Skills and learning
This exercise gave me an opportunity to practice the whole range of selection and adjustment tools available in Photoshop. It also helped me to practice and further develop my workflow that I designed in the assignment one.
Through this assignments and the Part 4 exercises, I‘ve learnt to use the clone stamp tool more effectively and I also experimented with brushes of various hardness and size.
I was also able to practice removing and adding an object, as well as altering or replacing the background.
My key learning points from the exercise s and the assignment four so far include:
1) Both clone stamp tool and healing tool are very useful for making adjustments to an image: they both are suitable for general retouching but have slightly different functions. For example, the healing brush is best to make smooth transitions of colour and luminosity.
2) It is important to view any image at 100% enlargement: not only you can spot the tiniest dust specks but also find other elements that might need correction (for example, lens flare).
3) A clone source function can be used to change the angle of cloning adjustments (clone source angle) and make upside down adjustments.
4) A healing brush can be changed to a different shape (e.g. an eclipse) to improve the blend.
5) It is possible to use a selection function to restrict the area that need to be adjusted.
6) Creating a duplicate layer for adjustments helps to protect the original image from unwanted and accidental changes.
7) The range of brushes in the eraser tool is extensive and it is worth experimenting with different hardness and shapes to get most effective outcome.
8) The most important rule is to practice and experiment, not to be afraid of bending the rules but trying to use alterations sensibly.
9) Follow the checklist before starting to work on an image to decide the level of alterations that might be required:
a. What is the rationale behind making these adjustments and why are they needed.
b. Is the reason strong enough to justify compromising the truth?
c. What is the smallest level of enhancement that the image requires?
10) My personal preference is to keep the image adjustments and corrections to the minimum where possible; however, this often depends on the assignment and how well it is possible to convey the key message without altering the image content. In some circumstances it might be necessary to make some changes to the image.
11) I really enjoyed having a go at designing the book cover and I am aiming to continue practicing my skills further. I would like to try my skills in a real book cover competition in 2012.
