Photoshop workshop 3 21/2/12

In this session the main thing I did was start to experiment on my ideas in relation to Photoshop. However I did learn a few techniques which proved helpful in the sessions' experiments I undertook. The techniques looked at were-

• Warp tool
• Clone tool
• Shadows

The technique I found most interesting/ useful was being able to apply shadows. I wanted to apply this technique to make parts of women faces of skincare ads to look as if they are mask like, to do this I needed to make them look as if they were 3 dimensional and a shadow would do this. The reason behind wanting to make the faces look like masks was that when people wear masks they tend to be covered or disguised as another persona, when these women are in these adverts they are retouched into another persona showing a falseness. Here is what I did...

• I selected the area of the advertising model I wanted to turn into a mask, I did this through using the lasso tool, this tool created a rough selection therefore I would need to go back and tidy it up later.
• I created a new A3 sized image that I would put all of the composites onto, I didn't worry about a background at this stage because I just wanted to try some techniques out.
• I then copied the selection made earlier onto the new image using the command c/v short cut.
• To the mask like selection I added a layer mask so I could easily apply changes to the earlier selection using the paintbrush. So I made sure that the edges of selection were smooth as I could using this tool. 
• To produce the actual shadow I did the following-
• -Double clicked on the layer I wanted to add a shadow to (in this case the mask like selection from the advert)
• -I then selected the drop shadow option to the left of the box shown
• -I clicked onto the drop shadow label to make the amendments appear
• -I made sure the Blend Mode was on normal
• -I turned the Opacity to about 60%
• -The distance to about 30
• - The spread to around 5
• -And the size to around 90

I then continued to do these steps for three mask like selections. At the end of session here is what I managed to do, it isn't completed yet as there needs to be a background and the camera needs to be attached to the masks to apply the message of the camera/ photographer controlling how these women look/ are portrayed.