NAAP Project II: Dream World

This project, like the first, was created from following a tutorial from Photoshop User Magazine. The images used were available for download through the website for NAAP members and the moon was found though a google image search for "public domain moon".

The tutorial for this one was much more open ended than the one for the first project. Instead of saying set this to specifically this number, it said to mess around with the settings until it looked something like this. It also did a better job of explaining why certain tools were used and what they controlled. However, sometimes the lack of detailed instruction made it impossible for me to nicely replicate the effect from the example image and I ended up having to leave out certain parts entirely. For example, the lighting and shadows are off, and the example image had smoke trailing out of the chimneys, but I couldn't get mine to look right so I left it out.

I learned quite a bit from both of these tutorials, despite my frustrations, and I'm very proud of both resulting images.

NAAP Project I: Hunger Games District Seal

For this project I followed a tutorial in Photoshop User Magazine. The base images were available to NAAP members for personal use through their website. From there I followed the instructions step by step until I got the final product. The tutorial was very guided and told you exactly what colors and settings to use, which I appreciated. The tools mostly involved adding special effects like inner glow, drop shadow, and embossing and messing around with channels and paths in addition to layers. However, it didn't really explain why you made certain changes or what certain tools did. I got an awesome result but it felt more like a science than an art. Of course I got an excellent image in the end, I followed the directions and put all the right stuff in, so the right result came out. By the end I had figured out on a basic level what some of the tools did, which was interesting because I'd never have figured that out on my own, but it didn't feel like I really created this piece. All the hard work was done for me, I just went through the motions.

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Image Sources:

Skull:http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/thegreatgallina/Poor_Yorick_Skull_Shakespeare_Hallo.jpg
Stage: http://appsummer.org/sites/appsummer.org/files/media-resource/stage-w-chair.jpg
Collar Ruff:http://www.wyrdrune.com/Costume/index.html?ruff/index.html~right

This event I am personally involved with, so I thought it would be fun to make an advertisement for it. Myself, and several other of my theatre friends will be competing by performing a Shakespearian monologue that is 20 lines or shorter, which isn't very much in terms of Shakespeare, so a lot relies on being able to put a lot of emotion into the performance instead of letting the language carry it.