Graphics+Activity+2

Sources: I used five images for this collage. The tree, fire, praying hands, and children were all photos from //Flickr's// free use photos. The doves came from //Microsoft Office Clipart// online ( [] ) and should be copyright free if used for educational purposes. The dove image is called //Two flying doves// and is provided by iStockphoto. Photo collage using Gimp: Let’s start with the **challenges**: AHHHHHH! First, I spent two hours messing around with a bad pixilated photo for the background, couldn’t clean it up, threw it out, and started all over. I have a lot to learn about using the “healing” and “cloning” features. I watched a few youtube tutorials on Gimp concerning working with layers and forming a collage. I gained a new appreciation for explaining things carefully for my students – the tutor assumed I knew a lot of very basic stuff that I didn’t know, so what now seems easy (“like open as layer”) took quite some time to figure out. By the way, this is only my second time using any kind of photo software to do more than crop and change red eye. J So, now I have more of a “clue.” Background about my collage: I wanted to do a collage for a novel unit I am teaching to my freshmen – //To Kill a Mockingbird//. I wanted the collage to be symbolic, incorporating important elements from the novel. I knew also that I wanted to use the quote about it being a “sin to kill a mockingbird.” I chose these pictures: 1) a tree, a symbol of Scout’s maturation in the novel and the place where the children receive gifts and trinkets from Boo Radley; 2) fire, a symbol of destructive change in Maycomb (also a literal fire that destroys Miss Maudie’s house); 3) the black man’s praying hands, a symbol of Tom Robinson’s plea for justice; 4) the children holding hands, representing Jem and Scout; and 5) the doves (couldn’t find a mockingbird!), a symbol of hope and courage.    **These were the steps I followed:**   Overall, the **new things I learned** were how to layer images, change opacity, move layers around, scale images, add text to images, and work with images from creative commons – really had no clue this existed before taking this class. All my images came from the suggestions on Dr. Smyth’s instructions (Flickr’s free use photos) except the doves. That was a downloaded clipart photo from Microsoft office online (perhaps that was why that image gave me so much more trouble to size than the others.)
 * 1)  I “opened as layer” the tree. I wanted that to be the biggest background image with the other images placed on top of it. I scaled the picture to a workable size (should have been typing this as I did it, because now I don’t remember what the scale was). I changed the “opacity” a bit to make it less “harsh.”
 * 2)  I “opened as layer” the fire and made it about as big as the tree. I changed the “opacity” to 50% so that it would blend with the tree image.
 * 3)  I “opened as layer” the praying hands picture and changed the “opacity” to about 60%. I “scaled” it and used the “move” tool to place the hands where I wanted them – I wanted them to be in front of the flames to symbolize Tom’s situation.
 * 4)  I “opened as layer” the children holding hands, changed the “opacity,” and tried to “burn” the edges a bit to make the square blend with the tree and fire. I didn’t have much luck making the edges of the praying hands and the children holding hands blend with the background. I would like to learn how to do that a bit better. I tried to change the mode to “soft light.” I read somewhere that that particular mode does well when blending two images, but it didn’t really look any better, so I “undid” that step. I also used the “move” tool to put the children in the bottom right to make it look like they were walking toward the tree.
 * 5)  I “opened as layer” the doves and had quite a time trying to resize that image using the “scale image”. It was a HUGE image originally, so I found that using the “percent” scale, rather than the “pixels” made more sense in my mind. I just kept decreasing the percentage of the picture until I was happy with the size, and then placed it above the children in the picture.
 * 6)  I inserted a text box and typed the quote from the book. I changed the font size and color to make it “work” with the collage.
 * 7)  I saved the image as a jpeg, which of course meant “flattening” the image for the final copy, and …voila! – two hours later, I have a lovely image to use to discuss symbolism with my freshmen students. I’m sure it won’t take me as long next time, and even though it was frustrating along the way, I am very proud of my collage. It’s hanging on my refrigerator next to my daughter’s first grade homework. J