The image below shows my end result. This should give an idea of what I was aiming for throughout and give a taster of the tools used.
The first thing to note with this image is that is was not my initial idea and this was a development from what I started with. My initial idea and what I hence initially started creating used four characters. All of my early Photoshop work hence uses the four characters. I will stick to this theme to begin with and then explain why and how I adapted this to fit the above at a later stage. The first ting to look at are my original images and the sources of this. This can all be found below.
Sourced: http://absinthrill.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/about-sex-and-city-2-in-us-marie-claire.html Accessed: 06/02/2014
Sourced: http://hollywoodlife.com/2010/05/24/sex-and-the-city-2-quiz/ Accessed: 06/02/2014
Sourced: http://www.fashiongonerogue.com/mila-kunis-in-dolce-gabbana-at-oz-the-great-and-powerful-la-premiere/ Accessed 06/02/2014
Sourced: http://www.popsugar.com.au/fashion/Cameron-Diaz-Brooklyn-Decke-Jennifer-Lopez-More-Step-Out-Style-What-Expect-Premiere-Red-Carpet-Snoop-23117848#photo-23117843 Accessed: 13/02/2014
As you would expect I split this process into four stages and worked on each character at a time. This allowed me to focus on one area rather than get tied up in the whole project. The first image shown above is where I will start. I used Sarah Jessica Parker from this image. To begin with I simply opened this image into a Photoshop workspace. With this image now open in Photoshop I began to cut the actor out. To do this I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool. This can be found in the tool bar up the left hand side of the screen. Due to the fact that her dress and skin colour where not to dissimilar to the background this Lasso tool didn't pick up every ounce of detail. For the first cut out I wasn't too effected by this as it is something I could go back and improve later. The image below shows Sarah Jessica Parker with the Lasso Tool still activated.
The next stage was to Refine the edge of the image. To do this I used the Refine Edge tool which can be seen along the top tool bar only when the Lasso Tool is activated. A dialog box then appears which gives a range of options which allow you to adjust the edge you have cut out. You can use this tool to add and sharpen the edge. The image below shows this box. Due to the fact that the Lasso Tool had actually cut this shape out quite well I didn't change any of the settings here I just simply ensured the smart radius box was ticked. This tool used a smart radius technique to find the edge of the shape I wished to cut out. This did the leg work for me.
Now with my first character cut out I was able to perfect the edge. The above technique created a layer mask for my character. This basically hides the rest of the image which I no longer wanted. This can be seen in the thumbnail in the layers panel. The black area is hidden while the white area is on show. When perfecting my image I could hence use the brush tool to paint areas black which I didn't want to be visible or white where I wanted to bring more of the image back on show. The screenshot below shows the layer mask.
I was now at a stage where I was happy with the character I had removed from the rest of the image. I was happy she had a sharp edge and didn't have any of the original image left around her. The next stage which I undertook was changing the colour of her dress. This was one of the most difficult tasks for me. Within lectures we had been taught how to change the colour of the whole image but not a simple aspect. To achieve this I used the Quick Selection Tool. This can be found in the tool bar along the left hand side of the screen. I then selected the characters dress. With this selected I then used the Hue/Saturation Tool. This can be found in the Adjustments panel to the right of the screen. The Hue allowed me to change the colour of the dress while the Saturation allowed me to change the intensity of this colour. As you can see from the final image I chose a purple for this characters dress. So lets look at what is achieved so far, the image below shows the actor now cut out of the original image with a purple dress.
As I mentioned in an early post I followed a tutorial which added a glow to an image. I used this technique on this actor using a separate layer. A layer mask was then created and I altered the spread of this filter by using white, black and grey to show which areas I wanted to show the filter. I wont run through exactly what I did again as this would simply be repeating myself however I followed the same steps as the Forth Self Taught Tutorial. The image below shows my actor now with the filter added.
As you can now see from above the light areas of the image have been highlighted and I feel the overall appearance has been improved in terms of how realistic the image looks. My final step with this image was to remove any imperfections. In this case it is the bright purple line along the right hand side of the dress along with another section along the neck line. To remove the line down the side of the dress I simply selected the original image layer and then used the easer to remove this section and to remove the discolouration around the neck line I selected the Hue/Saturation clipping mask, set my brush tool to grey and then reduced the intensity of the mask at this point in my image. The image below shows my final character.
These steps shown above were repeated for each actor. The aspect which was changed each time was the Hue/Saturation of each dress. The images below show the individual final characters.
Due to the fact that all of these images had a transparent background I saved them individually as PNG files. I then opened a blank workspace and used the File, Place Embedded Tool to add all four images to the workspace. I could then adjust their size and position accordingly and finally save the image as a whole.
What key tools where used in this process:
Layers
Layer Masks
Hue/Saturation
Filter - Gaussian Blur
Layer Transparency
Magnetic Lasso Tool
Quick Selection Tool
Marquee Tool
Eraser
Brush Tool
Like in my previous blog post regarding the back cover image creations I will also evaluate the effectiveness of this aspect in terms of my inlay as a whole rather than an individual piece and hence this is to follow at a later date.
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