Assignment 7: Process

Stage 1

All the pictures are draw manually and scanned into the computer. After the pictures are scanned in, many noise can be seen even though there is nothing on the hardcopies of the pictures. Therefore, we have to try and clean up the image as much as we can to enable easier color of the graphics.

We experimented with a few graphic softwares. We tried a free software call Deep Paint which was downloaded from Cnet. This software has many prefix brushes that we can use. However, it is not easy to rotate and manipulate the images. We also want to try using Coral Paint but due to the time need to pick up the techniques needed, we decided to do the coloring digital using Adobe Photoshop.


Stage 2

We decided to divide the coloring between two people. We are thinking of whether to use physical coloring or digital format. But in the end, we decided that the coloring to be done in the digital format. We chose a color scheme and way to color and followed it. At start, we want to have a soft pastel colors but after trying it out, it is not very attractive to look at. Thus, we decided on a warm color scheme.

For the coloring, I traced out the outline of the element I want to color. This is a painstaking process as it is hard to be trace the shape to be exact. For some graphics elements, I just used Paint Bucket to fill in the color. Due to the noise that is being scanned together with the graphics, at times I have to have another layer to cover it up as somehow I can't covered it with Paint bucket. Sometime brushes are used to paint the small or angles that I missed out when I was tracing the graphics. The brushes' angles and intensity can be changed and this is really useful when doing the part I missed out. Some effects were given to the water and grasses to make the pictures more attractive.

Example of one of the coloring:



When we compared the coloring, somehow the colors and styles look different despite us using the same color scheme and style. Thus we tried to find out what happened as we are worried that when printed out the colors of the pictures will look difficult. We tried changing the color profile of the software we are using. But it does not work. Therefore, we decided to do the whole over again and on only one computer. This means we have to do the coloring all over again for half of the portion.

For the layout, we have decided to use all three layouts and speech bubble for the book.

First layout: Text on the top and at the below

Second layout: Text below

Third layout: Text on the top

Four layout: Have speech bubble

After coloring, we inserted in all the pictures into Freehand to link all the pages.

Printing the book:

At the printing shop, we were told that books are printed in multiplies of fours as we are doing a double page printing. Thus, we have to rearrange the pages and see if we can make it till to the multiplies of four. We inserted three blank pages to make the pages in multiples of fours. We decided to do use glossy finish for the pages, a soft cover for the cover page and a staple binding. Initially, we want to have a matt finish but after looking the types of paper choices, we felt that a glossy finish is more attractive to look at. In addition, we wanted to have a hard copy and stitch bindings. However due the little number of pages we have, it is weird that the cover is thicker than the pages. Thus,we decided to have soft cover binding instead.