Digital Photography and Imaging : Week 3

06/10/2025 - 12/10/2025 (Week 3)

Chan Xin Yean, 0377851

Digital Photography and Imaging

Project 1 : Digital Collage

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LECTURE

In this weeks lecture, we were introduced to Adobe Photoshop and its tools like lasso tool, pen tool, tool bar and the layers. Teacher also showed us a few videos as a tutorial for using the basic tools in Photoshop.

Figure 1.0 Screenshot of lecture slide 

The way we add the points and drag the tool as we create the point when using pen tool determines how they will look. There are different variations of pen tool that we might use in future projects. We could also try The Bézier Game to get use to using it.

Figure 1.1 Variations of Pen Tool

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INSTRUCTIONS

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PROCESS WORK

Digitisation

I made a few versions of collage to experiment with the filters and compositions. For the first composition I played around with the arrangements of the building and decided to do 2 buildings top and bottom of the page. I was interested in doing a night sky, thus cropped the black and white textured image into moons and black sky. I thought of adding the fish as the moon made the fish looks like it's thinking. Adding people into the collage made the space feel like it has different dimensions, almost like their floating in outerspace. 

Figure 2.1 Composition 1

For the second composition, I wanted to play around with the filters in Adobe Photoshop. I made the building as the main element on the bottom and placed a black background to make the colours pop. I cropped 3 circular moons from a textured image and made them different tones of the warm colours. The fish and plant were recoloured to add some elements into the collage.

Figure 2.2 Composition 2

For the third composition, I wanted the typewriter to be the main component of the whole collage. To make it feel like it was placed on a table i added some filters to the textured image to make it feel like wood. Besides, I added fishes flying out of the typewriter that feels like a roughly cropped image to portray paper flying out from the typewriter. I thought adding people looking at the flying fishes would be an interesting element that reminds me of an aquarium.

Figure 2.3 Composition 3

Final Digitalised Collage

Figure 2.4 Final Chosen Collage 

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REFLECTIONS

In this exercise, we created a digital collage using the images provided by our teacher. The exercise was enjoyable yet challenging, as I had to think creatively about how to arrange and blend the photos together. I experimented with cropping, filters, and composition to achieve balance and visual harmony.

I noticed how different colour tones and image placements could completely change the mood and focus of the collage. Some filters made the photos stand out more, while others helped them blend smoothly with the background. It was fun to try out the different hues when adjusting the filters in the pictures. 

Besides, I found that composition plays a key role in catching attention and creating unity in a design. Overall, this exercise improved my Photoshop skills and made me understand how thoughtful editing and composition can turn simple images into a meaningful visual piece.