In this blog post, I will be discussing my experience with using photoshop to create composite images, my strength, and my difficulties. I created two composite images, one of a soccer stadium using stock images and one based on golf because that is my genre.
To start, I had never used photoshop ever and it took me a while to get used to and learn how to work around the program. While making these two composite images, I learned so many new things about photoshop. I enjoyed this experience and I can't wait to use photoshop more in the future.
Soccer stadium composite image:
This is the first composite image I did. We did it in class while following a full walk-through video on how to do each step. I had a very difficult time keeping up and finding my way around photoshop even while using the full tutorial on youtube.
The tools I used were the: move tool, polygonal lasso tool, quick selection tool, and brush tool.
The move tool
I used the move tool to place my images where I wanted them and made sure they were in a position that looked right and proportional.
The polygonal lasso tool
I used the polygonal lasso tool to get clean cuts on places that were too hard to clean up using the quick selection tool. I would say this was the easiest tool for me to use.
The quick selection tool
I used the quick selection tool to just get a rough cutout of the soccer player. I had a hard time using this tool because it would get out of control sometimes and select an area I didn't want to select.
The brush tool
I used the brush tool to restore any pieces of the soccer player that were accidentally cut out from the quick selection tool. I found this tool very helpful and I think it was pretty easy to use and understand.
In conclusion, I would say that this composite image wasn't too difficult since I had a video to follow along with which help me work around photoshop. I learned many things from the video and I will apply those skills to future photoshop use.
My genre composite image:
My individual images i used:
1)
2)
3)
The images above are the three images I used for my composite image. I found the first image of the golf cart on google from grassmatsusa's website. I took the second image on the golf course I play on. I really like the angle that the image was taken at, and I think its perfect. I found the last image of myself in google from the mckoys news report from a golf tournament I played in.
I cut out the golf cart and the picture of me and masked them and placed them on a separate layer. I made sure i put the background first so everything could layer on top of it. I also merged all the layers together because I wanted all of my edits in one layer so it could be simpler for me.
This is the composite image I created in my genre. I think this was a very difficult project because I didn't know which tools were best to use to get the best results. I ended up figuring out how many tools were used and which tools are best for each thing I was doing.
The tools I used were the: move tool, polygonal lasso tool, quick selection tool, and the healing brush tool.
The move tool
I used the move tool to move and position the images where I wanted them. I tried to make sure that every image I used was positioned exactly where I wanted them. I knew I had to place them and size them correctly for the image to look more realistic.
The polygonal lasso tool
I used the polygonal lasso tool to cut out the areas that were giving me a hard time to do with the quick selection tool. I used this tool for the majoity of the cleanup and touchup work to get a clean image cut out.
The quick selection tool
I used the quick selection tool to get a rough cut out and get any excess parts of the image that could be cut out without being too careful. Although I didn't have to be too precise with this tool, one small move and the tool can over-select so I still had to take my time.
Healing brush tool
I used the healing brush tool to clean up any areas that needed to be retouched. I used this tool mainly for the grass because it was giving me a hard time with the image of the golf cart and matching the color of the grass to the image of the golf course's grass.
I had several difficulties doing this composite image. Firstly, I had a hard time cutting out the golf club cleanly because it is very thin. I eventually figured out a way to get a clean cut and that was by layering the same image on top and just leaving the golf club so it came out clearer. The other problem I had was, with the polygonal lasso tool, it was a tough one to figure out but I ended up doing some research and figured it out. Every time i tried cutting out an area with the polygonal lasso tool this would show up:
I fixed this issue by setting it to feather 0 and everything worked perfectly fine after that. I like how I solved my problem and showed me that doing research can help answer your questions.
Overall, I found out that doing this composite image without a walkthrough was difficult at first because I didn't know where to start but after a few minutes I got a hang of it and knew what to do. I liked doing this composite image because it taught me that if I just take some time and do research it can make things easier and searching up things will give you a step by step solution to solve your questions.
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