Photoshop Tutorial - Rainbow Eye Effect and General Editing

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I searched online for stock images of eyes and eventually found this one. I chose this one because I felt that it showed the eye nicely, was large and the girl wasn't wearing too much make up or had editing done to the picture already. I pasted in into Photoshop as a new layer.

After placing it into Photoshop, I began to use the Clone Tool and the Patch Tool around the skin in particular. In some places, you could see little bumps in her skin, so I used the Patch Tool to get rid of that and make the skin seem flawless. Using the Clone Tool, I erased the slight bag under her eye, to exaggerate the idea of this girl's skin being perfect.

After correcting the skin around the eye, I began to focus on the eye itself. I wanted to enhance her make up and make it slightly darker as I felt that it would go well with the final image I wanted to produce. I selected the Burn Tool and set it to 'Midtones' and '67%'. The reason I chose this is because I didn't want it to darken the image too much, just enough so you can notice that she has make up on her. I outlined the eye, where the little bit of make up already was and just generally darkened it up. I also went around the lashes a little bit to make them appear darker also. After cleaning up her make up, I selected the Dodge Tool and had it set it to 'Midtones' and '30%' as I wanted to use this on the whites of the eyes to make them appear brighter and therefore more appealing. I went over the whites of the eyes a few times with this tool until I reached the desired effect.

I then moved onto actually applying the rainbow colour to the eyes. I made a new layer and then selected the Brush tool and set it to size 150 with 40% hardness on it so that it blurred in together nicely instead of being harsh edges. I then went through the colours of the rainbow, painting them onto the eye in even quantities until the whole thing was covered.

After applying the colour, I then went onto Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set it to around 40. As you can see, the colours blur into each other, making the rainbow effect more authentic.

I then went to the layer with the colours on and set it to 'Colour'. This allowed the colours to seep through onto the layer underneath without completely blocking out the underneath picture. I then went back onto the layer with the eye on it and went back to the Burn Tool. I took it around the outside of the iris to define it. Once I was happy with that, I went to the Dodge Tool and brought it to the inside of the iris, lightening the brightest bits of the eye to give it more definition.

After I was happy with the outcome of the eye, I went back to cleaning up the image. I installed some eyelash brushes off the internet and made a new layer. I adjusted the brushes to the right size and then place them onto the image. I placed just one pair on the top and two on the bottom, as there was less bottom eyelashes compared to the top ones. I went back to the bottom layer and burned around the eye a little bit more as I felt her make up needed to be a bit darker to contrast against the rainbow eye. I also selected the skin around the eye and turned the brightness up a little bit so that it was generally brighter. I also turned the saturation down as I wanted it to appear more white.

And this was my end result.

Second Print Skills Audit

FINAL Double Page Spread

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FINAL Magazine Front Cover

Using 'Drop Caps' in InDesign

I get the text I want to add the drop cap to. I open up the Paragraph toolbar so that I can access the drop cap function easily.

I select the text that I want the drop cap to effect. If I selected all of the text, then the drop cap would have fallen in the middle of all of the text as opposed to just the title which I wanted it to fall in.

After selecting the text, I then go to the Paragraph toolbar. I go to the drop cap button first - selecting 2 as I wanted my drop cap to be quite large. If I had just selected one, it would have only really filled out the top line, when I wanted it to overlap and fill both of the lines. However, when I first turned the dropcap up, it only made the number 2 bigger and not the bracket like I wanted it to. To change this, I went to the button next to the drop cap and turned it up to 2 - this allows you to choose how many letters you want to be dropped. If I had selected 3, it would have continued onto the L and if I had selected 4, it would have gone onto the E, etc.

All in all, creating drop caps in InDesign is very easy as long as you know what you are doing!

Creating a Skyline and Puff for Magazine Front Cover

To create a skyline for my magazine's front cover, I begin by using the Smart Shape Tool. I selected 'Rectangle Tool' under it's options and selected the colour black as that was the colour I wanted my skyline to be. I simply clicked where I wanted it to start and dragged it to the other corner, pulling it down to the width that I wanted it to be.

To make my skyline start to take shape, I needed to add text that would appeal to my audience. Normally in a skyline, it involves things such as freebies that would entice the reader to want to buy the magazine. I decided that I wanted to advertise free posters of one of the girls being interviewed and also a few celebrity models within the Emo culture. I went to the Text Tool, selected my font (Bebas Neue) and changed the colour to white so you could see it against the black background. I wanted the free posters to be bigger than the names of the actual models so that the word 'free' was the first thing you saw, so I made the text for 'free posters' bigger than the other, changing the size to 36pt. I then added the models' names, but this time in 24pt.

I felt that my skyline looked a little bit bland with just the names on and nothing separating them. I took a look at other alternative magazines that had skylines and came upon the decision that placing a small image between the celebrities names would make sense. I went back to Smart Shapes, selected 'Custom Object' and selected the star outline. I simply clicked and raged them to the size I wanted them to be and placed them between the names.

Then I wanted to add my puff. I had already decided whilst I was making my skyline that I wanted to put it overlapping the skyline and the masthead. Again, I selected the Smart Shapes Tool and selected 'Ellipse Tool' to create my circle. I selected the colour white so that it would stand out nicely against my skyline. I simply clicked and dragged it to what size I wanted it and then adjusted the placement of it a little bit with the Move Tool.

This final step was to add appealing text into it. Because there was already so much black and white going on in my masthead, I thought I better use some green text and in the same style as the masthead as there was also a lot of the same font floating around. I decided to advertise my interview again as I feel that it is one of the main traits of my magazine that would pull the read into watching it. I applied the text 'exclusive interview' in 18pt font whilst I applied the text underneath it in 11pt. I did this because I want the first thing for my audience to notice is the exclusive interview part and then who it is. It's all a way of building of suspension.

After fiddeling around with the placement of text and the puff itself, I was finally done with my skyline and puff, pretty much completing my magazine.

Photoshop Tutorial - "Zombifiying" a Photo

How I Achieved This

I have started with my original photo. I have cleared up any flaws using the Patch Tool Brush and the Clone Stamp. I have erased some scratches and any harsh colour changes in the background and have also smoothed out my skin, covering any spots or red patches I had. I have done this so my photo is completely clean to start off with so that at the end, I wont have to go around correcting little things like spots, etc.

I start to add in a background. I went on www.deviantart.com and searched 'grunge texture' until I found a texture that I liked and would want to use as a background to my image. After downloading one I liked the look of, I pasted it as a new layer on top of my image. I then duplicated my background layer and placed it on top of the layer with my background on, creating a 'layer sandwich'. I did this because I thought it would be far easier to edit in my background this way, instead of cutting around the image and pasting it onto the background in a different window. I took my Eraser Tool to the top image, the duplicated version of the background, and started to rub away where the white was. As you can see from the image above, the image from the layer underneath, is starting to come through. I continue to work my way around the image until all of the white is gone and the background is now the texture I previously downloaded.

After I completed filling in the background, I worked on adjusting the colours, brightness and contrast. The first thing I did was select the layer that had the background on and went to Hue and Saturation to turn the saturation down, so the colours weren't as bright. After this, I went to Brightness and Contrast so I could get the lightness just how I wanted it. I then switched to the top layer, which had the main image in, and did the same. I also went to Colour Balance and turned up the green colour a little more so that I could get a kind of green tinge to the image, making it slightly more zombie-ish. After I got the colours and brightness correct, I moved onto whiting out my eyes. All I did was take the Clone Stamp, clone the white corner of my eye, and slowly bring it into the middle, over my iris. To make it look more real, I took the white from both corners and brought them to the middle to meet. After doing this, I selected the Smudge Tool and smudged the colours together, once more, to make it look more authentic. I repeated this process with the other eye. Because of smudging the colours together, the eyes looked a little bit blurred, so I decided to add a tiny bit of Noise to make them look slightly more grainy than blurry.

I went back to www.deviantart.com and searched for 'cracked brushes' to create the peeling and cracking effect on my skin. I downloaded and installed a brush pack (http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=crack+brushes#/dzozc9) that had a few different brushes in. I created a new layer and began to place the cracks where I wanted them.

After putting the cracks where I wanted them, I then changed the layer value to 'overlay'. This made the brushes look far more real and blended in nicely with my skin. I then selected the Eraser and began to erase the parts of the brush that overlapped the image onto the background, or overlapped my facial features. I went back to www.deviantart.com and searched 'blood splatter brush'. I downloaded a set I liked (http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=blood+splatter+brush#/djag0r) and chose a dripping effect one, and placed it on the left hand corner of my lip.

To finish off my image, I went onto www.google.com and search 'upside down cross' and selected one. I placed in onto my image in a new layer and deleted the white around the image. I placed it over my forehead and selected Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and blurred the cross a little bit to add a 'demonic' effect. After this, I went to Filter > Distort > Lens Correction > Vignette and added a vignette to my image, to give it some depth. Finally, I went to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen and made my image a little more sharper as I feel it give it a more professional finish. And, I am done!

Magazine Front Cover Mock 2

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Magazine Front Cover Mock 1

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Weekly Production Blog - Week 3

Progress

Last week I missed my Wednesday lesson due to a college trip and I also missed my Thursday lesson due to two full days of drama. Despite this, it didn't set me back too much as we are still doing production so everything is independent work. On Monday, I began writing the final article for my double page spread. However, because I hadn't finished all of the work in my folder to be handed in, I chose to write my rationale's for my double page spread and for my article in the lesson instead. Also out of class on Monday in my frees I spent the day finishing off my Treatment and going over the work that I had already put in my folder. On the Tuesday, I went back to writing the final article for my double page spread. I referred back to my article planning documents from January as it had a detailed description of what I wanted in this particular article. Again, because I wasn't in on Wednesday or Thursday lessons, I just worked on getting my folder up to date and making sure that I had everything that needed to be in it, done.

Generally, apart from missing those two lessons, everything went smoothly. I got my rationale's done in good time - finishing one within the lesson and the other in my frees on Monday. I only encountered one real problem last week. As I wasn't in college on the Wednesday and I was in drama all day on Thursday and Friday with a different schedule to everyone else, I couldn't track down the man to book my photo shoot with. On Monday, Tuesday and Friday I went to the atrium to book it and each time I went, he wasn't in or I had just missed him. On the Friday, I was promised he'd be back within 10 minutes but because of the timings for the drama performances, I had to leave before he returned. I am hoping that today I can go dow to the atrium after the exam is over and book my photoshoot.

Targets

My main and most important aim for this week is to get my photoshoot booked for as soon as possible. I simply did not have the time last week and because of all of the other things going on within college, I could not find him at the right time. Apart from this being my most important aim, I feel that even if I don't have the photos, I should start to plan the layouts/fonts of my front cover and double page spread so that I at least have a vauge idea on how I want my products to look. Another thing I could finish and get perfect is the actual article for my double page spread seeing as I have nothing else to do.

Contingencies

The only problem that I think that I could encounter is not being able to book my photoshoot. If this this is the case, then there's nothing I can really do apart from get my magazine set up with it ready to simply drop the pictures into.

Photoshop Tutorial - Insert an Image into Text

before

after

To start off with, I went onto google and search 'nebulas' as I wanted to create a galaxy/starry themed font. Once I had found the picture I liked, I saved it and opened it up in Photoshop.

I created a new layer and selected the Text Tool. As it was a picture of the galaxy, I thought that the words 'starry skies' would look quite nice, seeing as the galaxy is technically in the sky and is starry. I also wanted it to look like vintage, hence why I chose a kind of typewriter font. The font is actually called 'Vani' which I downloaded off www.dafont.com. I decided to use white temporarily just so I could see where my text was. I aligned the text on the page of where I wanted which part of the image to come through.

In order to create my text, the first thing I had to do was move my text layer underneath the layer with my image on, otherwise this effect would not have worked.

After moving my text layer underneath my image layer, I selected the image layer again. After this, I went to Layers > Create Clipping Mask. As soon as I clicked it, it deleted all of the image apart from where my text was hidden underneath. All a Clipping Mask is, is where it groups together 2 layers. The reason you get this effect when you clip it, is because it only keeps the part of the images where the two layers intersect - in this case, my text layer and my image layer.

Finally, I cropped my image down to the correct size I wanted it, flattened the image and then saved it.

Weekly Production Monitoring Blog, Week 2

Progress

As I wasn't in college last Monday, I spent the day finishing off my corrections and beginning my flat plans for my final products for both the front cover and double page spread. When I came back in on the Tuesday, I began looking for appropriate fonts and colour schemes for my final products. I ended up downloading 'Varsity' and 'Metal Lord' to compare the two together on my mock-up of my magazine on Photoshop. In the end, I chose 'Varsity' as I believe that it went better with the look and feel of the magazine compared to Metal Lord.

Metal Lord

Varsity

My magazine is more Emo as opposed to Metal and therefore I felt that Varsity would make a much better choice when it comes to attracting my target audience.

The only problem I had with downloading the fonts at college was that sometimes, they don't download properly and it's a pain to get them to work within Photoshop. Along with this, half way through the lesson, the power throughout college went off before I had a chance to save my magazine mock-ups. Thankfully, it was no big loss, seeing as I had only been comparing title fonts to one another compared to actually creating my whole magazine.

On Wednesday, I continued with my mock ups. I successfully finished my front cover mock up in full colour and began to think of sell lines, etc. After this, I began looking at better ideas for my double page spread. I looked through various magazines that suited my magazine's style, such as Kerrang!, Rock Sound and Bizarre magazine. I browsed through various double page spread ideas and finally came to one I liked in Bizarre magazine. It was an interview/article about 13 popular questions that footballers get asked. As my article is going to be the top 10 myths about Global Warming, I found that this layout was a perfect guide for my article. As I spent most of this lesson looking through magazines, I only managed to get the general outline of my article sorted. Finally, on the Thursday, I finished off my double page spread mock up in full colour during lesson.

Targets

This week I would love to be able to get my Photoshoot done and out of the way. I have spoken to my models and they have agreed to either come out of lessons or spend lunch time with me in the studio. In order to achieve this, I must go to the atrium ASAP and book the soonest slot they have for a Photoshoot.

Another thing I would like to have finished is a digital version of both my front cover and double page spread layouts completed with colour schemes and fonts. In order to achieve this, I will have to work very hard and quickly - both inside and outside of class. As previously mentioned, as it sometimes can be a pain downloading fonts on the college computer, I will complete the layout at college, bring it home and then change the fonts to the appropriate style at my own computer.

Finally, I would like to be able to get my article finished and ready to be inserted into the magazine. As I have already done the research in order to help me write this article and for it to appeal to my target audience, hopefully, this shouldn't be too hard to achieve.

Contingencies

One of the main things that could go wrong is that there will be no spaces for a Photoshoot this week, meaning that I will not have the appropriate images for my magazine and therefore, it will be harder to design it without them. However, there is nothing I can do about this apart from book the soonest slot they have in order to get my magazine moving as quickly a possible.

After the powercut last week, it's made me realise that it can happen literally at any time. To prevent losing work like I did last time, I have began to regularly save and back up my work, so if the power does go off, at least I have the most recent copy of the file saved.

Poses

In this weeks Skills Development we learnt all about Poses. What different types there are, what they are used for and what connotations they can give to an audience. As the previous weeks, we separated into small groups of four and went off to take our photos.

We all got a chance to take a photo of someone and to get a photo taken of us doing the photographer's pose. This is the pose that I chose for my model.

I chose this pose for my model because I wanted her to be portrayed as innocent and sweet. This pose does exactly that because of the body language. As she is sat with her knee to her chest and her arms around them, it makes the audience feel that she is quite shy and withdrawn as she is holding herself close. However, with her legs crossed and one pointed at an angle, it also gives the audience the feel that she is also quite stylish whilst at the same time being innocent.

Generally, I think I did a good job with getting my model to pose for me. However, I would have liked more time and perhaps more models so that I could put some people together and see what the outcome was. I believe that if I had more poses that I knew the connotations to, I would have been able to able to do this task to a slightly better standard.

I am glad that we went through the poses though, because this helps me a lot in deciding about what I want my own models to be doing in my final product and what messages their body language sends out to my readers.

Photoshop Tutorial - Creating A 3D Effect

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I found the image I wanted, cropped it down the an appropriate size and then changed it to grey scale as I personally think grey scale images work a lot better when turned into 3D because if you use a colour photo, sometimes there can be a bit too much colour on the scree and it gets confusing.

The next thing I did was duplicate the layer. After this, I double clicked on the new layer and opened up Layer Style. I went to 'Advanced Blending' and un-ticked the box for R in the R G B options.

After this, I simply selected the Move Tool and slightly moved the top layer to the left slightly, creating this awesome 3D effect. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be but I found the results very satisfying!