Photoshop Skills Development 1 - Jarvis Cocker Task

For this task I had to develop my photoshop skills for when it came to producing my final magazine product, specifically here I had to learn how to copy and paste and also change the size of text and how to place objects in the foreground or background. The last image above is my first attempt at creating a magazine cover using an image of Jarvis Cocker and a retail barcode.  This Photoshop Activity task was created in Photshop, firstly I downloaded the first image displayed above (of Jarvis) and then altered it to produce my second image, which is also my final result. To achieve this I began by adjusting the brightness and contrast of the image to perfect the look I desired before altering the hue and saturation as well to give it a moody feel, to mimic the posture of the artist. For the next step I duplicated my first layer on Photoshop and changed its name, in case I made an error during the task so I would always have that original image as a back up, this also allowed me to determine which layer I was working with. I then proceeded to use the magic wand tool which removed the background of the Jarvis image, enhancing its look and deeming it more of a professional standard, this allowed me to have it the colour palette I preferred (as noted I wanted a candyfloss pink) For my proceeding stage I added in the masthead by using the text tool located on the tool bar, resized it to fit my requirements then changed the colour so it fitted with the effect I wanted on my magazine, my colour choice was red. I then rotated the mastheaded and positioned it behind Jarvis, I accomplished this by making the primary layer I was working on go behind his layer. I added a main sell line to the magazine cover as I wanted it to look more of a professional product then an ameatuer created one, I made sure the colour and sizing of the text suited the feeling I was giving to the page. Finally I inserted my last image of a bar code so what I had produced looked more authentic and sellable, the file was saved as both a JPEG and a PSD so it could easily be accessed again to edit in the future if I desired. To finish I uploaded it to my Blogger page.

I feel as if I could improve my creation in many ways. If I had more time to work with I probably would have inserted other images of bands/music artists to make that professional vibe even more noticable. For effieciency I chose not to use the eraser tool on Jarvis to smooth out the imperfections after editing as I did not have much time on my hands, so if I came back to another task such as this I may focus on the image more to give it the impression it hasnt just been completed on a simple programme like photoshop. I'd also like the masthead font to have a 'indie' lettering to it, but because I had word art and automatic fonts to test already I decided to use what I had been provided with, I would have liked it to have a font I desired however.