Self Portrait-Replacing Green Screen

On this assignment we took a picture of ourselves and wanted to place a background behind it. The background we wanted was a brick wall from the store Anthropologie. Basically we kind of painted the outside green part or the part we didn't want white which was kind of erasing it. So then we could insert the picture of myself over the wall and not have the green with me. I touched it up a bit with using curves and made it a bit darker. It still looks kind of cut out mainly in my opinion because there is no shadow in the brick picture. I had to cut out the shadow when painting otherwise it would be a green tinged shadow. I also ended up cutting out a lot of my hair because it mixed with the green quite a bit.

Cloning Stamp Exercise

First I used the Clone Tool to copy and paste over a certain area. In this case we needed to remove the branches from a picture of a lake, mountains, and sky. I had trouble with the bottom left hand corner with making it sort of even and making it not look fake. I then adjusted the levels and made the picture a little darker to pop out more. I then also changed the curves to make it a little darker.

What I learned from Portrait Retouching

I learned how to use the spot healing brush to make the image more blurred. I also learned that this tool can quickly get out of hand if brought near any bright colors. I also really liked the clone feature to make everything much more even. With Tonal Value we could change the color and stuff. I liked getting really weird colors that really jumped out at you. I did like the cropping but it takes some practice and you can easily cut way to much off and have to re-do it over and over again to get it close to right. Over all I liked changing the colors on the pictures to really bizarre things.

Defining Definitions

Tonal value- The relative lightness or darkness of the color.

Cropping- Is when you select a certain amount of an image and don't use the rest to focus on a certain part and take out unnecessary things,

Retouching- To alter a picture to a more desirable appearance.

portrait retouch of girl

Before and after

portrait retouch of me

before and after

Swamp

Balance: I think this picture has good balance because there is water that separates the the water and the two chunks of land but it is also very important that there is a segment of land right by the camera to balance it out and makes sure you don't feel like they are on a boat or something.

Proportion: In this picture the proportion is pretty understandable because of the shack and the size of the trees but i'm still not totally sure.  The hill in the background could be really small it seems like but it might not be.

Rhythm: Well it is mainly a picture of nature so it is not very orderly and kind of sprawls. There isn't really anything that flows together except the trees on the other side of the swamp.

Emphasis: When i first look at the picture i look at the two blue shacks on the other side of the swamp. Then my eyes drift up to the mountain/hill in the background. Also the floating log and the algae draw some attention in the center of the swamp.

Unity: There isn't Really a pattern in this picture it is kind of random. The shacks aren't very subtle and jump out at you. The water and plant life though is very drawn together and looks really fluid. I think the trees on the left bank of the swamp are really cool and kind of bent in a certain way together making different poses.

Flower Picture

 I really like the look of this flower in the first place and it has a cool background, I wanted to center in to the flower so i cropped it closer. I then rotated it 90 degrees clockwise. I thought it looked really cool that with the head of the flower was coming up not down. Then I changed the shadowing and stuff. I wanted it to be really bold so i got it to have a blank white background and made the flower really stand out. I also like the small line at the bottom left to kind of fill up the space. The main reason i think it is awesome is the black on the flower. How there are streaks of black and then the void in the center. I guess in the original it was lying on an envelope which i changed to black to mix up the background so it wasn't just white. I liked rotating it and and cropping close so it doesn't look to much like the original. 

Ps Notes

In the first video I learned first off that by going to file you can open a file you have already saved, open a new one, or browse different files. When you open a picture from the file tab it comes up in its own window and you can move that around and make it bigger/smaller as you please. To create text you use the left tool bar and select the T and you can make a text box a write in it. Second video: From the left bar there is a smudge tool to "smudge" the picture. All pallets are under the "Window" tab.

Command + will zoom in on the image. If you control 0 you can select an area to zoom in on. Shift M switches between tools. The third video is way to long and is testing my patience. The gradient editor is on the top bar after you select it. Third video did not hold my attention span. Custom shapes are in the top right hand corner of the custom shapes menu. I liked the first and second video third one is a bit to long.

Interests

I love cars and really study them. My favorites are the Audis, VWs, and Porsches. One of the best designs on the road in my opinion is the Audi A5/S5