Over the duration of this course, many different Photoshop skills were discussed, beginning with basic skills such as cutting and pasting shapes, and ending with advanced effects such as flame effects, light bursts, color filters, distortions, gradient images, and more.
Beginning with the most basic of skills, we were asked to create a “Vegetable Man” out of various fruits and vegetables, using a cut-and-paste collage style of editing. While not difficult, there was a surprising amount of satisfaction from creating my first image using Photoshop. My first “real” assignment was to touch up a photo of “Captain Cat”, eliminating flaws in the photograph, straightening the horizon, and overlaying a stormy sky onto a washed-out one. A bit more difficult, this included the use of various tools such as the Magic Wand and Patch tools to highlight what needed to be edited out. The next two projects dealt with blending of images using gradients. Finding the best opacity and position of an image is more difficult than it seems, but once I got the hang of it, the project went by very quickly. I was able to quickly create a semi-professional looking “movie poster” about a love story by overlaying and fading pieces of 2 separate images. Speaking of movie posters, my next task was to edit my face onto the face of an actor or actress on a movie poster. Being an action junkie, I chose the chaotic Avengers movie poster, and had originally tried to edit my face onto Chris Hemsworth, but my lack of quality selfies and the shape of Chris’s face made it nearly impossible to make my face look somewhat natural, so I started experimenting. The lighting in the single picture of myself that I was able to use fit perfectly with Jeremy Renner, as did the facial structure, and it required only minor stretching and hue adjustments to make my face look just right. Our last in-class topic of discussion dealt with text effects, from basic arches to advanced flame effects. While not surprising, there are so many different ways to create a flame effect on your text. You could overlay an image of real flames to give the illusion of fire, or you can combine multiple different basic effects to create what you need. Ironically, “wind” and “liquefy” made a surprisingly good fire effect, and a light burst required multiple wind and blurring effects. While these projects sounds basic, every person who is good at something started at step 1, and that is what we did. These skills lay the basis for everything that I will do in Photoshop in the future, and have given me a valuable skill if I ever wish to pursue a career in marketing or digital animation. Click Here to view before and after photos of each project!
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About the AuthorHunter O’Neal is a Parks, Recreation, and Tourism professional, having worked for Cottonwood Heights Parks and Recreation for 7 years. He is graduating from the University of Utah with his Bachelor’s degree in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism in 2017, and enjoys long hikes on the trail, jumping out of airplanes, and engaging in recreation for a healthy lifestyle. |