HND2A Martin Gibb

Student Photographer

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Above are the different elements that went in to my composite image. I have managed to learn a lot throughout this process. I still have a bit to learn in terms of using Photoshop to a good level however I am quite pleased with the final result. In hindsight I would change a couple of things; the flames look a bit naff with a drop shadow round them, also I should have added a trail of fire from the gargoyles mouth to the whisky to make it look a bit more interesting. Most of the work I put into this was entirely new and experimental to me. Previously I would have dreaded the amount of time spent behind the computer but I am starting to get a handle on this missing element from my skills. I am hoping to build and improve on these by continuing to practise to cement them in place. 

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              Advertising Composite Images Photoshop

I admire the skill involved in putting these adverts together some of them are simply stunning.  

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                                        Pen Tool Photoshop

I will need to really sit down and take time to get to grips with this tool, I find it very frustrating to use. I can see how it would be really useful once you get to grips with it, it just seems to time consuming and technical for my liking. However the freeform pen tool in conjunction with a drawing pad is a joy to use in comparison.

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                                          Duotone Photoshop

I followed the tutorial below to do complete this.

https://digital-photography-school.com/convert-duotones-photoshop/

This was easy to do and gave me a nice gold toned image.

The steps were, Image > Adjustments > Black & White. Adjust sliders till you are happy.

Image > Mode > Greyscale. Discard `Colour.

Image > Mode > Duotone > The colour black is already selected you just need to add  another colour, I chose a gold colour. 

You can adjust the curves panel for both colours. 

The image is saved as a PSD to save as a jpeg you need to change the colour space to RGB.

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                                    Channels, Photoshop.

This is really helpful too to separate an object from its background. By switching each channel off and on you can find which one best defines the edge of the subject you wish to make a selection from. This is great when it is hard to define an edge from the background especially when the subject is the same colour as the background.

Channels store an images colour information. 

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                             Displacement Map, Photoshop.

I really enjoyed playing around with this technique. I followed a YouTube video tutorial which only lasted 4 mins there was a 24 min one that went more in depth. I was quite impressed by the results of this in placing text over rocks, it gave a realistic look of the text being carved into the rock itself. 

The steps I followed were, Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur at 1 pixel. 

Hue and Saturation Adjustment Layer, completely desaturate.

File > Save As > PSD. Close this file and open the original one.

Add Text and convert text to Smart Object.

Filter > Distort > Displace use default settings click OK.

Open the PSD.

With the Blending Mode on Normal set fill to 0% 

Double click on Layer to open Layer Style Panel.

Select Colour Overlay and choose a colour for your text.

Change Blend Mode to Linear Burn.

Select Bevel and Emboss and change style to Emboss, you can change direction either up or down I used up to make text look carved. Change the angle to match the light direction on the image.

Change Highlight Mode from Screen to Linear Dodge and Shadow Mode from Multiply to Linear Burn. Play with the opacity on both these to get the right look.

You can also increase the size and soften, all the above adds a bit of realism to your text.

Below is the tutorial I followed.

https://youtu.be/huvysaySBrw

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                                         Photoshop Brushes

I drew around the butterfly with the magnetic lasso tool, after selecting this you go into Edit > Define Brush Preset and give it a name this adds it to your brush types. I did not know you could make your own brush shapes and it is simple to do, the possibilities are endless. You could design your own note paper or personalise your own work. I have just scratched the surface in playing around with this. The above butterfly design was easy to put together playing with different brush types and changing the opacity. Opening the brush panel gives you a list of presets that give you different looks. This tool would be great in graphic design.     

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/creating-modifying-brushes.html

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                                Colour Grading Photoshop

The above effect on the right hand image shows the impact of colour grading, this has given the photo a nice warm earthy tone changing the feel dramatically. This was simple to do following a tutorial from the website below.  Stage 1, create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and drag the slider to the left. Stage 2, create a Curves Adjustment Layer, drop down to the blue channel and drag the bottom black slider to the right to bring blue into the shadows. Then, drag the white slider left quite a bit to bring back a lot of warmth in the highlights. Stage 3, Create a Solid Color Fill. From the color picker select a strong gold/brown, but not too dark. Change the blending mode to Hard Light, then bring down the Opacity to around 8%. This will give an additional milky warmth to the image.

 This effect is easy to use and is very effective in getting a different look. It is one of the simplest methods I found online. I used the above graded image in my fashion major location project.

https://fstoppers.com/post-production/color-grade-pro-secret-cinematic-imagery-9545

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                           Content Aware Tool Photoshop

The content aware tool on Photoshop allows you to resize and reshape images without over distorting the composition or content. I used it in the above image to make the Famous Grouse look slightly taller, I also stretched things to the right slightly. It did quite a good job of keeping things looking normal though you can see the difference between the two images above. You can protect content during re-scaling by using an alpha channel. 

I found the two sites below a good help in researching this tool. 

http://www.dummies.com/software/adobe/photoshop/how-to-use-content-aware-scaling-in-photoshop-cs6/

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-aware-scaling.html

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                            Puppet Warp Tool, Photoshop.

This tool can be used in subtle or not so subtle ways to alter or manipulate elements within a photograph. I chose to stretch the reflection of Danny the dog making him look slightly strange. This tool is widely used in image manipulation. We played around with this tool in class making subtle adjustments to facial features. It is also a great tool for fixing and straightening lines in architecture.  

https://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/how-to-use-the-puppet-warp-tool-in-photoshop/  I used this website to get to grips with the tool.

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                                                Making a GIF

My first attempt at making a GIF using Danny the dog as my model. I imported my images onto Photoshop then File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack, click on Add Open Files. Go to Window > Timeline to open the Timeline Panel. From that panel click on Create Frame Animation. Then click on the small menu icon, bottom right of the panel, and select Make Frames From Layers. Click on the play button to preview the GIF you can mess around with the times of each frame to get the look and feel you want. Mine was playing in reverse this can be fixed from the menu icon just select Reverse Frames.

To use on the web export the file as a GIF, File > Export > Save For Web (Legacy) you will need to change the image size to use it online.

Info from; https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/how-to/make-animated-gif.html 

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How to Color Your Photos Using the HSL Tool in Lightroom http://flip.it/ATuaN6

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I decided to use blurb to print my photo book, the templates and the way you put the book together is very user friendly. It only took me 45 mins to put it all together. The preview feature is nice once you are done to flick through the pages on screen, this gives you a bit of a feel for what the finished product will look like.

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I really liked the look of Bob,s books It was really easy to put your photo book together. I had the book all ready to go and i liked the sound of the paper type (matte photographic) the price for my book would have been around £80. I decided against this after doubts about colour casts or would my prints be too dark. I may return to print off a cheaper option to check out their quality they certainly have a lot of good feedback.

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Notes and ideas from the North Star whisky Project.

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The above whisky inspired glassware project caused a lot of headaches, but was an enjoyable challenge to get something I was happy with. Its those damnable specular highlights that are the enemy during this process they appear everywhere and it takes a bit of practice and attention to detail to control and eliminate. I started off in the studio using a combination of bright field and dark field lighting, these techniques gave me good shots of the bottles to use in my composite image.

It was when it came to the creative side of things that the real problems cropped up. I bought a glass vase from IKEA for £6, this combined with a coloured gel gave me the lighting effect on my background on the image with the apple. I liked the watery ripple effect the glass gave. I got the bottle almost right lighting wise but the other elements used in the photo to give it a more creative slant just did not work or look good. 

I also liked the wood effect in the bottle on image 4, I would have liked more time to play around with that idea. The first three images above where when I really started to play with the translucent qualities of glass. I shot those in the house in front of a peat fire I used the back of my acoustic guitar to get the reflective surface, this seemed to work well. No specular highlights in sight as the glass was only lit from the firelight. I was getting a bit fed up of looking at whisky glasses after a while and decided to use my 50mm lens combined with extension tubes to try some macro shots through the glass. I really like the colours and effect on image number 3, I liked it so much that I decided to send it off for print, its a bit of a gamble but I am going to submit that one as my final.