1. Pictures tell the story

The use of pictures is a dominating feature in the media world, and it is an essential skill to be able to produce, analyse and assess visual communication. The production and processing of images on the computer has become much easier. In school students can work with pictures that have been scanned into the computer, pictures from the Internet, and pictures they have taken with the school's digital camera.

Working with pictures is integrated in education in different ways. Working with pictures is included in several subjects and in different ways, but also as documentation in connection with the text of a project task, or a thematic task, or in the form of an illustration conveying a message or just information. When a picture is to be used for these purposes, it is up to the student to estimate how motive, angle, framing etc. fits the message or information to be conveyed.

The students can create products that use images as a means of expression. They must learn something about the way colours, light, and other artistic effects can be used to express feelings and atmosphere. When working with an image on the computer, the student can try out different effects until he has found exactly the expression that he finds to work best.

Finally, it is important to know something about the way image processing programs on the computer can be used to process and manipulate pictures. A picture does not always reflect the truth. On the computer you can touch-up a photograph, remove persons or insert strange elements in such a way as to alter the impression given.

When teachers produce teaching materials on paper or digitally, the use of images is an essential part of the work. They have to find, produce and process images to be used on the home page of the school or the class as drafts and tasks and information material for parents. Knowledge about children's pictures and usage of pictures is no longer just a professional skill in a few subjects. It is something that all teachers need in connection with their day-to-day work.

You are going to work with the different functionality in an image-processing program, for instance frame photos, and adjust light and contrast. You are introduced to the usage of image-processing tools used for changing the picture and its expression. Furthermore, you will learn how to experiment with adding and removing elements in a picture and working with several layers in the picture.

Different types of files and image sources - scanning of pictures, photographing with a digital camera and downloading of pictures from the net as well as production in a drawing and painting program - and organization and saving of pictures are all elements included in the exercises.

Finally, you will see examples of how to save pictures, so that they take up as little space as possible on the hard disk or when sent via the Internet.