Day 38: More Photoshop Foundations

My parents came in to visit my brother and I in Austin for a week, so I've been busy attending to them, but I woke up early again today (6 a.m.) to get some coding in.  I'm still working on the Photoshop course, and I'd like to complete it as soon as possible so I can move on to the Illustrator course, and then move on after that and complete the Web Design track/field of study.  Once I complete the Web Design track, I plan to move on to the Ruby on Rails track!

Today in Photoshop, I started with masks, then moved on to tools that can modify text, and then followed that up with vector shapes.  When an ellipse is selected, if we hold down shift, a perfect circle will be created.  Also, if we just click on the canvas, we can numerically enter the stats for our ellipse (instead of sizing it by selecting a point, then dragging the point across the screen).  Vector shapes are made up of paths and anchors.  The "path" is the line that surrounds the vector shape when it is selected.  The anchors are revealed when we select the direct selection tool (we can do this by pressing a on the keyboard).  The anchors have handles which can be dragged to modify the shape.  Ctrl+shift+a will hide or reveal the path.

Selecting shape, then align edges will "round off" a vector shape to the nearest pixel (some vector shapes take up fractions of pixels).  Paths have three types of components, anchor points and their handles, straight segments, and curved segments.  We used the pen tool to create custom vector shapes.  When setting anchor points with the pen tool, holding down the space bar will allow you to move the anchor around.  Hlding down the shift key while setting anchors will snap the path into a straight line.  Paths must be closed at the same anchor they were opened in order for them to be complete.  A small circle appears above that anchor to notify you that it is the initial anchor.  Ctrl+; will hide paths.  The direct selection tool (the little arrow, or you can just click "a") can be used to clean up your paths.  After selecting the tool, you can click on the shape, then begin modifying it by using the anchors.  With the add anchor point tool, you can add an anchor point to a complete shape.  Holding down the shift key when using the delete anchor point tool will make straight lines.

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Total Treehouse Points: 3,020
Treehouse Points by Subject Matter: HTML 663, CSS 1,599, Design 728, and Miscellaneous
Treehouse Ranking (%): "You have more total points than 82% of all students."

Badge(s) Earned Today:
Masks Basics
Type Tools
Vector Shapes

Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Aesthetic Foundations
Design Foundations

Books Read or in Progress:"Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman (In progress, I've read the 37 pg. preface and the first 255 pgs. of actual content, which is the HTML section of the book)

Hours Spent Coding Today: 7
Total Hours Coding: 172