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     A frustrating aspect of the Photoshop program was how tedious you had to be. When duplicating layers I always had to turn off the visible button and sometimes turn back on the visible button to see what I have changed which made it very confusing because sometimes I would have more than one layer visible and it would make me think that I have done something wrong when in reality it was only because there was visibility to more than one layer. Also I was frustrated in all the buttons I had to click to create a picture or make changes to a layer. For example when I had to paint, I used black and then I used the teardrop tool to pick a shade of yellow. However picking the yellow made it a background color and I always had to switch the background and foreground color. Also, when wanting to use the magnetic lasso tool, and in general any tool,  I would have to deselect something selected previously in order to select something else. Sometimes I would forget, and it would be frustrating to have to look around and waste time only to find that I had to deselect. However this is probably only because I am unfamiliar with Photoshop. I was frustrated with the project because I had to keep fluidity. I made sure that my transitions between each layer was smooth however this took a lot of changing visibility of layers so I could refer to the previous layers for what changes I've made.

     After completing the project, I feel most confident with the paint brush tool. This is because I used the tool the most; I created the head for the symbol's headphones and music notes by drawing and erasing,  which gave me a lot of practice with the paint brush tool. To me, the paint brush tool is a helpful tool and changing its paint brush size and opacity was easy. I also learned to color hard to reach places in my symbol by simply putting the paint brush on top of a specific area and clicking the mouse a couple of time to get a dark enough colour. I did this very often for my own symbol.  Also, I understood that the paint brush tool is very tedious to use, so I found that making short strokes helps a lot more than making a continuous long stroke because when you make a mistake and undo the mistake, it will undo the entire line that you have spent time trying to perfect. Overall I feel like I am most confident using the paint brush tool because it is easy to understand and I have used it for most of my symbol.

     I wish I were better at the pen tool. I did use it a few times to create the straight lines for the music sheets next to the earphones however it was a struggle for me because I did not know how to create lines that were equal in size nor did I completely understand the usage of the new layers added. In terms of the layers, I learned to merge them to create one layer that I wanted. But in terms of creating a straight line, I am still struggling to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I thought that it would be easier to create these music sheet minds, however, it took me long time to understand how the pen tool is used and I am still now having trouble understanding how you can create one straight line without pressing another area and having the two- dots connect with a curve.

     I would like to create a picture from various images on Photoshop. I have seen online of very interesting pictures of images that seem to have been pasted on another background image to create a new emotion or idea. I find this very interesting and would like to see how one can achieve this. Right now, I am thinking, in order to achieve this type of image you would have to use the lasso tool. But I do not know how to take the background off of an image. And would like to learn how to do so.

The concept of my symbol is music. This is shown with the headphones because we use headphones to listen to music. But a deeper idea I want to convey is that music can bring people together and does not discriminate. I show this by starting the project with a circle. Rather than using a rectangle or triangle, or angular shapes, a circle is a shape that seems like it can hold on to everyone and gather everyone so that no one is left out in a corner. I also wanted to show that music inspire others. I showed this by having a small music sheet come out of the headphones, showing that music not only are in your ears but goes out into the world because it affects not only you but also others. Lastly,  a personal concept that I decided to include was that music brings me happiness. With the smile I wished to convey that music brings happiness to me. This is because songs are able to speak out my emotions and make me feel like there's someone who understands my emotions. This, makes me feel happy.I also enjoy singing, so when I listen to music I relate it to positive thoughts. Lastly, my choice of the color, yellow, was also to express the emotion of happiness. I felt that yellow was bright and brings a warm tone because it reminds me of the sun. So I felt like yellow was the most appropriate color for my symbol, whether it was for the smile or the music notes.

I felt like this project taught me a lot about Photoshop, which I have always been wondering about.