Lab 6 Reflection

     Recently I completed the sixth lab for my Visual Design course. Similar to the fifth lab we were recreating one of our drawings (the same drawing we used in our fifth lab) in photoshop. However, instead of using the paint brush we used shapes to recreate our drawing. The first thing we did was open a scan of our original drawing in Photoshop (mine pictured to the left). Once in Photoshop we used shapes to recreate the elements present in our drawing. The shapes we had avaliable were the rectangle, the rounded rectangle or roundrect, the elipse or oval, the polygon, and a few custom shapes like arrows and crowns.
     With the shapes came many settings for us to play with. The fill let us choose a color for the shape. The stroke let us adjust the outline of the shape. For example, I can adjust the outline of a grey rectangle to be red, be a solid line outline, and be a thick outline. We could create our own shapes by doing various things. By selecting combine shapes we could create one entrire shape by merging two or more shapes. I can create a triangle with a semicircle at one of it's sides by using the polygon tool and the elipse tool with this setting on. There was also a setting where I could subtract parts from front shapes. So I could have a square on my screen but with subtract from front shape on I can take out a corner by using the rectangle to encompass the corner I want out and placing the rectangle to get the corner. By selecting include intersecting shape areas you could make shapes by intersecting two shapes. If you intersected two circles the area where there is overlap would become an oval shape and the area where there is no overlap would no longer be there. By selecting exclude overlapping areas quite the opposite happens. Areas of intersection will be exluded from the shape. With this setting on the two overlapping circles we previously mentioned would no longer form an oval but two connected circles with an oval gap where they would intersect.
     The skills we learned in this lab are important to a web designer because these skills can help a web designer create neat designs like logos. Shapes, unlike the paintbrush, are more exact and defined. A web designer can use the skills of how to use shapes to create neat looking designs such as aforementioned logos. They can also make advertisements or flyers using these skills.  Shapes would be a good application for these things because shapes are so neat, sharp, and defined.

My Final Work

A Screenshot of my Workspace