DIGITAL MEDIA OVERVIEW • Last lesson I handed out the topic checklist and key terms sheet. Keep this with you so you can add the definitions and use the topic checklist. • We are now half way through the term, with your formal assignment being due in Week 10. You will get this notification next week. • It will be in 2 parts: a digital media report and a Photoshop element. • As for informal tasks, there will be one more online Edmodo quiz and a submission for the meme competition. 1) THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL MEDIA FOCUS QUESTIONS 1) What are the 5 types of digital media? 2) State one example of a digital media product in the areas of entertainment, health and commerce 3) What tools are available in eBooks that are not present in printed book? 4) Write down your favourite game in primary school vs your current favourite game. What has changed in digital gaming over the years? 1) THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL MEDIA • We live in an analog world, but computers live in a digital one. The images we see, the shapes or text we see in books or the sounds we hear are all analog data. • There are 5 types of digital media and they include text, audio, graphics, animation and video. • Digital media offers to make us more creative and allows us to access data more efficiently, but it also raises concerns about privacy. 1) THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL MEDIA • Most music today is sold/distributed online such as Spotify and Apple Music. Older methods such as cassette tapes or vinyl records vastly changed the way people consumed music in the 20th century. E-music today is streamed millions of times though different stores and music players. They are available in MP3 which is the most popular audio format. • Printed newspapers are almost entirely produced using digital techniques. Journalists use digital text and scanning of photographs to then be printed. Digital editions are easily accessible and updated 24hrs a day, at a small cost. • eBooks has also changed reading. You can now review, annotate, highlight and share parts of books with friends. A Kindle can store thousands of books and it is less than 1kg 1) THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL MEDIA TV has been digital for many years, although we now have access to TV Shows and movies through various digital media platforms such as Netflix and Stan. Most TV stations also post their shows online for viewing. Gaming has been the fastest growing digital industry for the past 40 years. They used to be produced on cartridges, then CD’s. Now, we can download and access games on multiple devices with online play. • Health Nowadays you can get Xray's or CAT scans in a digital format. This also helps as files can be sent to different doctors for opinions/surgical requirements. Digital hearing aids and remote operations are also possible. • Commerce Supermarkets now have self service checkouts which don’t necessarily require human assistance Shopping centers now have digital maps instead of information desks Real estate agents use virtual tours and online photographs to sell houses Ads and emails are sent to users for marketing 1) THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL MEDIA 2) TYPES OF DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCTS • Desktop publishing: the production of printed matter linked to a computer with special software such as Adobe InDesign. • Graphical design: creation of visual content to communicate a message • 3D graphics and 3D printing • Audio sequences and musical compositions • Animation sequences • Video production WEEK 7 DOUBLE LESSON • Assessment Task 1 Notification • Photoshop Introduction • Skills: 1) Importing and Saving 2) Using different selection tools 3) Understanding Layers 4) Text Box 5) Saving as JPEG FILE TYPES FOCUS QUESTIONS Looking at the popular file formats, how many can you recognize? Which ones? 1)Why can file types be confusing? 2) Write each of the digital media types (5) and provide 2 examples of file types for each. FILE TYPES FOR DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCTS • Remember: the different types of digital media can be text, audio, graphics, animation and video. • File formats can be quite confusing as there are a number of ways you can save a file on a PC. Your computer needs to know how to handle each, as well as how to display them. This also affects when files are opened in different applications and on different platforms. TEXT • Text is the least demanding of the date types in terms of processing and storage, which is why a normal word document can be as small as 10 kilobytes. • The most basic file format for storing text is .txt (when using notepad) but we know there is also .doc and .pdf for example. Thinking question: Would there be any issues with displaying text on different files and devices? AUDIO • There are two basic methods of representing audio in digital form: digitized sound files or MIDI files. • Digitized sound is the audio that you can hear on the Internet, voice messages or even Spotify. They are most commonly represented in .mp3 and .wav • MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an entire musical description language used by bands and musical artists to create their music from singing to the instruments. • Graphics can be categorized as either 2D or 3D. • The file format chosen to store a graphic is important to a designer based on each file types properties. For example, we know JPEG is the most popular graphics file format available for editing (Photoshop) and viewing online • Other examples include .png and .gif • 3D imagery is important for creating real-world images using 3D applications such as Tinkercad. GRAPHICS VIDEO • Video provides the greatest challenge as they are larger files and there is a need for higher processing speeds (both for editing and viewing) • Video can range from movies, television shows, YouTube, streaming sites and even in game cinematics. • The most popular formats for delivering video include .avi, .mp4 and .mov. ANIMATION Animation is the same as video as it is a sequence of frames presented rapidly to give the viewer the illusion of movement. When designing an animation, an animator draws each frame and slightly moves the characters into the next frame and so on and so forth. The minimum frame rate is 24fps. Most common file formats for animation are the same as video, but they can also be Flash .swf as well as GIF. DIGITISATION WHAT IS DIGITISATION? • Digitisation is the process of changing what we do in the analog world into a digital format • Examples include writing a story on a piece of paper then photocopying it, using a graphics tablet to edit an image, using our fingerprint to unlock our phones and using a microphone to record audio. • Notice that with these examples there is human input, a device that processes it and then produces an output. DIGITISING TEXT • Digitisation of text can be done in several ways: • Keyboard: when you press the key, it is then processed and displayed digitally • Voice recognition: Such as Siri receives analog signals and adjusts the variables including volume, pitch and length to process an answer • Optical character recognition: the process of photocopying/scanning • Handwriting recognition: the first device to feature handwriting was Apple’s handheld device called the Newton. You could write with a stylus and letters were recognized and translated into editable text. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p3-v0rp1rc DIGITISING AUDIO • Audio today is recorded using a microphone. They contain a cone that vibrates in response to incoming waves (sound). Magnets attached to this cone move and alter the current in a coil of wire. These changes in current correspond to the sound waves, which are then amplified and sampled. These sampled ‘slices’ are each averaged and finally coded digitally as a stream of 1’s and 0’s. DIGITISING GRAPHICS • Can be done in many ways such as drawing and painting with a mouse, stylus, graphics tablet, scanning or using a digital camera • Graphics tablets have sensors that can respond to pressure of a stylus and recognise the position on the tablet, and mimic that onto the computer screen. DIGITISING VIDEO • Digital video cameras use the same digitation process as still cameras but need to process at minimum 25 frames per second (25fps) • Frame grabbing is the process of capturing an entire frame of analog imagery and digitizing it. Three factors affect the appearance of digitized video: • 1) The size of the window in which the video plays on the computer • 2) How many times per second the video frame is updated (30 fps for TV) • 3) How many colors are used to draw the image DIGITAL MANIPULATION TECHNIQUES WHAT IS DIGITAL MANIPULATION? • Last lesson we learnt about Digitisation, which is the process of changing something from analog to digital (we input something for the computer to process, and it gives us an output such as scanning a photo or document) • As computer users, we manipulate different digital media types quite often, especially in IST • Once text, audio, graphics, animation and video data are in digital form, we can use various techniques to manipulate them. TEXT • Our easiest way to manipulate text is through Microsoft Word. We can cut, copy, paste, Highlight, Bold, Italicize and professionally format documents. • Special software such as InDesign or Photoshop can take text and reshape it, shadow t and create special text effects. • A lot has changed over the years with manipulating text including creating links and being understood by a computer to read aloud to a deaf person. AUDIO • Audio manipulation allows endless possibilities with effects and various edits. • Some examples include cutting, echoes, fade-ins, fade-outs, pitch and tempo changes. • How all of your favourite songs are made is done using these techniques as well as many others to mix the voice/s and instruments. GRAPHICS • Everybody right now should be masters of graphical manipulation: PHOTOSHOP!! • Our most basic graphical manipulation software is Paint, but only offers minimal possibilities • Photoshop is the most widely used and popular image editing software - Brush tools (Pencil and brush) Edit tools (Smudge, Blur, Sharpen) Selecting (Lasso, Marquee) Filling (Paint Bucket, Fill, Gradient) Duplicating and Erasing Undo Text Effects Filtering Adjusting colors (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation) - Combining images (hehe memes) VIDEO • Originally, not much was available for video editors as they were basically only able to film what was in front of them without special effects on a computer (Watch this video if you are interested in Star Wars and how they created effects in the original movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh1Tz3zwhFU) • There are 5 basic elements to editing a movie: collecting and ordering clips, adding transitions, adding effects, adding sound and adding titles such as credits or even subtitles • Professional video or movie editors would also include their CGI mixed with the live action in single or multiple scenes in software such as Premiere Pro of Final Cut Pro. ANIMATION • Animation is an illusion and is produced by displaying a rapid series of images, each different from each other together. The eye ‘sees’ the effect as smooth movement due to a characteristic of the retina and the brain known as ‘persistence of vision’ • Animation is created using drawings that are traced and colored by hand and then use scanners or paint software to digitise these images. • There are many animation techniques including traditional animation, 2D/3D animation, clay animation, sand animation, flip book animation and stop motion. • Some basic manipulation techniques include adding colours and backgrounds, morphing/tweening, adding voice and sounds. • Here is a website that gives us some information as to what animators do: https://nofilmschool.com/2017/01/what-does-an-animation-editor-do
