'Postsecret' Web Banner

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This is the piece I done on 'Animation' which is called 'Postsecret Web Banner' the in 'ImageReady' software, this is where I put what I learnt from my trial piece in to practice to create a web banner advertising the Postsecret website. For this piece I made different images flash up and then had the 'Postsecret' title appear at the end.

My steps are mostly the same as the trial piece; except the text was from the Postsecret website, as were the imagery, and instead of the text going from small to big it was imagery flashing up one after another and then having the text appear.

I was glad I got to do a trial piece first as that gave me the chance to practise how to use the software, therefore allowing me to be able to do my web banner quickly and well. Hence why I am pleased with the outcome of this piece and cannot thing of anything I would change about this.

Also I didn't have any technical difficulties as I knew what I was doing and how to do it - which, as I've said, was useful and helpful and made the process quick.

Animation

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This is the trial piece I done on 'Animation' , this is where I was able to look into different styles and techniques (movement, etc) of animating work I could do to get use to the 'ImageReady' software. For this trial piece i simply made the 'Animation' text go from small to large.

To be able to do this, firstly I opened a blank A4 document in Photoshop and rotated it using the ‘Rotate Canvas’ option and then turning it clockwise. Then I got some text of a website called ‘Dafont.com’ and picked a style I wanted, and then print screened it and pasted it as a new layer. After this I cropped it to remove the background and then used the ‘Free Transform’ tool to make it enlarged. What I wanted to do was make it go from small to large, so once I made my biggest one I used the ‘Duplicate Layer…’ option by right-clicking on the layer and shrinking each layer to make it smaller than the previous.  Once I had done all of my layers I clicked on the ‘Edit in ImageReady’ tool and then, by using the ‘Duplicate current frame’ tool, I individually added each layer by clicking/un-clicking the ‘Layer Visibility’ tool and doing it in order to my animation timeline,  and once done played it to see if I liked it. Once I was happy with it I changed tab from ‘Forever’ to ‘Once’ so it only played through once. After that I saved it in various different file formats; these formats were PSD, and then a GIF and a HTML file, and then also exporting it as a Macromedia Flash file.

I was pleased to be able to use the 'ImageReady' software, as it allowed me to achieve the look I wanted with ease. It's not difficult software to use, but depending on how many frames you need to animate, it may that some time - as I discovered. The only thing I was concerned about is if it looked like it flowed well - which mine did, but not up to the standard I would have preferred, but it's probably not all that noticeable except to me.

The only real difficulties I had, as stated before, were getting my animation to flow well. To have been able to do this I would have needed more frames, which I tried to do but due to the number of them it ended up not working and crashing the software, so I had to cut down unfortunately.

Research of Key Terms

JPEG

Meaning: Joint Photographic Experts Group.

This is the most common image format used for storing and transmitting images, and is useful because it takes up less memory - due to its reduced size from the original image, but keeping the quality of the full sized image. What a JPEG is is a compressed (compression is normally 10:1) digital photo file, where the size of the file is determined by quality of photos (i.e. low, optimized, high).

 

PSD

Meaning: Photoshop Document.

This is a file specifically for Adobe Photoshop software documents, which can only be opened if your laptop/computer contains Photoshop; if you create and save a file in Photoshop it will be referred to as a '.psd' file. It does not compress it all together like a JPEG - meaning, when you open the file up all the layers will still be there.

INDD

Meaning: InDesign Document.

This is a file specifically for Adobe InDesign software documents, and again can only be opened if your laptop/computer contains InDesign; if you create and save a file in InDesign it will be referred to as a '.indd' file. Same as with Photoshop, it does not compress it all together like a JPEG - meaning, when you open the file up all the layers will still be there.

 

BMP

Meaning: Bitmap.

This is a type of memory organization or, same as a JPEG, a pixel-based image file format used for digital images - especially images on Microsoft Windows. It only supports the RGB color space, therefore they cannot be used on the Internet (you would have to convert it to be able to upload the image onto the Internet).

Resolution

Meaning: Number of pixels per square inch on the computer.

This is how many pixels on a computer-generated screen (per square inch) are displayed; basically, the greater the resolution the better the picture in terms of sharpness  and clarity. Resolution is normally referred to when describing items like monitors and printers graphic images, etc.



PDF
Meaning: Portable Document Format.

This is a software created by Adobe and is useable on any computer as all computers have Acrobat; it is good to save, for example, PSD's as a PDF file because - if you're sending the document to another computer - that computer may not have Photoshop and therefore will not be able to open.



GIF
Meaning: Graphic Interchange Format.

This is a bitmap image format, which is a form of image storing that is used on the internet for both still and animated images. With a GIF there are 8 pixels per bitmap - which allows over 200 colours to be used on a image from the 24-bit RGB color space.



Pixel
Meaning: Picture Element.

This is the smallest screen element to me seen on an image, so basically a pixel is each individual square of an image that you can see which makes up the picture - which you can see if you zoomed into an image closely.



RAW
Meaning: RAW Image Format.

A RAW camera/scanner image is an image that has not had it's data processed yet - so it can't be editied or even printed. This also means that, if they are a RAW file, they have not been changed or compressed. But unfortunately you need the right software to be able to open them, they can't just be opened anywhere and everywhere.