Photopea is an extremely useful application for those who teach creative design fields and also for those who want to integrate learning through images. It is an extremely complex alternative to Photoshop that gives students and teachers access to many opportunities. If you want to become a content creator, Photopea can be your choice.
Photopea is a free online image editor that saves PSD images. At the same time, it can export many image formats: jpg, png, svg, webp, bmp, tiff, ico, raw, dxf, gif. Using this online photo editor, we can open and edit PSD, XCF, Sketch, XD, CDR, PSD, JPG, PNG or SVG files.
There is extension for this application, thus saving hard disk space, because you don’t need to download or install any software on your computer. The application can also be used from a smartphone, by installing the Photopea Editor tool application.
Photopea works with layer styles, masks, smart objects, text layers, making adjustments: brightness, contrast, levels, curves, vibrance, hue, saturation. You can also create animations from the layers of the document, viewing different layers in each frame. To start a new frame, the layer name must start with _a_. You can work with a regular layer, a layer folder or any other layer. This is how animations are created for the gamification of lessons.
Plugins can be integrated within Photopea: Clouds generator, Sprite replicator, 3D Elements, Batch Edit Tool there are only a few from the Window-Plugins menu. You can work with templates: PSD default templates or you can create your own template.
Integration of the Photopea application in the didactic process
In the didactic process, students receive different themes that can be solved with Photopea. For example, for students majoring in „Media Production”, the proposed topics were: „Creating an avatar”, „Brochures”, „Postcards”. The purpose of the proposed themes was to use the commands from the graphic editor in an integrated way. So that for the proposed themes the goals were: the use of selection commands, the use of layers, the use of masks.
At the same time, the application can be used in projects. For the „Night of European researchers” project, the students participated with works made in Photopea. Also, for the presentation of the works, they prepared tutorials that were presented at the event. These tutorials can be used for students during classes, as examples of implementing some commands, of achieving some effects.
Using the facility to create animations that can be saved as movies, students can use this application as a way to present their certificates.
Students can also share their work with others with opportunities to create new mockup models.
On the assessment side, we can propose an existing template and ask for various actions.
Since the image is the best way of communication, I believe that Photopea is a versatile, complex, powerful, online and free tool that can be fully integrated into lessons and projects. These are a few examples of projects made by students in Photopea:
Webography
cursurionline.edublogs.org/
edtechbooks.org/onlinetools/photopea
www.photopea.com/learn/animations