Week 10: Photostory

Sorry to cut the deadline so close, I just got off the mountain. 

My theme is, "A Walk in the Woods" and I wanted to capture what it felt like to go on a hike. This was a hike at White Rocks national forest area in Vermont I did this afternoon. I wanted to give viewers the sense that they were walking with me through the trails - they'd be looking at the trail and then shift attention to something else. Not everyone in the class is from Vermont, so this may be new to some people. I hope I can give people some insight into Vermont life! 

The hardest part was picking these twenty. When I got home I realized I shot more than 130 photos for this project. These were the ones I felt worked best to tell a story.

Side note: check out the rock towers I came across near the top of the mountain. There were dozens of these things in this serene rock garden - at 3000' above sea level. 

Week 10: Clone & Text

Clone stamp is by far one of my favorite things in Photoshop. The patch tool and content-aware move tool are also great for manipulating images. I use the clone stamp a lot when I shoot pictures of food to remove imperfections on the plate. I also use it for crazy things like making people look like they have no eyes - I digress.

PART I: CLONE STAMP & BRUSH
I looked at this image and I didn't think the kayakers interfered too much. I thought removing the kayakers was a cool thing to do to completely isolate the natural feel of the photo. You may have to enlarge these too see the difference, but I removed both kayakers as well as the right kayaker's water trail. I used the clone stamp as well as the brush in conjunction with the eye dropper to blend the colors together more smoothly.

Original

Altered

The difference?

PART II: TEXT TOOL
I use this more than any other tool in Photoshop, besides maybe the move tool. Putting text on your image can enhance your photo and send a message when done right. Advertisers are really good at this. I decided to make my images look like simple advertisements.

Week 9: Dodge and Burn

PART I: DODGE AND BURN

I don't really use dodge and burn in these circumstances. The most I use them is for minor adjustments so I tried to jump feet first in and completely change the complete lighting scheme. The final product isn't the most realistic looking, but I shifted the lighting as I wanted. When you take into account the different opacities, different brushes, and the shadow/midtone/highlight you have tons of flexibility in terms of what you want to do . 

PART II: FILTERS

Filters are a really cool part of Photoshop. I use them with virtually everything I create. You basically have infinite possibilities of combinations because you can stack the filters on top of each other. Couple the stacking with the ability to change layer modes and you have more possibilities than I can even imagine.

I don't get to play with the artistic filters much so I used these for the assignment to change up what I'm used to.

Image I
I decided to stack several layers with different filters for this photo. I was going for some kind of mix between cartoony and simple. There are 5 layers in this image

Layer 5: Cutout - color
Layer 4: Median filter @ 12px - soft light mode
Layer 3: Dry Brush - Screen mode
Layer 2: Cutout filter - Luminosity layer mode
Layer 1: Original image

IMAGE II

This one was completed with similar techniques, but I wanted to show how color affects the entire composition. There are three active layers in this 

Layer 3: Red selected from original and pasted on top of all other layers

Layer 2: Stamp filter - very simple settings

Layer 1: Original with 1px gaussian blur

Week 8: Photomosaic

One of my clients is publishing a book and I was hired to design the jacket. He's a journalist and the book is about the stories of people he has encountered over the last 25 years. I tried doing this with about 25 images but it wasn't nearly enough. Luckily he provided me with a folder of 150 head shots and I used those to create the photomosaic. 

Week 8: Color Adjustments

I chose to use images from the past for this assignment. I used a variety of tools to achieve these effects. I think it is also important to note that you should start with a goal when altering colors to give yourself some direction. I find that saying, "I want this to feel brighter and I want the colors to be warmer," is more helpful than saying, "I want to make this picture look better." Having a goal in mind helps me stay on track when manipulating images. It's helpful to start with a mini creative brief for yourself.

IMAGE 1
Goal: Make the sky pop and appear more blue and lighten up some of the greens
Tools: Levels, color balance, curves (masked to the blue channel), masked brightness/contrast

IMAGE 2

Goal: Make the image feel warmer and get the foreground to pop

Tools: Color balance (masked to the green channel), brightness/contrast, channel mixer, hue/saturation on shadows

Week 7: Selection & Manipulation

Here are the shots I altered for this week's assignment. Below are the originals.

ORIGINALS