Student Help

Notice to students uploading -

For students who are having difficulty uploading their artwork at the moment, the most common issue is with the new Internet Explorer 9 and the fix below helps 99% of the time.

1. Open Internet Explorer.
   
2. Right Click the top bar to choose Menu Bar - this will reveal the menu bar at the top of the page.
   
3. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
   
4. Click the Security tab.
   
5. Click reset all zones to default level, and then click OK.

This should allow you to upload to the college website. If you are still having problems uploading your artwork, please try using a different browser like Chrome or Firefox, if this still does not resolve the problem please email technical support on techsupport@londonartcollege.co.uk and we will work out a solution for you.

Step By Step - A Text Guide for Uploading Your Artwork to Your Tutor.

1 - Please visit this url to login - http://www.londonartcollege.co.uk/student-area.htm
2 - Input your username and password - provided at the front of your course folder.
3 - Once you are logged in you will see a page with three titles -'List of Work', 'Upload New Work', 'Logout and Exi't.
4 - Click on 'Upload New Work', a dialogue box will appear where you need to add the title of your submission.
5 - Click the Browse button and it will take you to a new screen. Here you can type text to your tutor to send with your submission.
6 - Next locate your artwork you have prepared by clicking the large 'Browse files' button. Please select all of the images you wish to upload for this assessment. Please do not upload singular images in separate submissions, otherwise your tutor may miss them.
7 - Once you have loaded all of your images click the 'Upload' Button. You will now see a green progress bar while the images are uploading. When each file is uploaded it will show a green tick at the beginning.
8 - Once all of your images are uploaded click 'Submit your Artwork'.
9 - You will be then taken to a new screen which will have text on the top left corner which says 'Upload Successful, click here to view work'. If you click the button you will see all of your uploaded files.
10 - Please check back to view your tutors comments in a few weeks.

General Help For Students

Editing - The Basics
To prepare your artwork for submission to your tutor there are a few things you have to do to make sure you are presenting your work in the best possible way. Following the guidelines below will not only help your artwork look professional but its important for artists to be able to keep good quality copies of all the work they produce for future reference.

Taking Digital Photos of your Artwork
To get the best from your artwork you must choose a place in your home, or outside that gives you the best light possible so that you don't have to use the flash feature on your camera. Adding extra light is handy, if you have access to a desk lamp with a daylight bulb, place this a few feet away from your work just to add some better placed directional light.

When taking photos either put the artwork on a wall or easel to shoot the artwork straight on, or lay it flat on the floor and stand above it. Don't take photos from an angle as this distorts the image.You may find it beneficial to place a large piece of white cardboard behind your artwork so that the background isn't distracting.Its always best to stand back from your artwork and zoom in to the piece rather then getting up close to it otherwise it can cause distortion.

Dealing with Blurred Photos
Use a tripod if you have access to one, to keep the camera straight and steady. If you don't have a tripod or are photographing from above, a good tip is to use you camera strap (if its one that goes around your neck) move the camera away from you so there is tension on the strap. This will help you to keep steady.

How to crop your Artwork - scans and photos
Cropping means to remove unwanted areas from your scanned image or photo. This process only needs to be done if you have large areas of white paper around your artwork.

If you look at the examples below, in the image on the left we can see the easel and background which we don't need. We can use the crop tool in any photo editing software to remove the unwanted space. The icon for the crop tool in most software programs looks something like the image below left.

Checking your file sizes & Resizing Your Artwork
Now we have taken our photos or scanned our images, we need to make them the correct size for uploading. It is important to check your file size of each of your pictures to insure that they are not too large to send.Try to make sure your images are around 1000pixels wide or under 3mbs in size. If you have photo editing software you can use this to alter the actual size of the image. Resave as a different file as you don't want to overwrite the original.

If you don't have any photo editing software you can resize your images online at http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

Some brands of software you can purchase are Photoshop Elements, Corel photopaint, Ulead Photo Impact, Paintshop Pro, Serif photo plus 9. Software to download for free includes the free open source software called Gimp and Googles Picasa