This document discusses photo manipulation and provides examples of digitally altered photographs from various sources. It then provides instructions for a Renaissance Photoshop project where students take a self-portrait and composite it into a Renaissance painting using Photoshop. The instructions guide students through selecting and erasing parts of the image, adjusting layers and colors, and saving the final composite image. It prompts students to consider whether their created composites and other manipulated works can be considered art, and who owns such blended images.

1. Media Literacy and the
Renaissance Photoshop Project

2. What is Photo Manipulation?
Photo manipulation is the application of image editing
techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion
or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or
correction), through analog or digital means.

3. From DailyMail:
The history of doctoring photographs dates back to the 1860s. Only a
few decades after the first photograph in 1814, photographs were
already being manipulated. The nearly iconic portrait of U.S. President
Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln’s head and the Southern
politician John Calhoun’s body.

4. From Media Bistro:
National Geographic was
accused of altering a
photograph so that the Egyptian
pyramids were closer together
and thus fit on the vertical
cover. The editors were
allegedly unapologetic about
creating a more aesthetically
pleasing cover. Rich Clarkson,
director of photography at
National Geographic during the
time, said he had no ethical
problem with combining two
photographs into a single cover
picture, although “some
publications could start
abusing.”

5. From Sree.net:
Photographer Brian
Walski used his
computer to combine
elements of the two
photographs. The left
side of the altered
photo is taken from the
top left photo, and the
right side of the altered
photo is from the top
right one. Some
residents on the left
side of the blended
photo are visible twice.
The altered photo ran
on the front page of the
Los Angeles Times
Monday.

6. From China Tibet News:
Photographer Liu Weiqiang merged the images of antelope and a high-
speed train after waiting for two weeks for the perfect photo with no
success. Despite his earnestness, he was eventually blacklisted by
several Chinese news outlets

7. Images by Seth Taras for History Channel 2010

8. Images by Seth Taras for History Channel 2010

9. Images by Seth Taras for History Channel 2010

10. Dove's "Evolution of Beauty" Ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U

11. What are the Permitted and Prohibited uses?
Why is it important to read the terms and conditions of a website?
Everything you do online is public, permanent, and traceable.
Artstor

12. Some examples of the project...

15. Photoshop Instructions

16. Locate a Renaissance painting online at http://artstor.
org

17. ●Download a fair
use image of a
Renaissance
painting to your
Art Folder.
●Take a self
photograph in
front of a plain
wall or with
PhotoBooth.
●Try to mimic the
face/head angle.

18. ●Open the picture of
you in Photoshop.
●Use the Eraser and
Magic Wand tools in
the left side menu to
erase everything
unecessary.
●Change the size of
the Eraser and/or the
tolerance of the
Magic Wand.
●The higher the
tolerance, the larger
the area you will
select.
●Zoom in and out for
accuracy.

19. ●Click on the white area with the Magic Wand tool.
●Go to Select --> Inverse to highlight only your face
(or body). Copy this (command + C).

20. ●Open a new Photoshop file.
●Give it a good file name like RenaissanceArtProject .
●Change the Width, Height to print either 8.5x11 or 11x8.5
depending on whether your painting is more like a portrait or
landscape.
●For good print quality, change the resolution to 150.

21. Create two new layers by clicking Layers --> New Layers:
●name the first one painting
●name the second one me
Now you have a total of 3 layers:
1. Layer 1 (the background layer)
2. Painting
3. Me

22. ●On the me layer, paste the photo of you.
●On the painting layer, paste your chosen painting.

23. ●Change the scale or rotate
a layer by going to:
Edit --> Free Transform
●Hold down the Shift key to
keep things proportional
(relatively sized).
●Flip the image horizontally
or vertically by going to:
Edit --> Transform
●Lock your transformation
into place by pressing the
Return button.

24. ●Move the me layer
into place using the
Move Tool.
●Continue to erase if
necessary with the
Eraser Tool.

25. Adjust the color balance, exposure, contrast, hue under:
Image --> Adjustments
There are many sliders you can use to experiment.

26. A nice final effect is making the "me" layer slighly blurry using a
very light eraser or play with the available filters.

27. Save your final image as a JPEG in your Art Folder.
Upload your JPEG to the class album on The Gallery.

28. Is it ART?
WHO owns it?

29. Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, ~1519
Is it art? Who owns it?

30. Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919
Is it art? Who owns it?

31. Andy Warhol, Mona Lisa, 1963
Is it art? Who owns it?

32. Yasumasa Morimura,
Self Portrait as Art History: Mona Lisa in Its Origin, 1998
Is it art? Who owns it?

35. Who owns the Renaissance composites that you
created?
What about our work?

36. Download your work to your Digital Portfolio and write a
reflection about your experience during this project.
Reflection