One month left!

Our final projects are due on Thursday, May 7th so the end is in sight. Before you get too excited, we still have some key things to accomplish.

This week we are going to discuss some unique classes of maps: Cartograms and Multivariate Maps (see other post). We will also start our last regular lab (#10). We will be playing around with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Photoshop is a raster based graphics program. I personally feel it is the best piece of graphics software out there -- the range of uses and the breadth of options in Photoshop is seemingly endless. Every time I use it I find a new effect or technique. For Cartographers, Photoshop is a powerful tool for creating, cleaning, and/or customizing your graphic elements. It is perfect for both print and digital media, and accepts (and exports) a wide range of formats. In essence, it is amazingly helpful. I use Illustrator for detailed map making and Photoshop for making all the elements of the end product come together.

For Lab 10, we will be using Photoshop Elements. It is a "light" version of the program. For our purposes, it is just fine -- all of the key components are there. It is optimized more for photo manipulation, but working with maps and visualizations is not all that different. If you are familiar with the regular version of Photoshop, you will find some of the options in different places. If you have access to a full version of Photoshop and are more comfortable with that, I have no objection to you using that instead. Unlike Flash and SketchUp, Photoshop Elements is on all of the Innovation computers so we will actually **meet in Innovation 320 on Thursday.** Photoshop is not on the computers in RA113 (maybe one?) but can be found in the large Innovation computer lab as well as the Johnson Center computer labs.

The other key info is that we have the exam next Tuesday in class (April 14th). The exam will cover the content we discussed each Tuesday in class. Look through the Topic Briefs your classmates have presented as well as the content I've covered on the class blog. I won't ask technical questions from the labs (such as how to convert text to a button), but will assume you remember the general goals of each lab. I'm looking to see if you have broadened your scope on maps and the changes that non-static mapping present. The exam will be short essay format. I'll provide the paper...you bring a pen or pencil. Questions? Please post a comment!