PCWVA114 - Intermediate Photoshop (Middle School)

Course Description

Challenge your Photoshop aptitude and jump in to using advanced techniques for photo manipulation and retouching. By the end of the week, students will have the advanced technical skills necessary to edit photos and create graphics like a professional. Throughout the week, students will create professional designs in Photoshop and an interactive portfolio of their designs on Behance.

This course is ideal for middle school students who have completed Intro to Graphic Design or Beginner Photoshop, or have prior experience in Photoshop—usually from a photography or computer/graphic design class, or work on a yearbook or newspaper. 

Please note times are in Central Standard Time (CST).

Course Outline

Day 1

• Photoshop Tools and Practice:
  • Workspace and Panels
  • Preferences and Custom Workspaces
  • Selection Tools (Advanced Techniques)
  • Masks
  • Select & Mask Panel
  • Layer Adjustments
• Design Projects:
  • Photo Mash-ups (Select & Mask Collages)
  • Working with Clients
  • Logo Designs (Hand-drawn)

Day 2

• Photoshop Tools and Practice:
  • Text tools
  • Adobe fonts
  • Emoji Font
  • Shape tools
  • Clipping Masks
  • Pen Tool
  • Libraries Panel
• Design Projects:
  • Advertisement Design
  • Logo Designs
  • Brand Style Guide

Day 3

• Learn: Image Resolution, File Types and Sizes
• Photoshop Tools and Practice:
  • Content Aware
  • Advanced Photo Retouching
  • Resizing and Saving
  • Animation Panel
• Design Projects:
  • Animated Emojis and GIFs
  • Before & After Photos (Advanced Techniques)

Day 4

• Learn: Behance Online Portfolios
• Photoshop Tools and Practice:
  • Making Smart Objects
  • Advanced Transform Tools
• Design Projects:
  • Custom Mock-ups
  • Preparing Portfolio Images

Day 5

• Presentations
  • Individual Portfolio Presentations
  • Peer Critiques
  • Behance Community and Resources

Notes

Students will need a computer (Mac or PC) that has the free Creative Cloud Desktop App installed.
Students will receive instructions on how to download the Creative Cloud software and set up an Adobe ID and a free trial of Photoshop (no credit card needed, only an email address).