GOALS
This is one of my first photo manipulation assignments that I ended up doing during my time at CATO. The goal of the assignment was to convey an emotion or theme using nothing but live photography and the photoshop skills we had learned so far.
PLAN
Diving in, I really wanted to portray a mystical scene of escapism through the use of stories and legends; so, I went off looking for an antique looking library filled with an endless amount of books. After searching for what seemed like an eternity, I finally found an image of a beautiful library with dark-stained shelving, an old clock decorated with a hand-carved frame, and an archway that led to a quite sitting area. Immediately I envisioned a portal leading deep into a forest lit by the last few rays of the evening sun, and was off again on a wild search for the perfect image.
CHALLENGE
The biggest challenge I ended up facing throughout this project was finding the perfect photographs with a decent pixel count. A majority of the imagery I found was often too small or distorted when taken, and that caused me to reconsider a lot of design decisions. However, once I was satisfied with the content I planned on using, I easily got to work on preparing each file, masking each image, and adjusting the layer settings to blend it all together.
LEARNED
Originally, this project was meant to be nothing more than a manipulation poster, but my instructor actually suggested I take advantage of the piece and reuse it as an advertisement for my physical portfolio. Since it ended up being a quick and simple addition, this was also something I took into consideration when revisiting some of my other assignments. Not only did it save a lot of time, but it also exhibited my strongest skills in a professional and usable way.
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