Encore Skills Profile

We have been working on our Encore workshop in our lessons this week, i have worked on a previous project at home so i understood the basics.  There were however a few things that i didnt know about Encore.

I didnt know that there was codecs for things such as motion stills for menu scene selection.  you need to have the code (%) in order for it to become a thumbnail, and when you link that button to a video timeline it takes the first frame and uses that as the picture, this can be used to different chapters in the same way therefore making a scene selection menu easy and effectively.

For homework i will try this by downloading a movie trailer and chopping it up into chapters and then making a single page scene selection where you can click in the image and then skip to that part within the trailer.

After Effects Skills Profile

I know nothing about Adobe After Effects, i have been browsing the web to see what you can produce and this is the best i have seen.  Dont ask me how you do it, i will learn that over the next few weeks of playing.



Over the weekend i started watching Adobe Encore and After Effects tutorials to try and self teach myself the basics in DVD menu making and authoring.

Dreamweaver Skills Profile

As the same as Photoshop i have self taught myself how the basics in Dreamweaver, i know how to do php scripting for forms, how to put do a contact form online (normally cost up to £40.00 to be included in a web design package), Div tags, floating Divs, rollover images etc.

I would love to find out more about structuring and how to add a website search bar (instead of using Google search).

Although i did not design the website, i played around with the CSS (cascading style sheet) to change the link colour, font type, and line spacings.

Photoshop Skills Profile

Over the past few months i have managed to self teach myself the basics in Photoshop.  I spend hours looking at tutorials on TutVid and YouTube, looking at layers, hue saturation and brushes.  I have produced different posters and leaflets for a local Rounders Club and now hope to apply my new skills into the iMedia course.

I have recently stumbled across how to put an image inside a shape, for exmaple i have put together a collection of screenshots and explained how i did it.

Step One:

I put a simple image onto photoshop, i choose the chichester college front enterence.

Step Two:

I put a image of a pentagon, this appeared onto of the image.  It looks unsightly at this stage but with two clicks we can put the image inside the pentagon.

Step Three:
I placed the pentagon underneath the chichester college image, i then hovered the mouse between the two layers pressed the (ALT) key, you will then see the cursor change.  Left click the mouse and the image will appear inside the shape.

Step Four:
I then applied an inner glow using the blendingh options, i had the colour as the same as the background.  So to have the effect as the image blending into the background.

Time Taken = 2 Minutes

I know that you need to have a 300dpi for printing posters and leaflets.

I would love to find out about how to apply my own brushes and different blending effects.

Here are some examples of my work on photoshop recently.

These leaflets were for Sussex only Rounders club to help advertise and use the reverse as a signing on form.