Assignment #2 – Photoshop “Best Shot”  Composite Images

Students are to demonstrate their knowledge of using Photoshop tools including masking tools, image resizing, and filters. They must use a background of either 1024×768 pixels or 800×600 pixels,  bring in the photo from below and a minimum of 5 images from the web to create a fantasy composite image. Composition, masking, detail, perspective and other basic design technique will be included in the grading. Files must be saved as native .psd and also as a .jpg. Students will upload the original landscape photo and their final piece as a jpg to their ePortfolios as a page/kid to Digital media with the assignment order number, and a detailed assignment description (can be copied and pasted from here) and reflection restating what they did, how they did it, and how they feel about their work.

Edited

Original

Reflection: In this assignment, I had to use the photo that was given to me and make it into a whole different scene using Adobe Photoshop. The size of the assignment had to be 800×600.  I had to use many tools and resources such as the internet, magic wand, filters, and the magnetic lasso.  I took all of my photos off of the internet.  I used the magnetic lasso to cut out my horse and the wagons.  To save time, I just duplicated the horse and wagon layers so I wouldn’t have to cut out each one.  I used the magic wand to cut out the sky and  gold pieces.  I duplicated the gold pieces and pulled different ones from the internet. I got the dust storm background off of the internet. I used the text tool to write my name. I clone stamped the sky.  I used the brushstroke crosshatch filter on every layer because I thought just having one filter in the picture looked weird and out of place. I don’t think a filter was the right step in this specific assignment.  The story to this photo is that it is during the gold rush and there is a dust storm coming.  All the wagons are fleeing and they left their horses behind.  There is lots of gold pieces in the river because everyone ran away.  I call this piece “Realistic Gold” as sort of a joke because the gold in the river doesn’t look realistic at all.  I think I did a good job on this assignment but I think I could have done a better job if we didn’t have to use filters because it (in my opinion) made the photo look “off” (explained more above).