student Grades listed by ID Nr.

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  WEEK FOURTEEN | APRIL 23 | FINAL PROJECT
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We will NOT see the Annie Liebowitz exhibition Tuesday April 24 - it ended April 22!

We will meet as usual Tuesday - bring your first roll of film shot for your final projects.

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  WEEK THIRTEEN | APRIL 16 | SHORT TERM MEMORY
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Tuesday April 17 at 11:00 a.m. we will meet at MCASD , the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown San Diego on Kettner Blvd at Broadway. We'll meet at the main entrance to the main musuem building across from the Amtrak Station next to the Trolley stop. Directions to the museum are on the website.

You can take public transportation to the museum from home or from campus. San Diego MTS trip planner and maps.

Take notes while you are there on the artworks you like: title, medium, as well as a description of the piece. Think about your final project ideas.

Thursday 4/19 Project 3 Short Term Memory due. Please match the size indicated - 2K - 2048 pixels x 1364 pixels (approx 8 Mb) = 11 in x 7.33 in @ 186 dpi.

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  WEEK TWELVE | APRIL 3 | SHORT TERM MEMORY
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Project 2: Short-Term Memory Students will create a series of 2-4 slides that challenge the viewer short-term memory. Starting with original photographs, details will be altered little by little such that the succession of images subtly shifts the viewers perception. Focus is on the creation of convincing effects, and on the maintenance of high quality image throughout. The starting photographs for this project might be of a familiar or local scenario. Details from other sources may be integrated. Symbolism, substitution, omission, texture mapping, recoloring, and rescaling will be encouraged as tactics. Students may also experiment with generating the look and feel of photographs from another era. The final images will be 35mm color OR black and white slides output on a film recorder, and presented on a slide projector as a series.

We will output your Project 3 image series on the Film Recorder at ITS in 2 weeks. 35mm slides have a 3:2 aspect ratio image area. If your image is not 3:2, we will size it to whichever edge hits first, and the unexposed area will remain black.

The film recorder uses fixed resolutions for 35mm imaging. These can be seen as targets for maximizing pixel-addressibility in your files. File sizes based on uncompressed RGB tif files with no alpha channels. Resize your images to the following specifications:
"2K" - 2048 pixels x 1364 pixels (approx 8 Mb) = 11 in x 7.33 in @ 186 dpi.

Save finished files in flattened TIFF format - do not use JPG! Transfer flattened TIFF files to our server: *P2_Memory_Final.

Homework: For Tuesday 4/10 Hand in at least 2 Photoshop tutorial from the following sources. Use some of your own original images for these:

Photoshop Cafe has loads of (sometimes corny) effects tutorials.

Russell Brown tips & techniques page.

Gary Ballard's Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Support CS2 Tutorials

Also helpful for an overview of some Photoshop CS2 features is Adobe Evangelists

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  WEEK NINE | MARCH 13 | SHORT TERM MEMORY
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This Thursday March 15 bring in your Project 3 ideas and sketches.

On Tuesday April 3 bring in 24 digital images OR a roll of developed and printed film for Project 3 Short Term Memory. We will review your images in class together. Use a tripod while shooting, unless it is not possible to do so. Pay attention to depth-of-field. Make sure your lighting source for the various parts of your image are consistent (direction of lighting, quality of lighting, color of lighting)

What NOT to hand in for this project: A one-off visual gag combining 2 things that don't below together, as illustrated in many examples on the http://www.worth1000.com/default.asp website. Instead, think in terms of evolving an idea over 3 or 4 slides, such that the scene appears natural in at least one of the images - but the scene is subtly manipulated over the series of images.

Artists working with slides, memory, and place

Amir Zaki Photographs

Krzysztof Wodiczko projects at the PBS website includes images from The Tijuana Projection 2001 Public projection at the Centro Cultural de Tijuana, Mexico as part of In-Site 2000. Biography and other info on the artist.

Shimon Attie page at the Artnet website includes a biography and images from his Sites Unseen, The Writing on the Wall series in Berlin.

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  WEEK EIGHT | MARCH 6 | CLASS RESUMES THIS WEEK
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Read the following info on Google search. Do at least 3 searches related to your imaging technology report. Search for other similar projects, technical information, as well as the theme or ideas you are working with.
The Essentials of Google Search
Advanced Search Made Easy
Google Web Search Features

You will be writing a short paper on a scientific imaging technology for this class. You will choose one scientific imaging technology to write about. 3-D virtual reality, high-resolution videoconferencing, MRI scans, X-Ray, Electron Scanning microscpy, for example.

Address the following in your report: Briefly describe the technical process associated with the imaging or visualisation tool you chose. How does it work? What is it generally used for? Has it been instrumental in understanding heretofore inaccessible information (does this process allow researchers to understand something they could not understand before)? What would be a creative application of this imaging that would interest you?
Length: 3-6 pages (approximately 1000-1800 words). Include visual examples of the imaging technology you chose.

Submit an outline or a rough draft of the report Thursday or Friday March 8-9 to Naomi BY EMAIL (we will NOT meet Thursday 3/8).
The paper draft is due Tuesday March 13 at the beginning of class.
The final paper with images, footnotes and bibliography will be presented to the class on March 15.

SOME RESOURCES FOR THE DIGITAL IMAGING TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH REPORT

The links below can help you get acquainted with a variety of imaging technologies and visualisation projects. You should seek out additional resources for your paper online or elsewhere, based on your interests.

Donna Cox, an important contributor to the field of scientific visualisation, eloquently describes the role of artists in the field.

From Wikipedia: Scientific visualization is a branch of computer graphics which is concerned with the presentation of interactive or animated digital images to scientists who interpret potentially huge quantities of laboratory or simulation data or the results from sensors out in the field.

From Calit on the UCSD campus, a series of articles on visualisation projects that incorporate iGrid

Calit researcher Juergen Schultz has his visualisation projects here.

Steve Cutchin manages a visualization services group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Steve is scheduled to do a presentation for us on March 6th.

Scanning Electron Microscopy Interactive Java Viewer - This microscope fires electrons at a surface to read its shape and generate an image. This results in a phenomenally detailed picture of extremely fine detail.

Microscopy Movie Gallery has animated videos of specimens from our library of full-motion and time-lapse video. Startling views of cellular activity, crystals, etc.

Microscopy U is a great source for microscopy images and information, with excelelnt visuals.

A number of visualization projects and downloadable tools (PC) from Technical University at Eindhoven, along with pages from their research.

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  WEEK SIX | FEB 20 | RESOLUTION
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Naomi broke her ankle and will not be in this week. Please continue working independantly on your projects. You can contact Naomi via email. Class will meet as usual starting next week 3/1/0

Feb 15 Thursday Field Trip to Museum of Photographic of Art to see Tell Me a Story: Narrative Photography Now and Rebels & Revelers: Experimental Decades 1970s - 1980s Directions to the museum are on the website.

You can take public transportation to the museum from home or from campus. San Diego MTS trip planner and maps.

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  WEEK FIVE | FEB 13 | RESOLUTION
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PROJECT TWO: HI RESOLUTION COMPOSITE - Make a 20x20" composite using photoshop techniques demonstrated in class. Due Tuesday: incorporate one or more layer masks in your composite, using some of the techniques shown in class.

Homework: For Tuesday 2/20 Hand in at least 2 Photoshop tutorials from the following sources.

Russell Brown tips & techniques page.

Gary Ballard's Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Cafe has loads of (sometimes corny) effects tutorials.

Photoshop Support CS2 Tutorials

Also helpful for an overview of some Photoshop CS2 features is Adobe Evangelists



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  WEEK FOUR | FEB 6 | RESOLUTION
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PROJECT TWO: HI RESOLUTION COMPOSITE - Make a 20x20" composite using photoshop techniques demonstrated in class.

Start Project One. Scan at least 5 textured objects directly on the scanner. Plants, insects, textiles, etc. *DO NOT use any wet or heavy items. Place a sheet of clear acetate directly on the scanner before placing anything rough, scratchy, or moist on the scanner. Clean up the glass when you are done with alcohol and wipes. You might want to clean the acetate with windex before scanning if it is dirty. There should not be dust or debris in your scan.

Scanning resolution: 300 dpi @ at final printing size. (an object apearing at 12x12 inches in the final print will be 3600 pixels width and height). Use Photoshop to calculate the correct size in megabytes and as far as pixel dimensions. Make sure your scans are the right size - otherwise you will need to do them over.

Once you have your scans, make a new document 20x20", 300 dpi. Pull your scans into this document using the Move tool. Then use the Layer Blending Mode (on the layer palette change "Normal" blending mode to "Darken", "Multiply", "Screen", etc. on your top (selected) layer. Try a few different combinations of scans, using different blending modes.

Also try using the blend if feature at the bottom of your layer styles dialogue box (double click on the icon of the layer in the layer palette to access). Use blend if to drop out the dark or light background from your top (selected) layer.

If you have not used these features of Photoshop before, you can use Safari online textbooks to lookup Layer masks, Layer Styles, etc.

INSPIRATION: EARLY PHOTO COMPOSITING: PHOTOGRAMS The pdf file I used today in lecture can be downloaded

Then use layer masks to hide parts of one or more layers. Think about your composition. How can you make it more dynamic, more engaging, more interesting? A layer mask lets you silhouette the contents of a layer.

Homework: For Tuesday 10/17 Hand in at leaset 2 Photoshop tutorials from the following sources. Use some of your own original images for these:

Photoshop Cafe has loads of (sometimes corny) effects tutorials.

Russell Brown tips & techniques page.

Gary Ballard's Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Support CS2 Tutorials

Also helpful for an overview of some Photoshop CS2 features is Adobe Evangelists

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  WEEK THREE | JA 30 | PROJECT 1 HIGH LOW DIPTYCH
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DUE ON THURSDAY 2/1: 2 digital images on server - cropped, monochrome, filtered

DUE ON TUESDAY 2/6: 2 separate inkjet prints on Photo quality paper, with live area of 9x15". These should be trimmed flush and displayed side by side in dyptich form.
Also due on Tuesday 2/6: Bring 2 textures to scan for next project!

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  WEEK ONE | JA 18 | PROJECT 1 HIGH LOW DIPTYCH
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DUE ON TUESDAY 1/23: Your first set of 24 images for this project.

Project 1 description.

ANSEL ADAMS ZONE SYSTEM: DESCRIPTIONS AND LINKS
Gallery of monochrome photos which were shot using the zone system. Write down the following info for each shot if you will not have meta data with your digital images:
1. Shutter speed and f-stop at the correct exposure
2. shutter speed and f-stop at the adjusted exposures

Murphy's Surplus Warehouse would be a great place to look for your subject for Project 3.

Links to other local sources for materials (lumber, beads, plastics, etc). Hint: drag each page onto your desktop and print these. But SCALE TO PRINT SIZE when printing because they are larger than letter size.
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