Oh... ' PhotoShop ' ...Excuse Me.

Hello Funny Fans whoever you are - OK OK..I know...I know...it's been awhile, since I blogged on my career-blog, which I had started some months ago for my #SocialMediaManagement class.

I took a break over the holidays and then started a new college class, and tonight I just realized I have been neglecting it. Whether I will or can keep this blog up at any regular interval or pace in the future - especially when I find some work is left to be seen.

But for now since I am still on the job hunt, and I still have a little free time on my hands. I am taking another skills course - to learn something new for my career arsenal - by taking a beginning #Photoshop class.

For all my #SabrinaKellerFoundation (@SKFsays) fans who have been hanging on to my every word; the Foundation has been going well with a successful Bowling Fundraiser last month, and I invite you to look over some of our recent posts and "Like" us on the Foundation's Facebook page.

I might one day try to write another blog with some more SKF updates, but for now I thought I would share some of my recent projects using some #Photoshop #CS6 software (PS).

The following is my first Artists Statement for my first PS project. It is a mimicked cover-page for a Vacation Travel magazine I had located online. I used the project as a chance to highlight some photos of my girlfriend and I on our #WaltDisneyWorld / #Epcot vacation last year.  

Project 1 Artist Statement:

• A .jpg image (about 5"-7" wide at 72 ppi) of your project.

• Introduction Explaining  Approach

I started my project-brainstorming at first with Googling the term “magazine covers” for ideas to see what caught my eye. I had just returned from a vacation to Walt Disney World Florida last October, and I have a lot of images already from Epcot Center, Magic Kingdom, and Disney Studios. So I planned to use some of these photos from my trip for the magazine cover project. I refined my search for a magazine template by looking for some travel magazines – particularly those that might talk about Disney themes or Disney Vacations. I found a magazine cover online which I liked called “Dream Vacation” to use for my magazine cover page template. 

•      Τarget Audience

My target audience is Professor Mark Thornhill, my online classmates, my career blogging fans, myself and my girlfriend-  who went on the trip with me. 

• A step-by-step listing of tools and techniques you used to make the project.

1.      I started by creating a new blank white background document in PS - sized 8.5” x 11” in. x 200 ppi resolution, to match the dimensions of my Dream Vacation magazine template.   

2.      I inserted a Disney World/Epcot Picture of my girlfriend and I, which was taken by a Disney photographer with our Sony SLR Camera at Epcot Center - Disney World. 

3.      I resized the image (8.5 x 11 in.) using the Free Transform tool to make it fit into my blank background document and I also set the resolution to 200 ppi.

4.      I made a slight “Curves” blending adjustment to the entire photograph - moving the slider to the right a notch - to enrichen the overall colors; I also made an overall  “Vibrance” blending adjustment  setting the vibrance level to +29 and the saturation level to +10.

5.      I selected the “Food & Wine” sign and made a “Curves” blending adjustment layer to enrich the yellow background and sign words –and to make it stand out more in the photograph.   I also selected the Mickey Mouse Menu Cook Book in the center and made a “Vibrance” adjustment layer, to make that more prominent to the viewer’s eyes – setting the vibrance to +24 and the saturation to +39.

6.      Next I used the PS “Patch Tool” to remove a camera bag and a sign that was a distraction in the foreground of the photograph.

7.      Next I added a Red Bar (separator) at the top of the Magazine Image by creating a new layer and using the color fill command; and chose a dark vibrant red. I then downsized the layer page using the free transform tool to a single red stripe, which I placed about two inches below the top of the magazine cover image to match the Dream Vacation magazine template.

8.      Finally I added an opaque blue background bar at the top using the same method as the red bar layer - creating a new layer and filling it in with a light blue color. I then set the blue layer’s blending opacity to 75%, and the advanced fill opacity to 72%, -to allow the Epcot Dome structure to come through the blue band at the top of the magazine page.

9.      Next I created Three (3) different text layers for the Magazine Title. First one using a “Brush Script MT” Black font at 37.95pts. -for the word “Dream” - this matched fairly well to the Dream Vacation Magazine template.  Next I used a “Comic Sans” font for the date of the magazine with 20pt sized text and a hot pink color. The “Vacation” word font also was made in Comic Sans and was set to 88.07 pts.  I gave it a white text color to match the template. I then stretched the “vacation” text box out to match the template and span the word over the entire top of the magazine cover page.  I also increased the font of the letter “V” (to 124.09pt) to match the magazine template.

10.  Next I added some effects to the title words “Dream” and “Vacation” by inserting a “Drop Shadow” effect and adding an “Outer Glow” effect to the word “Dream.” I also added a drop shadow and a bevel/emboss effect to the word “Vacation”-  which made them pop out and gave my magazine title a look more like the template page.  

11.  Next I inserted a 2^nd image, of my girlfriend and me, with Disney Characters from our Disney Trip (also taken professionally from Disney World Photographer using our Sony SLR). I resized the 2^nd image as a separate Photoshop document to about 3in x 3 in. @ 200 ppi (at first) to scale the image down to fit better into my Dream Magazine page.  I then transferred the 2^nd document by dragging it into my Dream Magazine project page. I then repositioned it using the move tool to the left of the Epcot Dome, and resized it a bit smaller using the crop tool and tilting it to the left axis a bit. I then added a stroke to the image giving it an “outside” white border at 13px. I also added a “smooth inner bevel” with a “contour” at a depth of 100%. This gave it a cool kind of photo album effect.  I also added an inner shadow to the frame- although I don’t think this changed much. 

12.  One of the last touches was to add an image of a scanner bar-code. I found this image through a Google image search with the words “bar code” and “large files”. I chose one which was close to my Dream Magazine template. I inserted it into my project page (after changing it into a smart object) by dragging it into the project page. I resized it using the crop tool and the move tool to place it into the correct position.

13.  Lastly I added two more text boxes to the page mimicking some of the colors and fonts from the original Dream Magazine template.  Using yellow, white, and black lettering with both the fonts Pristina and Copperplate Gothic Bold; while using either 36 and/or 20 pt. font sizes.

• Problems performing a technique/Explain how you solved the problems.

Everything went pretty well with the techniques once I decided what I was going to do – At first I was a little ambitious trying make slices and cut out people and other backgrounds, where I was having a lot of trouble with sizing the images and getting distortions. So I regrouped and simplified my goals (for now).

I did have some troubles removing the foreground objects or at least wasn’t happy with the blurring that occurred in the lower left bottom corner – the image was already blurred somehow as I received it from the camera file -  as if someone else had already tried to adjust something. When I cut out the objects using the patch tools it would take those blurs and spread them into the fix I was creating. I decided to cut the bag and sign out in two sections instead of all at once - leaving more room to move the patch (for getting clearer images) into clear sections of the photograph (hope that made sense). 

• Thumbnail images of the source art/ Where you got the source art

All source art came from Disney World photographers – and were taken with our own SLR Sony Camera.  The Dream Vacation template was acquired in a Google image search with the words “Magazine,” “Disney,” and “Vacation.” The bar-code was also found through a Google image search using the key words “bar code” and “large file sizes.”  

• Finally, give yourself an assessment -- tell whether you accomplished your goals for the project and what parts of the project you're happy or unhappy with.

I think I did fairly good job for my first Photoshop Project – as mentioned above I started off ambitious and was running out of time to get the job done. I think I met my goals which were to make it look similar at least to my Magazine page template and hopefully look somewhat professional.  I think the blurring I spoke of above is my biggest gripe although I tried to improve it – it is still visible to scrutinizing eyes. I didn’t make it exactly like the original template page because my pictures/images fitted differently into the magazine but I thought the top sections and some fonts turned out well and were matched up fairly correctly.  


 Project 1 Artist Statement - Amended:

I added another layer adjustment to the background of my cover magazine project: On the background layer/photo - I selected just me and my girlfriend using the quick selection tool and made a "Brightness/Contrast" adjustment setting the brightness to 40 and the contrast to 30. I also made a "Vibrance" adjustment to the same selection (my girlfriend and I) setting the vibrance levels to +20 and the saturation to +10.