So I thought I'd leave you awesome people that's blessed enough to be part of my dA some tips on DES101 or if you're just generally interested in the world of design. I'll just remind people again, I do know my stuff if you want to take it on board do so but don't think I'm pulling these info out of my ass.

So you think DES101 is a waste of time? I agree in a sense but what did we sign up for? A fast track course. We don't have the luxury of normal universities. So let's get on with this next assessment shall we? Collage is fun and when I had heard the word collage the first thing I thought was a mishmash of pictures. No. After talking to lance this isn't a collage at all in the traditional sense. To him it is just anything more than 2 layers that are blended together. So there you have it, you can do anything...

What my advice is when it comes to actual blending the pictures together is to go about it the 'non destructive' way. This is done by masks, lance's class has a head start on masking whereas Andy have been teaching us destructive editing as well. Me and Lance are graphic designers after all, the beauty of "non-destructive" editing is that we can revert back to any stages of the edit we want.

For non-destructive editing, a mask is the key here. Everything you do must revolve around masks. If you're cutting something out, mask it out. If you're masking 2 objects out of the same picture, duplicate that layer and mask them accordingly. If you still don't know masking that well.. The little box that appears next to your main pic in the layers palette is a masking layer. Black hides stuff, White shows stuff, shades of gray will act like opacity. If I want to blend a picture to another one I mask the first picture, have parts of it I want in white then either use gradient to blend it to the next picture or I get my brush set it to black, lower it's opactity down to 20 and start blending it by hand.

Adjustment layers are also a key here in non-destructive editing. You may be use to going up to the menu and click on adjustments for all your stuff. That works fine and dandy but what if you suddenly want to change that or get rid of it? Down in the Layers palette you can choose to create an adjustment layer. This acts as normal adjustments but also acts as a layer. This layer can be masked and moved around depending on which layer you want it to affect.

Why so serious you ask? well if you really don't give a rats arse then I'm not stopping you from destructive editing. It's just good practice if you ever want to get work as a graphic designer. At the end of the day you want a portfolio or showreel. having set up pictures this way allow you to edit it much more freely without affecting other layers. It may not save time doing it but it will save a shit load later on when you realise you do have to make changes.

And a final note. Type and body copy should never be done in Photoshop nor Illustrator. They are merely programs to create illustrations or to manipulate images. For us Illustrator is acceptable. Out there in the real world we never submit photoshop or illustrator files that's why we use indesign as it can save fonts and package the PDFs the correct way for printing. These are just... formalities if you will but good practice.