Every Thursday afternoon we are going to be doing tutorials and introductions into different adobe software.
In our first tutorial/introduction session we were using Photoshop. I had some previous knowledge about this software as I had used it a lot before I stared University.
I started off with three different images and the aim of this tutorial was to blend them all together to create one smooth, clean image of a lightbulb with a tree growing inside of it.
Firstly, I cleaned up the original image of the lightbulb, getting rid of all the mechanism from inside the bulb using different tools from the pallet, I also managed to clear any reflections on the glass from the original image.
Secondly, I overlapped the copper bottom of the bulb (which was the second image we had to work with) on top of my edited lightbulb. I wanted to make sure that I got rid of any of the lightbulb which may have been showing underneath or round the edges to make it match and look as realistic as possible.
The next thing was placing the trunk of the tree inside the bulb. I found this quite challenging as I had to select just the tree trunk out of our final image we had to work with first and delete the background making sure that I didn't erase any of the trunk itself. Then I blended the bottom of the trunk into the shadowed are of the copper bottom of the bulb, also to create a realistic look.
After I felt comfortable about the way this looked, I then continued to place to "tree" part of the tree back on top of the trunk, possibly changing the size of it to make it fit inside the bulb. I had a mess around with the hue and saturation of the original colour of the tree to make it that bit more abstract and out of the ordinary (as if it wasn't already!)
Finally, the last thing I did, to give my image its finishing touch, was the reflections. I copied and pasted the top of my tree and reflected these images, then warped them around the shape of the bulb, also changing their opacity, I think that this effect gave my final image a little more of a realistic edge with the image bouncing off the glass.
Although I thought I was in the know, if you like, when it came to Photoshop (I'm not saying I thought I knew EVERYTHING), I really enjoyed this tutorial and found it really helpful as I found myself re-capping on things about the software that I had forgotten how to do, or learning completely new things.
I feel that this tutorial was very useful and looking at my final outcome, I am very impressed with that I have done and I think I will definitely be using some of these techniques again.
