Homework - Week 5

One a day

• Find an image of an object through google image search
• Download, paste, transform (apple T), select using magic wand and polygonal lasso (apple D to deselect)
• Use the brush tool (opacity, textures and scale) to "recreate" the object on another layer
• Delete the original object layer
• Resample, Optimize, Save for web
• Upload to your blog

Documentation and Spatial Annotation

• Go out into the world and look around - take some pictures
• Browse through the different online management tools that I have listed and think about which ones you might use (go ahead and sign up!)
• Browse the artist websites that I provided for you
  
• Come to class with at least 15 images (on your drive, camera, laptop, or flickr)
• Think about and be prepared to speak about what you saw, what is interesting to you and how that might fit into a system
  

Documentation and Spatial Annotation

This project will ask you to use slowness, observation, documentation, taxonomy and pattern to investigate your environment. It will manifest in the use of photography as a form of documentation-- but also include the distribution of those images online and the system you set up to understand the images themselves. Let's begin with the idea of the project. Read on...

The following quote is by John Stilgoe, a well know theorist on the subject of landscape. In this quote he speaks of his students interests. This quote speaks to slowness and observation:

One has noticed the escape hatches in the floors of inter-city buses and inquired about their relation to escape hatches in the roofs of new school buses. Another has reported a clutch of Virginia-Kentucky barns in an Idaho valley and wonders if the structures suggest a migration pattern. A third has found New York City limestone facades eroding and is trying to see if limestone erodes faster on the shady sides of the street. A fourth has noticed that playground equipment has changed rapidly in the past decade and wonders if children miss galvanized steel jungle gyms. Another has been trying to learn why some restaurants attract men and women of certain professions and repel others, and another has found a pattern in coffee shop location. Yet another reports that he can separate eastbound and westbound passengers at O’Hare Airport by the color of their raincoats.

What is a taxonomy? (READ LINKED ARTICLE)

One of the most common strategies for organizing content is to place it in a taxonomy. A taxonomy is a hierarchical tree structure such as those used in scientific classification schemes. For example, the taxonomy for organizing all living things has 7 taxons, or levels: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Since a taxonomy is hierarchical, each living thing (each species) is organized under a particular genus, which in turn is organized under a particular family, which in turn is organized under a particular order, and so on up the tree.
From: Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content

Here is an example of the most common taxonomy that we are all familiar with.
OK, so I get taxonomy, but what is Folksonomy and how does it relate to the project? In many of the online management systems you will be experimenting with, there is a system of tags. You will use these tags as a way to create your own way of organizing your documentation.

So what exactly are tags? A simple definition would be to say that tags are keywords, category names, or metadata. In essence, a tag is simply a freely chosen set of textual keywords. However, because tags are not created by information specialists, they do not at present follow any ubiquitous formal guidelines. This means that items can be categorised with any word that defines a relationship between the online resource and a concept in the user's mind. Any number of words might be chosen, some of which are obvious representations, others making less sense outside the tag author's context.
From: Folksonomies: Tidying up tags

Still have questions? Read here about Social Bookmarking, Tagging, Music/Photo/Video Sharing

Where do I begin? Here is what your process might look like:

1. Go out into the world and take your time. Use slowness in your step. Look at your environment in a way that questions the origin and placement of all objects both natural and artificial—whether placed via “official” channels, or by other. What is "natural" and what is "artificial"?
   
2. Hone in on a phenomenon, a place of focus. Think, write and post about how you began to realize or recognize that phenomenon.
3. Catalog and document that phenomenon wildly using your digital camera. Map the locations of the phenomenon as part of your documentation process.
4. Can you distinguish a pattern, or logic? Can you place that logic into a system—a taxonomy? Create a system, or form to insert this data into using a variety of online tools and management systems.
5. Make a plan to communicate what you have discovered in the world. We’ll go through the steps together to realize the project visually.

Some online management and sharing applications you may use (there may be others):
http://maps.google.com/
http://www.flickr.com
http://del.icio.us
http://www.youtube.com/
http://vimeo.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://digg.com/
http://ma.gnolia.com
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
http://photobucket.com/
http://www.zoho.com/

Some programs you might choose to use for this project:
Photoshop
iPhoto
Quicktime
iMovie

Skills to learn:
How to be observant
How to manage photographs
How to create video from still images via Photoshop
How to use different online management and sharing applications
How to embed video or audio on your blogger site
How to embed images, video and audio in a google map
How to troubleshoot

Some Examples I created

Yours will be more focused, more detailed and more refined. But hopefully these serve to give you a rough idea of what is possible:
1.) This is a series of images (documentation) that are transformed into video using the Animation palette in Photoshop. Quicktime is then used to compress the video.

2.) This is a Google map embedded with images (documentation). Video and sound can also be incorporated here.

View Larger Map

Artists + Taxonomy

Artists using the notion of taxonomy in their work:
Graffiti Taxonomy
Brian Collier
Bernd + Hilla Becher (SEE IMAGES BELOW)
Wallid Raad - The Atlas Group
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things
The Spatial Annotations Project
The Wooster Collective
One Block Radius
"Map" by datenform.de
An Atlas of Radical Cartography

One A Day - Manipulation 02

Manipulate your original scan using filters, layers and opacity to create an image that will serve as a background for the manipulations to come. Think about dulling the contrast by adding a "glazing" layer.
Here is an example:

Homework - Week 4

1.) Upload first revisions to your blog after re-sampling and optimizing.
2.) Upload revised full quality PSD to drop/send. (need the user name and password? Look it up on the "One a Day" assignment handout in your iqweb)
3.) Download your classmates revision from drop/send. After downloading and checking it to make sure the downloadwas successful - delete it from drop/send by checking the box to the left of the file and clicking "Delete".
4.) Customize your blog colors (background, text, links, etc) by going to Template>Fonts and Colors tab. GO HERE FOR A QUICK TUTORIAL

BRING YOUR DIGITAL CAMERA TO CLASS AND USB CORD!

Resampling & Save for Web

Re-sampling, or re-formatting, is the process of modifying the pixel count of an image. The reason we do this, is again, to make our file size as small as possible. You have started your "One a Day" project with a scan at 300 dpi, but a web image only needs to be 72 dpi. So we will re-sample the image as a means to be efficient and save room.
1.) Open your image in Photoshop.
2.) Go to Image>Image Size...
3.) First drop your resolution from 300 pixels/inch to 72 pixels/inch
4.) Next modify the "Pixel Dimension" width to meet your needs (between 300 - 500 pixels will be sufficient to fill your blog column.)
5.) Click OK
6.) Move along to the "Save for Web" tutorial below.



To prepare your image to post on Blogger is to optimize it using the "Save for Web" option. Optimizing is a way to lower your file size while not degrading your image quality. This will save more space on your blogger account.

1.) Open you image in photoshop.
2.) Go to "File" - "Save for Web"
3.) The "Save for Web" dialog box will open. Click on the tab "2-up" in the upper left hand corner [FIGURE A]. This will give you the original image on the left and the optimized version(s) on the right.
4.) On the right hand size you will see some options. Use the drop-down menu on the left, to make sure you are saving your image as a "JPEG" [FIGURE B].
5.) Use the next drop-down menu to choose the level of image quality [FIGURE C]. Try each option and watch how your image changes in the right hand window. Choose the image quality that is the lowest file size, but still acceptable to your for image quality. Remember, the goal here is to obtain the lowest file size possible to save space. (Aim for around 12k if you can)
6.) Looks good? SAVE!! and ReName-But remember not to use spaces in you file name. I also like to use the word "web" in it, so i know it is my web image. Save it in your images folder.
7.) Post it on your weblog! (Remember when posting on the blog, choose large image (since you have already formatted it, making it smaller is unnecessary.)

Homework - Week 3

Understanding file size
Lossy vs. Lossless
Digital Image Files Explained

For Homework
Answer the two following questions on your blog:
What is compression and why do we use it?
What is the difference between lossy and lossless compression?

Upload your optimized original "one a day" to your blog in a single post.

Scanning Tutorial

1. Open the Epson Scanner Application
- in the library, just click on the scanner icon in the dock (TIP: if you are scanning in the Library and need to use drop/send to transfer your files, know that only the left hand computer, closest to the corner, has internet access)
- in the computer lab, open a finder window and go to "Applications", then EpsonScanner.app

2. The Epson Scan window will open [FIGURE A] (the preview window may open to, just leave it).

3. Check your Settings [FIGURE B]: use the drop down menus to make your selections as follows:
Document type: Reflective
Document Source: Document table
Auto Exposure Type: Photo
Image Type: 48-bit or 24-bit color
Resolution: Select your resolution anywhere between 150 - 400 DPI (dots per inch) The more dots per inch, the larger the file size. If you need to use email to transfer the file, you will want to choose a smaller file size. If you have an iPod or flash drive, or plan to burn a disk - shoot for 300 dpi

4. The remaining adjustments can be left untouched.

5. Place your document on the scanner bed and close the lid.

6. Click the "Preview" button [FIGURE C]

7. The "Preview" window will open [FIGURE D] and the scanner will take a quick image of the document and display it here. If you need to reposition the document, do so now and hit "Preview" again.

8. Use the marquee tool [FIGURE E] to draw a selection [FIGURE F] around the portion of the document you want to scan. Everything inside the box will be scanned, everything outside of the box will not be scanned. You can adjust your selection by clicking and dragging the edge of the selection.

9. Click the "Scan" button [FIGURE G] to complete the scan

10. A dialogue box will open asking you where you would like to save your scans and in what format. Navigate to find a place to save (I suggest in a folder you create in your documents folder). Save your document as a JPEG (aka JPG)

Week 2 Homework

1. Come prepared with your 2 images scanned as per the tutorial. They should also be cropped and rotated. They should be saved to your drop/send, external or disk.
   
2. Create your Blog!
3. Make your first post on your blog. In the post, make a list of websites that you use on a regular basis (minimum of 5.) Impress me my making the URL's function as links (not manditory, but if you can do it - go for it!)
4. Email me the URL for your blog - mwarner at moore
   

Using your iPod for file storage

If you plan on using your iPod as an external disk, you will need to format it. You can download this PDF for instructions. Look under "Extra Features and Accessories," then click on "Using iPod as an External Disk." This will take you to page 45 of the manual. Additionally, on page 46, you may want to follow the formatting instructions to prevent iTunes from automatically opening. This way, when you connect your iPod for the purpose of file storage, you will not have to wait for iTunes to boot up. You will just open your iPod in a Finder window.

The link above may not be the exact instuctions for your particular iPod, depending on what model you own. You can go to the Apple website to get the manual for your particular model. CLICK HERE FOR A LIST OF DIFFERENT MODELS AND MANUALS.

You should also be sure to prevent the lab computers from syncing with yout iPod when you initially attach it. Cancel out it this starts automatically.