Paint.NET

I love learning new technologies! I am a non-traditional college student, (basically I’m old, I’m almost 50) and I grew up with the latest technologies being beepers and maybe getting access to a computer if I go to a library. So now that I am in college, I am so excited about learning new online technology, such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Publisher, but the latest is Paint.NET. If you are thinking, Wow! What rock did you just crawl out from? Well…that thinking is very accurate. In many of my classes, most students have already had exposed to some, in not years of this type of technology. I am familiar with most Microsoft software, but Adobe is new to me as well as Paint.NET. I had the great pleasure of messing around with Paint.NET and an in-class assignment I recently had to do was to take a photo and download it into Paint.NET and change it using what I learned in Paint.NET. The assignment was to pretend I am a photographer hired to produce a photo to use on an upcoming post-card intended for prospective students. This ‘pretend’ University, which is actually McKendree University where I attend, has asked me to submit a photo of the campus that best represents the University. Specifics on the assignment are as follows:

• Why I choose this photo
• Use of photography fundamentals (i.e. the Rule of Thirds)
• Your thought process behind the finished photo
• Defend your file type submitted

Here is a picture of my original photo: And here is my updated photo:

My reasoning for changing the photo so artistically is because I wanted the photo to be creative and capture the viewer’s attention. I used the Rule-of-Third’s top two anchor points as markers. I wanted the photo to be large in the postcard, so I knew I was going to use at least two anchor points. In Paint.NET, I used sepia to give it a historic feel as this University is actually the oldest one in Illinois. I chose the library image because the core values of this university are, Responsible Leadership, Engagement, Academic Excellence, and Lifelong Learning and where do you attain all these values on a campus in one setting? The Library! The structure is a magnificent prominent structure as well. I added zoom blur to focus in on the library, but blur the outer components, and I used posturize to separate colors, such as the clouds and the snow. I used saturation to give it the mystical feel and to add more of the universities color, which is purple. More to my reason for making this photo so eye-catching is when prospective students receive this card, it will have the University’s website and the prospective student will surely look up the website and see photo after photo of sharp, focused, absolutely perfect images of life on this campus. My thinking was that I wanted to capture the viewer’s attention. I believe I did. 🙂