Rough first attempt at creating a cover

In todays lesson Hazzel has taken us through a tutorial (see on how to create a magazine cover and shown us a few ways to manipulate different layers:

Here was my attempt. To break it down, I first cut out the image of Amy using the lasso tool. Then started a new a4 document.

I then imported the funky pre-created background and lay the image behind the photo of Amy. I procceeded to resize both to fit the a4 format. A good trick I learned here was holding the shift key while adjusting scale as this meant it would stay at the same aspect ratio; this meant the image would not look stretched.

I added another layer which and filled it with block colour.

The next process just involved experimenting with the various different filters in the window on the far right and adjusting them. I know this part is particularly important so i'm hoping it has all gone in!

Another slight adjustment was cutting the lips out using the lasso tool so the colour could show through.; this was so slight it's almost unnoticable.

The text was just chosen from the stock Photoshop font selection. I've added a weak drop shadow to the title and subheading (why, why, why, which referenced the long over running Queen project).

A good dry run overall.



Magazine Project: Starting Point

To begin the project Hazzell asked us to collect magazines we found visually appealing and break them down as to why the covers worked, or failed in some cases.

I am a total geek so I went for the more techy magazines such as PCFORMAT, EDGE, and T2. Dissecting the layouts, the genral approuch for this type of magazine was a very clean and clear form of presentation. The text lay on exclusively white backgrounds and the images inside (in the spreads) always appeared in there own window with limited annotation.

The cover was again very plain with a clear blue colour scheme tying the name, news, and sub headings together.

- Highlights

I really liked the way the image of the graphics card was ever so slightly overlaid on top of the magazine title. The only thing I wasn't really keen on here was the drop shadow used for the graphics card - which seemed slightly unnecessary.

As a start looking at the basics I'm actually quite glad I looked at such a clean layout as the overly busy covers and spreads I've seen  dealing with other subject matter aren't the best to learn from.

-What I disliked

I already know just from this brief look I don't want my magazine to be composed of as much text as I want my art work to be the main focal point of the cover.

If I create a portfolio themed magazine also, it will give me more freedom to create something with a little flair - a lot of these tech magazines are almost indistinguishable from one another.

Creating Polaroid Images in Photoshop

For this exercise we were introduced to layers and how to get the polaroid effect for photographs we had previously taken in our last lesson. Despite the absolute plethora of pictures taken of Kat we ended up using a pic of me striking a 'writers pose'.


Oh dear.

Anyway, to begin I had two seperate images; one of the polaroid and one of myself. I then added the image of myself to the polaroid and lay the image of myself on top. As the image was very large, I used the polygonal tool to cut around the edges to make my picture fit. In the layers palette I then changed the opacity so the image was slightly 'transparent'.

Dupicating the layer, I proceed to play with the layer effects like fill to strike a nice balance and my myself look bright and er... handsome.

I was pleased with the end results but was more concerned with everyone using this image of me as practise - I look like a flag wearing American from the south.