Final Project

           Before I started my final project I really didn’t have that many ideas. I’m not exactly sure how I came up with the big idea of the use of photo shop in the image industry, but once it came to mind I decided to just kind of run with it. I think my main inspiration was aesthetics of appearance class I took last spring. During the call the teacher slightly spoke about photo shop and showed us a YouTube video of a self taught photo shop artist. In the video she started with a plain bald picture of Penelope Cruz and with the use of photo shop she somehow miraculously gave Penelope a full head of flowing gorgeous hair. I thought this was really interesting but never thought I’d be able to try it since I’ve never really used photo shop in the past. I figured now would be a great opportunity to try it and see what I could do.

            At the beginning of my project I ran into many frustrations. Initially it took awhile to find several plain faces online. I wanted to use a random person so that way I wouldn’t be bias if I used a person that I knew. After I choose faces I started with makeup. I never realized how difficult it would be to make painted on makeup appear somewhat realistic. After a few trial and errors with each picture I think the makeup came out well. The other challenge with my pictures was the addition of hair. I used many online tutorials to guide me in making the hair look as real as possible but my hair never turned out as well as the examples online.

            After finishing all my images I was pretty satisfied given my amount of experience with photo shop. I never realized how difficult it was to make changes on photos to make them appear real. After doing this project I now understand while photo editors get paid so well because it is not an easy task to do. I really enjoyed during this project because I didn’t have any restrictions or guidelines and could do what I wanted. The freedom really allowed me to play around with the photos and get the images that I finished with. Looking back it was pretty difficult to get the images to where they are now and I’m pretty happy that I was able to make that much of change in the given amount of time. I’d like to learn how to make the changes in the photos even more realistic in the future. I think it’d be cool to be able to make changes almost unnoticeable. This project was kind of like baby steps in learning how to do so. 

Final Project Brainstorm

In media today celebrities are often said to be "photoshoped" to take out any flaws and appear to be close to perfect. For my final project I wanted to try and photoshop average people and make them go from plain to glamourous. Since my major deals with the image industry I thought this would be a creative way to display some of the photoshop skills I've learned over the quarter. I've learned in previous classes and online how to use certain tools in photoshop to add things like makeup and hair to a photo. A person can find lots of tutorials and videos online that display how to use these tehcniques as well.

In my final projects I haven't decided on if I'd like to focus on different tehcniques in different pictures or if I want to use them in all the pictures. I plan on incorporating modern makeup designs, adding makeup, and possibly altering skin complexions. Although I have learned a lot in the course I plan on searching online on how to do some certain changes.I've always been interested in the aspect of photoshopping pictures to take out people's flaws and make changes so I'm happy that I finally get a chance to try it myself now that I actually know how to use photoshop.

I plan on pulling random face and body shots of people from google images. I think it'd be easier to do random people I don't know instead of people I know to avoid bias. I'm debating on if i want to display both the before and after pictures once I finish the project or if I should only display the final product. I think it'll be fun to do research on some crazy modern makeup and hair styles and see what I can do with them in photoshop.

Microproject 5

The object I decided to use was my bed and nightstand. I decided to use these objects because they're something I use on a daily basis. I not only use my bed to sleep in, I also use it as a desk, couch, and a place to eat. I find my bed to be incredibly comfortable so I end up spending lots of time in it. I also used my nightstand because I usually throw everything onto it when I first enter my room. The word I was assigned was "to hang". When I first heard this was one of my words I completely blanked. After a little brain storming however I came up with the idea of having my bed hang. A lot of thought when into my idea after deciding what object I wanted to use and where I wanted to place it. The first thing that came to mind  was having my bed appear almost like a hammock. One day i was using the website stumbleupon and came across a article that talked about people building a hanging jacuzzi from a bridge. The view was beautiful so I decided to use the picture for my project. I also liked the picture because it looked almost like it was near sunrise. What better way then to have the sunrise wake you up in you're hammock bed? I found it a little ironic because I'm deathly scared of heights but I thought the idea was creative. The process I went through while making this photo was originally used photoshop to place my images. Afterwards I used a photo editing website call picnik to alter the colors of the landscape and add the text. I really enjoyed the turnout of my piece and if it's possible to build a hanging jacuzzi I'm sure it's possible to build a hanging bed.