This is my Photoshop Layer lesson that I made on Flash, hope it helps. =]

Beginning  

I. In Photoshop there are things called layers. The layer tool is the main thing you’re going to use when in Photoshop. There are a lot of tools that also deal with layers, layer masks, and layer style and create new layer.

 Intro

II. First of all, the Layer palette should be in the tool box on the right hand side. If it isn’t there go to window and scroll down to layers.

 Second Slide

III. When the layer palette is open, there should be a layer there already called background. But if you notice by the name of the layer you see a picture of a small lock, which means you can’t really do anything to it except color on it. So to change that you need to my a duplicate of that layer, so right click it and scroll down to duplicate layer. Name it then you’re done. You can also make a new layer by click the “create new layer” button.

 Third Slide

IV. When you have a layer made you can add some cool effects to it by going to the Layer style pallet. You can get there a few ways, one you can go to view, scroll down and click on Layer styles picture), or double click the layer you want to edit. Here you can do numerous things like add drop shadows, highlights, and some textures to your layer.

 Fourth Slide

V. There is also something called layers masks, layer mask is extra option that allows you to choose what part of a layer is seen. You can create a layer mask by going to the layer mask button on the bottom of the layer pallet .There an extra screen will appear next to the thumbnail of your layer. When you make a layer mask depending on the color you choose to paint on it u can choose what part of the layer shows. Black makes whatever part of that layer you painted invisible and white makes it reappear.

Conclusion

VI. No matter what you do, you will eventually have to use the layer tool in Photoshop. And once you understand it, it can be very helpful.

Our Podcast is about how different this year is from last year. We interview two SMASH scholars and one RA, all three of them had different views on this subject.smash-comparison_tech.mp3

My name, Tommy, comes from my Dad, Thomas Mark. I don’t know if it has a special meaning, but I like it because it belongs to my Dad. I went on the internet and looked up my last name but none of the meanings I found really sounded like something that it would stand for; thus I paid no attention to the definitions. Instead, I put up what I thought my name stood for: Family. The rest of the montage shows where I come from: the beach picture is from Puerto Rico, and since I’m Puerto Rican and would like to go there one day, I made it my background. The Chinese characters in the back mean “Ram”, my Chinese zodiac animal. In the middle of the background, there’s a big Chinese character that means “Family”. In the middle of the entire montage, I put an old Chinese painting with my name in it. The name of this assignment is “Whats in a name?” and in my picture I put what my name contains: my Puerto Rican and Chinese heritage.

Hi everyone, in the last class we began to get into a game called Second Life. It’s a game where you can create an avatar that looks like you and travel around in a virtual world. My avatar’s appearance sort of look liked me but there was a few little things that were hard to imitate, but you can still tell that its me, sorta. I started to edit the head cause it was the thing most people are going to use to determine whether my avatar looks like me. The easiest feature to replicate were my clothes, simple and quick, the hardest thing to replicate was my facial features. The reason it was so hard to replicate my facial features is because the options was more general, so i couldn’t get my avatars face to look exactly like me. And since no one person is the same, it was hard to get the little details that make me, me. I modified a lot of attributes of my avatar to get it to look a little like me, the hair, head size, height, facial features, clothes, etc. No, my avatar doesn’t really remind me of anyone except me, it only reminds me of me a little bit so I doubt it’ll remind me of anyone else. So that’s about all the problems trying to make my avatar look like me.

Hey, everyone the reason I made my picture the way I did is because I think it represents who I am. I come from San Francisco and I’ m a little weird (though my friends would say I’m a extremely weird). If you look closely at some of the pictures you’ll notice I did a few things to them like add Godzilla or something like that. At my school we are encouraged to be different than everyone else, make something original something that you can call your own. So thats pretty much the reason I did what I did, well that, and I thought it would be a little funny. =]

Hey everyone, today La’Vonnda asked me what DeviantArt is, so I decided to make a blog that explains Deviant Art to all those who have never heard of it. Deviant Art is a website where artists, like myself, can express themselves and be around others who share the same interests. Deviant Art is a great place for artists, even though its meant for them to share with other artists, it can be a great place to learn. Deviant Art has influenced how I draw things today, and how I act. I can use Deviant Art to express myself; hopefully this positive expression will encourage others to do so as well. When one person changes, that person can, in turn, change someone else, and then so on and so on; eventually the world would be changed. I first came in contact with m,y favorite form of media when I went to my school, SOTA. The media that I’m most exposed to is image and video. I use these types of media through sources like YouTube, Veoh, and of course, Deviant Art. I think the most effective form of media is images because they can inspire people and they tend to make people think more than they usually do in order to try to understand the image. The way this form of media influences my environment is in the way it allows me to look at things and what kind of things I enjoy doing. One day I may really admire something I saw on Deviant Art; thus taking it in, analyzing it, and then making something of my own from that inspiration. For example, on Deviant Art one day, I saw a fan art for some anime; at the time, I didn’t know what anime was. When I found out what is was, I became obsessed with it and began to buy the books, download the shows, changed my wallpaper (on my computer, not my house…I’m not that obsessive), and started to draw the characters I saw, surrounding my desk with sketches. All of that inspired madness originated from the media surrounding me.