Design 1707 - Alice in the Woods

About all this model has in common with the remembered storybook character is the fun and spunky costume.   Getting into the design of this, I was wanting to work on my compositing skills.  Getting a person, or any specific object, from one photo and into the scene I am creating is definitely one of my current weak spots.  So, my main focus was working on developing skills to be further refined on my next pieces.  Pick one thing to be the thing you obsess about fixing, and figure out how to get that one thing done.  Complete.  Finido!

The background/foreground scene around the subject is a collection of different leaf and tree photos from Pixabay.com.  I moved and nudged each photo to get it in the right place with the right edge and the right order from front to back.  A video I spent time watching that influened my color coordinating during this project was youtube videos by Rafy-A as he works through a piece.

Here is the completed Book Cover Design:

An assortment of leaves.  Again each found on Pixabay.com

Links:

https://pixabay.com/en/autumn-avenue-trees-away-road-1010535/

https://pixabay.com/en/fall-foliage-maple-leaves-fallen-62787/

https://pixabay.com/en/autumnal-beautiful-color-dawn-1868944/

https://pixabay.com/en/autumn-avenue-trees-away-road-1010535/

https://pixabay.com/en/allg%C3%A4u-autumn-leaves-trees-63427/

https://pixabay.com/en/autumn-trees-woods-yellow-fallen-265901/

'Alice'  is Model: Dani L and the photo is from jagged-eye on Deviantart.com.  You can check out what her photo looked like when taken at http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dani-L-Bloody-Alice-2a-389486936

To wrap this post up... here is the design I am submitting to my gallery on DeviantArt, and the Book Cover design is available for customization.

Thanks for visiting!  ~Desiree

Finding corners of large object or layer in Photoshop

Mixing and matching different photos, pngs, vectors, etc. is one aspect that makes photo manipulation so addictive.  Most of these are various sizes and shapes, and have to be resized to 'fit' with what your vision is.

A headache that I kept coming across working on different book covers, was adding an object/background/etc. and not being able to find the edges to 'transform' it to a manageable size.  {Hard to find a trick for it on-line.}

But, I did stumble across how to get this done.  And even managed to do it a second time, and a third!  So... in case you have been trying to find a work around for this.  Here ya' go!

1) Have your PS doc open {I think this is a given, but...}

2) Select the layer that needs to be reduced, and open transform tool.  'Ctrl' + 'T'

The X and Box will now show up, but the corners {all of them, or just two} won't be within the doc bounds.

3) 'Ctrl' + '0' {zero} moves the view back til the bounds of the layer are visible.  Ta-Da!!!

Now you can size down the image, move it around, flip it, etc. without struggling to find the corner and see where the layer will end up in relation to your other layers.

4) Now click on a different layer, or close out of the transform tool {click on brush tool or something}, then 'Ctrl' + '0' {zero} will take you back to your background size layer filling the window.

Now you can keep the layer uncropped for fast resizing if needed, and still find the corners easily. Hope this helps speed up your Photoshop processes!

Sources used in this image:
Model: Diana 3 by CathleenTaraWhiti
Background: Countryside by Cathleen TaraWhiti
Smoke Brushes: from Smoke Action Pack by Seven Styles
Gate: Minaya86 Stocks

Playing with Sky Overlays

Spent some time this week playing with several things.  Revising the DCompton Logo... {again, LOL}, and also looking for ways to improve some photos.

Found a new photographer resource in Morgan Burks site; www.MorganBurks.com

Her free samples let you try out her product.  Something I appreciate.  Since I get to see how her products will work before plopping my money down.  You do have to use your e-mail, but hey... they are useful and a great tool to have.

The tutorials are very clear and helpful.  I only looked at a couple this weekend, but will surely be going back to her list to check out more of them.

Following her instructions of the Sky Overlay Tutorial lead me to try combining these two pics:

I love the focus of the grass heads in contrast to the soft focus on the girl's face.  For the edit I used a sharpening brush over her body and foreground, then overlaid the sky.  Following Morgan Burks' tip on matching the overlay to the focus of the horizon in the photo, I used a fairly heavy gaussian blur to soften the sharpness of the clouds.  The finished product is very nice.

Here is the link to the free sample products: overlay, actions, etc. that you can try out from Morgan Burks.

I have my eye on her collection of Cinematic Overlays.  Who wouldn't want this fabulous collection of 102 overlays?

Now I find myself going back through my photos to see what ones have stunning skies that I can use to spruce up the tops of the photos I am editing.  ;-)

Turning your logo into a Photoshop Brush

Putting a logo into a photoshop brush has been on my fixin' to do list for a while.  Tried it once, and lost the brush once I created it.  It was never to be found again ;-)

So... now that I am using a new version of Photoshop, and have been finding several things have been updated, I decided to try it again.

Here is the logo with text...  {I have to say I am super happy with the 'eye'}

And here is a photo 'stamped' with the brush.

Much simpler than the last time I attempted this.

The video I referenced was by Helen McGlynn's Turn Your Logo Into A Watermark Brush in Photoshop. Very clear instructions, and easy to follow.