Third Quarter (Second Semester)

One of the most important projects we have to complete in our Digital Applications Class is the "Alumnae Reunion Movie." This year the reunion is scheduled for March 2nd (Saturday). Which means that the whole project has to be ready before February 28, 2013. We have to take in consideration that we're having our "Winter Break" in February (No Classes from 2/14/13 - 2/18/13). I need your cooperation to make this happen! Sister Lydia has entrusted us with this assignment and we cannot let her down, nor let down the Alumnae and Sisters of Saint Basil attending the reunion. This iMovie will count as two Test grades.

The idea is to create a short movie (3 - 4 minutes long) with the scanned pictures of the years you were assigned. The "Title Slide" will be the first slide in your movie - make sure it's at least 8 seconds long (you can trim it down later). You will add a title (moving title of your choice), e.g. "The 70's." Then add the pictures you scanned and change the Ken Burns effect on every other picture. Pay attention to the timings, you don't want the slides to move too fast or too slow. Also add transitions between the slides and make sure they don't move too fast (try 2 seconds or more). If you have any questions, please feel free to ask Mrs. Feld. You will also add music of your choice, corresponding to the years you were assigned (music of the 80's for the 80's movie, etc.).This year the Alumnae Reunion is for Alumnae that graduated in the years ending in "3" and "8," e.g. 1983 and 1988. We will scan pictures of former SBA students from the following years: 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008. I already divided the class in groups of two and you will create this iMovie with the scanned pictures (and other pictures from yearbooks and originals Mrs. Bilotta gave us). When completed, the group movies will be converted to Full Quality QuickTime movies (best quality) and I will put all of them together to create the final project. This is why I need your cooperation in completing this project quickly.

I need you to be very organized when you scan these pictures. Please create folders for each year and add the exact year to each photo/picture you scan. Also, you may have to fix or enhance some of these photos in Photoshop (ask Mrs. Feld if you have any questions). These pictures have to be available for everyone in your group, in case some of you are absent. After scanning them, I need you to put them in the Digital Applications Folders so that I can move them to the iLife06 folder in the Server. To save time in your movies you may also want to create a few collages with 4 or 6 pictures.

You are creating a "Title Slide" in Photoshop for your movie with important events, things and images that represent your group's year(s). When completed please convert into a JPEG (if not it will look all red in your iMovie). Save it as both a PSD file and a JPEG and put these titles slides in your DA-3rd Quarter Folder in the Server. Then, organize the pictures in iMovie to your liking and insert transitions and visual effects. Add first all the pictures of the year that ends in "3" and then the ones that end in "8." You could insert a black or other color before each set. The pictures should move fast (but not extremely fast). Same with transitions, you don't want them to go too fast!

You should also add some titles and a few quotes from the yearbooks of your years in your iMovies. Please add pictures of the Sisters too. Get creative!

Advise: Look at last year's movie (in iLifeO6 under Alumnae Reunion 2012). Some images moved too fast, as well as some of the transitions.

This project will be the biggest grade during this Third Quarter. Instead of giving you Tests and Quizzes, I will take in consideration the work you do for this project, your interest, your dedication and care. You should delegate responsibilities carefully between group members and accept responsibility for your final product. Thanks for your understanding!

Also, the Photoshop exercises for the Third Quarter will be included in the Third Quarter Grade. If you didn't do the Second Quarter Magazine Cover Exercise or others you can complete them this quarter (if you want a better grade). You should also do the Photoshop Exercise "Like Magritte." It is a very creative exercise. I'm hoping that you get inspired to create at least two of these "Magritte Exercises." The idea is to look at some of Rene Magritte's paintings and try to imitate one of them - your own version. Any questions? Please ask Mrs. Feld.

Remember: Look in the PHOTOSHOP Folder in iLife06 - 3rdQ Exercises. You can also put in your folder any of the exercises we did in class. Make sure you have a "Best Digital Art" folder in your Digital Applications folder in the Server - the work we will print for the Digital Art exhibit. I appreciate your cooperation!

The Digital Art Exhibit will take place May 1st, 2013, after the Honors Convocation.

Midterm & File Formats Information

You will be having your Midterm on Wednesday, January 23rd from 10 to 11:10 am. Please review the following information:

1. What is Digital? What is a digital system? What are binary numbers? What are Bits? Bytes? Kilobytes? Megabytes? Gigabytes? Terabytes? Check the PowerPoint in iLife06 (Server) under Midterm. Review/study your quiz and handouts.
2. What is iLife? iPhoto? iMovie? What is the Ken Burns Effect? Handout on the iLife Suite of Products.
3. What are Digital Cameras? Main parts of the digital camera. What is resolution? What is a pixel? Megapixel? Multimegapixel? Image sensor? LCD Screen? What does the term pixelated mean? What are bitmaps? Review the puzzles Mrs. Feld gave you. Review your last Quiz. Check the PowerPoint in iLife06 under Midterm.
4. What is Photoshop? Filters? Layers? Free-Transform (Command-T)? Desaturate? How do you change the colors of an image in Photoshop? How do you improve images? How do you add a Filter? How do you add Blending Options? How do you select images in Photoshop? Which tools can you use to select images? Commands: Deselect (Command-D), Create a Layer (Command-J), Change Colors (Command-U), Desaturate (Command-Shift-U).
5. New material: File Formats. You will see this presentation on Wednesday, January 16th. Copy and paste the information below in a Word Document and print it for yourselves (you can print this whole blog entry if you wish but make sure you copy it and paste it in Word - don't print directly from the website or you'll print like 30 pages or more). What is a JPEG? Which is the most popular format? What is compression? Which is the file format mostly used in the Publishing and Printing industry? Which file format is used for small picture animation?
6. There will be a Photoshop exercise. Mrs. Feld will explain later.

Storing the images as picture files – is an important step, and a number of file formats have been devised to store digital information as efficiently as possible.

There are different file formats for different applications (you don't have to memorize what the abbreviations mean, but do remember these abbreviations):  

JPEG (pronounced “jay-peg”) – is the most popular format for images taken with digital cameras. JPEG is an acronym that stands for the Joint Photographic Expert Group (from the International Standards Organization), which created the format and devised it specifically for digital photographs. Also known as JPG. Check the file extensions on your images. Example: IMG.jpg.

The JPEG is an extremely efficient compression* format and is frequently used for images on the World Wide Web. The supreme advantage of the JPEG is that it only stores data for pixels that have color – white pixels require no data. Compression* is high, resulting in small picture files. Some of the image data is discarded in order to reduce the file size, which results in reduced image quality.

GIF: The other major picture file format and certainly the most widespread on the Web is the GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). Generally used for relatively low-resolution images intended for the Web (those you want to post on a website). Compression* is very high and generally, the same picture rendered as a GIF will be far smaller than in any other format.

PNG: The PNG (Portable Network Group) file format is a Web-oriented format designed to retain picture integrity and produce small files. PNG is a bitmap image (digital image) format. PNG has become the third most common image format on the web.

Other file formats are: The TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), which is widely used in professional publishing. The BMP or DIB (device-independent bitmap), which is a bitmapped graphics format used internally by Microsoft Windows (like when you paste an image in the Paint application and save it). And the QuickTime format, which can act as a container for many different types of multimedia (which you already used when you converted your iMovies into QuickTime format.

*  Compression: The squeezing of image data that results in smaller picture files.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask Mrs. Feld.