Text Self-Portraits
Mrs. Kushner teaches Text Self-Portraits to Chute 7th graders as an introduction to photo editing, contrast, and Photoshop tools. It was inspired by the website youareyourwords.com which is no longer available. Luckily, there is a great tutorial to get this effect at Photoshop Essentials which describes step by step how to make a portrait into text.
Students began by writing about their positive talents and things they have to contribute to the world. Students took photos in Photobooth and brought them into Preview for basic editing. Students learned to desaturate their photos to make them black and white, adjust levels, exposure, and contrast. Students also cropped photos. Students then brought photos into Photoshop and followed the tutorial. After finishing, they described their images and looked at what could be done to improve their images.
Beyond the tutorial, students used the opacity, color fill, and eraser tools in Photoshop to create additional contrast and provide focal points for their text and image. Students created three additional versions of the portrait:
1) Original from tutorial
2) Black and White version with opacity/eraser change to create contrast
3) Tinted color version
4) A variation of student's choice
Students began by writing about their positive talents and things they have to contribute to the world. Students took photos in Photobooth and brought them into Preview for basic editing. Students learned to desaturate their photos to make them black and white, adjust levels, exposure, and contrast. Students also cropped photos. Students then brought photos into Photoshop and followed the tutorial. After finishing, they described their images and looked at what could be done to improve their images.
Beyond the tutorial, students used the opacity, color fill, and eraser tools in Photoshop to create additional contrast and provide focal points for their text and image. Students created three additional versions of the portrait:
1) Original from tutorial
2) Black and White version with opacity/eraser change to create contrast
3) Tinted color version
4) A variation of student's choice