Experimentation

 These images above I dont think are actually very good, It was just me using a technique that I had just learnt by a tutorial on the internet. It consistes of layer maks and a splatter brush which I downloaded off the internet.

This is an image of a city which I basically destroyed. Ive removed some people from the image by a long process of using the clone stamp. Ive put a crack in the road, by using an image on the internet and used an overlay on it. Ive used the burn tool on some of the buildings to make them look a bit worn down and also put some cracks on the them. Ive also stuck some vines on the buildings. and blacked out some windows.

These fire images were created using layer masks, blending modes, the find edges option in filter, and change to negativity. The process took about an hour and about 10 - 15 layers, depending how many layers the fire take up. The link for the tutorial on how to do this is below : http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/flaming-photo-manipulation/

This image took me quite a while to do, because I had only just learnt some skills and was trying them out. I pretty much added things to this image by cutting them out with the pen tool. I changed the sky the copied that and placed it on the water with a low opacity to make it look like a reflection.

These two images I just placed a gradient over the top of them. Then flattened the document and burned the edges of the image.

Drawing Process

Below are screenshots of the process I have gone through to draw an eye in photoshop. Took around 2 - 3 hours.

 Firstly I sketch out an outline in a bright colour then made that the layer above everything. Once done I created a layer below it called face, then one below that called background. I roughly put in some lighting on the face and a block colour. For the background I painted in a few shades then used gaussian blur to make it look like the depth of field you get in photos.

 Here Iv made the wrinkle above the eye a little more darker giving it depth. I've also put detail into the tear duct and put shading the whites of the eye and blocked in the pupil on a seperate layer above the face.

 Here I selected the eye layer to make sure I dont paint out of it. I used the bun tool around the edge of the eye and started painting in all the details.

 Here I've added a highlight on another layer.

 Here I've started putting in the hair and eyebrow, both on different layers.

 Here I've started putting in the eyelashes using a brush tool and a smudge tool.

Heres something I've done using the liquify tool and layer positions, the tutorial I used to learn the technique is below: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-make-a-melting-camera-scene/

Contest presentation

The website I have chosen to use is called photoshopcontest.com. The reason I have chosen this is because, I didnt want to make something like a front cover for a magazene, I wanted to something where you get given a photo to use and then manipulate it and turn it into something different. I have entered 3 contests in total, but two of them where just for fun but actually turned out quite well.

There isnt really any rules for this website about what you do to the source image (not that I could find).


Here is an example of an image that your allowed to use for a certain contest, you can basicly do you want to it as long as you use this image in some way. below is the image that won the contest:



Images I have entered

Contextual street lamp

Here is the original

This is what I came up with the image. to do this I selected the lamppost using the pen tool and dragged it onto a new document with a black background then duplicated the lamppost. I then made the first lamppost layer invisable and applied a gradient over the visable layer. Then on a new layer, behind the lampost, I rendered some clouds and blurred it a little. Then using the pen tool and stroke paths on a new layer above everything made some coloured lines, each line on a new layer, then changed the blending options to give them an outerglow. Next, below the lamp layer I used a soft brush, but in the brush palet I change the spacing and several other options and basicly dotted it around the background.











Here is another original image and what I did to it:



to do this I selected the head with the pen tool and dragged it onto a new document. then I got am image with stars in and put it behind the head layer. next, I got a picture of the moon, selected it with the pen tool again and dragged it on top of the bald head and chose overlay as a blending mode, then used the warp tool to aline everything. Next I got an image of earth, selected it and put it into the background. Then used the burn tool in several places.

Shatttered





This is what I came up with. To do this I got a picture of a break dancer and selected it with the pen tool, then inversed it and deleted the background. Then I duplicated the image and made it slightly larger and repeated the process a few times, in this image I carried the duplicates down where the splatter is. Then I flattend the duplicates and put them below the original. After this I then applied a layer mask on the duplicates and painted it black so you couldnt see them. Then I downloaded a splattered brush set from the internet and then painted a few areas with a white brush to reveal some areas, but not too much. Next I used the eraser with a splatter brush and painted the edge of the dancer giving it a better effect. Then I took the image I had to use put it on a layer above everything and changed  the blending mode to overlay.

photoshop

Here I used a elliptical marquee tool to create a circle.

with the circle still selected I filled it with orange.

Here I applied a layer mask, and darked the bottom part and lighted the top, giving the image some shape.

Here I put in a shadow by duplicating the circle and placing it below the circle layer, then filling black and applying a gaussian blur. Then using the skew tool, to change the angle making it look more real.

Here I used the elliptical tool again, but once selected I then held shift which allowed me to take chunks out of my selection.

Here you can see my layers pallet showing you the order of which my layers are positioned.

Here, we were just playing around with the pen tool and selecting objects.

Here I have selected the car and deleted the background out of it and replaced it with a sky. Then I applied a gradient over the sky layer.

Here we were learning about layer masks.  above is my image. 

This is another image I did using a mask.

Here I tried using a layer mask to blend the snake into the banana. Bus aswell as using a layer mask, I had to use an adjustment layer with a colour balance to make the snake the right colour.

I out the hippo on a layer mask then deleted its body so its just its head showing. Then I used a colour balance to get the the colour the same as the lizard.

HEre on the adjustment layer I deleted the colour balance off the mouth so that the right colour shows through, also I added some highlights onto the head.

Then I used the clone stamp to copy some of the scales off the lizard and onto the head to make it look more real.

These screenshots above are showing the process I did to put a hippo's head on a lizard. The tools I used to do this were, layer masks, clone stamp, liquify, and colour balance.

Here I'm using the free transform tool to move the leopard into place.

Then in the liquify panel, using the smudge tool pushing parts of the leopard into place to match the rhino.

Here I'm using different blending modes to see which one looks the best.

These screenshots above are showing the process I used to put a leopards skin on a rhino. To do this I used the overlay filter, liquify tool, clone stamp, and layer masks.

Here is the original image I'm going to use to make another image.

Here I used hue and saturation to change just the green colours.

Then here I applied a gradient over everything.

Here I used the brush tool to create white strokes across the image, then I used gaussian blur to make them a little blurry.

Here I added the plane into the image but lowered the opacity and changed the blending mode.

Here I added the shark in, by cutting him out with a layer mask, then playing around with the blending modes to make it look right.

Above are screenshots of the process I did to make this image from scratch using source images. The tools needed for this were different filters, gradients, colour balence adjustment layer, and the ocean ripple tool. Brush tool for the light shafts with gaussian blur over the top.

Here I've got a picture of an apple and a cube outline, the cube layer is over the top of the apple so I can use it as a guideline.

Here I've opened up the liquify menu and started pushing the apple so that it fits inside the square.

Here I'm outlining the cube with the freeze tool inside the liquify menu so that when I'm pushing the apple around it wont go out of the selected area.

My apple is now the right shape, I just needed to make some adjustments on the edges with an eraser.

Now im putting in some shadow, by using a black soft brush underneath the apple layer then putting some gaussian blur over it.

Now I'm putting a side shadow in to make it look slightly more real, same process with a gaussian blur over it.

Now i'm putting in my sliced apple, I did this by selecting the area I wanted with the lasso tool, then copying my sliced apple so that it goes into my clipboard. Then, I went edit- past special so that it pastes into my selection.

Then still selected, I used the burn tool toon the edges of the sliced part to make it slightly more real.