Photoshop training and S4C

Yesterday we had Photoshop training. This was a good fast-track to learning shortcuts and correct ways of methods such as masking. Although I have used Photoshop before, I am self-taught, so it is good to get the low-down on the right ways to do things, and I have never used masks before. We had an overview in the morning, and then in the afternoon we put into practice what we had learned with editing some photos.

I began to edit a doorway picture. I learned a great way to trace a part of a photo that is a tricky shape was to use the extract command. This is great to know as I have struggled to trace images before. I also learned how to turn text into an image by rasterizing it.

We then went to visit S4C, and met the team on the New Media department. Their team was smaller than I had anticipated, but it was good to see how all the roles in the team fitted together. The manager, Rachel, gave us a run-down of what they do, as well as a brief description of the issues involved with making a bi-lingual website. Issues included- when leaving space for text you have to leave alot more space for Welsh as it takes more text. Also, when thinking of short words for navigation, when you think of the English, you have to think what would be the equivalent in Welsh. She also mentioned what to think about when designing a Flash game for pre-school children - such as obviously they can't read, so use of text is minimal. Also, their coordination is still in the early stages of development, so their mouse control is less. To overcome this, all the graphics have to be big and spaced out.

It was a useful, if brief, look at how the media in Wales organise and operate their website.