This class is awesome but you still owe lots of work

There was an overwhelmingly positive response to your work and our Media program at the state conference. We have one of the strongest Media programs in the state thanks to your hard work. That being said, less than half the class finished the room design. Since even a few people who finished expressed the desire for another day to add more details, I will give you time to finish your projects and write your artist statements today. Make sure you also share your finished room file with me in Google Drive.

If you are done, you may want to start thinking of ideas for a 20-30 second stop motion animation project. You will work with a partner (you will take turns moving the pieces while the other person takes the pictures), so start thinking of who you would like to work with and what story you would like to tell.

Today we will:

• Finish our rooms
• Create a final blog post with the following:
  • PNG of finished room
  • Artist Statement in paragraph form that is at least 150 words and talks about your room and how you made it
• Share our finished room file in Google Drive with Ms. Lawson

Last Day for Room Design

Today you should finish your rooms and create a final blog post with the following:

• PNG of finished room
• Artist Statement in paragraph form that is at least 150 words and talks about your room and how you made it

Asher has created a great example of what I am looking for.

Interior Design Day 6: Realistic Wall Shadows

Here are some of my favorite rooms from this class so far. What are some things that are working well?

Credit: Asher

Credit: Beatrix

Credit: Hakim

Credit: Isaias

Credit: Jeanelly

Credit: Nicky

Friday will be the last class to work on this project. Ms. Lawson will be at a conference on Friday, so today is the last day to ask her questions. Everyone should follow the feedback written in their folders for help on how to finish their room. At the end of Friday’s class, you should publish a blog post with a PNG of your finished room and a 150 word artist statement about the room.

Today’s essential question: How can I create realistic shadows on my walls?

You can follow the steps below to create realistic shadows on your walls:

1. Set your wall texture or color how you would like it to be:
   
2. Select the background layer in your layers palette on the lower right side of your screen:
   
3. Click and hold on the lasso tool in the toolbar on the left side of your screen to select the polygonal lasso:
   
4. Click on each major point to select the entire wall area. The selected area should have dotted lines around it like the picture below:
   
5. Copy (Edit -> Copy) and Paste (Edit -> Paste) to paste the wall part of the background.
   Then go to the layers palette on the bottom right side of your screen and drag the new layer on top of the other layers.
   Then change the mode to “multiply.”
   Your layers palette should now look like this:
   and your walls should now look like this:
   

Today we will:

• Continue building our rooms in Photoshop
• Save our image as BOTH PSD and a PNG
• Upload the PSD and PNGs to our shared Google Drive folders
• Create a new blog post with a PNG our progress

Interior Design Day 5: Ceiling Texture

Today’s essential question: How can I add visual interest to my room with a ceiling?

Ceilings are often overlooked in interior design, but the right ceiling details will tie a room together.
Look at the ceiling types below. Which ones do you think would work with your room design?

Tray Ceiling

Coffered Ceiling

Beadboard Ceiling

Cathedral Ceiling

wood cathedral ceiling chiefly Open concept living room vaulted ceiling with beam detail

Exposed Beams

Today we will:

• Continue building our rooms in Photoshop
• Save our image as BOTH PSD and a PNG
• Upload the PSD and PNGs to our shared Google Drive folders
• Create a new blog post with a PNG our progress

Interior Design Day 4: Adding Scenic Windows

Today’s essential question: How can I add windows with a view to my room design?

Today we will learn how to add windows (and any scene we desire behind those windows) to our room.

How to Add Scenic Windows to a Room

1. Open your window image and drag it into your room file:
   
2. Adjust the perspective of the window with the scale and distort tools (Edit -> Transform -> Scale, and Edit -> Transform -> Distort)
   
3. Duplicate the Layer (Layer -> Duplicate Layer). Hide the lower duplicated layer by clicking on the eye in the layer palette.
   
4. Remove the inside of the window with the tool of your choice:
   
5. Open the scene you would like to go in your window.
   Drag the scenic image into your room file.
   Make sure the scene layer is below the windows layer in your layers palette:
   
6. Adjust the perspective of the scene so it matches the perspective of the window with the scale and distort tools
   (Edit -> Transform -> Scale, and Edit -> Transform -> Distort)
   Remove any part of the scenic image that does not belong in the window with the Photoshop tool of your choice:
   
7. Make the lower window layer visible in the layers palette and select it so it turns blue:
   
8. Adjust the opacity so the glass looks see through:
   

This technique also works for doorways, closets, trophy cases, etc:

Today we will:

• Continue working on our rooms
• Save our room files as both a Photoshop (.PSD) file and PNG
• Upload both the .PSD and .PNG files to our shared Google Drive folders
• Create a new blog post with the following:
  • a PNG of what our room design looks like so far
  • A few sentences describing what is going well as well, what your next steps will be, and what you are finding challenging.

Interior Design Day 3: Adjusting Perspective to Add Texture to Floors and Walls

Today’s essential question: How can I use various features in the transform tool (perspective, distort, scale) to add detail to my floor and walls?

Today we will download the blank room source file and begin building our rooms in Photoshop.

Download the Blank Room Source File

1. Log into your school Google Drive.
2. Click on “Shared with Me” on the left column.
3. Right click on “empty-room-source-file.jpg” and select “Download.”

OR Click here to download the file. (You must be logged into your school Google account to be able to access it.)

How to Add a Texture to Your Floor Using the Perspective Tool

1. Drag your floor texture into your room (do not use the “place” feature!)
   
2. Edit-> Transform -> Scale. Scale your floor so it fills the space below where the floor meets the wall. (This is one time that it is ok not to hold down shift, because distorting the dimensions of the floor texture in this step might actually make it look more realistic later.)
   
3. Edit -> Transform -> Perspective.
   Drag the front corners of the floor outward to transform your floor so it has the correct dimensions.
   
4. If your floor still feels a bit off, you can adjust individual points by going to Edit -> Transform -> Distort.

How to Add a Texture to Your Walls Using the Perspective Tool

You can use these same tools to add texture to the wall.

1. Drag your wall texture image into the room file and use the perspective, transform, and distort tools to make it look like it fits on the wall:
   
2. Once the first wall looks correct, you can duplicate the layer (Layer->Duplicate Layer), and flip it (Edit -> Transform -> Flip Horizontal) and then move it to the other side of the room.
   
3. Duplicating layers will also help you fill the back wall. For example, simply scaling the image on the back wall may look strange if you force the bricks to fit the space.
   
4. However, you can scale the image to be the appropriate height (Edit -> Transform -> Scale).
   Once again, it may be ok to distort the dimensions of the image in this case.
   
   Then duplicate the layer (Layer -> Duplicate Layer).
   Flip the image so you will have a seamless tile (Edit -> Transform -> Flip Horizontal) and move the image so it connects with your other layer.
   
5. At the bottom of your layers palette, click on the folder icon  to make a new folder.
   Name it “brick wall”.
   Drag all the brick layers into this folder. That will help keep your layers organized.
   

Further uses for the perspective/distort tools:

• make a poster, framed picture, or mirror look like it is hanging on one of the side walls
• add windows to one of the side walls

Today we will:

• Begin dragging images into our room and using the perspective and distort tools to make them look like they realistically belong in the room.  Make sure you name your layers!
• Save our image as BOTH PSD and a PNG
• Upload the PSD and PNGs to our shared Google Drive foldes
• Create a new blog post with a PNG our progress

Interior Design Day 2: Tips & Tricks

Missing/Incomplete Assignments:

• Darnell – Silhouette Self-Portrait, Silhouette Self-Portrait Artist Statement, Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Antonio – Silhouette Self-Portrait, Silhouette Self-Portrait Artist Statement, Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Lamya – Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Daneisha – Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Tyree – Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Alicia – Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement, Silhouette Self Portrait Artist Statement
• Alexis – Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Jessie – Silhouette Self-Portrait, Silhouette Self-Portrait Artist Statement, Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement

Today’s essential question: Why is it more important to find images taken from the correct angle vs images that contain the correct colors?

Today we will learn several tips & tricks that will help with our room design project.
We will download very large images (at least 2MP) and remove the images from their backgrounds. We will save these files as PNGs so the backgrounds remain transparent and upload them to both our blogs and Google Drives.

Angle of View

When downloading images, consider the point of view from which the image was chosen.
For example, this couch would look great against the back wall:

while this couch would work better against a side wall:

If you have to choose between an image that is your ideal color, or one that has been taken from the perfect angle, choose the perfect angle. Trying to fake the perfect angle with Photoshop’s perspective tool will give you something like this (notice how we should be able to see the side of the armrest):

Changing Color

On the other hand, it is very easy to change the color of an object in Photoshop.
In the example below, I will change the color of the couch:

Duplicate the couch onto a new layer (Layer->Duplicate layer) and use the eraser tool until only the part whose color you wish to change remains.

Then go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation and adjust the sliders until you are happy with the result.

See how well that works?

Adding Color

Hue/Saturation will not work for anything that is white, gray, or black, since those colors are desaturated and technically have no hue.
Luckily, it is very simple to add color to a neutral object.
We will paint the white walls in the image below using the Color Balance effect:

Duplicate the layer with your object and use the eraser tool until only the part whose color you wish to change remains.

Then go to Image -> Adjustments -> Color Balance and adjust the sliders until you are happy with the result.

In this case, I have dragged the cyan slider as far as it will go, but the wall colors are not as intense as I would like them to be:

In such a case, we may need to apply the Color Balance effect more than once.
Simply hit “OK,” then go to the top of the screen, and once again go to Image -> Adjustments -> Color Balance:

This is what the walls look like after a second round:

Today we will:

• Remove the backgrounds from any images we may want to include in our rooms.
• Save these images as both PSDs and PNGs and upload them to our shared Google Drive folders.
• Adjust the color of any objects (if necessary)
• DO NOT TRY TO BUILD YOUR ROOM. This will force you to save your images with their backgrounds removed in separate files.
• Create a new blog post with the following:
  • PNGs of any images whose backgrounds you removed today or whose colors you changed.
  • A few sentences describing what is going well as well, what your next steps will be, and what you are finding challenging.

Catch Up Day

Since most of the class is on a field trip, we will have a catch up day today.

Missing/Incomplete Assignments:

• Darnell – Silhouette Self-Portrait, Silhouette Self-Portrait Artist Statement, Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Antonio – Silhouette Self-Portrait, Silhouette Self-Portrait Artist Statement, Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Lamya – Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Daneisha – Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Tyree – Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Alicia – Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement, Silhouette Self Portrait Artist Statement
• Alexis – Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Isaiah – Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement
• Jessie – Silhouette Self-Portrait, Silhouette Self-Portrait Artist Statement, Multiple Mes, Multiple Mes Artist Statement