This week we were given a multitude of different tutorials to choose from to try our hand at. I wanted to do so many of them but in the end I only had time for a couple. The first was a picture that I took of my daughters playing like they had the force. I thought this image would look really interesting having it cut out. The tutorial was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be and the image didn't come out as spectacular as I thought it should have. It was a good learning experience I learned how to use paths and distort really well. The second image is a town in Norway called Bergen. I visited the city about 20 years ago and it still impresses me. I wanted to create an image that looked like a miniature of the city, I have always loved when people create that look. The tutorial was really quick and I was able to try the effect a few way until I got what I wanted. I think it turned out really nice.
The Process for cutting out my daughters was a pain in the neck. Removing them was not a big deal, but distorting the image so that it looks like it belongs on the counter top was the hardest part. I had guide lines up all around and did a bunch of transforming and puppet warping to get things into place. Once I had my image into place I realized I should have duplicated the image back at the beginning. I had to re-import the image and go through the process of trying to match the other image so I could create the cutouts. Once I had everything in place I was able to extract them and place drop shadows. I had never placed the drop shadows on their own layer before so that was a new experience. Because of it I was able to manipulate the shadow a lot more and that was really helpful. I then used the paths I had created to make a frayed white edge on the cutouts, This was done in the paths section and was really useful to learn. The second image was quick and easy, I used quick mask mode to get a selection then created an alpha channel from it and added the lens effect. After that I duplicated the image and made the second image an overlay to give it that more surreal look.
Credit for images: Cut Out Effect Tutorial: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-week-create-a-cutout-photograph-in-photoshop--psd-14718 Image Kitchen : https://pixabay.com/photos/kitchen-home-real-estate-2486092/ Image of Children: Cameron Draper