#creative manipulation

With my new brief here, I’ve been focusing on my Illusions brief to get that brief out of the way before I begin fully diving into the Recycle Brief tomorrow and shooting. Previously, I had put together an image where the bulb and cone were together but I was unsure of how to go any further to really make the image work well together and make it look a little more natural to look at. 

The way I had it, it looked decent but each time I looked at it, I wasn’t keen on it because something just didn’t feel or look right to me, so with some guidance from Iain, I worked on the image some more with a little more knowhow on how to use liquify and the transform tool, particularly the “perspective” tool so I could warp the bulb more and have it take on more of a whippy ice cream shape.

Using the transform tool, I flipped my bulb upside down, the cone itself has some shadow in it and so does the bulb, so it made more sense to flip the bulb and have the shadows together and going into light as the bulb goes on. Once I flipped it, I repositioned it to how I wanted it before using the perspective tool on the bulb, with that tool, I stretched out the bottom of the bulb and made the top smaller, by using the tool it helped to create an ice cream like look to the bulb, which is what I wanted more for the bulb.

I then used the liquify tool to warp the bulb’s “tip”, the tip, without the liquify tool, looked silly, it just kind of stood there and looked out of place. So I used the liquify tool and then the “forward tool” to push the bulb up into a slight point so it resembled whipped ice cream. I admit, I struggled a lot with this part because I was unable to remember exactly what had been shown to me during zoom, but I’m challenging myself more to stop using youtube tutorials as much and to do things on my own with the guidance I get during zooms. 

And while I need to work more on my liquify skills, I like the turn out of the bulb and its resemblance to a real whipped ice cream cone.

I then worked on levels, curves, saturation and vibrance to brighten the bulb and make it whiter and to kind of “glow”. 

Below is my final image that I’m happy with, and while I’m open to constructive criticism and will add to it if anyone thinks I can improve it more, I’m writing this post on the basis of the brief being finished aside from writing up an evaluation for the brief. I’m very happy with the outcome of my image as it fits a lot better than my previous image and it looks nicer to look at, whereas the image I liked first, the final image in this post, looking at it now it is messy, uneven and just doesn’t look good whatsoever. It doesn’t fit together well, I hadn’t edited it properly at all and I’m thankful for the guidance given to me to guide me in the right direction of where to take my idea. I had the idea in my head, but I’m still new to using photoshop well and was very unsure of how to progress my image further. And now I have my final result!

This afternoon we were given a small blending exercise to do to familiarise ourselves with the different blending modes in photoshop. I gave it a go and got some different results.

We were to use any photo of our choice and add into the Print Test image we were given, once we did that, we were to place it on top of our original image. I chose an image of coffee bubbles that I took, it was during my still life practice but this is an image I in particular like, so I chose this to be my image of choice for this exercise.

The image above is the blending more “Hue”. I quite liked this blend because of the quirky look it added to the coffee, it didn’t do too much other than add some multicoloured outlines from some of the image below and placing them into the upper image. It isn’t the best blending more but I rather liked it.

This blending more is “Luminosity”. It adds a bit more of a retro look to the image I think, I quite liked this blend too because it has a mixture of retro and sepia in amongst it. It seems to highlights the darker areas a lot stronger than Hue does while most of the coloured areas, bright colours anyway, are turned into the sepia colour. It’s tried to highlight the coffee from the bottom layer so the image is left with half a ring of sepia, but still pretty cool nonetheless.

This blending more is “Lighten Colour. From what I see, it focuses only on the coloured areas, the bright sections of the image and it highlights those sections in particular. Mostly it worked on the coffee and some of the bracelets, but it isn’t a very successful blend, not for my image at least.

This blending mode is called “Darken”, it’s one of the first options available in the blending options and I rather liked it. It didn’t really do much other than darken the image a little more, decreasing the bright saturated colours and highlighting the blacks. It tried to highlight some of the coffee too from the bottom image but it wasn’t overly great.

This blending mode is called “Difference”. It kind of adds a negative look to your image and, for this image in particular, gives off a retro space vibe for me, the coffee cup rim is the “moon”, I liked how this looked simply because of the negative look to it. It mostly gets rid of everything black and replaces the colours with rather warped colours in its place, making it seem rather unnatural.

Below are more contact sheets from my shoot tonight. The main thing I’m trying to capture is the coffee cup and the coffee inside, but for my idea, it’s the rim of the cup, the coffee and the handle I need so I tried to separate images of what I actually need for the coffee lens idea. So I’ve taken photos trying to photograph the rim itself and the coffee but it’s not quite turning out too glamourous, it’ll look much better once I combine it with the lens to create what I’ve planned. 

Rosie Hardy 

Rosie Hardy is a popular artist in the photo manipulation community. Often, her creative works involve self-portraits in dreamy settings. Most of the images put together and created are conceptual, she often focuses on involving themes into her work, such as social media, loneliness, and inspiration. Rosie is an expert at creating realistic worlds. Thanks to her expert skills, she can make the most unusual props look very real. The most impressive part? She uses a free photo editing program, GIMP, to edit many of her images.

I looked on Rosie’s Instagram to see many of her works, and I’ve selected a few that are favourites of mine and fall under the category of creative manipulation.

I liked this image because of the use of sizing manipulation. I liked how Rosie put herself into the image and looked small, almost like Thumbelina, to press the big red button for 2020. I like works like these because it’s a level of creativity I would love to have, and with determination and more familiarity with Photoshop, I aim to be this creative.

Above are the finished and before images of this photo. I really liked the finished outcome of Rosie’s image, but I liked that she showed her viewers the “before” image, showing that all of the wonderful and beautiful editing she added into the photo don’t appear on their own. I liked how well she manipulated the entire photo to look like the entire room was full of water, but I really liked the bubbles most, particularly the bubbles rising from Rosie herself. I feel they are a unique and rather tricky little touch to add into the image, especially with how small they appear to be.

I liked the use of reflections added onto the floor, I think it helps to add a more surreal effect to the goal of the photo. Her goal was to look like a mermaid underwater with some critters around her, and I feel she pulled it off beautifully!

I liked this photo because it relates, more directly, to my still life project. With that, we are to combine two images together to make something unique, and I feel this image kind of comes under that because she has edited it and portrayed herself to be holding something so big it hides her face. I liked the finished look to the photo, how she looks like she’s painting the flowers, I thought it was a nice touch and a good display of her editing skills.

Kylli Sparre

Kylli Sparre is another artist whose work I find inspiring. Often known as Sparrek, she is a rather fine art photographer with a powerful gallery. Many works Kylli makes are inspired by her dancing background, and because of this, she often takes photos of women dancing elegantly. Kylli is very good with her manipulation techniques that many of her images that seem so unreal somehow look real. 

The above image is one of her most successful creations. I was drawn to the image because of the use of water splashes, it adds a rather haunting and vague look to the dancer Kylli has photographed. I liked how well she put the image together, and while beautiful, for me, the water effects helps to add that haunting look to the dancer, and with the scooter, it reminds me of someone reminiscing with childhood memories. 

By combining multiple images together, Kylli was able to create a rather beautiful image that to me feels rather dreamlike. The model is surrounded by moths in a “bubble”, each image was taken separately and then added on top of multiple layers to create a stunning masterpiece. I was drawn most to the bubble surrounding the model, most of the manipulation takes places there and the bubble helps to add a feeling of entrapment.

I was drawn to this image because it reminds me of a spiderweb. While the tree is dead, it almost looks as though the model is throwing a protective blanket over the tree in an attempt to save it, to recover its once lively roots. With how the image is edited, it helps to add a feeling of sadness for me, but with that sadness there is an eeriness, the woman is mostly a silhouette, and while the sheet reminds me of a web, it also gives you pause for thought thinking of what the woman’s intentions could possibly be.

Creative Manipulation – Photoshop Tutorial with Video

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Creative Manipulation – Photoshop Tutorial

In this week’s photoshop manipulation tutorial, We’ll be creating a unique portrait. This involves cutting out some glasses from the one portrait and merging it into another portrait. We’ll begin with the cutting out of…