Recently we've been doing a lot of work in Photoshop and this got me worried about my digital artistic "skills". I was quickly relieved though when I saw that one of our assignments had tutorial videos linked with it on how to draw well in Photoshop. I watched all of the linked videos and followed their examples step by step until I finally understood how to use the tools effectively. At that point I realized that if you boil it down, all you need to be a good digital artist is knowledge of how to use the tools. Many of the examples shown in the videos used filters as well as the burn and dodge tools to add noticeable differences to the otherwise simplistic art they had created. Now that I'm pretty familiar with the tools in Photoshop, I am pretty confident about my digital art skills. I'm sure I'll never be as good as the artists who make beautiful images with only Photoshop, but for now my skills are good enough. As for real life application, many illustrators and animators enjoy how simple it is to make art with Photoshop. The ability to be able to change artwork as well as revert changes and do just about anything in Photoshop helps most people with actual jobs when using Photoshop. Seeing as many illustrators today use the tools of Photoshop to help make art much quicker and better, I can conclude that understanding tools is the most important part of Photoshop. If someone had amazing artistic skills but no idea how to use all of the tools in Photoshop, they would be unable to do anything. Whereas if someone knew how to use all of the tools but didn't have quite as good artistic skill, they would at least have a masterpiece. Therefore, understanding how to use the tools of Photoshop can not only increase your artistic skill but also make it easier to get a job in the digital art industry.
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Citations: http://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts/how-photoshop-changed-my-life-2108912 and http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshop/2011/04/what-is-photoshop-to-you.html
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Heroes of the Storm is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) created by Blizzard Entertainment and released on June 2, 2015. Like most other MOBAs, Heroes of the Storm is completely free to play and includes many characters to choose from, all of which can be obtained with in-game currency. Heroes of the Storm is different from other MOBAs though because instead of creating heroes with their own stories for the game, it uses characters from other games made by Blizzard Entertainment. This may sound lazy at first but to me it is one of the most interesting features of the game. Even some of the side characters like Murky the murloc and Brightwing, both from World of Warcraft, are in the game. As for gameplay Heroes of the Storm performs much like your average MOBA, such as League of Legends, but it focuses less on killing minions and more on doing objectives. On some maps objectives are the literal only way to actually win, forcing a great deal of teamwork among teammates. Being less focused on killing minions, I find Heroes of the Storm less stressful than other MOBAs like League of Legends and Paragon, resulting in more of a carefree have-fun environment for me. Another thing that separates Heroes of the Storm from the crowd is it's diversity, with several ways to play each character and over 70 of them to choose from, there is pretty much a character for everyone. Each character can be played several different ways because of Heroes of the Storm's unique talents system, rewarding players with a talent each time they level up. Instead of using talents to upgrade your abilities, Heroes of the Storm allows you to augment them, adding stats to them or giving you quests to fulfill for that ability. Players receive a talent point every three levels and have several choices for what to use it for each time. Sometimes this can confuse new players, but like most games there are tutorials for even the newest players to MOBAs. All in all I'd give Heroes of the Storm a 10/10 because after hundreds of hours it still remains fun and continues to deliver unique gameplay several years after being released.
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Having the freedom to explore Photoshop last week was the funnest thing I've done at school and it got me thinking about open classrooms. Open classrooms meaning classrooms that allow students to freely explore the topic of which they are currently being taught. Of course right away this sounds like a bad idea, many kids would probably goof off and do what they want instead of what is required. However, I think if done correctly and open classroom could greatly benefit student learning. When students have freedom it makes it feel like less of a typical school environment and more of a free learning environment, even if it is narrowed in on one tool or topic. To make a free classroom productive there would have to be checkups though, not necessarily quizzes and assignments every day, but at least one checkup a week. They could take the shape of simple projects and benefit tests and assignments without actually being a test. Of course an open classroom isn't guaranteed to work, like I said earlier students would probably goof off and get nothing done, but it'd work for the people who want to learn. It would also reward those who want to learn with the freedom to learn how they want and not just from lectures and quizzes. Although last week did consist of lecture time, I think the amount of lecture time versus free exploration time perfectly balanced out to make what I would call an open classroom. Therefore, knowing that last week went well for me and I enjoyed it, open classrooms actually do work and would probably benefit students like me.
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This week has been my favorite week of scientific visualization so far, not only did we get no assignments, but we also got to freely explore in Photoshop. We learned how to use more tools to edit images and make them look better and even applied them to an image we found off of the web. This made class much more fun and interesting, being able to apply what we're learning about to an actual photo helps give better understanding of how it can actually be used. Having no assignments also made class less stressful and I got to focus more on what we were learning about instead of due dates. This has also been the first time I felt like I was using Photoshop as Photoshop, and not just a tool to get work done. Essentially, the free time to use Photoshop this week helped me to actually understand how to use Photoshop and I now feel that I am fluent with Photoshop. I hope we get to use the skills we learned this week in more than just a few assignments because when I think of Photoshop what we're doing is usually the first thing that comes to mind. Like I said though, this has been my favorite week and I hope that the rest of this year is just as fun.
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AuthorMy name is Andrew Prichard and the this is my first digital arts class, I look forward to a good year with lots of hard work. Archives
May 2021
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Last updated 5/14/21
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