For this assignment, I used two different editing programs
to manipulate two different photos.
My first picture is one I took while on a trip to London,
England last summer. It’s a picture of the London Bridge and River Thames. For
this picture, I only used Photoshop elements. With this program, I first used
the spot brush tool to take away a few of the random, tiny boats floating
alongside the larger ones. I also took away a couple tiny dark spots in the
sky, such as one above the bridge in the clouds. I then used auto smart fix to
make any automatic changes to the picture such as to the lighting or the
colour. After that, I used the topaz adjust 4 plug in to equalize the colour
and then give the picture sort of a darker tone. After all that, I made a few
small final adjustments to the picture. I decreased the sharpness which gave it
more of a softer look. This also made it look sort of like a watercolour photo.
I really liked that effect, because it made it look more like a painting then a
photograph. And lastly I increased the strength of some of the smaller details
which made all the lights along the harbor, bridge and boats more exposed. The
reason I made these changes was to show how London has a dark side. It is an
extremely beautiful city, and that can be seen in any photo taken by anyone
anywhere inside of it. However, London has a dark past that involves slavery,
torture and Jack the Ripper. So to me, this photo is a reminder that while the
city is now beautiful and safe, it used to be ugly and sinister.
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The second photo I edited was taken by my mom. It was taken
in the early evening of a cold fall night, as you can tell by the colour of the
leaf in the picture. My mom likes to do crazy, random photo shoots whenever I
come home, and I thought it would be a nice photo to edit. This one was a
little more difficult to edit, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with it,
I just knew I wanted to do something. I once again used Photoshop elements to edit
this photo, along with the editing tools on Google+. First of all, I cropped
the picture so my hands and chest couldn’t be seen. I then removed what I could
of the unwanted wisps of hair on the side and top of my head. I’m just learning
however, and couldn’t quite figure out how to do this properly and completely
so I ended up darkening the background to hide it. It was just a test, but it
turned out to have a desirable effect, so I decided to keep it. After that, I
used an eye brightening tool to whiten the whites of my eyes a bit and brighten
the irises. At this point, I went over to Google+ and used three effects, one
was a colour burst effect which I applied to the leaf only, just to bring out
the vibrant shades of red and yellow a little bit more. Secondly, I used the face
paint effect to fill in the black eyeliner on the top of my eyelids so it
looked even and full. I then applied the cross process effect with a bit of a
fade to it so it wasn’t too overwhelming, but just enough to get it how I
wanted it to look. At this point I realized the previous effect of brightening
my eyes was no longer noticeable, but I didn’t mind as it looked the way I
wanted it to. As you can see, I actually have two different edited versions of
this photo. After “finishing” with the first one, I applied a cinemascope
effect, and I really couldn’t decide which one I liked best so I’m displaying
both. As for why I edited it this way, I’m not quite sure. Like I said earlier,
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with this photo, I just wanted to do
something, and with that in mind I think it turned out pretty nice!
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