Opening to Photoshop

As an introduction to Adobe Photoshop CC, this session focused upon basic montage principles, using various selection methods and layer properties. The emphasis was maintaining editability, using non-destructive workflows. The ‘Book of Lies’ workshop in the first week, provided an opportunity for all attending students to be photographed in a green/blue screen studio. Today we looked at basic chroma key methods.

Independent learning task: create a fully editable, photomontage which is a self portrait. Design a photomontage which is a visual expression of your own self-image. The emphasis should be in the communication of identity and personal narratives. 

Although I know the basics of Photoshop, and developed my skills throughout the two year Graphic Design college course I passed, there are always more tools and skills I can find that I may not have come across before. Today's lesson with Rob was there to develop our Photoshop skills, focusing on how to mask and overlay images to create montages. Unfortunately  the portrait of myself that was took in the first Process and production session, using a green screen, would not open. Therefore I used a free image that I found on www.pexels.com, showing a very clean portrait of a woman on a white background that I would be changing. 

I downloaded the image and opened the file in photoshop. First of all I unlocked the image so I could duplicate it, this would mean I always have a copy of the original photograph. I did use the quick selection tool to cut the model out from the background, but before I deleted the selection I had to use the inverse tool as the selection I would of been deleting was the lady herself rather than the white back drop. 

I then chose I background from the given images, I thought the lady would look best on an image that wasn't realistic and didn't include buildings or room drops as she doesn't look like she is stood in front of somewhere like that. So I went for the lettered back ground and dragged it into the workspace, making sure the new layer was behind the newly cut portrait. I have used these tools and skills before, however using the quick selection tool isn't always as effective as the magic wand tool or the lasso tool, so if in the future I use a more detailed portrait or object, I may have to cut it out using a different tool due to the details being more refined.