Workshop on Digital Design and Vfx

Workshop on Digital Design and Vfx

A workshop was conducted on Digital Designing and Visual Effects. The aim of the workshop was to teach its participants to use the two softwares Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects to edit photographs, create media content and generate stunning visual effects.

The workshop was conducted over a 2 day period, on the 28th and the 29th of September. On the first day, the focus was to get the participants accustomed to the complicated interfaces of the Adobe softwares. Upon achieving this, they were then shown, using a live tutorial, how to edit photos using the various options and parameters provided by Adobe Photoshop. The concept of layering, being the most primal method used in all Adobe Editing products was explained in detail. The participants were then introduced to color correction, selective color balance and curves editing, the three processes presently used by industry professionals to edit their footage. The example used in the workshop is given below.

The original photograph was taken and then Photoshop was used to make various edits to show those present how the software could work to drastically improve their overall picture quality and also to demonstrate why, even though complicated, Adobe Photoshop was superior to the various other easier editing tools available.

After the participants were more or less comfortable with the dynamic workflow system of Adobe Photoshop, they were then introduced to the basics of digital designing, artificial lighting and digital art.

The example shown below was recreated in the workshop so as to provide an idea of how detailing in digital art was necessary to make the individual works of the participants stand out.

Also a few tips and tricks to reduce overall production time and increase production value were mentioned during the workshop.

On the second day, once the participants were now armed with the concepts of layering and color correction, they were introduced to Adobe After Effects. The software mentioned here is one of the most common softwares used by the industry to design high end visual effects. Having only 2 hours in hand we were only able to brush the surface of the software.

Most of the time spent was behind explaining key concepts of video editing and visual effects and the remaining amount of time was spent behind showing the participants the capability of the software and the extraordinary number of possibilities it opened up. Concepts such as simple animation using Key framing, video warp stabilization, color correction and adding external elements to real life footage was shown and discussed in great detail. The participants were also given a brief glimpse of 3D designing using 3Ds max and Element 3D, however this was not detailed due to the time constraints. Some of the advanced concepts and tutorials were mailed to the participants post the workshop.

A few of the footages shown to generate interest are as follows

A few images from workshp