Assignment 4

I am now at a stage where I am able to submit my 4th assignment to my course tutor.  It has been an uphill struggle not least because I had no idea where I was going with this.  I have in fact produced two entirely different images, one photographic and another scanned.  I will submit the scanned version as the actual final image and the photography based version as the alternative.  I have succeeded in manipulating images by selection, moving, blending, enhancing, feathering, distorting and using filters. I've also created new fill patterns which I have inserted into this image.

Fake Fur

This image was created from scanned in separate images of a toothbrush, toothpaste, a toothpaste tube and lid scanned separately, a toy fur cat and silver food bag.

I first selected the image of the tube and the lid using the magnetic lasso and positioned the lid on the tube; I removed a section of the tube with a soft edged eraser brush. I placed this layer over the fur cat layer and deselected the area of the cat image not required. I used the enhance tools to enhance the contrast and bring out the texture of the fur.

I used text to create the word toothpaste and distorted it to make the shape of the word, I created a rectangular blue shape and masked out toothpaste to create a "stencil" placed this over the fur and selected the shape and flattened the image. I transferred this to the merged image of the toothpaste tube and cat fur and free transformed the shape to fit on the tube.

I selected the toothbrush shape, created a separate layer and positioned the brush under the squeezed paste layer. I masked out the squeezed toothpaste and shortened it to fit the scanned and selected toothbrush image.  I created a fill pattern with the fur and filled the squeezed toothpaste shape with this fill pattern.  I then used the liquefy filter to distort the squeezed fur paste.

A coloured background fill layer was created and a new pattern fill layer was made using a sample of the silver bag.  The opacity of this layer was altered to see the turquoise colour of the colour fill layer and the toothbrush layer opacity was lowered to see some of these layers through the semi-transparent plastic.

The whole image was flattened and final adjustments were made.  The blur tool was run around the edges to blend in the imperfections and marry the image with the background.  Finally a flash flare was added which produced the droplets to the left of the tube, thus creating an impression of a water droplet.

Magic Toadstools

The alternative image (Magic Toadstools) was created from digital photographic images.

Three images were used: the background bark layer was selected from the image of a tree; the ceramic handbag and the wooden toadstools.  The toadstools in reality are large objects in a children's play area at Westonbirt Arboretum and the "handbag" is quite small.

I used cloning tools and layers quite extensively over the raffia to enhance the 3D effect.  I also used enhancing and threshold to create the illusion of depth and shadows.  Similar tools were used in the creation of this image and the one above.

I feel I have learned a great deal from this module and the creation of the 4th Assignment.