Raster Exercise

UNIT1: TOTAL POINTS: 100
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Exercise: NARRATIVE SELF PORTRAIT ASSIGNMENT
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Objectives:

Technical: To gain a basic understanding of raster based digital imaging software and the technology, terminology, and techniques associated with it.
Conceptual: To explore strong and personal narratives through a self-portrait. The image has to be a representation of yourself; this can be interpreted either traditionally or metaphorically.
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Overview:
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed or sculpted by the artist.
The self-portraits of many Contemporary artists and Modernists often are characterized by a strong sense of narrative, often but not strictly limited to vignettes from the artists life-story. Sometimes the narrative resembles fantasy, roleplaying and fiction.

Is it possible to talk about inner qualities and ideas beyond the physical aspect through a self-portrait?
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References:

1. Wikipedia ( HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait)
2. National Portrait Gallery - Official web site ( HYPERLINK "http://www.npg.si.edu/"http://www.npg.si.edu/)
3. The Narrative Self-Portrait
( HYPERLINK "http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/narrat.html"http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/narrat.html)

Artists: Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Gilbert and George, Chuck Close, Frida Kahlo, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Keith Cottingham, Li Wei, Nicky Lee, Moira Ricci
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Vocabulary: Raster, Pixel, DPI, Resolution, Color Mode, RGB, CMYK, Bit Depth, Histogram, Levels, Curves, JPG, GIF, TIFF, Layers, Adjustment Layer, Layer Mask, Photomontage.
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Materials: Digital camera with necessary cables, Computer with Adobe Photoshop. A tripod and cable release for your camera may be helpful. Scanned or downloaded images.
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Process: 1. Take some time to think about yourself, your interests, qualities. Write some concepts, objects, hobbies and places that define you or that are strongly related to you.
Chose if you want to show yourself metaphorically or in a very representational way. Think about colors, shapes, aesthetics, atmospheres that connect with the idea that you want to communicate.
Take some photos of yourself or those elements that define you. It is also appropriate to use found pictures, but be careful with their resolution. Most images found in the internet will not work, as they are not sufficient resolution (300). Your materials and images should have the same resolution than the canvas you will create in photoshop.
1.Open a file > FILE > NEW. SET THE RESOLUTION TO 300 DPI and HEIGHT AND WIDTH values no smaller than: 10 x 10 inches. You don´t have to use a squared format, it can be rectangular. Use the RGB color space and a bit depth of 8.
2. Make the necessary color adjustments, and use the crop and selection tools to chose the parts of the image that you want to retouch (adjustment layers, layer masks).
3. You can add as many images as you want. Combine them using the different options on the LAYER PANEL (Window> Layer). Explore the opacity, group and blending options. You may need to rotate or distort your individual parts to make all the elements work together, it does not have to be in a realistic way.
4. Save your work very often: FILE >SAVE. Use your external hard drive as your main storage device.
5. When you are finished, drop your full resolution layered PSD file into the class folder, and keep it for your records in your own external storage. Name it like this: lastname_rasterexer.psd (the psd extension will be automatically added when you save the file in that particular format, you don’t have to type it).
Go to IMAGE>SIZE, to size your image down to 1000 pixels (in the widest direction) at 72 dpi. Save the file as a jpeg: (lastname_rasterexer.jpeg). Then upload your file to the class blog. BE CAREFUL NOT TO SAVE OVER YOUR FULL RESOLUTION PSD FILE!