Digital Art

Exploring Adjustment Settings in the Digital Art iPad App "Procreate"

Materials:

• $1,099 - $1,700 iPad Pro 13-inch M4, one

• $12.99 Procreate Software, one

  • Version 5.4.7

Other Possible iPad Options:

• $349 Standard iPad

• $499 iPad mini

• $599 iPad Air 11″

• $799 iPad Air 13″

• $999 iPad Pro 11″

• $1,299 iPad Pro 13″

Findings From the Adjustments Drop Down Menu:

Blurs

• Gaussian Blur: makes image soft and fuzzy, too much can make the image smaller and blur until it disappears

• Motion Blur: will also expand image outward on either side, stretching it as it blurs

• Perspective Blur: can set your focal point and it will get increasingly blurry the further away from the point

Noise

• Becomes more de saturated the more you use it

Sharpen

• If the image is already clear it doesn't seem to do anything

  
  

Bloom

• Colors will bleed and mix like watercolors

• takes on an overexposed lighting look

Glitch

• will pixelate and add new colors in the CMYK

Halftone

• will have your image become made up of dots of varying size, spacing, and density

• The more you adjust the slider the larger and more spaced out they become

Chromatic Aberration

• Will expand image outwards and add colors

Liquify

• Has its own sub menu for liquify effects

Clone

• Difficult to use and understand, learning curve

Conclusions:

I used to be confused about what exactly the differences where between the 3 blurs They seemed similar, even more so before the software update, but seeing their effects laid out side by side really helps. So it would be important to have students test all the tools in the adjustments drop down menu on the same page to compare the effects

When letting students explore and compare Adjustment effects, can remind them to plan ahead on how much space on the page a subject takes up, knowing that:

• Gaussian Blur

• Motion Blur

• Bloom

• Glitch

• Chromatic Aberration

all expand the image when used.

Teaching:

• I think exploring and experimenting with the liquify effect could be it's own separate lesson instead of being grouped into a lesson on everything in the Adjustments drop down menu (Depending on time).

• I will need to explore the "clone" feature more and take some tutorials because it was hard for me to understand how to use and would be hard for me to explain.

• I think prompting the kids to list out ways they could use these effects would be a great way for them to brainstorm how they could use them to their advantage.

• All the drop down menus could be broken onto different lessons

  • Adjustments (depicted here)

  • Adjustments

    • Hue, saturation, brightness

    • Color balance

    • Curves

    • Gradient Map

  • The selection tools and transform tools

  • Shortcuts (tapping the screen with a certain number of fingers)

    and other hidden features

  • Exploring brushes

  • Workflow

Lesson plan ideas as a followup to exploring adjustment effects:

• Taking digital photos and importing them into Procreate to create a collage, where each photo uses an adjustment feature

• Talking about how these effects could be used in a narrative piece

• Using the effects to create a visual hierarchy within an artwork and planning how you want the viewers attention to travel across the page

• Exploring setting, taking a photo from camera roll or going on a hunt for things to take pictures of around the school and manipulating 1 chosen with adjustments