I’ve been working on scanning a few different types of documents brought in by professors. One professor brought in magazines from the 50s that needed the covers and pages scanned. After scanning the documents, I opened them in Photoshop to straighten the images and crop out any extra space so that the finished product was a clean digital image. Another professor brought in many small slides, these are scanned in groups of twelve using a film holder insert on the scanner. I color corrected one slide that appeared faded in Photoshop to bring out its natural colors. Through these assignments I’ve gotten comfortable using the Epson Perfection V700 Photo for scanning various kinds of documents like books, film slides, and magazines. I’ve also strengthened my Photoshop skills by editing these scans into polished materials for our professors to use.

Jaclyn assigned 20 photos for me to edit to ID pictures for graduate students, staff, and faculty of the College of Liberal Arts. I was nervous about this assignment initially because I didn’t have much experience editing outside of mobile apps. Plus, editing ID photos that represent grad students, professors, and staff on the UT website felt like a big responsibility. But once Jaclyn walked me through how to edit one ID, I realized that the Photoshop tools were easy to use. Suloni introduced me to the stamp tool which takes pixels from one part of an image and applies them to another area. I found this tool especially impressive because of how useful it was in editing harsh shadows away. After this assignment, I feel much more comfortable editing photos in Photoshop and I’m really happy that I can help fellow longhorns put their best foot forward!

All the STAs are creating caricatures to put on the Design STA banner for 2019-2020. After seeing some of the amazing drawings that people made for previous years’ banners, I decided to try my hand at digital drawing. I’ve only ever drawn on paper but I’ve been fascinated by digital animation for a while so I’m glad this assignment gave me the push I needed to try it out. Because I didn’t realize there were pads available in the Development Studio for drawing in Photoshop I ended up using the tablet part of my laptop, a Bamboo Ink stylus, and the first website I found that had drawing tools (sketch.io/sketchpad). The website was super straightforward and easy to use, I would recommend using it for drawings if you don’t mind doing it all freehand. For a simple caricature it had all the tools I needed but for more detailed drawings, Photoshop’s more advanced features would probably be more time efficient. Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment and now I’m set on improving my digital animation skills.

I’m currently a Sociology major with a certificate in Computer Science in the process of transferring to CNS. It’s been three days as an STA and so far I’ve gone through orientation and completed a couple assignments for my blog. The assignments have been fun and allowed for lots of creative freedom so I’ve really enjoyed doing them. The STA program is also very well structured so whenever I’m feeling lost there’s always tools (and Suloni) to steer me in the right direction. I’m excited to continue moving forward onto other projects and learn more about coding and graphic design.