Look Who's Talking: An Image Editing Activity

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This activity offers a good framework for introducing and working with image-editing programs. In it, kids work in pairs to take pictures of two people, import them into a photo-editing application like PhotoShop, and combine them to create an image of the two people talking to each other with comic book-style word balloons.

Recommended Time: 

If you're using this activity to introduce photo editing for the first time, we recommend spending 15 to 30 minutes per day over several sessions, introducing two or three tools or techniques each day. You could, however, try it in a single session because only a few tools are needed.

By approaching it in a staged manner, however, as described in teaching about technology, kids will be able to digest each technique better and will have more time to explore on their own. The number of sessions you use is up to you and will be based on how many tools you want to introduce with this one activity. Just be sure to structure each session so that the kids can see a material advancement in their work at the end of each period.

Goals: 
    • To introduce or advance basic skills in using image manipulation software
    • To encourage kids' creativity and their exploration of computer software
    • To reinforce children's understanding of media literacy concepts: that images can be altered, that what we see in pictures can affect our perceptions, etc.
Materials and Equipment: 
Computer(s)
Digital camera(s) or a flatbed scanner
Image-editing software, such as PhotoShop.
Preparation (Before You Begin): 

1. The kids will be working in pairs, and each team will need photo images of two people showing the whole person from head to toe. You can obtain the photos in two ways:

a) (Recommended) If you plan on having kids take their own photographs, make sure that you've already introduced the basic photography concepts. A day before beginning this activity, have the kids pair up and take a picture of their partners. Have them save the photos to disks or to the computers' hard drives with appropriate file names.

b) If you don't want to have the kids take photos themselves, spend some time the day before letting them pick out pictures of people from magazines, then scan the photos and give them appropriate names on disks or on the computers' hard drives.

2. If you're not a regular and frequent user of photo-editing software, be sure to review the section on teaching about and with technology.

3. Think about which tools and techniques of photo editing you want to cover with this activity. If the kids have worked with PhotoShop before, you'll have more flexibility. If it's their introduction to photo editing or one of their first few times using the technology, you'll want to be sure to model how to use the basic tools described later in this discussion.

Process

As we said, you can do this activity over one or several days, so interpret this process flexibly, according to the experience your kids already have with computers, the length of your classes, and so forth. We've broken it up into steps that use related tools, but you may want to try more than one step in a day or break some steps down over multiple days to explore related tools.

The description below presents the minimum tools and features you'll want to demonstrate for this activity, some of which you may have already covered in other lessons; you may want to introduce others as well. Refer to your software manuals and the program's HELP for details on using the tools. With each tool or feature, be sure to model its use with the standard pair-share process and follow the guidelines for teaching about technology.

Activity Steps: 

Step 1: The Basics

If your kids are relatively new to computers, introduce or review opening, saving and naming a file. PhotoShop files use a .psd file extension.

Step 2: Adjust the Image Size

You want to get all the pictures to be the same size so that the conversation looks relatively natural. Introduce the cropping tool, if necessary, to get rid of extra space above or beneath the people. Leave perhaps an eighth of an inch above the heads and beneath the feet. Now use the "image size" command to change the height to six inches.

Be sure to point out how the program automatically keeps the width in ratio. You'll need some extra room to enter the word balloons later, but don't tell that to the kids at this point. Keep the final goal secret to surprise them later. Demonstrate how to change the canvas size by adding two inches of space above the photo. Be sure to point out how to change the background color to determine the color of the additional two-inch space. This is also a good time to explain the difference between foreground color and background color.

Step 3: Combine the Images

Bring the two photos together in a single file. You can do this in two ways, so be sure to demonstrate both options:

    • Use the selection tools to select an area of one photo, including the person, then cut and paste it into the other file. Be sure to show both the free-form and the rectangular selection tools.
    • Use the cloning tool to copy an area of one photo, pixel by pixel, into the other.

Because both options require you to have two files open at the same time, be sure to discuss how to move between open file windows. Show both techniques, and let the kids experiment with which one they want to use. Show the undo command at this stage as well.

tip When working with photo files, it's always a good idea to keep the original file untouched and do your editing work in a copy. That way, if you do something you don't like and can't undo it, you always have the original to go back to.

Part 4: Draw the Balloons

Now show the tools for adding the words and word balloons. Start with the shape tools—both the rectangle and the oval—as one option for creating the balloons. You'll want to review the distinction between foreground and background colors and how to select a color so that the kids learn how to change the colors of the shapes, text and lines. The paint brush tool is an option for drawing free-form balloons, like the clouds we see in comic books. To fill the balloons with a color, demonstrate how to use the paint bucket tool, then demonstrate the text tool.

Finally, show the kids how to enter text in the balloons, including how to change the font, size and color. You can easily break this step into two parts, drawing the balloons one day and adding text the next.