COURSE ESSAY 1 - HOW MY SITE WAS BORN

I have to submit two essays for my Photoshop project, one on my site, another reviewing the use of Photoshop on another website.

Here's what I've written for the former of those tasks

Note 1: This is being sumbmitted in hard copy so the A PLEA BEFORE I START section is written for the aid of those who haven't seen this site.

Note 2: The site's songs will be uploaded soon, the site is currently 90% complete.

www.startree.co.uk: HOW MY MUSIC SITE WAS BORN

A PLEA BEFORE I START

What follows is an account, broken up into segments for ease of reading, of how I developed my first music website in Photoshop.

Before I begin this essay in earnest I would ask the reader to refer to a website I set up in conjunction with my Photoshop project.

The site in question is called John's Photoshop Diary and it can be viewed by logging on to the following address: http://johnsphotoshopdiary.blogspot.com/

The aim of this blog was to chart my Photoshop progress in both the lessons I attended, and my site's construction, as I went along.

In short it is a comprehensive, step by step account of all the work I've done on this project.

A word of warning. By the time you view my Photoshop Diary it's likely to be dominated by my workings on the Flash module I began in April.

However, if you scroll down to the first entry in January you can take things from there.

Finally, with regard to this plea, I have decided not to include hard copy pictures of my site with this essay solely due to environmental concerns, I'm all for saving paper.

Sketches/Work in Progress referred to below can be viewed at my website diary.

A WISE MAN LEARNS FROM HIS MISTAKES

My learning speed during this course was greatly enhanced by the fact that unlike my time spent learning Dreamweaver, I had the Photoshop programme at home.

It was a costly investment but it saved me a lot of stress and made the lessons far more enjoyable than those of Dreamweaver.

So before the course started I had a good, basic knowledge of Photoshop and in hindsight this stood me in good stead.

THE LESSONS

For notes on the lessons please go to my web diary.

The dates you need to view are:

Thursday January 31st, 2008

Wednesday February 6th, 2008

Tuesday March 11th, 2008
(This entry covers lessons on Febuary 27th and March 5th, 2008).

Wednesday March 12th, 2008

NOTE: I missed the first lesson because I was in London. The ones that took place after March 12th were connected with project work and I deemed it better to work from home during this phase.

WHY A MUSIC SITE?

I considered putting together a football or rugby-style photoshop interface, the type of which can be found at many football sites like the following:http://www.bristolrovers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Welcome.

However I wanted to serve myself and give expression to some of the songs I've been writing, purely for my own pleasure, over the last few years.

Music is very important to me, the wonder of creation has saved me from the abyss many times, so giving myself a challenge with regard to one of my great pleasures would, I hoped, be rewarding and provide me with great project stimulus.

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Planning my site was very difficult, I had to work my way through a wealth of options.

As my Photoshop diary illustrates I spent a long time devising a name for my project as well as working on banners, using the Photoshop drawing tools and experimenting with colours and gradients.

Initially I wanted to work with images associated with the sun and I spent a long time working out how to creating rising sun effect as a Photoshop animation.

I also pondered the notion of using the freeform pen tool throughout the site in order to create very simple images. The amateur nature of these designs would, I thought, compliment the amateur nature of the recordings.

At one stage I was keen on employing a splash page with a green valley mountain, flowing river and rising sun (see April 1st diary entry).

Ultimately, though, I was dissuaded from using this because it would just overcomplicate things.

And after buying a magazine called Computer Music Special (The Musician's Guide To The Net) I abandoned the idea because this fine publication stated that Splash pages are a waste of time as they frustrate most visitors who simply want to enter a site as swiftly as possible.

I began to make progress with my site when I drew the shape of a tree on a new document (see entry on Thursday April 3rd, 2008).

This development proved to be the rock from which to roll. It's easy to see how the front page and site theme gradually evolved from this image.

A couple of weeks after devising this image I found the look I was after (see the entry on April 15th entitled Much More Professional).

I ditched the Freeform Pen tree and searched for an image of a tree from the Web.

I cut it out placed it on the page, adjusted its height via the Transform Tool and then discovered, quite by accident, that placing the tree underneath the gradient layer resulted in a good gradient effect not just for the sky but for the tree too!

Thereafter the front page was really in the final straight. All I needed to do was add (and choose the style of text), work on a name for the project, devise the CD covers, find a suitable image of myself and add small touches here and there.

Adding an image was, I thought at the start of the project, going to be tricky because I don't like seeing pictures of myself.

But the blue silhouette effect on the site made a tricky task easy. I asked my nephew to take a picture of me playing the guitar. I then cut it out and placed it on the page. I adjusted the size with the transform tool and moved the layer up and down the stacking order, placing it in a position which maintained the silhouette effect.

After doing this, though, the job was still not done because part of my guitar-playing image was transparent.

To remedy this and give myself some little glow I used the Blending Options tool.

I used Blend Mode "Dissolve" and put an Outer and Inner Glow on my image. This gave my blue silhouette more definition - a nice Ready Brek effect! (don't ask!)

THE CD COVERS

Because I did not use rollovers of animated GIFs in my project I feared that it might not be well-received. However, my argument would be why use these options if they're not suitable?

I may use an animated GIF in the future but for now I'm happy with what I have done.

However, to expand my project further, and to avoid charges of skimping on effort (would I do that?!), I decided to add images/CD covers to help illustrate the theme of each song.

Here is a brief explanation of how I did so for each tune.

COVER 1 - WAR CRIMINAL

As you will see from my Photoshop Diary I experimented on this design during the early stages of my project, when I was still thinking of designing my project with the Freeform Pen Tool.

My aim was to create a very stark image, one which complimented the song. I wanted to convey or at least represent the amount of bloodshed our ex PM has been responsible for in the most powerful way I could.

I took a portrait of Tony Blair from the Internet and experimented with different effects in the Blending Mode section.

I found that by putting "Colour Dodge" on the picture, the blue shaded image "whitened" considerably.

Next, I erased the few bits of blue that lingered in the background, brushing over them with white.

This left a very stark effect indeed.

Next I wanted to add some blood to the picture. I created a new layer and filled it, using the eyedropper tool, with the red of the poppy Blair is wearing in the image.

To get the splash effect I then moved the layer between the background layer and the background layer copy.

Finally, I used the Brush tool to create a stark, brutal, blood-splattered effect around the edges of the picture.

I think this is the most powerful of the images I created, gratifying because I have managed to duplicate what I envisioned directly through Photoshop.

COVER 2 - CALLING ON YOU

This was very simply done. I just opened a picture of a crucifix which I took in a graveyard in Mayo a few years ago and added some text to it with the text tool.

COVER 3 - HOMETOWN SONG

I devised this image using Photoshop's Photomerge facility (File then Automate).
I then cut the statue image of Llantrisant legend William Price out of a pic taken in my hometown in May. It was then pasted on to the photomerged pix where I adjusted its size using the Transform tool.

COVER 4 - GOD BRING ME SUNSHINE

I measured the size of the area I want the CD to cover on the Startree page. I then found a beautiful image of the sun with some birds flying in a silhouette formation!

Next step was to find an image of a man in a hammock as this reflects the song's lyrics.

Originally I was going to place the hammock image to the left on the sun and erase the birds.

However, I found that the hammock image fitted very neatly into the sun itself.

Some simple blending experiments with the text followed and the job was done.

PLACING THE CD COVERS

Once I had decided on the size of the respective images I had to ensure that they all appeared in the same place on their respective pages.

I did this by activating Rulers on the Photoshop interface.

I then used the Navigation option, clicking on the Info panel to ensure each pic had the same page dimensions.

A NOTE ON THE SONGS

They're OK, they make me happy, anyway.

The recordings are not professional because this is just a hobby of mine. I intend to record them on my Olympus Digital Voice Recorder, hopefully they'll be on site in the next week.

To upload them on to my Dreamweaver page I clicked Insert - Media - Plugin and then chose the appropriate MP3 from my hard drive.

I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways I could have put music on to a website but I think that when putting together a site entirely in Photoshop the options are limited.

But I don't mind. For now I like what I have done, placing the MP3 at the foot of the page.

I will probably work on a more sophisticated website, adding Flash elements, at the end of the year. For now a site entirely in Photoshop will do.


LOADING THE SITE

My heart skipped a beat when I uploaded the site on to the worldwide web. Initially I felt joy at seeing my work connected but then I feared that the pages would be too big, that anybody clicking on to my site would be frustrated by the time it takes for the pages to appear.

However, so far this has not proved to be a problem.

I will certainly bear this potential pitfall in mind in the future.

REFLECTIONS AND THE FUTURE

This site will do for now. I don't think I'll design a site entirely in Photoshop again because in the future I'd like to make use of Flash effects, I would also like to add video effects too.

Perhaps, in the months ahead, I'll add a small animated gif to the site, a sparkling diamond tree or better still, a star. A few ads and banners at the foot of the page would not go amiss either. Rollover buttons for the menu remain a consideration.

When time is not at such a great premium as it is now I may also add stars to the night sky and little, almost hidden, transparent images within the sky and tree.

And as the number of songs I add to the site increases the songpage could well transform into a series of mini CD cover pix, a kind of gallery.

CONCLUSION

There were plenty of head-in-hands moments during the course of this project, a lot of agonising, but I never felt as lost or dejected as I did during my Dreamweaver course.

Finding project clarity was probably the hardest task but once that was found my project flowed.

I'm happy with the site I have produced, though in the months ahead I'll probably look back on it and blush at its limitations...but you've got to work through sites to improve, that's what I'll say to cheer myself up.

Overall, I think I have a very good grounding in the workings of Photoshop, I enjoy playing with it and I'm excited at the discoveries I will make in this amazing piece of software.

To digress for a short time I'm pleased to say that as a consequence of studying Photoshop my freelance website (www.johngilheaney.com) will be overhauled this summer. I now know what it lacks.

And, to my delight I have been asked to do some basic photoshop-related work for my brother's business.

In summary, the foundations have been laid it's time to build the house!

I would just like to thank Jamie for his patience and insight during all the lessons and my fellow classmates too, the course was fun and rewarding and that's the main thing.