William P. Craft

This Unit:

Reading Assignment:

Read Chapter Five and do the exercises in the chapter. However, the exercise on "Making a Logo" (pp. 204- 212) is totally optional. It is a very worthwhile project, but it's actually beyond the scope of this course. That said, if you have the necessary software and want to give it a try, you will benefit from the experience.

In this unit, the text covers how to work with images so that you can use them in a website. They use Adobe Photoshop Elements which is a very good basic photo editor. However, it costs money. You can get a 30-day trial, but when it runs out you will have to buy it or stop using it. Since this class lasts longer than 30 days, losing your image editor midway through could be tough.

If you want to buy the full Adobe Photoshop Elements program you can get it at Costco or from Gradware. The program is now up to version 6 and the book discusses version 5, but there should be no big problem using the later version.

However, there are other options:

If you are on a budget, there are several other options you can use that can do all of the things you might need in this course:

Of course if you want to go "big time" the industry standard is Photoshop. It is very expensive and it's a huge program that is fairly hard to learn--but it does everything. Bottom Line: if you go Pro, this is the one you will use eventually.

(Final option: you might want to download the free 30-day-trial of Adobe Photoshop Elements and use it for this chapter; then later, switch to one of the free programs listed above.)

This chapter explains several important photo editing skills that you will need to make a good website. Aside from learning how to crop and resize photos, it's also important to know when to use a jpg and when to use a gif. Take some time to figure out the differences between the two formats. It's worth the effort.

There is another format called .png. It's been around for a while, but it isn't covered in the textbook because IE6 couldn't use it. However, IE7 does support this format so I expect it to pick up in popularity as IE7 comes into wider use. It has the best "features" of both gif and jpg in one format. This link has a lot of info, but don't worry about it. You will not need to really know about png images unless the format get's more popular with IE7 users.

Discussion:

Much of the content on the web is protected by copyright law. Some people want to put their work on the web with fewer restrictions and there is an organization called Creative Commons that has developed the Creative Commons License that allows you to grant permission to others to use your work under certain conditions.

Take a look at their site and their FAQ and tell the class what you think of the idea. Also, comment on at least one other student's discussion input. (Feel free to comment on more than one if you like.)

Quiz:

Take the quiz.

Assignment:

Download the two pictures provided. They are both public domain from a website called BurningWell.org. Remember to click on the link to open the picture on your desktop and then "right-click" the image and "Save image as" to the location you want on your computer.

Crop the picture of the racoon so that you just see his face and so that the final picture is 600px X 460px.

Resize the picture of the Richmond Bridge in Tasmania from 2032px x 1354px to 406px x 271px.

Post the two pictures on your website on a html page that your create just for this purpose. Send me the exact address of the page in the remarks section of the assignment.

Here is a webpage that lists lots of sites with "public domain" images. You may find this listing useful if you are ever looking for an image you can legally use without paying anybody a royalty.

The due date for all Discussion, the Quiz, and the Assignment is listed on the homepage of the course.

...Bill