In this final unit, I have learned so much. with all the information that I obtained helped me create this final project. For Example the ” Ecosystem Response to Change packet” this helped with our final benchmark, which was a PSA video. this was on the human growth population when searching I found statistics that were shocking.
For my final Q4 project, I chose image editing. I did photoshop in the past so I knew a little bit of what I was doing during the project. I like dogs a lot but I don’t have any, and my favorite dogs are german shepherds and golden retrievers which are adorable as puppies. I wanted to create a mix of those dogs so I fused both of them together, putting the german shepherd’s head on the golden retriever’s body.
I used the lasso to cut off the german shepherds head and placed it on the golden retrievers body. I also used the cloning tool to put certain spots of color from the original german shepherd on the golden retriever and it made the dog look more realistic. I also used this tool for the grass so it wouldn’t look like the dogs head was just sitting there. I used the blur tool to blend the fur. The sponge tool helped to yellow certain areas so it could be a better match for the fur of the golden retriever. The smudge tool was even better than the blur tool even at a lower opacity. It helped to blend the fur faster and more efficiently for me.
The creation of my media and design project was an image edit. I titled it, “Dogs in Spring”. The basic premise of my edit are dogs in a beautiful cherry blossom photo. All images are not mine, but are copyright free. The goal that I was trying to achieve in this project is to make something that I could use as my desktop and something that would be fun to look at and would make people go, (“wow that’s hella cute!”) I also wanted to brush up my skills on image editing using the program pixlr.
When making this project, I first had to come up with what I wanted to accomplish and what pictures would be appropriate to add towards my goal. I went on a copyfree website and found a beautiful cherry blossom scenery picture that I would then use as my background. I also found someone’s dog and I scooped that picture. I then uploaded both pictures on pixlr. To combine the pictures into one, I cropped out the dog from its original photo using the lasso tool and paste it on my blossom background. At first, I didn’t know if I wanted the dog to be just in the background or up close in your face. I decided to put the dog up close because it adds that extra emphasis that I was aiming for. I then blurred the outline of the dog to make it seem more nature in the picture. After this, I thought that something else was missing and I decided to add another dog to my edit. I chose to put the dog more in the background and ideally have him chilling in the shade. This gives the edit some contrast because the dogs are at different proportions from each other. To make it more realistic, I used the brush tool and at 17 opacity added some shadow on the dog to make it look like he was actually under the trees and in the shade.
I didn’t really have a hard time because creating my edit because I already had some basic knowledge on how to work the editing program pixlr. However, one thing that did trouble me was cropping an object out of one picture and pasting it on another. This was hard since sometimes I would crop too much out and it didn’t look quite right. Since this project, I feel that I have gotten better at cropping images out because I figured out that instead of drawing with the lasso tool, you can actually just do multiple clicks when outlining the image you’re cropping out. Overall, I learned that you have to be patience when image editing. Editing a picture is not something that you can rush and get done right away. Also be able to share your edit to people to get feedback. Even after the peer review, I also went out to other people to figure out ways to improve or add to my edit.
If I had a chance to do this project all over again. I feel that I would do the same thing
because I enjoy how my image edit turned out. For those who want to pursue this project, keep in mind that you’ll be getting frustrated a lot because sometimes a tool doesn’t apply to your edit, or a tool won’t work altogether. However, I feel that if I used any other tool besides pixlr, it would be even more difficult, such as photoshop, because I have no clue how to work photoshop. Finally, I want to do more edits that I can send to my friends.
Images used:
Dumat, Maja. Flickr: Shiba Inu Kazumi, 29 Sept. 2012, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Shiba_Inu_head.jpg#/media/File:A_Shiba_Inu_head.jpg+.
Tawashi2006. Tawashi2006, 28 Mar. 2002, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cherry_blossoms_at_Miyagawa-Tsutsumi02.jpg#/media/File:Cherry_blossoms_at_Miyagawa-Tsutsumi02.jpg+.
For our quarter 4 benchmark we focused on researching Ecosystem Interactions. This being how the climate changes that arecause by humans are affecting the producers which will soon harm the cosumers and ourselves. In this project we go into detail about everything you should know about it. Throughout this project that was something that caught my eye, this was because it was so fasinating to see how humans could cause so much damage to the places they live without even knowing it. Something that I’m curious about is when will it all stop? Though we talk about major things in our project, what we say may not get out there fully and be most likely won’t stop doing thing to harm our enviroment. So when will it stop for good?
During this unit I was able to expand my knowledge about ecosystem interactions. I learned about the topic in eight grade and I haven’t touched upon it sense then. Being able to be reminded was really helpful because this was something that I could have needed to remembered for any testing about this topic. Some key points that stood out to me about this unit is the three types of interactions which are mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Also remembering about the difference between abiotic and biotic factors. These stood out to me the most because they are two of many things that make up a ecosystem. While learning this unit I want to get more into what the decomposers do in a ecosystem. We know that they play a role and we know what they do, but we don’t actually go any deeper than that. I want to know what factors can affect the decomposers in any ecosystem. Overall I enjoyed making this poster even though it took hours to make. I’m glad about how much I was able to take from this unit.
