#matts class

[melissamorrellwhc]

Final Images

Portrait/ Destroyed Portrait Finals Photographed of my Older sister Kirsty, taken by myself. 

The photoshop techniques that i used throughout the destroyed portrait were: composite layers - which are too use more than one image to create one final image; blending modes, opacity/fill modes, quick selection, mask layers, colour, black and white, levels, brightness&contrast, eraser tool, burn tool, polygonal lasso tool - which is another way to make a selection but more accurate; free transform, warp tool and the smudge tool.   

I am proud of my final two portraits because i think they were successful because i achieved what i set out to aim. 

With my final portrait it was successful because of the lighting, focus and because of how i directed her to shape her face. the lighting was successful because i was one flash light with a white umbrella and placed to the right of her face from a high position - just above her eyes. I used a white umbrella because i wanted my light to become soft and the colour white defuses the light. This made the light spread evenly across her face, which was good. The focus of this image is good because the main focus that draws you in are her eye. I am happy with this because i think the main focus of portrait are the persons eyes and thats what i achieved. What i mean by saying ‘i directed her to shape her face’ is that i told her how to sit in what direction and told her to move or tilt her head a certain way and even to move you chin/ face forward - these movements where to give her a nice jaw line and not a double chin. 

With my final destroyed portrait it was successful because of i achieved what i aim for for my mood and atmosphere, which was to be dramatic, strong and emotional. Having these type of aims made use of colour successful because they were dark, contrasty - which made my image strong and slightly bright. It was also successful because i achieved the emotional full and view in my opinion. I think this was done by my choices of images to composite and her facial expression as she seems calm but then with the fire and a rough textured face she seems to have a crazy inner emotions. All of this was successful because of all the photoshop techniques i used, which shows me that i do have an understanding of how to use photoshop.   

I could improve these images by:

With my portrait image i could improve this image by adding space/ background around her. To zoom out slightly and not make the scale of her face big. 

With my destroyed portrait i could improve this image by add more fire sparks around the frame of the image to make it more dramatic and also to lighten up two layers, which are the tree bark texture and her face. This is to make her face appear more - this is to make the view think for about her and not that its just some random face. 

My research did help me with my practical work for my idea generations and my experimental work. With my mood boards, i saw photographs or over-layed textures, surrealism and fire - all of which i wanted to use and experiment together. looking at these sort of photos influenced my in my experimental decisions and my final outcome. 

looking forward, i want to work more with portraits, to help me develop my skill so i can work in the field of portraiture in my future. however, i also want to experiment and develop my skills and creative ideas in the photography world of surrealism. 

[melissamorrellwhc]

Destroyed Portrait - experimentation 2

I will be showing some screen shots of how i developed my final outcome, where the photoshop techniques helped change my image. 

Firstly i opened my image that i wanted and used the polygonal lasso tool to select around her face. I then copied the selection into a new layer by (ctrl+c) then (ctrl+v). 

I then created a new layer and filled the background black. I placed this layer underneath the layer i just created of her face. 

On ‘layer 1′ ( her face) i used the free transform to flip the image over to have her face in the opposite direction. 

With ‘later 1′ i changed it into black and white. then I the used a soft eraser tool and a lower opacity to fade away the hard edges. 

Then i opened up another images of texture that i was going to use and moved textured image onto the image i’m destroying. i put this layer at the top above all and used the blending mode of ‘overlay’ to merge the texture with her face. 

From here i adjusted the levels, contrast and colour on both the texture and face layers. 

I opened up another image of fire. From there i used the quick selection tool to select a part of the fire and make a new layer and move it to the other image. I then used the free transform to resize, more and warp the fire over her eye. 

I then opened the last image, which is of fire sparks and put that behind her face to make the fire sparks are coming out of her head. i also used the quick selection tool again to select certain parts of the sparks and duplicate them a copy time and place them around her face and the edges of the image. 

This experimentation was successful because i destroyed her portrait using photoshop techniques and a couple more images to make it look a little like surrealism and i like the emotional feel and pull i get from this image. This is because her facial expression looks calm but then you got the rough texture over face, an eye of fire, fire sparks from her head, which gives you a different feeling altogether - which suggests her inner emotions. 

The photoshop techniques used here are composites, layer masks, polygonal lasso tool, black and white, free transform, warp, blending modes - overlay, opacity, fill, brush tool, smudge tool, eraser, levels, contrast; however while using these techniques if could have done them another, for example - instead of using the eraser tool i could have used the burn tool and also changed the opacity and flow of the brush. 

[melissamorrellwhc]

Destroyed self-Portrait Experimentation 2

For my second destroyed portrait i was inspired by an image i saw while doing my mood board research; it was a face that was made up of 4 different people. I then got an idea of doing a self-destroyed portrait with my family faces as well. Then i refined that idea even more: I just chose one family member which was my dad. I chose my dad because we have similar personalities and i wanted to see how much we looked alike. So therefore, i will be doing a self-destroyed portrait entwining my dads face with mine. 

1. I opened up both images. A self portrait and a portrait of my dad. 

2. Duplicated my self-portrait layer.

3. I used the ‘polygonal lasso tool’ to select his face only. 

4. With the selection i pressed (ctrl+c) then (ctrl+v). This is a quicker way to move the selected part into a new layer by itself. 

5. Then i dragged the face across to my self portrait image. 

Its copied over now.

6. On this layer i slightly adjusted the opacity so that i can move my dads face while seeing my self-portrait. 

7. i used the ‘free transform’ (ctrl+T) to resize the face so its near enough the same size as my face. 

8. I used the ‘warp’ tool. To use this tool i went to Edit>transform>Warp. I used this tool to fit is his more actually over mine.  

9. Then i moved the layer (of my dad) below my duplicated layer. 

This is my last screen shot. 

10. Here i played around with the opacity and fill of my ‘duplicated’ layer, so i can see some of my fathers features. 

11. On my dads layer i used the ‘clone’ tool to add some minor details around the forehead. This was to get the edge of the forehead the same colour and the rest.  

The idea that i was achieving for was successful which means that my final result for this experimentation was successful too. The techniques that i used went well as they helped me achieve my end result and they were: free transform, warp tool, clone tool, polygonal lasso tool, opacity/fill, composite, layers and duplicate layers.   

I can improve this image by destroying more of the image; add another family member or make it more exciting by playing with colours. 

[melissamorrellwhc]

3 portraits from the LRC

The inspiration from these photos are the composition in the images and the space in the frame around the subject. 

Some photoshop techniques used in these images are: the dodge tool, burn tool, skin re-touch, liquify, adjustments of highlights and shadows, hue & saturation, contrast, composites, layer masks and a clone tool. these techniques and adjustments are in my opinion of how that photographers might have manipulated these images. 

British Journal of Photography August 2015 volume 162 issue no. 7838

Amateur Photographer lighting secrets Nov 2014 - mar 2015 (box folder)

[melissamorrellwhc]

Re-shoot of portraits and self-portraits

In this re-shoot it was to mainly re-shoot my self-portrait, however i wanted to take a few my images experimenting with space within the photographs, so that the face isn't a to big of a scale within the image. 

[melissamorrellwhc]

peer review and feedback. This is my practise for the textured portrait.

From here i will be improving my image by adjusting the texture, using my photoshop techniques and by improving portrait itself - with the lighting and composition. 

[melissamorrellwhc]

Discussing Influential Images

I like this photograph because its a close up shot of of her face with a contrast between her blue eye and the yellow cracked texture.

With this type of photograph the techniques that have been/could have been used in photoshop are layers, mask layer, the brush tool, blend modes - multiply, opacity, quick selection tool, etc. 

With the techniques and methods to create this image, i want to practise and develop my skills with the mask layer and the brush tool. I also want to use the texture idea to influence me in taking that idea a stop forward. 

I like this photograph because its different, its abstract/ surrealism and thats out of my comfort zone. 

To create this images, they have used several techniques, such as: layers, different images - composites, shapes, layer masks, gradients, quick selection, liquify - filter, smudge, noise, colour change and more. 

These are all different tools from each other, creating different effects. from this type of image they have used a variety of techniques that i can use and develop like making shapes and using the liquify filter to change a specific size of a certain part of the image.

I like this image because its crazy and weird and because of the composition, composites and expressions do you get the feeling from this images that this man is going crazy. 

Some photoshop techniques being used here are composites, layer masks, quick selection, patch tool, clone tool and there could be more. 

I think from this photograph the composition and composite will influence me. I like this composite because its different from what i have done before in photoshop. 

The reason why i am intrigued with this image because even though this was a portrait of a women smiling it now looks like she’s giving a evil stair and to me it brings in mind the devil because of the use of the colour red. 

Not many techniques have been used in Photoshop for this image but the techniques that have been used to create the end image are: quick selection, lasso and layers.  

This image has given me ideas of how to destroy my self portrait, using the lasso tool to cut and copy different parts of the subjects face over the original image like this image has cut the image into long rectangle and placed them beside each other but distort it at the same time.