Evaluation

Before this project I already had an extensive knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, this knowledge enabled me to quickly pick up Adobe Image-Ready and create attention grabbing animations for both this course and real design work such as web banners and advertisements. For my final project I did not use Adobe Indesign at all, i stuck with Photoshop, which was a smart idea in terms of that I was sticking with what i already knew and therefore was confident that i could produce work to a high standard, however I would like to get to know Indesign and be at the same level with that program as I am with Photoshop.

The project I learnt the most from was the PostSecret web banner animation, as even though i had used keyframe animation techniques before in other programmes, Image-Ready was completely new to me and I managed to pick it up fairly quickly which was very satisfying.

In terms of file formats my previous knowledge helped alot when it came to choosing which format would be appropriate to work in or save/export as during the different projects within Digital Graphics, things that i have learnt are how how save using the 'optimise for...' feature within Photoshop which is very helpful so that i can see a direct comparison between the native file which may be a .JPEG for example if you're dealing with a photograph and thats what the camera was shooting in (although obviously shooting in .RAW is preferable!).

My most succsesful project within this digital graphics course has to be the 'My Fake Band' project. I am fairly pleased with the end results of my animated web banner and CD cover designs. However, although I have tried to use the given time to complete the projects as efficiently as possible, I feel that if I had more time to put into pre-production so that i could plan out and make more drafts first, the final result would have been of much higher quality and had more impact on the viewer.

The project that I feel I could improve the most if given a second chance is the PostSecret web banner, it is very basic, isn't attention grabbing and certainly doesn't look proffessional however, creating it allowed me to get used to Image-Ready for the first time and pick up the skills that i utilised in the later projects.

The Skills that i have learnt, practised and refined have already proven helpfull for the freelancing design work that I have done for various bands, an event hosted by a pub, Advertisement leaflets, brochures and gift vouchers as well as photoshoots for all of which Photoshop was used and in some cases Adobe Image-Ready. I am determined to further my knowledge with skills and techniques found within digital graphics so that i produce products of a higher quality and value everytime.

File Format

Initially when you create a new Photoshop project, you are working in .PSD format which stands for Photoshop Data File. This Data file format allows you to work with multiple layers unlike more basic file formats such as Bitmap images which are literally just maps of the individual pixels, all on one layer, which form the image. After finishing all the design work within Photoshop, when it comes to saving it is then that you must choose the file format. There are so many different file formats available, the most widely used ones being .JPEGS (Joint Photographics Experts Group) and .BMP (Bitmap Picture). For use on the web, it is good to set the resolution of your file to 72dpi (dots per inch) because this resolution allows for quick loading upon webpages. However if you're formatted file is intended to be printed, a higher resolution of 300dpi or above is preferred as this is the minimal dpi most printers can print at without the actual dots being visible to the human eye. For my own products one of them was an animated web banner so the file format was .GIF at a resolution of around 72dpi. My other product was a CD front cover so it was saved as a high resolution .JPEG image at a resolution of 350dpi to ensure its quality was high when it came to printing it.

 

 This is an example of a real animated .GIF web banner that I produced for a musicians web site. I remastered the logo by using the pen tool to seperate different parts of it onto different layers and then used the paint bucket tool to the fill coulours. The background was a simple, fairly plain gradient fill as not to distract from the other graphic content as well as to aid with composition.

 

This is another example of digitally created advertisement that was produced for another musician that he used to publicise himself, and it was a success! the resoloution was 350dpi as to garuntee very high print quality. They were produced as business cards. there are multiple layer effects, filter effects and the use of custom brushes too.

Here is an example of how it would look in practice on a commercial website on the net. you can see in this example that the colours in the design fit in perfectly with the house stlye of the website which seems involve lots of red borders.