Digital Portraits (Cassy)

Original

The original photo was taken in the foyer. I tried to get lighting from the overhead sky lights, it turned out best on her cheek and forehead. The angle was also an attempt to capture different lighting and to avoid the basic "mug shot' type photo. I left some background so that once I was back on the computer I would be able to play around with the cropping. As you can see I chose to crop the majority of the background and a bit of Cassy.

Black and White

After changing the original to black and white I cropped most of the right side and top of the image to focus more on the focal point (Cassy). I wanted to leave the tree on the left to have some other details in the image. The lighting effects mostly are not noticeable in this picture but the brighter tones do still stand out enough to realize that there is a light source. The black and white image hides imperfections and I believe it makes her hair look more interesting and lighted. Overall I like this picture the best.

Black and White (Colour to lips & eyes)

This image was more for fun than anything. The bright green eyes and the red lips were added in an attempt to naturally draw your eyes to the points of the picture. They are not to evident and blends in enough to incorporate with the black and white very nicely. This is my least favourite from all the altered pictures.

Black and White (Threshold)

Finally, in my opinion the effect that turned out the best was the Threshold filter that I applied to the black and white image. It changes the lighting in the hair and brightens the face so much giving it an unreal type of look. The background and tree take on a new look that works great with the black and white. Gives the identity of the person a sense of mystery and creates a much more interesting picture than what I started with.

Digital Landscape (City Limits)

The original pictures that I combined to create my finshed product are posted below. 

 

This picture was used as the right portion of the city, I removed everything except the buildings then darkened the cross over points to the background. Since the buildings did not fill the whole horizon I had to search for an image that would fill the remaining space and proportionally fit to the other buildings.

 

 

The original background image was a far field with a shadowed fence. The sky plays a major part in this picture and is a focal point of interested in my finished digital landscape image. The horizon where the city buildings met I faded black to create some sort of mystical aspect to the image. The cows that were faded into the darkness were included to keep the farm aspect of the image visible and easier to realize when first viewing the picture.

Finally, my finished picture ended up with a space, farm and city theme that are all combined into one blended image. I chose to name the final picture "City Limits", this is because of the blending of farm, city, space themes into one image. Giving the sky an unrealistic colour and adding a planet, sun and astronaut gave the top of the picture a space view but by placing the planet and sun behind objects it gave it a sense of being farther away. Then moving to the buildings that have a light source makes it seem closer to the viewer. Also having the cows incorporated into the darkness and farm scene we can easily recognize the lower half of the picture is of a farm scene. I believe that having all three ridiculously different themes combined into one creates an unrealistic fun image.

 

Once I completed my image I decided to use my extra time to experiment with the various filters offered in photoshop. After sampling a good portion of the different filters I decided to portray my second image with the Neon Glow filter. It reminded me of a batman movie for some reason, having the dark theme with a coloured light source. It darkens the image even more than it was and creates a much deeper element of mystery. When I first saw the filter I thought something negative was occurring or about to occur in the city part of the image and the cows are looking away afraid. Also, I liked this filter because it does not give all the details of the picture at first glance but once you examine it more closely you notice the astronaut on the planet and the whole sun in the top right corner. I chose to remove the cloud covering the sun to make the sun stand out more when the filter was applied.

I chose to create a picture like the one I did because when viewing the tutorial I found the darkness in the image mysterious and interesting. It is not clear as to what is going on in the darkness between the city and farm and this creates questions regarding the darkness. Another reason I chose to explore the tutorial was because of the sky colour that was so unrealistic but that blended into the picture so well, I was interested in creating a similar picture and by following the tutorials guidelines I believe I've managed to capture the idea from the tutorial but add my personal touch's throughout the steps to create my final image.

So, I came across this image to use as the rest of the city. Even though the lighting in the buildings is completely different I figured if I faded it a bit and resized it the lighting would not stand out so much. It turned out to work well with the other buildings minus a few leaning ones.

Blog 1

1. I am excited about this course so that i can expand on my media arts skills and be creative to design unreal images. Also to learn new things about imagery and photo shop. I learned lots about creating and adjusting pictures last year but need to be refresh my skills to be completely productive in exploring new ways of designing more creative artwork. I enjoyed all the wondrous pictures that were showed in the slide show.

2. Yes, I agree to uphold the Studio Rules that were distributed.