I had a difficult time selecting my “favorite” image from
this project – I ended up really liking all of them, and invite you to have a
look at my web page.
Nevertheless, our instructions are to select one – so I
selected my Wild West Movie composite.
In January, 2012, we made a car trip through several southwest
states. Zabriskie Point, nearly every
photographer’s favorite, called to mind the pioneers, cowboys, Indians and
moviemakers of the past, all of whom probably frequented this harsh
landscape. The composite pays homage to
those brave souls, and includes artistically interesting posters for forgotten
movies. It also gives a nod to Hollywood
movie culture, symbolized by cups of pop, bags of popcorn, and the implicit
reference to a more contemporary 1970 film by Italian director
Michelangelo Antonioni entitled “Zabriskie Point”.
Here are my answers to the Project 4 Questions:
1. Which
blend modes did you experiment with and then use in your project?
The
most interesting blend mode was the difference mode. I’m not sure I understand the rules under
which it operates, but in my Midsummer Nights Dream composite, it operated to
give beautiful colors from a gradient layer to the music manuscript background.
I
also used the Dissolve blend mode on the “War Bonnet” poster in the Wild West
Movie composite. It gave an interesting
grainy effect to the poster.
I
used the Luminosity blend mode on the “California Joe” poster in the same
composite. It took away most of the
color and gave the poster a sepia tone look.
That look seemed to fit the artistic intent of the composition.
I
used the Lighten blend mode on the toy boats in the Hamburg composite. It gave a surreal effect to the two toy
boats.
2. How did
you use the stacking order to produce your final results in your most complex
composite?
The most complex composite is the
Wild West Movies. It includes a photo of
Zabriskie Point as the bottom-most layer.
Above that are the two movie posters, then the bags of popcorn, the cups
of pop and the scattered popcorn kernels.
I put the border behind the
snacks, to make an effect of the movie posters and background photo being
together in composite poster that the snacks are set in front of.
3. What layer
effects did you use? Which layer styles did you apply to another layer?
The most commonly used layer effect
is the drop shadow, which I used in all of my composites. I experimented with changing the color of the
drop shadow. I also used inner glow,
inside bevel, and stroke frequently. In
the Wild West Movies composite, I created the multiple copies of the snacks
before I did the effects. Thereafter, I
modified one of the individual images of a particular snack, and copied that
effect onto all the copies.
4. What key
elements of layer managements in this module that you plan to use in future
projects?
I felt that I learned a lot about
layer management in the process of completing this project. The ability to place one image on top of
another and rearrange images and layers in various ways helps in the artistic
process. I don’t fully understand the
blend mode process, and I plan to experiment quite a bit more with that.
5. What
challenges did you experience in the process?
Probably
the biggest challenge is that the keyboard and mouse on my home computer are
intermittently acting wonky, so I could not reliably use many of the keyboard
shortcuts and mouse clicks I’ve learned in the classroom. However, I did learn where other options to
do the same things are located.
My other
significant challenges were these:
·
Figuring
out the correct relative sizes of the snacks in the Wild West Movie composite.
·
Making
the fairy figures look natural sitting on the mushroom in the Midsummer Night’s
Dream composite.
6. What
keyboard shortcuts are you using regularly now?
- Open bracket: [ to increase the size of the cursor/brush, and close bracket: ] to decrease the size of the cursor/brush.
- Ctrl-X to make the background transparent.
- Crtl-Z to undo the last editing step
- Ctrl-D to deselect
- Ctrl-0 to fit image on screen
- W to use the quick selection tool
- Alt to change the quick selection tool from "add to image" to "subtract from image" or to change “zoom in” to “zoom out”.
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