comparing work- Mine and John Goto

Are your images and theirs in black and white or colour?

John Goto's image is in colour as you can see, although it is quite an eery colour that is present in the image.
To begin with my image was in colour, however i thought that it would look better in black and white, it makes it a bit more eery like John Gotos work.

Are you images individual photos?
In a way our images are individual but have different aspects from other images to make one whole image, Looking at John Gotos image you can see several out of place ibjects, the temple, the car in th water. Mine in a way has similar aspects in the fact their are doors in a field, they would be out of place, hence a fantasy landscape.

Are your images large or small?
Both our images are rather large, a lot is happeninng in the images so the bigger they are, the more their is to see. Although his work has more stuff happening, it is much more action packed where as mine is quite enigmatic to the reason why are their doors in a field?

Are your images and theirs manipulated?

Yes our images are manipulated, in order to get that fantastical effect in our final images we would have to manipulate the image, you could change the colour of certain objects, or add images to make it look better, looking at Gotos shot you can see the image has been manipulated. Several other images have been placved within the original image to give it that fantasy effect. I have tried the same thing with my image in the fact that i added images into my original to make it look more fantasy like.

Are your images sending the same message?

In my opinion i thing they are sending the same message, or the same theme anyways, we both went for the same fantasy approach and cam out with a good final image i think.

Are they the same subject?

Both mine and John Gotos images, in my opinion are on the same subject, the reason being that we both share the same fantasy theme but go about it different ways, to make mine look different i change it to black and white, it adds and intensity to the image which is always good. However John adds images that you wouldn't normally see in an image for example, the car crashed into the water next to a greek temple.

Fantasy Landscape

For our final task we were told to create a fantasy landscape using images that we have photographed outside of college.. When people say landscapes it doesn't have to be mythical creatures, it can be just something out of the ordinary, a tree in a class room for example.
My idea was to have doors in a grassy landscape, that sounds simple enough but i would need to add shading and blurring to the image before the image looks remotely believable.

This was one of the photos i would be using for my shot, it is quite a sunny location so if i were to add images to the shot i would have to add shading any objects that have been added so that the image flows well.

In my opinion the image to begin with was too bright so to edit this i changed the brightness and contrast of the image slightly, that way i feel that it looks better.
Also the doors that i would be using were to bright as well, the way the sun is shining on the field shot i would need to change the brightness of the door to mimic what it would look like if the sun did shine down on the door.






To add the door from another image to my field shot i would have to cut and paste the door on the image. I can do this by using the lasso tool.

Lasso- This option will allow you to freely draw around an image, however with this option it is much easier to go over the image and go wrong.
Polygonal- This option allows you to draw in straight lines around the image, this is good for images that have a lot of straight lines but is not really that good for curved objects.
Magnetic- This option clings to the edges of an images, whichever edge you are close to. This can be quite a good tool to choose.

Another way to highlight an image would be to use the quick mask tool, this is quite a good way to highlight and image the way you want to.

The red area in this image is the stuff that will be deleted, this would then leave the door, this is quite a good way to get the image you want, but it can take time depending on how big and complicated the image is, in this case it wasn't really that complicated, it had a lot of straight lines which kept it quite simple.

To add the image to my field shot, i went to edit, copy then paste, the image now is on the other image.




However looking at the shot as it is their, the door looks really out of place, i would have to change the brightness/contrast of the image to get it to suit the image. Also i would have to add shading to make it blend into the image. I need to take into consideration the direction the sun is facing, i couldn't just put shading anywhere.










The door looks too sharp to be in the image, to make it look a bit more subtle i would have to blur the edges of the image to make it look a bit softer and not so 'in your face'.

When considering shading, i was going to just use black and change opacity of the paint, i then thought that if i chose a darker green painted where the shadow would be and overlay that on the image it may look more like shading.

It started to look more believable now, however the bottom of the image still didn't fit the image, using the burn tool i was able to make the door look like it was in the grass.

before

after










Looking at the door now it seems to blend more into the grass and the shading, they seem to blend into each other which was the effect i was going for.

The first door is now complete, looking at the image as it is it, it seems to fit more than it did before it was edited.

When adding the other door, i did the same steps i did with this door, i used the mask tool to go around me image and cut and pasted it into my field image.

Again i changed the brightness and contrast of the image to make it look like the sun is actually shining down onto the door.
The shading and burning seems to have had the same effect as the first door. 


The debate i had about my image was whether to have it in black or white, or keep it in colour.

In my opinion it looks better in black and white, the doors seem to fit better in this colour scheme.

Adding colour

Adding colour to an image is a good way of adding intensity to an image, you could add colour to the background (sky,landscape etc) or features on a person in a photograph it could be eyes, the hair or clothing, these can all enhance the feature of the picture.

To  apply colour to your image, you must first duplicate your layer, this way if you go wrong you can delete the layer without ruining your original image. To do that just go on layer, then new, this will bring up a new layer for you to edit your picture with.

When adding colour to the image, keep in mind, that it has to look right in the image, it can not just be random, or else it would completely ruin the image.
Looking at this image, i have put colour back into Alex's eye, it gives it quite a pastille effect.

The final image is quite i think, the reason being that the eye looks peculiar but in a good way, it makes the image quite intense.

Adding text

For our next task, we had to add text to our image, for some photos, they could be lyrics, they usually go well with a photo.

To put text onto your image, you must first select text, you can choose either a horizontal type tool or a vertical type tool. Once you have selected what you want you can start typing on the image.

Once you have chosen the text you want on your image, you can change the colour of the image to suit the picture, it is advised to choose the same colour of the subject perhaps, it shows a sense of contrast.

Once you are happy with your image click off the text and it will be put on the image.

Adding a border

For our task we had to apply a vignette to the image to make it look more presentable.
Before the image, this just  looked like a plain photo, no border, it looked abit dark as-well. To make it look more presentable i would need to change the brightness of the image that way i will be able to see the impact the border makes.




Once you have selected your image, select the brush tool, preferably have a soft brush it gives it a better texture.

Try to have a big brush that way it is easier to get a better border, it takes less time.
The opacity of the brush would have to be 100% for the border to have a good effect.


Once you have selected your brush, hold down shift and begin to go across the page, holding shift will keep the line straight, rather than being all wobbly.

To begin to blur you image, go to filter, blur then gaussian blur, this will allow you to change the sharpness of the corners.
The blur makes the image look much more presentable.




The image below is the final image, if you are not happy with the border, then go to gaussian blur and this graph will pop up you can change the intensity of the lines to suit you.

   

Liquify

Liquifying is primarily used by fashion photographers, to enhance features on models, they are able to increase certain aspects, or decrease certain aspects, this can be done to make someone look more visually appealing.

To start using the liquify tool go to filter then liquify.

looking at the picture alex is not a model, although it is primarily used on models,  have shown examples of the liquify tool being used, i used the bloat tool to make his pupils bigger, and i used the shrink tool to make his nose slightly smaller. Subtle changes like this can make all the difference in a photograph.

photoshop task 3

Brightness, contrast and levels
For this task, we were asked to take 3 pictures; portrait, street view and landscape. With these images we would alter them with photoshop to make them look better.

One way to change the brightness/contrast of the image is to go to adjustments then brightness and contrast, this way  you can make the image more presentable, if it is too dark or too bright.


Another way to change the contrast of the image is to choose levels.
To do this go to image, then levels, once you have done that a graph will come up, at the bottom of the pop up page their is a bar 'output level'. This allows you to change the brightness of the image to suit what you are doing.

Final image

Comparing My Work- Mine and Duane Michals

Are your images and theirs both in black and white or colour?

Both mine and Duanes work are in black and white, i feel that black emphasizes what is happening in the shot, it brings out detail such as shadow etc.












Are your images part of a sequence or individual photos?

 Both mine and Duanes work are part of a sequence, however the themes may be different we still follow a similar sequential pattern.




















Are your images and theirs large or small?
Both of our images are rather small, this may be just what he wants or it could be that it has some type of effect.


Are your images and theirs manipulated?
My photographs were originally in colour, i changed them to black and white using photoshop, Comparing them to Duanes photos, his were originally in black and white so their is no manipulation.


Are your images sending the same message?
In my opinion our images are not showing the same message, mine is showing a sense of friendship, whilst duanes photos are showing a sense of solidarity perhaps?


Are your images of the same subject?
Our images are not of the same subject, he seems to be focusing on one person, whilst i am focusing on two.


Are your images composed the same way?
In some aspects yes, they are composed in the same way in the fact that they are both set outdoors, however he seems to be in some kind of tunnel so the light is filtering through the exit, creating an almost eery silhouette of the model.
Duanes photos start off close up however throughout the sequence the model is getting further away, whilst my models are stationary during the sequence.

Photoshop Task 2

For todays photoshop task we were told to put our images from the last lesson into sequential order on photoshop. Their were several steps which we had to go through to get them to look a suitable standard.

To start off with we had to create a new page for our images to go on, looking at the screen grab above you can see that you change the preset to international paper and have the size at A4, this is a suitable size to get all your images on one page.
The resolution always has to stay at 300 pixels/inches because you get the best results when you print off the work.

To get my chosen images to fit on one page i wanted the page to be landscape, to achieve that i went to image, image rotation and rotated the page 90 degrees, i was then ready to sat putting my images onto the page.

Once i had my images on the page, i needed them to look presentable, in this case i wanted them to be in line and the same size, that way f they were presented to someone in a portfolio their wouldn't be any noticeable distractions.

After using the grid to get my images aligned, i decided to use a border to make my images look more presentable, to do that i selected my image, went to edit and then stroke, this then allowed me to put a border around my image.

Editing format of picture

To edit the format of your picture you first have to save the image, to either a JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop or a raw image, however that can only be opened on certain files and isn't really advised.
As you can see from the below image i have saved the file as a JPEG that way i can get the image onto this blog.

Photoshop contact sheet

Changing the Name

For our first task on photoshop, we first had to change the name of our image so that we know what the image is and where to find it. As you can see from this example i have named it image one.