Graphic Manipulation in Stimuli Creation. Kristen Smirnov University of Alberta

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Graphic Manipulation in Stimuli Creation. Kristen Smirnov University of Alberta"

Mae Kelly
5 years ago
Views:

1 Graphic Manipulation in Stimuli Creation Kristen Smirnov University of Alberta 1

2 Software to Consider Adobe Photoshop Top of the line: it will do everything anyone needs Adobe Photoshop Elements Companion software: it will probably do everything you need GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) Freeware equivalent 2

3 Software to Consider Adobe Photoshop Pros: Industry Standard Well documented Cons: Expensive Complicated 3

4 Software to Consider Adobe Photoshop Elements Pros: Cheaper Simpler Cons: Not as well documented 4

5 Software to Consider GIMP Pros: Freeware Community Cons: Difficult to learn Not well documented 5

6 Software to AVOID Corel Draw & Adobe Illustrator Why? They produce vector graphics, not raster. That is, they work with geometric shapes, not individual pixels. 6

7 Software to AVOID Corel Painter Why? It s not a photo editing program. It s an artist s toolbox. (It also has a learning curve that s close to the vertical.) 7

8 Hardware Wacom Tablet Pressure sensitive Use of a stylus, not a mouse Graphics programs are designed to work with them 8

9 Hardware Types of Wacoms Bamboo Fine for most ($99) Intuos For heavier use ($300) Cintiq Amazing (but you don t need it) ($3000) 9

10 Ads Realism Intensity Impact 10

11 Typical Visual Stimuli 11

12 Full-Bleed Visual Stimuli 12

13 Full-Bleed Visual Stimuli 13

14 Layers Like animation cels, you can layer separate items Layers can be hidden You can contain every condition in one file 14

15 Layers 15

16 Layers 16

17 Layers 17

18 Layers 18

19 Layer Structure Each layer to the right contains one element that you saw in the previous few slides. What do all these buttons mean, though? 19

20 The red area indicates 1 layer. There are currently 5 layers total. Each layer affects only the layers below it. The checkerboard pattern means no content, meaning an area is transparent. 20

21 Put these two together, and you would see parts of the Condo layer around the dogs. But you won t see the Field layer, since the Condo layer completely fills the screen. 21

22 How do you control what s shown? If this eye symbol is showing next to a layer, it s visible. Click it (left click) and the layer will turn invisible. 22

23 The Condo layer is now invisible. You ll see the field background, instead. However, the condo background is still in the file and can be brought back with one click. 23

24 Finally, the Darken layer is an effects one. It s what made Tramp look darker. We ll come back to effects layers later. 24

25 Basic Tools All screenshots are from Photoshop (Creative Suite 3 edition) Other programs will have basically the same functionality, but may look a little different There are many, many more tools than covered here! 25

26 Move Tool Marquee Selection Lasso Selection Brush Click and drag to move around objects on the current layer Available in rectangular, elliptical, row, & column Used for freeform selections, either entirely freehand or as a series of lines Lay down areas of the selected color 26

27 Healing Tools Clone Stamp Eraser Text Tool For minor blemishes, scratches, redeye, etc. Once an origin point is chosen, it duplicates it anywhere else on the image It erases! Makes a new text layer 27

28 Geometric Shapes For making squares, rounded squares, stars, etc. Eyedropper Picks up any color in the picture 28

29 Tool & Layer Use 1. Paste in the puppy picture on a new layer 2. Use the text tool to type out a caption 3. Pick up a shade of green with the eyedropper to make a border 29

30 Special Effects (Make Tramp Darker!) Two kinds of effects : 1. Double-click a layer s region (grey area, not the name or image) to bring up some basic effects 30

31 Special Effects (Make Tramp Darker!) Two kinds of effects : 1. Double-click a layer s region (grey area, not the name or image) to bring up some basic effects 2. Make an effects layer 31

32 Basic Photo 32

33 Changed Eye Color 33

34 Menu Apppearance Unlike other layers, which are just normal, this one was set to have a special behavior. Color changes the color of anything under the colored region. 34

35 Layer Content Here s what that layer looks like on normal mode. 35

36 Opacity You can change layer opacity to tone down effects. Here s the brown layer taken down to 50%. 36

37 Opacity You make opacity changes here. 37

38 Darken / Lighten Could be used to make pictures (or parts of pictures) look brighter or darker. Here s a common application in photo retouching. 38

39 Removing Objects Two methods: Clone Stamp & Selection Tools Selection Tool If it s in front of something basic that can be quickly filled in Clone Stamp If there s something complicated or textural behind the item 39

40 Selection Tool This is the sort of image that works with a basic select + fill. It is a completely flat background. 40

41 Clone Stamp When the item has some texture to it, just filling it in with a flat color may not be very convincing. 41

42 Clone Stamp What looked like a flat blue background does actually have some shading, as becomes apparent when a single-color block is put on top of it. 42

43 Clone Stamp Using the texture of the bin itself to cover the text makes for a less noticeable patch. 43

44 Healing Tools Clone Stamp Eraser Text Tool For minor blemishes, scratches, redeye, etc. Once an origin point is chosen, it duplicates it anywhere else on the image It erases! Makes a new text layer 44

45 Clone Stamp Can also be used to remove a larger section of an image 45

46 Clone Stamp Can also be used to remove a larger section of an image 46

47 Clone Stamp Here s a more dramatic demonstration of cloning. Instead of setting a point on the bin as the origin, I picked the Coke can, then started using the brush on the recycle bin. That part of the picture was duplicated where I started painting. 47

48 Clone Stamp Going back to the prepared surface: now text can be added! But this text doesn t look very convincing. Time to work with text changes. 48

49 Text Changes There are two issues here: 1. The bin in the picture is angled, but the text is flat 2. The original text wasn t flush with the surface 49

50 Text Changes To do a variety of transformations to a layer, in the top menu go to Edit > Transform. This has option for adding perspective, rotating items, etc. Here, I rotated the text layer so it was parallel with the bottom of the bin. 50

51 Text Changes Now I m going to emboss the text so it looks like it belongs on this 3D object. This is the special effect I mentioned before that you get from doubleclicking a layer name. 51

52 Special Effects (Make Tramp Darker!) Two kinds of effects : 1. Double-click a layer s region (grey area, not the name or image) to bring up some basic effects 52

53 Special Effects Panel 53

54 Text Changes It s not a perfect fit, still. The white is too white, the textures aren t exact, and so on. But remember the yardstick: Will an undergraduate research participant notice and/or care about the edit? 54

55 Text Changes Here? Probably not! 55

56 Text Changes Here?...They ll probably notice. 56

57 More Text Editing Putting text in proper perspective is one of the easiest ways to make it look more believable. Pictures aren t always shot straight-on. 57

58 More Text Editing Here I ve (sort of) prepared the background, as mentioned previously. Clone tool, ahoy! 58

59 More Text Editing I start with basic new text. (Note that the original text wasn t pure white, so neither is this. I used the eyedropper to get the right tone.) 59

60 More Text Editing In the Edit > Transform menu, I used the Skew transformation to move up the left side. 60

61 More Text Editing Then I used Edit > Free Transform to make it larger overall, and with a greater height:width ratio than before. Here, you just drag points around as you d like. 61

62 More Text Editing I noticed that the original text had a slight drop shadow. With the effects menu discussed before, I add one. 62

63 More Text Editing Finally, I notice that the text is parallel to the top, but not to the bottom (because of perspective). Edit > Transform > Perspective can fix this. 63

64 Improving Picture Quality There are two important things that you can do to have a goodlooking picture: 1. Pick a picture much larger than you actually need 2. Spend a little time correcting the colors 64

65 Improving Picture Quality This is a decently large picture (approximately 1600 x 1000 pixels). For the web, if you shrank this down to fit on a typical monitor, it would look very sharp. Print needs higher quality. 65

66 Improving Picture Quality However, the colors are sort of washed out. 1. The colors aren t very saturated (bright) 2. The values are concentrated around the middle (greys) 66

67 Improving Picture Quality However, the colors are sort of washed out. 1. The colors aren t very saturated (bright) 2. The values are concentrated around the middle (greys) 67

68 Improving Picture Quality Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation lets you fix too little (or too much) saturation. You could also use this to make a picture black & white. Here, I ve bumped up the saturation. I just moved the slider until it looked right. 68

69 Improving Picture Quality Image > Adjustments > Levels takes care of the black/grey/white balance. This is the dialog that comes up. It actually is telling you something helpful! 69

70 Improving Picture Quality The bottom axis is the range of darkness > light. (Ignore the specific numbers.) There are gaps at the top and bottom. 70

71 Improving Picture Quality The bottom axis is the range of darkness > light. (Ignore the specific numbers.) There are gaps at the top and bottom with no content. That means there s no pure black or pure white in the image. 71

72 Improving Picture Quality If you drag the outside sliders toward the middle, you force the current darkest/lightest tones toward actual black/white. You can play around with all three sliders and see what effect it has. 72

73 Adjusted Picture 73

74 Original Picture 74

75 Editing Features This is getting into higher-level editing that takes some practice. If you want to add something (hair, age lines, etc.), it can be easier to find the new item in an entirely different image and clone it in from there. 75

76 Editing Features Unfortunately, there s no real easy way to show you how to do that; it requires getting a feel for the sort of things shown here (and the tablet hardware). But here s one application, to keep your minds turning this over. 76

77 Editing Features The woman to the right is very attractive. Perhaps you want some participants to see a less attractive version of the same woman. 77

78 Editing Features Two cross-cultural attractiveness norms are 1. symmetrical features and 2. eyes being spaced with roughly one eye-width between them. Next, I mess her up! 78

79 Editing Features The more advanced Liquify tool was used (under the Filter menu). This let me push her face around, basically. 79

80 Editing Features Here, age advancement was tackled. Reduced skin elasticity was another Liquify round, and some wrinkles were cloned from another source image. (Apologies to Gov. Kathy Sebelius.) 80

81 Editing Features For comparison, here is the original image. 81

82 Compositing Images What if you don t care about things being things perfectly believable, you just want to set the stage? That s really easy! 82

83 Compositing Images We re back where we started, in Lady & the Tramp territory. Think back to the description of an ice cream store line from a previous seminar. ( Fattest person/thinnest person you ve ever seen. ) 83

84 Compositing Images So long as you find pictures that are somewhat believable together, you can set the stage with a background image that works like you want and any other elements. (The picture around the kids in line was simply erased.) 84

85 Compositing Images So long as you find pictures that are somewhat believable together, you can set the stage with a background image that works like you want and any other elements. (The picture around the kids in line was simply erased.) 85

86 Compositing Images You could use this to make, for example, a retail aisle that was crowded (10 person layers showing) or empty (1 people layer showing). 86

87 Refresher Look for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or GIMP Get a pressure-sensitive tablet Practice! Don t try too many options at once, you will get overwhelmed You can use layers to contain all stimulus conditions within a single file Some suggestions for graphic manipulations you could do: 87

88 Editing Models Correct blemishes Change coloring Add accessories Blend features Change features 88

89 Changing Products Adding features Adding accessories Changing model Changing styling 89

90 Editing Text Change advertisements Change product descriptions Change instructions Change font, color, etc. styling 90

91 Compositing Images Set up any situation Use stock images to create many situations Control the products, consumers, etc. visible 91

92 Final Suggestions Have a specific problem in mind Start small Buy a reference book (don t ignore For Dummies!) Look at online tutorials Talk to me... after comps :) 92

93 Appendix: Photo Resources Two types of photos to consider Ones that will only be used within the lab Ones that you would like to use in public, or as a figure in your paper submission 93

94 Appendix: Photo Resources If it s only ever going to be in the lab, you can be a little less particular (although the options in the next slide should certainly be considered!) Google Image Search: Flickr: Picasa: Stock Photo Search: 94

95 Appendix: Photo Resources If you need to republish the photo elsewhere, you need an image that grants you reproduction rights. You may or may not need to credit the original photographer. (A photo s page will say so.) Also, you may or may not need to pay for the image. stock.xchng: istockphoto: Other commercial & free stock photography sites are plentiful on Google if you don t find the right image in the two above 95

Adobe PhotoShop Elements

Adobe PhotoShop Elements North Lake College DCCCD 2006 1 When you open Adobe PhotoShop Elements, you will see this welcome screen. You can open any of the specialized areas. We will talk about 4 of them: