🗓️ Before Class: Teacher Prep
- Gather/set out: Computer with Photoshop, Provided source images with varied difficulty (simple background, complex hair/edges).
- Pull up today's slide deck (see 🖥️ Slide Deck below) so it's ready to project.
- Heads-up -- This is exam-relevant: This lesson maps directly to an Adobe Certified Professional (ACP) exam domain. Keep a running personal vocabulary list all year -- it becomes your exam study guide. See the ACP Exam Prep section for a full study guide and practice questions.
🧑🏫 Substitute Teacher Guide
A scripted, step-by-step runsheet for today's class -- hand this to anyone covering the room who doesn't know the daily routine.
- Day 1: 📋 Open Substitute Guide
- Day 2: 📋 Open Substitute Guide
This is exam-relevant
This lesson maps directly to an Adobe Certified Professional (ACP) exam domain. Keep a running personal vocabulary list all year -- it becomes your exam study guide. See the ACP Exam Prep section for a full study guide and practice questions.
🎯 Essential Question
- How do professionals make clean, complex selections to combine multiple images into one believable scene?
📈 Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson (2 Days), students will be able to:
- Use at least 3 different selection tools/techniques (e.g. Quick Selection, Select Subject, refine edge/hair details).
- Save and load a selection for reuse.
- Composite 2+ images into one believable scene with consistent lighting and scale.
📐 Standards Alignment
CDOS (Career Development & Occupational Studies)
- CDOS 2 — Integrated Learning -- students will demonstrate how academic knowledge and skills are applied in the workplace and other settings.
- CDOS 3a — Universal Foundation Skills -- basic literacy, communication, and problem-solving skills required for a career.
ACP (Adobe Certified Professional) Photoshop Exam Objectives
- ACP 4.3 — Make, manage, and manipulate selections.
🎓 Study this for the ACP exam: Domain 4: Creating and Modifying Visual Elements
📚 Key Vocabulary
- Compositing
- Combining multiple separate images into one seamless final image.
- Refine Edge / Select and Mask
- A Photoshop workflow for cleaning up tricky selection edges, like hair or fur.
- Consistent Lighting/Scale
- Making sure combined elements look like they belong in the same photo -- same light direction, believable size.
🧰 Materials & Tools
- Computer with Photoshop
- Provided source images with varied difficulty (simple background, complex hair/edges)
🧠 Do Now (Warm-Up)
Look at the composite image on the board. What is one clue that gives away it's fake (or, if it's convincing, what makes it work)?
📋 Main Workshop / Lesson Sequence
This lesson spans 2 Days. Suggested pacing:
| Day | Focus | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Selection Tools | Do Now (5 min). Mini-lesson/demo (12 min): comparing selection tools. Guided practice (23 min): practice Select and Mask on a tricky image (hair/fur edges); save/load a selection. Share (5 min). |
| Day 2 | Compositing | Do Now (5 min): what's one clue that gives away a fake composite? Independent project (35 min): composite 2+ provided images into one believable scene, paying attention to lighting and scale. Peer critique (5 min). |
✅ Assessment & Exit Ticket
Final composite scored with a rubric: clean selection edges, believable lighting/scale, and evidence of at least 3 selection techniques used.
Exit Ticket: What is the hardest part of making a composite look believable, and how did you address it?
📊 Pull up the anonymous Class Check-In for students to fill out before they go.
🧩 Differentiation & Accommodations
English Language Learners: model every step live, then check in one-on-one; provide translated materials and vocabulary support as needed. Students with IEPs: apply the accommodations and modifications listed in each student's plan (examples include extended time, graphic organizers, speech-to-text tools, chunked instructions, and visual schedules). Students with attention-related needs: break tasks into short, checklist-driven steps and provide brief movement or focus breaks. Students ready for a challenge: take on a leadership role critiquing peers' work, extend the project with a second iteration, or research how today's skill is used professionally in the field.