Photoshop Research

I will need to make use of Photoshop in my productions to get the best quality images, as a beginner to the software I did some research into some of the more basic functions I think may come in handy when editing the photos for my publication, using some photographs I took on my phone camera and tutorials on the internet I learnt the following:

The "clone stamp"
The clone stamp is a tool that can be used to fix things like blemishes or astray hair and I had previously used it for such purposes in my preliminary task. Here I was using it to fix the astray hair on my model;

I used the tool on a 100% opacity further away from the model to get a clean cut which didn't disrupt the image but closer to her head I had to take it down to 60% to soften the edges and to give the image a natural look.
The end result looked far neater and more professional.






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Feature enlargement;
In many magazines Photoshop is used to enlarge facial features such as the eyes and lips. I used one of my photos to experiment with this commonly used practice and made the eyes of my model larger using the rectangular marquee tool, the feathering tool and free transform.

To enlarge a feature you must select it using the rectangular marquee tool, set the feather to 5 and make a new layer via copy. On the new layer you select free transform and drag the selected area to the desired size.
Experimenting with this technique taught me several new skills however I think perhaps I went too far and made the eyes too big with this particular image.

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I learnt this technique from the following website http://tricky-photoshop.com/enlarge-eyes/


Switching backgrounds;
The backgrounds of these photos are plain white and magazine editors often extract images taken into pre-existing settings/backgrounds, I feel that this would be a useful skill to have and so took several stock images and attempted to place my images into them. The stock images required similar lighting as my photos which was difficult to find as I took my photos on flash but I found this can also be achieved using tools such as the burn and eraser tool. There are several different methods by which images can be extracted and placed onto a different background, the first of which I tried was the "quick selection tool"

I used a stock image of a brick wall to serve as the new background for this image. My model was extracted from the image using the quick selection tool, I selected the white area around her body and cut it out. This left quite sharp edges so after placing the brick wall in the background I used the eraser tool on a very low opacity to soften the lines. To help the image blend into the background I used the burn tool to create shadows where they should be naturally.

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 < final outcome - I think the end result was quite good and the shadowing created by the burn tool helped to make the combined image more realistic.

I next used a galaxy stock image and attempted to use the other method of extraction which is the magic wand tool. I found this tool much more difficult to use and had to use the eraser to get rid of areas the tool missed. Once I had placed the background image in I used the burn and blur tools to make the image blend in.





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I learnt this technique from the following website;
http://photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/cutout/cutout.htm


Eye colour alterations;
Photoshop can be and often is used to alter things like eye colour, I felt this would be a helpful skill to have so experimented with the different ways it can be done, I found the colour replacement tool to be the simplest and most effective method.

I coloured my models eyes a bright blue to make the change more noticeable











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