Realistic Shadows

The Purpose:

For this assignment my intent was to find two pictures that would fit well together and then place an object in the background. The main idea behind this is that I would learn how to make an object look like it belonged in the picture using shadows. 

The Process: 

 I selected the Seahorse with the quick select tool in photoshop. Then I refined the edges a bit and feathered it. Next, I made a blue background and went Layer>Matting>Defringe to get rid of any extra pixel fringe. After that I used a tutorial of how to make a realistic shadow. Then I simply placed it in the other picture and made it seem realistic.

What I learned:

Now I can create realistic looking Photoshopped pictures because I can create shadows that make it seem like objects fit in to their environment.

 Original picture:

  Object:    

      

With the shadow:

The final product:

Floating Mountain

The Purpose:

I learned how to to extract a mountain from a photograph and place it into another picture 

and make it seem like it belonged there...well as much as a mountain in a sky could belong.  I also learned much about pixel fringe and how to get rid of it.

The Process:   

The first step was to select the mountain from a photo, edit it using the refine edge tool by going over the edges to remove excess pixels from the original background. Then I simply placed it into the layer with the sky. The sky originally had text in it, so using the content aware tool I circled parts of the sky and used them to cover the text. To make this look realistic though, I added a tip to the mountain. To do this I used the select tool and drew the tip I wanted on the mountain. Next I brought that down and blended the edges for it to look realistic. Then to have it seem liked it belonged in that atmosphere, I created a cloud and brought it in front of the mountain by using a layer mask and the refine edge tool. Next I enhanced the background by adjusting the hue/saturation and blending mode of the island and the sky. In addition to that I created black and white layers and used blending modes to also enhance the background. Finally I added a sun and spaceship. It was fairly easy to do because all I needed to do was use the quick select and refine edge tool and then put it in the sky where I wanted them to be.

Things Learned:

This assignment helped me to learn a lot more about Photoshop and the many tools you can use to combine images and create unique images.

                                                                    

Radioactive MATD Music Video

Marina And The Diamonds: Radioactive 

           For this assignment we were to create a 90 second music video; my group chose Radioactive by Marina And The Diamonds. The purpose of this was for us to practice getting lots of shots for the video and to edit well. We spent a few days trying to find a song and decide a story line.

           There was a misunderstanding in our group, so while two of us decided a song/got shots for the video/storyboarded, the other thought they were in charge and were going to direct the video to a different song. This caused for some friction in our group because we all weren't on the same page.
       
           We talked among ourselves and saw when the miscommunication happened. In the end, we ended up throwing away everything and starting over with a new song. This put us way behind schedule. After we spent a few days filming, the SD card got left in the camera and we lost it. Once again we were put back. Thinking we had lost the SD card we wasted more days recapturing shots we already had; then the SD was found and we had practicaly wasted those last days refilming old shots. When we finally started editing I was dissapointed because some shots I wanted to use to show the story couldn't work. However, I did manage to edit more eficiently than before.

          While editing, I used more shortcuts than I had before. For example I used the keys "B" & "A" to quickly change between the blade tool and the selection tool. I also used the "Home" and "End" to get to the beginning and end of my timeline. While we were filming I also learned how to turn objects out of focus into focus and vise versa. We got some interesting shots by using this technique.

           I also learned how to cooperate with others and how to make adjustments to our plan so everyone was involved. That was the hardest part for me because I like to make the best use of our time, but it seemed like we were just wasting everything. Next time I would spend more time planning and making a good storyline and song choice. In addition to that I would constantly make sure the whole group knows what is going on.
         
          Overall I am not thrilled with the finished product, but I feel it turned out pretty well considering all the setbacks and challenges we had. I am also glad I learned how to take a lot of shots and learn how to edit quicker. This project helped me to learn much that I will use from now on.

The link to my video is below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7fjLEryDAw&feature=youtu.be