Photo Editing

I'm shooting for four blog posts this evening, just so you all know.

I found our session in Photoshop extremely beneficial. I've always been interested in still images, whether those be paintings, drawings or photographs. Teaching a broadcasting class didn't really give me a great opportunity to work with photography in Photoshop. The only Photoshop experience I had was in graphics... you know, playing with text trying to create the perfect logo for our broadcast class or creating on-screen graphics. In broadcast, you don't really get the opportunity to manipulate your footage to make it more visually appealing or more accurate. In reality, the cameras kind of capture what they capture, and, in a school filled with fluorescent lighting, footage isn't always the pretty.

I was trying to think of a way that those lessons in Photoshop could be applied my classes. I think that understanding how to use PS and understanding how an image can be manipulated is a great skill for anyone, especially in a society that takes photographs daily. At first, I imagined my students taking photos and manipulating them to be placed on screen to, for example, introduce a story. Certainly a this is a possibility. However, in reflecting on our photography session, it is clear to me that photos may best be used as online content.

Our presenter produced a lot of content for the AZ Central app. It was incredibly appealing to the eye. With the shift toward a converged newsroom and every element of journalism coming together online, its clear to me that photography won't die in the wake of video and that newspapers won't die in the wake of the blogosphere. Instead, it seems we're coming to a point in history where each of these mediums is embraced and explored. Then, each of them come together in something like the AZ Central app. Perhaps, none of the mediums are dying. (At least not in Phoenix). Instead, they are all being rediscovered. Because of the Internet and evolving technologies and methods of communication, perhaps a door has been opened to a new frontier of journalism where even one of the oldest elements of journalism will thrive and compete with different and newer elements.

All of that from my new understanding of Levels and the Clone tool. :D

(FrankenSteve) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Zachary McNulty
Winnetonka High School
Kansas City, Mo.