This is a Tim Clark photo that we were assigned to correct using Camera Raw. I started with the White Balance tool, selecting the white area on the back of the subject's shirt. Because the photo was so washed out by sunlight I reduced the Exposure and Temperature. I then minisculely bumped up the Contrast and Shadows, and likewise reduced the Highlights. Finally, I raised the Vibrance and Saturation by 1 or 2 to make the vegetation around her appearmore green and lush.

Before converting this photo (photographer unknown, sorry Sir or Madam) to B&W, I raised the exposure a bit and raised the contrast up quite high in order to get good clarity in the details of the castle walls and such. I further tweaked it using the highlight and shadow sliders. Then I converted it to grayscale and took it into split toning. I moved both saturation sliders to about the halfway mark and chose a purple hue for my shadows and a yellow for the highlights. I finished off by moving the balance in favor of highlights, but only enough to give the skies the highlight coloring while still leaving the waters purple.

 

For this photo I also raised the exposure some and the contrast a lot. After grayscale conversion, I again took both saturation slider in Split Toning to around 50. I chose and orange highlight and a blue shadow and kept shifting the balance towards highlights until the blue was only seen in the darker parts of the tunnelway.

 

For this assignment I chose to start with Instagram's "Nashville" filter as inspiration (I like purple, sue me.) I followed the steps of the tutorial, but tweaked to numbers to my own aesthetics. I adjusted the blue channel output to 72 to give to photo some richer blues with which to work. I made my color fill layer a bit more orange-y, using #F9D091 instead of the suggested #F6DDAD, to better play off the blue. I raised the brightness to 55, and lowered the contrast to -38 and further adjusted the color balance to the following settings: Cyan -56, Green +40, Blue +17. I then bumper the hue up to +17, and finished it off by adjusting the color balance again to Cyan/Red +11, Magenta/Green +25, Yellow/Blue +25. Taking the image into Caera Raw for the vignette, I set the Amount to -65, left the Midpoint at 50, the Roundness is set to -48, Feather to 48, and Lightness to 29.

 

A text effect exercise.

Another text effect exercise.

Okay, get comfy. In fact, why don't you get a refill of your drink and maybe make a trip to the restroom before we start. I'll wait...

Alright, here we go. I wanted to do a diamond pattern, but that turned out to be a bit tricky. I drew a square with the rectangular marquee tool and used the 'Transform Selection' (under the Select menu) to rotate it into a diamond. However, when I tried to do this a second time it selected both the new square I'd just drawn, and the square I'd previously rotated. I was unable to figure out how to select only the new square for transformation so I drew two squares at both ends of the center axis and then used 'Transform Selection' to rotate them both into position. I then went thru the steps to define it as a pattern. 

Once I set up the layers, inserted my pattern, and converted to a smart object as described in the book I used a pattern overlay I had of a piece of metal that had a grinder run over it, giving it a series of arcing/swirling marks on it. I raised the scale to 313% in order to make the gouges seem deep and rough. I added a radial gradient overlay, but changed it from black to about 70% gray so it wouldn't be too dark. I then gave it an Inner Bevel/Smooth with a size of 9px,as well as a texture where I reused the swirly grindered metal pattern - setting the scale to 146% and the depth to 208%.

After duplicating the layer, I double-clicked the thumbnail of the original layer and added a herringbone pattern overlay. I then chose to use a polygon shape, an elongated octogon to be exact. I gave it an Inner Bevel/Chisel hard look with no texture, a medium green/gray color overlay, kept the radial gradient (70%) from before, and added a differnt pattern overlay made from a photo I have of a piece of galvanized metal. I then added a drop shadow with Distance:41, Spread:22, Size:8, along with a Gaussian contour because I liked how it looked.

Final layer - the text - I chose a font called Aftershock Debris because I liked it's jumbled and cracked look. I chosed a darker green for the color overlay of the letters, and added the 'ant farm' pattern overlay as I thought it resembled the skin texture of the old Toho Studio Godzilla suits. I gave the letters and Outer Bevel/Chisel Hard look, with a depth of about 62 and a size of 18. I then added a slightly yellow-green Stroke to the letters, then added an Inner Glow that was a brighter, more yellowy-green to give it a bit of a "radioactive" look. I added a drop shadow to the letters, but I chose not to add bolts and flares - I think bolts wouldn't look quite right and flares would probably detract from the radiation glow I'd given the lettering.

Oh, why Godzilla? Because I was watching Destroy All Monsters while I worked on this...

I tried several variations before I hit upon one that I liked. I started with a photo of some wood planks that were very gray with age. I duplicated the layer and removed the color info -just as the tutorial suggested - but I chose a blend option of Overlay instead of Soft Light, so that the planks wouldn't get too dark. I'd created my brand in Illustrator (You can trust Smilin' Jack for all your high explosive needs) saved it as a .psd and brought it inot my project file. As per the tutorial I used an Outer Glow, but I went with a more rusty-brown (R: 81, G: 47, B: 42) at a 78% opacity and the Hard Mix blend mode.

 

I added a drop shadow using a darker brown (R: 43, G: 20, B: 20) at a 73% opacity and the linear burn blend mode along with with a distance of 3, a spread of 2, and a size of 10, as well as adding a Gaussian contour. My "Blend If" setting are This Layer: 0 & 230, Underlying Layer: 0/83 & 255. I used the displace filter, as suggested, but only went with a 5 & 5 displacement. Finally, in order to given the brand a bit of an aged look to match the aged look of the wood, I used the duplicated 'displace.psd' to create a new pattern. I then added that pattern as a pattern overlay to my brand using the color dodge blend mode. This gives the brand a weathered look, like some of the charring is fading/wearing away.

 

Okay, crazy week. Wasn't paying attention to what I was reading. Here's another stab at the assignment, going with the Inspired by the Gaming World.

 

I found a nice stock image of a tiger to start with and gave it a surface blur (Rad: 11/ Thresh: 25). I tried some other filter, just to be different, but wound up using the Grain/Speckle but with an Intensity of 34 and a Contrast of 19. For Poster edges, my settings were Edge Thickness: 7, Edge Intensity: 1, Posterization: 4. For the Fade I set the opacity to 80% and the blend mode to Hard Mix - it really made the tiger's colors pop. Under Image>Adjustments>Posterize I set the level to 11 and the blend mode to Lighter Color. I reduced the Reds saturation of -36, as the oranges and reds were very intense at this point. And after selecting the background, I set the Hue to 165 (a nice light blue) and the Saturation to 58 to give a nice complimentary background to my orange-y tiger.

First off, I had to reduce the original file down to 17% in order to upload it to Behance (the original was about 29 MB.) 

  I found a panoramic photo of the Martian landscape, cropped it (it's huge, I'll probably need to reduce it so I can upload it to Blackboard) and pulled it into my project file. I gave it a red color overlay with a 19% opacity. Mars isn't red when you're standing on the planet, but if you're advertizing a movie about Mars you make it red. I duplicated the layer and gave it another color overlay - a slightly lighter red - with a 47% opacity and a Hard Mix blend mode. I also gave this layer a radial gradient overlay which I reversed so it got lighter as it spread out. I then pulled the gradient down towards the lower right hand corner so the top got lighter while the lower regions stayed dark. Since I imagined this as a claustrophobic thriller - like Alien - I wanted to capitalize on the reds to emphasize blood and danger.

  Next, I took and animal paw print and erased all around it; then I applied a Gaussian blur to smudge some of the details and used the transform tool to stretch it into something a bit more beastly. I flipped it in order to have left and right feet and pulled them into my file. I then Alt-dragged a few copies of each and used the transform again to resize the prints so they get bigger as they approach. I then merged all the right and left foot prints into their own layers and gave them color overlays to help hem match the terrain better. The right tracks still looked a little weird, so I ended up giving it an inner shadow and it looked a lot better.

  I wanted there to be something for our mutated footprint beastie to have walked towards, so I took some Star Trek toys I had - a communicator and a part of a phaser - and laid them out to look like some kind of cargo transport. I erased the backdrop I shot them against and pulled it into the poster. I gave it a drop shadow and a red color overlay, 46% opacity and a color burn blend mode. I then duplicated the layer and changed the blend mode to Hard Mix, which made the bit of green at the front of the phaser stand out.

 

  I then added the set-up text at the top making it 'faux bold' and adding a drop shadow, I then added the text for the actors and used the Alt-drag feature to drag the same effects to that text. I then added my title using a bolder, flashier font. I increased the characteristics of the drop shadow and gave the text an inner glow with a bright blue color so it would really pop out against the reds.

 

  Finally, I pulled the image of the ratings boxes out of the advertizing handbook you gave us. I cropped it down to just the "R" rating, reversed the color scheme (white for black, to show up on the dark red background) changed the text stating why it was rated "R" and put it in the bottom corner.

"Vertical Ad"

I thought up the title "Last Call" with the idea of having a glass of alcohol as my focal point, then I came up eith the tagline and opted to add the gun as well. I also wanted some neon/city lights in the background, but none of the city stock photo looked right to me, so I pulled out some photos I took of some of the rides at a small, traveling carnival. I pulled the lights photo in to my file and lowered the fill to about 70%, then I copied it 3 times and staggered them to make the hodge-podge lighting in the back. The bottom layer has a Normal Blend Mode, the next one up has a Linear Dodge, and the Top was given the Color Burn.

 

I took the photo of the gun & glass as well, selecting just these items and the tabletop they were on. I added a Gradient Overlay (white-to-black, 100% opacity, reflected, and reversed), afterwards I copied this layer giving the bottom layer a Normal blend while the second layer is a Multiply blend - this gave it good shadows and enriched the browns in the shot.

 

I made the title text white with an orangey Outer Glow (57% opacity and a Hard Light blend) to give it a neon-like glow) and the tagline was only given a small Drop Shadow.

 

"Horizontal Ad"

Much the same process/choices for this one and the Vertical, with a few exceptions. I added a rectangle with a 50% Gray fill color (at 75% opacity and a Multiply blend mode) on top of the "Lights" layers, but beneath the "Gun & Glass" layers. This was done to give the text better visibility. The Gun & Glass layers were given the same Gradient Overlay, but only at 43% and the upper layer was given a Color Burn blend.

 

I pulled the title text in from the Vertical ad, so they'd be consistent with each other, and the release date text has no embelishments other than changing the tracking of 2016 to make it the same width as March.

 

Here are my two 3D entries.I sorry to say I didn't keep notes on what I did (as i usually do) so a lot of these steps are guesswork/approximations.

 

I chose an ambery color for the bottle pieces, using similar settings for the bottle as in the "Product Shot" tutorial. I set the shine at about 70%, and the reflection at around 45%. I lowered the opacity to around 70% to make it appear more glass-like. I then used the Deform ability to make the bottle's neck, the stopper and the top. these all received the same settings as the bottle. I created a label (I'll post that, as well.) and placed it on the front of the bottle. I had a little problem creating the mask that would have let the label show thru better. I think the dark area about 2/3 up is actually the ground line. Everytime I tried to move the groundline down, it only moved the pieces.

With the second piece - "Placing 3D in a photo" - I used a picture I took a few years ago in Tombstone, AZ (in front of the O.K. Corral, obviously) I really love Tombstone, and I've used the photos I took there several times for various school projects. I used the Helldorado font because of it's Western flair. I set the front faces at around a 80-90% black, and the extrusion material as bright red (bloody gunfights) and then staggered them on the sidewalk in front of the building.

This is the label I created for my bottle. Wanted everyone to see it in it's undiluted glory.