NOTEmusic
Editing
After I had all the pictures I wanted and I was ready to start designing my magazine, I needed to edit a handful of pictures. On most of the pictures that I am going to use on my magazine, there wasn't much I wanted to do editing wise. As the process of editing continued, I wanted to try out more techniques which had different results. Every single picture that I am going to use on my magazine has been edited in one way or another. I mainly changed the brightness and contrast levels which enhanced details, as well as cutting the person in the picture away from the background. By doing this, it allows me to put them in front of anything I desire to.
On this first image, I am going to use this as the main image on my front cover page. The unedited image on the left was the original picture. When I took this, I had lighting issues as they didn't work with the camera first. I decided to keep them as I could just brighten the picture up. One of the first things I did to the image was changing the brightness it had, as well as alters the contrast levels. By doing this, it allowed me to add more light into her complexion and give a more flawless finish which is usually the case on magazines. The contrast allows me to make the darker features harsher against the light ones. It also makes details more prominent as they are enhanced. When I got the image to the brightness and the level of contrast to my liking, the picture next to the original shows this, I needed to edit the background.
To do this, I used the Magic Wand tool to erase the background so only the model would be in the picture. I decided to keep the shadow behind her as I liked the effect it gave to the overall image by having a slight illusion that the girl is in 3D. The shadow also makes her look less flat as the lighting can do that. By cutting the background away from her, this lets me to put her in front of any possible background I desire. It will look as if she is actually in front of a new background.
The next step I took to edit this picture was to change the colours from the original slightly. As my colour scheme was primarily red, black and white, I wanted the image to be this way too. Once I realised that her red lipstick could be used alongside my colour scheme, I wanted to have it stand out. To do this, I selected the whole image of her, minus her lips, then brought the saturation down to zero. This made everything become black and white, without allowing her lips too. I like how the bright red colour shows in contrast to the rest being in black and white.
To get from the edited images above to the final completed magazine front cover, I had to add text and other features shown onto it. One of the main
features that I wanted to use from example front covers is the person on the cover in front of the title. To do this, I had to put the layer of the female, in front of the layer which had the title on it. This therefore gave the effect of her looking as if she really was in front of it. The rest of the text and the barcode were easy to put onto this. For the barcode, all I needed to do was save an image from online, and then open it up on Photoshop. After I decided where I wanted to place the barcode, I resized the shape so it wouldn't be too large. The text however, was a slightly more difficult. The specific font style that I wanted to use wasn't available on Photoshop as an option so I had to try a different method. Once I found a package that allows the font 'Kelly Slab', I would write what I needed to on the different package. For example, this website allows the font. So what I would do is type the data I wanted to use, then print screen it on here. After that, I would save the print screen as an image and open on Photoshop. When it would open, I would crop the page so just the area I wanted would be available to see. Then, I would delete the background from it all so that only the text would be there with the help of the Magic Wand tool. Once all the steps were completed, I would resize and place on the magazine cover.
This next image is going to be placed on my contents page and will be the main image on there. Although, this picture didn't need to be edited as much, just like the next one to be shown. However, it had similar characteristics to the front cover image; the original photo was quite dark on its own. Likewise to before, I needed to alter the brightness and contrast levels. On this image in particular, I set it as a higher brightness level. I did this so that, yet again, more detail could be shown on her and so that she would look a lot more radiant as a person compared to the dull original image. As I set the brightness a little higher than on other pictures, I didn't want to increase the contrast too. I tried this, yet I didn't like how it turned out as it was too much going on with this image.
Just like the previous images, once I completed her look via brightness and contrast tools, I needed to cut her out of the background. Yet again, I used the Magic Wand tool to make sure that I only captured the same shade as the background was set. As on this image there was more of her being shown, I wanted to make sure that I cut around her perfectly. If you just use the tool on
its own, it won't get rid of everything you would like it to, or it might try to delete something that you actually want to save. It took a few tries to get this to a standard I was happy with. To make sure that I had perfect edges, I used the rubber tool to make sure everything I didn't need had gone. I did this by zooming in on specific area's to get every little detail sorted.
Finally, to make the picture easier for me to move around, I cropped the image as it was still quite large due to the original image being that way. To do this, I used the cropping tool and made sure I had the entire model inside the frame. I left a small amount of space around the girl so that I knew I still had her fully in the frame as I wanted all of her to be in this shot.
On my magazine, I don't want there to be just one image of a 'celebrity' and have that one person on every page on its own. To make things a little bit different, I decided to add a story of an upcoming artist in the music industry. With this, I took a picture of a friend who would look similar to someone you would see in an indie magazine.
When I first took the original picture to Photoshop, the image looked a bit too dull for my liking. I needed to change the brightness and contrast levels to make it look clearer to the viewer. I increased the brightless level slightly more compared to the contrast as I didn't want the details to be too sharp and even up looking fake. The levels I have set it to don't look fake, just a lot better quality.
Once this was done, I needed to crop around her. I wanted to do the previous step before this so that I could be able to see what needed altering or cropping out. Likewise to the other pictures I have edited, I used the Magic Wand tool to select the background and clicked delete. By doing this, the background becomes a blank canvas for me to work with. The area which I haven't deleted can now go in front of any other background without having excess areas that aren't needed. To get rid of any extra space that was also not needed, I cropped the image to it would just fit around the person. I left a slight bit of room so I was sure that I didn't crop any of her.
After I had done this, I wanted to add a boarder around her as it was going to be placed on my contents page. To do this, I added a rectangle shape but didn't fill the inside of it, and made the boarder a bit thicker in width.
The two images to the left are what I took on a recent trip to Los Angeles. I wanted to have a feature in my magazine where readers can win a trip to LA by entering a competition the magazine is running. To do this, I wanted to have my own images to put in my magazine rather than copy of the internet. I knew that by going on the trip, I could get some good images that a lot of people would be able to relate with the city.
On these pictures, I didn't feel the need to change the contrast and brightness levels at all on the individual picture. I thought the quality was vibrant enough for people to see.
The first image is the Hollywood sign. I took this picture from the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. I decided to use this image instead of other ones I took on previous days as the whole sign was visible in the shot rather than some letters not being seen. The hills also looked better in this shot as they were prominent and noticeable.
The second image was of Santa Monica Pier from Venice Beach. After spending a day on the beach, we made a walking trip to the pier. I wanted to get a shot of the pier before it was completely dark, but not early in the morning either. I chose this image as the lighting is perfect in the moment. The pier seems to be contrasted down a few levels, whereas the sky is still as bright with the sun shining. I didn't need to alter these levels as I preferred how this turned out on its own. They are the reasons why I chose this image over the other pictures I took.
To the left again, this is what all the pictures looked like together on my contents page. I wanted them to be different sizes as the larger images would attract readers first and are more likely to be the main stories in the magazine. The largest image is a picture of the girl who is the main story in the magazine. I like the look of all the images laid out this way, the images correspond to the contents inside.
The final image is going to be placed on my double spread page in my music magazine. Although the picture is different, I used a few of the same techniques when it came to editing. I wanted this image to have the same quality as the one's previously. Just like I did before, before I did anything else, I altered the contrast levels and brightness slightly. I didn't need to do as much to this picture as it was already quite bright due to studio lighting. Similar to this, I didn't need to do much with the contrast either, I only slightly increased the level so a few details would be more noticeable.
After this was sorted, I needed to focus on cutting away parts that weren't needed. At first, I only wanted to change the carpet colour to white, however I had an issue. The wall behind the girl didn't match up with the white on Photoshop. Instead of trying to match the white up so it was perfect, I decided to crop the girl out. By doing this, I used the Magic Wand tool yet again and deleted the area's I didn't need. However, this was much harder than the two previous images. As the other one's had fairly straight edges in most of the areas, they were easier to cut around. This picture on the other hand, had a lot more curves. I didn't want to leave the bottom of her shirt out of the picture as I liked how it looks with it still in, and you can get a casual-relax vibe from the image. To get a clean cut around her, I had to zoom into specific areas and rub out area's that should've been deleted. To make sure that I got every last bit of image that wasn't needed, I had to go over this a few times to make sure it was gone.
Once that had completed, I decided to crop around her as an overall thing. I did this as it would be easier for when I add the image onto the actual page as it will be able to fit on the page with no excess room.