Digital Photography

Overview

This lab will introduce Irfanview to manipulate digital pictures. Your picture was taken with a digital camera on the first day of class and is posted in LearnOnline. This image will be manipulate the image with Irfanview and then import portions of the images into a MS-PowerPoint document. Please feel free to use any other photo editing software that is available to you and/or that you are familiar with. 

Irfanview is shareware and can be downloaded from http://www.irfanview.com for windows users. A freeware program for mac users can be downloaded from http://www.gimp.org/ .  

Procedure

Create three digital images from one digital image taken in class.

1. Student pictures will be taken using a digital camera.

2. The digital image will be available in the Discussion Board area of the course. Select the Discussion Board "Student digital images - download your image here". Click on the posting "Digital Masterpieces" and follow the instructions posted in this posting.

3. Edit and modify your image using photo editing software. Select Start/Programs/Irfanview/. Now click File/Open, and select your diskette or folder where you stored your downloaded digital image. You will see one or more files with and extension ".jpg". These are the digital pictures. Choose your digital photo and open the file.

4. Select only part of your digital image for further work. There are three options in Irfanview: Cut-selection, Cut-leave selection, Crop selection.

   • Cut-selection will cut out the selected rectangle. The cut rectangle is replaced with black color and the original image size is still the same.

   • Cut-leave selection will cut out the part around the selected rectangle and keep the selected rectangle. The part around the selected rectangle is replaced with black color and the original image size is still the same.

   • Crop selection will cut out the part around the selected rectangle and keep the selected rectangle. The area around the selected part is "thrown away" and the image size is now only the size of the selected part.

5. Crop your picture. Use the mouse to draw a rectangle around your portrait in the picture (cut out most of the plain background), then select click Edit/Crop selection. If you want to re-draw the rectangle, just click your mouse outside of the selection, this will make the selection disappear.

6. Check the size of your picture. Your picture should not be larger than appr. 3" x 2" (or 2" x 3"). To check the size of your picture or change the size, use Image / Resize-Resample. Make sure to choose the option "inches" in the unit field. You can change the number of inches by increasing or decreasing the height and/or the width fields. Notice that both values for height and width change, even if you adjust only one of those fields. This is Irfanview's way of ensuring that your image will not be distorted. 

7. Save your picture. Use File / Save As to save this picture on your diskette as mypict1.jpg. 

8. Rotate your picture. Use this new file mypict1.jpg, but this time rotate your picture left or right after cropping. Use Image / Rotate L (or Rotate R) to rotate the picture. Use File / Save As to save the picture to your diskette as mypict2.jpg.

9. Use Special Effects on your picture. Open the file mypict1.jpg again (use File/Open), but this time use the various tools under Image / Effects to enhance your picture after cropping. Use File / Save As to save the enhanced picture as mypict3.jpg.

Create a PowerPoint Presentation with our new three digital images

1. You now have three picture files: mypict1.jpg, mypict2.jpg, and mypict3.jpg. In the next step, you will create a digital photo album using Microsoft PowerPoint. 

2. Start Programs / Microsoft PowerPoint. Type the following title on the title slide: Joe Student (Use your name instead of Joe Student) and Digital Photo Album.

3. Insert a new slide and use the two-column layout. Write Introduction in the title bar. In the left column, introduce yourself by writing your full Name, Major, Academic Year. Use the right column to insert the first picture you produced (the cropped picture). Use Insert/Picture/From File, navigate to the location of your picture and select your cropped picture.

4. Insert a new slide using the two-column layout again. Write My Major in the title bar. This time, in the left column share something about your major and what you plan on doing after you graduate. In the right column, insert your rotated picture.

5. Insert a new slide, this time using the regular title and text layout. Write My Hobbies in the title bar. Insert your special effects image as the background for this slide.

   For Office 2007: Select the Design tab, then Background, and format the background. Select Fill, then picture or texture fill. Select Insert from File, navigate to the location of your special effects picture and insert the picture.

   For Office 2003: Select Format / Background, from the pull-down menu select Fill Effects, click on the picture tab, click on the Select Picture button and select your picture

   Make sure to click only on "Apply" and not on "Apply to All", since we want this background only to appear on this slide and not on the first two we already created. Share something about your hobbies on this slide and please also share which special effect you used.

6. Submit your PowerPoint presentation to LearnOnline using the instructions below.

Note: Keep all your .jpg files (xxxxx.jpg). Jpg is one of the picture formats used on the World Wide Web. Your .jpg pictures will be used in future labs.  

Submitting your file

1. Access LearnOnline and login.
2. Press Communication / Discussion Board
3. Select the Digital Photography forum.
4. If you like, browse the other students messages and illustrations.
5. Press Add a New Thread
6. Subject: type one line to identify your posting
7. Message: tell something about your posting. What were your experiences creating this project?
8. Use the Browse button to select the location of your file. Select the file to be posted.
9. Press Submit
10. Check your work

Mastery Goals

1. To Crop an image means to remove part of the picture, leaving only the part which has been selected.
   • Click and drag over the area of your image you want to keep.
   • On the Edit menu, click Crop.
2. To Resize a selection Do one of the following:
   • To move one side of the selection's bounding outline, move the pointer over the sizing handle on that side until the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, and then drag the handle.
   • To change the height and width simultaneously, drag a corner handle.
3. To Resize an image means it will be larger or smaller.
   1. On the Image menu, click Resize/Resample.
   2. Enter the new width or height, or a percentage of the original.
   3. Select other options you want to apply.

   For Help on an option, click the question mark and then click the option.

4. To Rotate an image
   To rotate an image:
   1. On the Image menu, click Rotate Right, Rotate Left or Custom Rotation.
   2. Choose the options you want.