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GRAPHICS
Scroll down the page to see how the students are using the Graphic programs this year
Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004is the graphic editor that we will be using. It is a bitmap editor and a vector drawing program.
Raster graphics (Bitmap images) are made up of little squares called pixels. Some of the different bitmap files that we will be using will be .PSD, .TIFF, .JPEG, .GIF, .BMP. These can all be opened in fireworks. Before you can make any changes to the pixels in the image you must select the area that you want to change. Only the pixels selected will be able to be changed. We will be able to cut out part of a picture or clone part of a picture. We will be able to turn the background of a picture transparent. We will be resizing and scaling different images as well as optimizing photographs digitally. We will be working with photographs to put special effects on them to achieve various results. The only bitmaps that can be easily seen on the web are .jpeg and .gif. The others may require plug-ins and all of your viewers may not be able to see them properly.
Vector objects are created by drawing different shapes and combining them to create new shapes. Vectors are made of lines and curves so they can easily be manipulated. The vector image uses mathematical points to create the lines and curves so it can easily be resized without losing quality. The user does not have to draw over or erase any pixels to make these changes. Vector images can be blown up quite large without losing quality because the lines and curves just get bigger where bitmaps will loose quality and get dotty because the little squares will get stretched apart leaving spaces in between. When you blow up a bitmap the software must quess where to put the pixels there is not a set place like with a vector image. The same thing occurs when you reduce the images. The bitmap image has to lose some pixels so the software has to decide which ones to throw out.
WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER 2
This is free program available to any one with Windows XP on their computer. It is very Microsoft version of imovie by Apple. It is relatively simple to use but quite powerful and exciting. There is free quicktime tutorial available at http://www.atomiclearning.com/moviemaker2 .
2005-2006 School Year
The 8th Grade inserted 5 pictures of themselves into moviemaker and learned to change the duration of time to view the picture with the timeline, insert transitions, and special effects. They saved the project to continue working on it next class.
FIREWORKS
2005-2006
School Year
Check back here to see how the students are using Fireworks this year
Click here to see the directions to make a simple animation in Fireworks to use in PowerPoint
Click to see a the fireworks menu tools we will be using and a brief description of each
FLASH
2006-2007
School Year
Click here to see how the students are using Flash this year
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS
PhotoShop Elements is a scaled down version of Photoshop. The skills learned in Fireworks are going to really help the students use this program. This program is much better for producing work for print publication where Fireworks is better for web publication. This will really help the eighth grade in producing their yearbook this year.
2006-2007
School Year
Check back here to see how the students are using PhotoShop Elements this year