jamesegan - Real life Log

Assignment 3: Decisons Decisions

James Egan — Mon, 11 Feb 08 19:39:08 +0100

So with the next assignment being set i have to decide the following:

Do i do a Website in which i have alot of ideas for or do a flash animation in which i have no ideas...

Safe to say the website intrests me the most.

So my next blog will be talking about what i am going to do.

Assignment2 : Editing my video

James Egan — Thu, 10 Jan 08 21:04:17 +0100

When editing my video i first did a rough edit in microsoft movie maker so i knew what order to do the clips:

(again must state that you will have to click on the images because Reallifelog wont show my images for some reason)

Here is an image of my video being edited in windows movie maker:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/video.jpg

Even though WMM isnt amazing it is usefull for rough work and placing rough titles in aswell so you can build up a good idea of how to fine edit your video.

Heres the video inside Avid:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avidlast.jpg

With both programs there are certain things that help more.

Windows movie maker has an easier interface to use compared to Avid because everything is word based instead of having icons.
Windows movie maker actually has some good title animations aswell if you use the proper text.

Avid has alot more options and once learnt is easy to use.
It gives you two windows to see your main video and stuff you can edit into it.

How i edited the video was making a first cut and then took it into avid and cut it from there, a tool in avid lets you trim a few seconds off when needed and this is a video only alloweod ten second of actual footage so it helped alot.
My first edit was about 15 seconds long but i got it cut so easily.

Assignment 2: Avid

James Egan — Thu, 10 Jan 08 18:58:54 +0100

I have used Avid for several years during college and for fun, the version i have been using is Avid Liquid 7, which is very diffrent than i used to use.
It is also very hard to use on monitor aswell.

So avid is pretty much used by professions to edit films, along with maya its the must have peice of software, i would go into i have it but well that would get me in trouble.

Now i may note that you will have to click on the images because for some reason images arent loading up to my blog at the minute.

So first we have the main screen:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/Avid1.jpg

You will notice two editing screens, one is for the source media imported and the other is the main sequance, you can tell its alot more complicated then windows movie maker but once you spend time looking at it, you will be able to edit films really easy.

here is the Sequence screen:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid3.jpg

In this screen you see anything you have edited together.

This is the source window:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid2.jpg

You can enter the imported media here and set two markers, these are then set so anything you cut out, it will be in between those two markers.

The timeline:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid4.jpg

After you have placed the markers, you then cut the clip down to this timeline, on here you can mute the audio and set fades in/out.

Timeline options:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid5.jpg

These are some of the many many options open in avid, such as the title editor, audio editor, special effects ( not available with my version)
The reverse option is here aswell, incase you make a mistake.

Options for the source window:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid6.jpg

Here are the options to set the in and out markers on a source window and cut it to the timeline.

Some tools:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid7.jpg

These are the same as the timeline options

Timeline options:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid8.jpg

here are some options to add tracks to the timeline, render effects and save the timeline.

videos menu:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/avid10.jpg

Here once you have imported the videos into avid this is where they are stored so you can always access them.

So thats some of the options for Avid, i havent really looked at adobe premeire because i know how to use windows movie maker and Avid quite well.

Assignment 2: my second cut of video

James Egan — Thu, 10 Jan 08 18:05:53 +0100

This time round i changed some of the shots, showing the man running to the bombsite and then seeing the bomb blow up.

Il try to do one more cut and try to trim it down.

Assignment 2: First edit of my film

James Egan — Wed, 09 Jan 08 23:21:49 +0100

So after my other film being lost, which is annoying because i actually put quite alot of effort into it, i have cut together a new one:

I still have to edit some sound clips in and see about some effects but it shall be done for friday!

Assignment 2: oh god

James Egan — Wed, 09 Jan 08 21:57:05 +0100

So today i came home from doing my programming to check everythings ready to hand in.
MY external Hard drive to which i keep most of my work is busted, wont turn on and when i did get it to turn on, there was nothing on it.

apprantley while it was connected to windows and rendering some files it updated during it and it got corrupted, words can not say how angry i am.

The video has to be in two days so for me i am going to have to cut something together quick, i am still going with my main idea of filming inside a game but instead of using audio dialogue i will use some cut from a trailer and place them over the top, i shall note which in the credits.

I guess this is a lesson to be learnt for me really, dont use external hard drives!

Assignment2 : trying to keep a video under 10 seconds

James Egan — Wed, 09 Jan 08 17:50:25 +0100

Now this is a challange, trying to keep something so short.

I have done alot of videos that had to be long and i thought that was a challange.
The first problem was how can i make something intresting in 10 seconds?
Well the idea of doing something ingame got my attention because its new, i know alot of people will be using camera tricks such as making double themselfs or editing triccks but the ingame idea that is something difficult to do because you need to use about 3 programs to do this.

one program to record it, one program to sync audio and one program to clear the game screen in Counter Strike so you can just view the gun so it looks really First person View.

I will talk in more detail about the editing later but this is just an update on my thoughts on my video.

Assignment 2: Audio Editing program

James Egan — Sun, 06 Jan 08 14:51:08 +0100

audacity is a free-ware program that allows you to edit audio, record audio and do pretty much anything you want with it.

The following will show some of the features in audacity:

these are the simple buttons in audacity such as play, record and stop.
To record sound to audacity, you do need a microphone that attaches to the jack in the back of your pc.

This is your audio line, as you speak into your microphone, the blue line goes up to signal the strength of what you have recorded.
On the side you have the options to increase the strength of the audio or to weaken if you need too.

This is your edit tool menu, in this you have the typical options to cut,paste and trim audio.

These show the level of audio that is given out through speakers/headphones.

This is the file drop down menu, this allows you to save the project and export the audio out to many audio file formats such as WAV and Mp3.

This are the effects you can use such as fade in change the bass or set it to repeat.

Using audacity you can change pretty much any audio aspects and record multipal voice overs at the same time.

many people use this program to make podcasts for the internet and voice overs in video game reviews.

Assignment 2: Final blog posts coming up

James Egan — Wed, 02 Jan 08 18:31:35 +0100

so i havent done many blogs post over the xmas period because of certain aspects, one being that my grandma died and i didnt have the time to get anything done while i was helping family.

The assignment is due in next friday and everyday leading up to i shall be doing a blog post.
These will be:

Story boards
how i filmed it
editing shots
Effects
Why i did the video i did
first edit, second edit and final edit
evaluation

Although i have edited a many of videos over the period for tests, i shall upload those aswell.
I do still need to record some audio voices for the FPS view voice over.

I shall be doing this tonight along with taking screenshots of the program i am using to record and edit them.

Assignment 2: An edited video using movie maker

James Egan — Wed, 19 Dec 07 21:49:38 +0100

This is a little short i threw together in about 5 minutes using movie maker :

it is a bit shoddy, i will edit a next video in Avid.

Assignment 2: Editing programs : windows movie maker

James Egan — Wed, 19 Dec 07 16:11:56 +0100

In this blog post i will be talking about using windows movie maker thats given free with windows and boy does it show.

I have used windows movie maker for sevral years, only my own little side projects that involved recording inside games and cutting allready made videos.
I did a few Dragonball z music videos when i first started editing and windows movie maker may be the worse thing to ever edit with.

Heres one video i edited with it:

I used fraps like i am doing with this assignment but the qualty this time round is alot better.

Now here are some of the tools in movie maker :

These are the import tools, where you import the videos you wish to edit.
You can also import pictures and audio here.

This is the timeline in windows movie maker, you can select certain objects like most editing programs and you have the choice of zooming in and out.
One diffrence between movie maker and AVid is you can not add other timelines to do shots over shots that fade into each other.

These are just some of the effects you can have.
Such as fading in and out, fade to black or white, add film ages to it and so on.
there are not as many effects as there are in Avid and adobe but for a free program, it is quite pleasing.

Here are some transitions avilable in movie maker.
I admit, they look tacky when used but i usualy use avid for editing.

These are just a few features in Windows movie maker.

Assignment 2: The program called Fraps

James Egan — Sun, 25 Nov 07 14:28:49 +0100

Fraps is a tool that allows you to record on your desktop or in game or well anything you want.

I have used it on secral games before for clan matches and testing but this is the first time i have used it to make a proper little video.

The program has four tabs with information on.

1:

Now these options are just the general about how the program starts up.

Now these options are:
Overlay corner: which corner the details will be in telling you how many FPS it will be running at.
It talks about about benchmarks of your Frames per second.

Now this is the place that everything happens.
It has :
Folder you save your videos too.
video capture key
if you want to record sound or not.
Full size video or half size
How many frames per second you want to record at, the more frames the bigger the file.
also has sound detection aswell.

And the final tab is the taking a screenshot menu, what file it is saved as or how many seconds to take a diffrent screenshot.

My next post i will show some pictures in game of the frap program working.

Assignment2 : Setting a scene

James Egan — Sun, 25 Nov 07 13:49:54 +0100

In this blog i will be talking about the following:

A second by second look at my video including titles and dialogue.
Looking at scenes from films, talking about camera angles.
Titles in films

With me doing media for 3 years before this assignment i know what is important in planning a short little video even if its just for ten seconds.
usualy you would write a propersal or a pitch that gives short little details information on the video such as :

Name
genre
Plot
Length
UPS ( ultimate selling point )
budget

After pitching your idea in a propsal the idea will either get turned down or accepted, at which point you then can go on further planning and start scripting.

after the scripting process you then do a detail plan of your film, usualy shot by shot but seeing as this project is only ten seconds long i am going to do it second by second.

Fade in to title: Fps chad : Fade out
Opening shot : Long shot of a sniper looking at two people
Second shot : cut to FPS shot of People of the two people talking
third shot : Long shot showing chad firing
Forth shot : Cut to chad changing weapon and running up to the two grunts.
Fifth shot: FPs shot of grunts again that pan down to the floor to show a grenade at there feet
Closing Title : "Dont use sniper rifles, There for pussys"

Now i have timed this and edited it together and it is ten seconds in all.

With me using a program recording a game and not using a camera, i have had to do it a little diffrent.
Using fraps i can change the following :

How long to film for.
Hoq many Frames Per Second are recorded

The more frames the bigger the file is, i recorded one little 40 second short and it was 3.4GB and running at 40FPS.

In my next blog i will talking about the editing process of my video.

Now for this next bit i will talk about some scenes from films:

Now the following scene is from Amercian history X, which i watched for the first time the other night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a08PnAc76CI

Now some little details in this video really caught my attention.
It looks like the whole scene is filmed using a hand camera which is very unlike professional camera men accept if they aimed to do it.
Its in black and white too mainly to set the scene as a past as something that happend in the past.

Now each film needs a title.
These title may relate to the film plot, the charcters or a single moment in the film that happens.

For example, the scream films dont let alot into the plot and the only way it can relate is that in the film people scream before they die.
when thinking about titles for my film i wanted it to be named after the charcter whos eyes we are going to see through.
In this case i think the title for my film is FPchad, minaly because it is a first person view of someone called chad.

Just for fun i am tempted to make a series of little 10 second shorts of this chad charcter, so in a way the film i am making for this assignment is a little trailer for a further project.

Assignment 2: Music in films and music videos

James Egan — Sun, 18 Nov 07 22:43:29 +0100

What sets a scene?
Is it the acting or is it the story that builds up to the scene?

some can agure that it is actually the music/soundtrack that sets the scene.
A musical score that makes you tingle and you just listen too over and over.

In action films it may be a Fast high beat score like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6FYs8aokiI

that clip is from the matrix

it may be a horror film like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egHKdOhb4rM

The film is Friday the 13th which is one of my faveorite horror films ever.
The music really makes the scenes and i will talk about why later.

The final scene with music that really set the scene is this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSwy412nttI&feature=related

star wars episode 3 : Revenge of the sith

Now all three of these movies have soundtracks that helped make the movie feel like it did.

The matrix was a cool stylish film so for the lobby scene you hear music that has a strong beat going along to the action.
friday the 13th is a horror film and involves Jason vorhess killing teenagers, it came out in the early 80's ( however in the first film his mother was the killer ) but the music did something that scared the hell out of people more than freddy kruger or micheal myers, it was the music.
You hear the music before seeing jason, you know hes there somewhere so it prepares you for it but the film likes to play tricks on you.
you hear the music, expect him to gut some teenager but he doesnt so your constantley building up a sense of fear.

Star wars : episode 3 was the final film to made from George lucas and i openly admit i was so trying not to cry at this, not at whats happening or the story ( which was sad ) but the music score so suited the scenes.
Star wars films have always had amazing musical scores since the first one back in the70's.

Now for music videos i will again use 3 examples :

Alexinsonfire - Boild Frogs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJcZaS0JthA

Rage agsint the machine - sleep now in the fire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz8wU9DdbqU

Micheal jackson - thriller

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

Now the first video is the use of having little storys in a music video but the second is the most important as it was one of the first music videos ever made and was used on MTV alot back in the early 80's when it started to air on TV.

Music videos are a very strong form of advertising as it can show the band and people put the onscreen action to the music.
some people watch the video for the video footage and not the music.

My next Blog post will be about editing video footage.

Assignment 2: The ways of using a DV camera

James Egan — Fri, 16 Nov 07 14:37:54 +0100

This post is about the use of a DV camera.

While i was at college i used DV cameras on alot of diffrent projects so i know some of the best ways to use them.

I have used DV cameras on the following :

A 3 camera set up of a live music performance
A music video
A single camera drama
A short 30 minute movie
An advert for a selected project
Also have done live editing using a very old style of editing.

These proects were all during college and i really learnt the ins and outs of a camera so in this post i will talk about some of the details but not in any massive detail.

So on a digtial camera you have the following things:

Digital zoom
focus
White blanace
A microphone

I will talk about these details.

Digital Zoom :
So on each camera the zoom is very important, helps to get close up shots and show emoition.
When you start filming you may be in a medium range shot but then in the scene you will want a short of the face area but it looks best if you dont zoom show the zoom in during the editing process, if you cut to the zoom in shot it looks alot more professional.

Focus :
Focus is needed so that any shots you take are not blurred, now on most cameras you will have an auto focus choice but if you want a certain type of focus shot then you can do it yourself, you really need a steady hand for it however.
Like the zoom its best to not show you focusing in on something during the editing.

White Balance:
The way white balance works is that you hold a peice of white paper up to the front of the camera so its gets the rite colour during filming because it may show up as all colours loking normal but during the filming process some colours will look odd.
for example you record something yellow and it shows up orange.
When i first started using a camera i always forgot to use the white blanace but its something you cant change it during editing.

A microphone:
Most Cameras have an onboard microphone that is decent but you can change the settings to how much sound it picks up.
Sound levels matter aswell because if they are too loud they sound really distorted and this is something againt that you cant repiar during editing.
however you can get another microphone and plug it into the camera for extra audio.
you can use diffrent microphones such as directional pic or a pin on mic which are used for live shows alot.
The boom mic is the most popular with alot of proudctions as it gives the boom mic holder alot of control about how the microphone picks up audio.

There are many diffrent filming ways in the world and here are a few, Now these films have been landmarks that really added something new to the film world:

300:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDiUG52ZyHQ

300 was filmed mostly on Green screen and uses alot of slow motion and very close shots of the action.

The Matrix :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM5yepZ21pI

In 1999 this film came out at the same time of star wars : episode 1 and beat it at the box office.
It had one certain filming way that started a whole trend, Bullet time.
the way they filmed bullet time was by having cameras all around the stars and then slowed it way down so you could see all the details, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZh787eKeEw

They then edit and turn it into this:

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

This set of a trend which alot of films started to follow.
More details here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ci3aCdJ-cU&feature=related

Transformers :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnwmUZuF5OY

When you talk about CGI you think of films like Spiderman or The hulk that needed alot of CGI to make the movies action scenes but in my eyes the most important CGI heavy film to come out in recent years is Transformers.
Now the story of transformers is big mechs called the autobots fight the evil decepticons but the film takes place on earth this time and the CGI took over a year to reate perfectly.
Sometimes CGI can look a bit too cartoonish but they tried to make the transformerslook as real as they could.

All three of these films have something about them that are really important about films today.

My next post will be talking about the importance of audio in films and music videos.

Assignment 2: Testing Fraps

James Egan — Mon, 12 Nov 07 22:11:03 +0100

Here is the video test i did using Fraps :

Now i used a program to edit the main HUD of the game so it looks more like what you really would see when your doing it in real life.

My next video will involve some action with another player and then i will edit it together with some music.

Assignment 2: 10 Second video

James Egan — Mon, 12 Nov 07 12:36:02 +0100

Our next assignment for creative tec is the 10 second video film festival in which we have to produce a 10 second video that has to be 10 seconds, no more.

Now when i come up with ideas for this one influence was this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NtBX0XEHT0

(note the embed wont work )

Rite this show is called Red Vs blue, its a new form of media called machomedia that involves recording a video inside a computer game.

The first company that did this was Rooster teeth that took the halo multiplayer and recorded it, then went on to add voices and full charcters.

http://www.roosterteeth.com

They went on to make more shows inside games such as The sims 2 and F.E.A.R but none were as popular as Red Vs blue, it went on for a 100 episodes over 5 seasons and has spawned 2 mini seasons.

So my idea was to do something like that involving the game Counter Strike source, now i am working on uploading some test videos but hosting sites only allow a 100MB files.

so my idea was to have a little short video in counter strike with 3 people in it and have some dialogue between two of the charcters.

the program i will use to record the footage is called Fraps, which i have used before.
You need a very good machine to record the game and get a good frame rate but lucky for me my machine is very high spec.

This wasnt my only idea i did have a few and they were :

Reacting this scene : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgrsNBu51nU
That is the long scene but the bit where he goes " madness? This is sparta!" and kicks him down the well but change the words to " this is lincoln!"
that is a silly idea but fun and its one of the best lines ever thats been overused more than the " i am your father" line in the empire strikes back.

my second idea was to do a Anti Mac advert, This idea came from when a friend of mine was bragging about a mac and i just wanted to blow it up.
the idea would be that the camera pans out on a Mac on a desk, then after 3 seconds it blows up and then cuts to a white screen saying " apple, we have found a use" this imates the general apple adverts.

Another idea is a little band promo that lasts 10 seconds, shows pictures of the band performing to the there music in a little GIF file.

Then theres the pealing orange idea, this idea was to use stop motion and show the orange pealing itself.

Each of these ideas uses a diffrent way of filming, My main idea uses a really new and diffrent way of video recording.

My next post i will talk about the first tests i did using fraps including a little edited video i have done and also how Red Vs Blue came to be and why it is so big, i will also talk about all the copies of red vs blue and diffrent games.

Assignment : Evaluation

James Egan — Fri, 02 Nov 07 19:18:34 +0100

This final post for my bigstockphoto.com assignment is my evaluation of the whole assignment.

The following post will contain :

The idea process
How i took the pictures
Editing process
Looking into bigstockphoto.com
What formats my files are in
What i could of done diffrently
Final words on the assignment

The idea process :

when i started this assignment i was really looking forward to doing it because i love photography.
I started with ideas that i am really intrested in, for example skateboarding but then i wanted to widen my ideas by wanting to do things with nature and modeling.
With the nature idea you can always get a beutifull shot of something so natural.
With modeling i wanted to just show soneone at peace with nature aswell.

Whenever i went out anywhere i looked for shots i could use and sometimes they ended up being shots i used.
I beleive that some pictures are fake, they arent real.
Pictures involving someone posing for example

How i took the pictures :
I did two shoots during this assignment.

The first one i used my step dads camera which i beleive is a 6 mega pixel camera.
We went around lincoln with my family for the day and i got some really good pictures.
A few have been mentioned in earlier posts.
The thing with lincoln is you can get really beutifull shots of building and nature aswell.
I took two pictures from each shoot.
The pictures from this shoot are:

Catherdiral shot.
My mum really waned to see the cathedrial so i thought it would be a good chance to get some good shots.
I really like this one because of the angle and shadow from another building,
also the clear blue sky aswell really helps.

Beutifull sunset.

This wasnt a planned shot but i really like it.
The sun was setting and i was going to get a quick shot of it but in one shot the little buds were in the way and then i took the picture and this is what i got.
The branches also frame the picture, i tried editing the branches out but it didnt really have the same feel.

My second shoot was with my own 5 Mega pixel camera.
I went out with my friend tom just to take his pictures but i took a really beutifull shot :

This shot is a table out side the main building on campus and i have edited the colour of the leaves.
Its a very beutifull shot and you get a feeling of love from it.

my final picture that i used is a modeling shot:

this is a friend of mine called shiv, we took some shots at the main park in lincoln.
I know the image is a bit blurry but i cleaned it up a bit but kept it like this so i made sure i got feedback from bigstockphoto.com so i could talk about it in my blog.

Editing Process :
I spoke about editing one of the pictures in an earlier post but i didnt really edit the pictures alot.

Beutifull sunset picture i brightened it up and made the sunset look more orange.
the cathedrial picture i didnt edit at all because i felt it didnt need any.

the main picture i edited was the modeling shot:

I must also note i dont use Photoshop on my pc so this is Photoplus11 which is pretty much the same.
this is the image before any editing.
I then went on to sharpen the image:

This made it look a bit more clearer.

I then changed the Hue and Saturation of the image:

I played about with that for a bit and got the following :

Its stilly blurred but thats as much as i could do.

Looking into bigstockphoto.com:

In earlier blogs i have spoken about :

importance of keywords and why they didnt accept some of my pictures but in this little bit i will talk about why it is important to follow there guidelines.

bigstockphoto.com is pretty much the only free photo website where you can submit photos that others can buy so the strict guidelines are needed really.
There is first a test you must take to know what there strong rules but every so often you must also agree again about this :

See certain details such as needing a release form if someone is in your picture makes sure the website isnt open to copyright and the person that uploads the picture isnt too.

Now i know for a fact that they can be very strict about how good they want the pictures to be and the feed back you get looks like this :

I got this response a whole week after uploading my images which also means that it takes 5 working days for them to respond.

When you upload a picture and after agreeing to the terms you will be presented with this :

Now if you look theres details such as :

Image name
Type of camera
Category/Sub-Category
Image description
Keywords
and also the file info at the side.

you need to fill all these out before you can upload the image.

What format my files are in

So for my pictures i went for the normal picture format of JPegs, now i have spoken about some file formats in an earlier blog but i just wanted to confirm why i used this file format :

Jpegs are the easiest to format and are always accepted on websites, they are always high qualty unless you crop them down but all cameras usualy upload pictures to a computer are Jpeg file format but after editing them using photoshop/photoplus11 the picture becomes a format which you can reopen with an editing tool and change the things you have done to the image but after you are fully done with it then you can save it as a jpeg.

for example :

This is saving it to a Photoplus picture so it can be reopend again to edit layers and other details.

There isnt much diffrence between photoplus and photoshop, just made by diffrent companies.
However with photoplus11 you can do little animations aswell that you save as GIF's.

What i could of done diffrentley in this assignment :

looking over at the assignment i think the only thing i would of done diffrent is a diffrent style of pictures.
Instead of picking pictures that are to do with nature and modeling i could of done something to do with buildings or just really go for something diffrent than my ideas.
Diffrent ideas means diffrent outcomes.
I didnt really want to do alot of editing on pictures because the more you edit the more detail you are going to lose in the image and with mine being about nature it is all about what you get there and then.
with the nature shots you only have one shot, unlike pictures of buildings.
To quote an episode of House M.D " You take over a thousand pictures and only one has to be perfect".
this doesnt not apply to my images because some of them were spur of the moment.
for example in my picture of the table, i didnt move any of the leaves at all and they seem well scattered and the single leaf on the table floor.
Lighting was a big issue aswell as i had plenty of images that were not light enough but on some the exposure was way too bright so i changed some of the settings on my camera, i lowered the exposure to about -2.0 and turned the flash off.

Final words on the assignment :

For the first assignment for Creative Tec i found this very fun to do and it helped remember all my old skills using photoshop even though i didnt need to use alot of them on the photos.
I hnk the big thing was acting like you are really a professional photographer so you would think of all the little aspects that Bigstockphoto.com inforce, such as blurryness and keywords.

in one lecture we were asked to be truthfull with ourselfs and admit what grade we deserve and i beleive i deserve atleast a pass, i have shown skill in using a camera, editing images and understanding all the details of file formats, bigstockphoto.com and the proudction process.
Anything higher than a pass is a cherry on top.

The image i like the most out of this project is this :

I am so very proud of it aswell.

Assignment : Why my pictures were not approved

James Egan — Wed, 31 Oct 07 13:58:11 +0100

So this time last week i sent of my pictures to bigstockphoto.com.
I have got word back today if they have been approved or not.
2 have been approved, 2 have not and in this blog i will talk about the feedback they gave to why they hadnt been accepted.

Image 1 : girl model.

I had a feeling that this image would not get accepted because it is a little bit blurr around the face but i still went on to upload just so i would get some feedback to talk about.
As i had said bigstockphoto.com repled back a week after submitting this, they denied it of course because of the blurryness and this shows in the face area more.
I did edit it in brightness because the before picture was very dark but i knew i couldnt do anything with about the blurryness.

Image 2:

Now this is the second image that got turned down.
I admit i am really gutted about this because this image is one of my faveroties that i took.
The bit i like the most is how the little plants are more forward into the picture than the sun and its just in the background.
I did try editing out the 2 branchs before uploading it but it just didnt feel right because they frame the picture.
I understand bigstockphotos.com reasons for not accepting it because they have very strict rules.

My next blog will post will be tmy assignment evaluation and general opionions on how i feel it went.

Assignment: Some pictures i took and why i didnt use them

James Egan — Wed, 31 Oct 07 13:29:09 +0100

In this post i will show a few images and talk about why i didnt use them:

Image 1:

Although this image is very clear and in focus, the sky is bright blue along with the water i felt that it didnt really give off a special feeling to it. The image is very bland and lacks personalty.
The shot also contains swans sadly.
Some nice little details is the fact there is not a single cloud in the sky.

Image 2 :

Another shot with a very clear sky however the lighting on the wall of the cathedral ruins the image, it goes from very bright to dark however you do see shiloutes of the buildings in the background.

Image 3

Another shot of the river flowing through lincoln, Although it captures the center peice very well, the rest of the image is very dark.

These are just 3 of the other images i took.

I have just got word back from bigstockphoto.com and they have so far approved of 2 of my pictures, i uploaded 3 to start.
My next blog will be talking about the feed back i got from them.

Assignment : Editing one of my photos

James Egan — Thu, 25 Oct 07 14:25:32 +0200

Although this will be covered in my final video blog post i thought i would talk about how i edited one of my photos using photoshop.

Rite i took the following picture :

This picture was taken with a 5Mega pixel camera with the flash turned off and exsposure turned down to -20 on my camera.
It was taken outside the uni main building.

I was going to just brighten it up a little bit and then submit it but i thought i should try something diffrent.

So i did the following:

Turning up the hue and saturation means i can change the colours dramaticly.
I could go blue, green, black and white etc.

After tweaking the hue and saturation i finally came up with this :

The colours are very diffrent to the unedited picture and in the new picture you can see a feeling of love in the picture.
I have submitted this picture to bigstockphoto.com.

I am currentley waiting for my pictures to be approved on bigstockphoto.com and apprantley that takes 5 days, i checked all the images for the little details that they ask for and so hopefully they will be accepted.
I do need to upload one more picture which i shall be editing later on.
I dont likw on bigstockphoto.com how you cant look at images while they are being approved because id like to add keywords but i can do that after they have been approved.

Assignment : Looking at bigstockphoto.com

James Egan — Thu, 25 Oct 07 01:47:56 +0200

I had ment to post this blog earlier but forgot that it was waiting in my drafts section.

After i had looked at my ideas i then started to look at keywords on bigstockphoto.com.
I would post some of the pictures i found but you need to buy the pictures first but i will show a keyword and then show how many photos i get in the search result.

Skating - 575 pictures
Skateboarding - 259 pictures
Sports - 13,348 pictures
Nature - 232,253 pictures
Flowers - 35,906 pictures
modeling - 997 pictures
fashion - 31,188 pictures

When i was looking at a few keywords i didnt think i would get more than the sports keyword but i was very wrong.
The importance of keywords is that they are there to advetise your pictures in search engines.
The more you have, the more chance someone will find one of your pictures.
For example i am uploading a picture of a girl modeling with a dress she made in a park so i will apply the following keywords:

Modeling
fashion
Park
Beutifull
Pretty
cute
Red
Black
Dress
posing
tree
blonde
glasses
female
girl
emotion
etc

For each image i will try to have atleast 20 keywords.

When you look at images you will also see Categories.
Alot like keywords, Categories make your photo easy to find.
For example if someone uploads a picture of a skateboarder doing a trick, it can then be found in the following Categories:

Sports > skateboarding
People > Teens
Conceptual > Risk

Now with my image placed in these Categories and have alot of keywords attached to it, there is a much higher chance of being found in a search engine.

Just before i uploaded this blog, i submitted 3 of my final photos to bigstockphoto.com.
I will submit my final photo in the morning after editing it a bit more.

My next blog will be talking about the photos i uploaded and why i picked them and also talk about what other poctures i took.
I am also starting to film for my final Video blog which will talk about the whole production process and voer everything needed.

Assignment : File formats and Resloution

James Egan — Wed, 24 Oct 07 00:25:39 +0200

In this blog i will be talking about some details of file formats and the importance of high resloution in pictures.

First is Jpeg:

Now this is a Jpeg File.
Jpeg is the most common used file format, Most digital cameras upload pictures as Jpegs, Once you are finished editing a picture on photoshop you will usual save the picture as a Jpeg.
Jpegs can be low qualty or High qualty depending on the resloution.
If you zoom in on a Jpeg the qualty will get lower and lower and you can start to see the pixels in details.
One big con with jpegs is that once you save a picture as a Jpeg in photoshop, you can not go back and edit things in the picture.
for example if you add layers to the photo, then save as a Jpeg and try to edit the saved Jpeg, you will not be able to change the layer you added before.

Now for GIF:
GIF files are pictures that are little animations.

Love heart animation ( note wont show up on the site so i have set a link )
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/egan_87/heartalways.gif

This animation is about 5 seconds long and isnt high qualty.
You can creat GIFs using programs like photshop.
Unlike Jpegs GIF resloution cant go that high.

Finally PSG files.
A PSG file is a photshop file that has been saved so it can be opened again.
So you can change layers that have been added and little details such as healing tools.

Resloution:

The higher the resloution the better the qualty.
So for example:

This pictures resloution is 500 X 375.
Thats 500 pixels across and 375 pixels down.
Its a smaller picture but if you zoom in you can see the less qualty details.
Also the higher the resloution in a picture, the larger the file will be.

Time for a High resloution picture:

This image of one of my new kittens is 2015 X 1512.
This is a higher qualty picture that hasnt been edited in anyway.
Of course with its high resloution it is a larger file, this is close to 1MB.

That is a quick overview of file formats and resloution, my next blog will be about the rest of the pictures i hav took.

Assignment: my first set of photos

James Egan — Tue, 23 Oct 07 13:08:13 +0200

The following pictures were taken using a 12 mega pixel camera and have not yet been edited using photoshop.

This was the first shot i took, this was pretty much to get used to using the camera.
The sky is really clear blue because i change the exsposure down to negitive.

Later on the sun was setting so i attempted to get a shot of the uni from the other side of the river. The picture is quite dark.

With the sun setting i got this picture, it is very brightly lit apart from the shadow but i could heal that out.

Now i completely admit that this shot turned out alot better than i hoped it would.
I moved the little flower thing into the way of the sun so the glow comes the back of it.
I will edit out the branchs using photoshop as they are a bit out of focus.

These pictures are just a few that i took last week, i do have some more photos which are not as high quality as they were taken with a 5 mega pixel camera but i will compare the shots and talk about the quality in my next post.

I will also note that Reallifeblog.com has issues loading up on my PC in halls for some reason but i will be writeing up my blogs in rough at home and then uploading them when i can.

Next blog will be about file formats.

Assignment : Using equipment and photoshop

James Egan — Tue, 16 Oct 07 13:22:27 +0200

During this assignment i will be using the following equipment:

Digital Camera
Memroy stick
tripod

During this assignment i will be using the following programs:

Adobe Photoshop CS

Focus Focus Focus:

Over the past three years i have used digital camera for diffrent situations.
During making a film for my media course i used it to take production photos so i had a log of how things looked and how cameras were placed.
I have done photoshoots for bands and done live photos that have been used on bands websites and mayspace pages.

I know how important it is to make sure that the picture you take is right because you may only get one chance.
Before i take a picture i first take note of the lighting and make sure that everything is in focus.
On previous photoshoots i have taken pictures where i aim to get it out of focus so i can tell the diffrence between the two.

My photoshoot will be taking place outside, hopefully in the park area just outside lincoln as thats the main idea for my assignment.
It is a peacefull place with very good locations that i beleive if the shots are taken right will look very impressive.
I am going to take test shots of a few places before and then going to do the main shoot.
In my shoot i will be using a female model who studies fashion and she will be wearing her own designed cloths.

As stated in my ideas post i am wanting to do modeling with a bit of nature and want to get the sense of peace in the pictures.

With us having to upload 4 pictures to bigstockphoto.com i am going to take 10 pictures of each shoot area, each 10 pictures will involve diffrent angles, diffrent zoom style and diffrent postioning of the model.
With taking 10 pictures i will have plenty of choice for when i decide which picture i want to upload.
I will talk about why i used the picture in a blog post and give reasons to why i didnt use certain pictures.

Using Photoshop:
Each picture will have some form of editing, be it air brushing some things out or just making the general picture more tidy.

My plan for my lost blog is to do a video blog on the whole assignment that i will record and edit using AVID.
I plan on taking screen shots of the photo editing process and talking about each of the tools i used and what other tools i could of used.

The photoshoot is taking place this week and i am going to take test photos tuesday afternoon.