The eLearning Center for Gatlin Education Services

Looking to make your mark in the digital arts? The nationally recognized Digital Arts Foundation Certificate program imparts fundamental technical and creative skills in digital imaging, illustration, and photography.

As a student, you'll learn essential photography skills for different subjects and situations, and master the intricacies of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. You'll build your understanding of color and composition and explore the representation of form through vector illustration and drawing.

Hands-on projects focus on core skills and provide experience in traditional and digital media. Class assignments include include digital image retouching and compositing, portrait, landscape, and environment photography, vector and traditional illustration, color and composition, art criticism and analysis, editorial and logo illustration, and advanced Photoshop imaging.

Course Objectives

Students who complete the program can expect to learn to:

  · Prepare bitmap images for print or digital media using basic Photoshop retouching and correction techniques, collage, and compositing.
  · Develop a basic proficiency in techniques for different kind of digital photoshoot, including still life, portraits, product photography, architecture, and action photography.
  · Create vector art illustrations using shape drawing and freehand drawing tools, type tools, and transformation and distortion effects.
  · Gain a basic understanding of creative and career options in the digital arts field (optional elective).
  · Develop effective color schemes for different projects using the principles of color harmony.
  · Create two-dimensional layouts that embody the principles of effective composition, such as unity, balance, rhythm, and proportion.
  · Represent form by drawing contours, positive/negative space, and 3-dimensional shapes.
  · Create vector-based illustrations from basic shapes, symbols, gradients, fill colors, symbols.
  · Identify and discuss important movements in the history of art and their impact on art styles, themes, and techniques.
  · Utilize advanced Photoshop tools such as transparency, brushes, and the Pen Tool to create illustrations, collages, and photorealistic art.

This program consists of nine required courses. An optional introductory theory course is available for beginner students. Course descriptions are as follows:

  · Photoshop Basics: Get a thorough grounding in Adobe Photoshop, the premiere digital imaging program for graphic designers. Hands-on projects show how to select, enhance, distort, color, scale, and manipulate scanned images and artworks, or create them from scratch. Every designer must tame this creative powerhouse of a program.


  · Digital Photography I: Explore the interaction of photography techniques and environmental factors to create powerful digital images. Students learn the fundamentals of lighting, perspective, and set-up and explore techniques for classic assignments: portraits, product shots, indoor and outdoor location shoots, and fast-action sports. Whether you're a fine artist, graphic designer, or Web developer, a mastery of digital photography gives you creative control of the medium.


  · Illustrator basics: Build a working knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, the graphic designer's vector program of choice. Course projects explore selection tools, drawing tools, layers, the pen tool, transformations/ distortions, type tools, and modifying paths and shapes. Tapping the power of vector software allows you to produce detailed and scalable art for almost any application.


  · Color Theory: Focus on developing appropriate color systems for graphic design projects. Projects explore the principles, terminology, and applications of color theory, with an emphasis on manipulating color. A working knowledge of the expression and perception of color, and color interaction, lends credibility and sophistication to a designer's work.


  · Design and Composition: Discover the principles of effective composition in print design and advertising. Composition, literally the assembly of elements, is the artful arrangement that guides the eye and unifies a design work. Case studies and hands-on projects address closed/open space, negative space, movement, and more.


  · Intro to Drawing: Learn basic drawing techniques and how to see and think about form and space. The class focus is on developing a better understanding of visual forms and representing those forms on paper. Class projects involve sketches of contours, negative space, and simple and complex forms.


  · Digital Illustration Basics: Learn how an illustrator approaches challenges like proportion, perspective, lighting, storytelling, and expression. Discover how basic shapes, symbols, gradients, fill colors, symbols, Bezier curves, and text can be combined to create artwork in Illustrator.


  · History of Art: Build a foundation in art history and gain a deep understanding of art and the artists who create it. Explore profound themes that have concerned artists for centuries: nature, the human body, society, religion, and politics. Through engaging lectures and projects, you’ll learn how to identify the mediums, materials, and techniques artists use and discuss the styles of important artists, art movements, and historical periods from antiquity through the mid-20th century.


  · Advanced Photoshop: Take your Photoshop skills to the next level by mastering Photoshop's advanced features. Students explore professional approaches to compositing, retouching, image correction, and masking. Brushes, lighting, textures, and special effects are explored as creative ways of producing high-impact images for print or Web media. The course builds on a basic level of Photoshop knowledge experience and offers projects that are challenging on both technical and artistic levels.