John Goto Photography.

John Goto's Photography.

Eadweard Muybridge Photography.

Eadweard Muybridge's Photography.

Evaluation.

For this assignment we had to make a Fantasy Landscape thats consisted of multiple pictures taken on a digital camera (Canon EOS 550D) which would then be digitally manipulated on a computer using Adobe Photoshop to layer sections of each image on to a background photo.
     We had to go and take landscape photos and subjective photos around Burton that we would use to layer on one another by using a digital SLR camera and a tripod to prevent camera shake. This was fairly easy as you could get the landscape photographs from round the back of the college and the subjective ones from around the town. I am please with how both sets of photographs came out as they were clear and had no camera shake on them so I had good photos to work with.
     Editing the photos on to layers also went well as the shapes I wanted out of the subjective images were fairly easy to separate from the rest and could be placed where I wanted them on the main background image. However, I didn't like the bench that I placed in to my image towards the back as to me it looked as though it had clearly been photoshopped and didn't look realistic enough personally. My favourite part of the image was the balloons that were located close to the front of the image as they looked realistic and the edges were soft enough to help the realistic look whereas the bench has sharp edges where it hasn't been blurred or smudged so the bench looked edited on.
     If I were to do this again, I would change the subjective photos so as there was a wider variety of things in the photograph as well as using objects that would look more realistic in the image. I would also take more care to blur the images in to the background so as the edges were softer and it blended in to the image better than it does now.
    I would keep the balloons the same in the image as I liked that element the most and I personally think that was what turned out best. I would also use the same lasso techniques as I did before as it did well to remove the subject from the background.
     The final outcome of my image was better than I expected because I didn't really have any ideas until I researched other artists such as John Goto who gave me inspiration for my final photo with his images and from there they developed as I went out to take my photographs where my ideas started to come together and I had a clearer idea of what I wanted to do. Although Goto's work was inspirational to me, there were elements of his work that I didn't like as much such as the sharpness of his pasted images which made me decide that I wanted to blur edges to make them look more natural than Goto's work.
     Overall I am happy with my final Fantasy Landscape images as it is better than I imagined it to look and I am also happy that I decided to blur the edge of the subject as it gives the photo a more natural feel and they blend in to the image well. Although there were certain elements of the photo that I would change given the chance, I am happy with the outcome and would have a clearer idea of what to do if I ever had to do this sort of task again.

Artist Research - John Goto

     John Goto was born in Stockport, England in 1949 and is best known for his photo-digital artworks. He now works as a professor of Fine Art at the University of Derby after his successful career that started in the late 1960's when he studied Fine Art at St. Martins School of Art, London where an interest in the narrative forms of European cinema lead him to the medium of Photography. From there, he produced a series of photographs in 1977 of culturally significant portraits of young people in Lewisham that was entitled 'Lovers Rock', however, the photo was not published or exhibited until 2011.
     I have looked at Goto's work and you can see that he has taken many photographs of different subjects and digitally manipulated them so as they all become one image. To do this he would have to use at least 2 images and cut our the focus point that you want and paste it on to the other image and may have used techniques such as blurring and smudging to make the pasted objects seem more realistic.
     I like Goto's work because it is creative in the fact that it is fairly obviously digitally manipulated and it gives the quality of child-like and fun to the photo. This work is also similar to our task of producing a fantasy landscape as his work is a creative fantasy as him images are very unrealistic.

Eadweard Muybridge

Photographer Eadweard Muybridge was born in Surrey, England on April 9, 1830. His large images of Yosemite Valley were the image that bought him fame.

He adopted the name Eadweard Muybridge, believing it to be the original Anglo-Saxon form of his name. Although he immigrated to the United States as a young man, he remained obscure until 1868 when his large photographs of Yosemite Valley in  California made him world famous. 

Muybridge's experiments in photographing motion began in 1872, when the railroad magnate Leland Stanford hired him to prove that during a particular moment in a trotting horse, all four legs are simultaneously off the ground. His first efforts were unsuccessful because his camera didn't have a fast enough shutter. 

After having a break when he was acquitted for his wife's lovers murder he resumed his experiments in 1877 in motion photography, using a battery of from 12 to 24 cameras and a special shutter he developed that gave an exposure of 21000 of a second. The photographic results were good enough to prove Stanford's theory. 

Transforming a Picture.

To transform the image you have to click on 'edit' and then 'Transform' and I chose to do 'warp'. 

This is the image before warping.

The grid lines allow you to see how you're warping the image and dots allow you to warp it. 

The image has now been pulled upwards on the left hand side giving the illusion of a bank that wasn't there before.

Brightness and Contrast.

This is the original image that we are going to alter the lighting levels in. 

To change it, go to 'image' then 'adjustments' and 'Brightness/Contrast' 

It gives you a box where you move the arrows to alter either the brightness of the contrast. 

The image has been brightened and the contrast has been lowered so as the sky looks brighter and the trees look darker when next to each other.

The image has been made darker on both brightness and contrast  and the overall image looks a lot darker the it should.

On this image, both brightness and contrast are on maximum and it gives the sky an unusual brightness compared to the darkness of the trees.

Quick Mask Mode.

Quick mask mode shows you where you have selected so as you can get a more accurate image as you're closer to the lines. 

This is a foreground image on a separate layer to the background image so as we can edit it.

To get quick mask mode you select the image and press the very bottom button on the toolbar and you can change the colour of the mask as well as the opacity. 

The mask has showed the areas that are and aren't selected and by choosing the eraser tool you can get closer to the lines of the subject which will paint them red and deselect them. 

I allows you to get closer so as the image is more accurate.

After you have erased all of the photo that we don't need you can take off the mask so as you can carry on editing the picture.

After you have removed the mask it shows the subject selected within the image.

You can copy the image by going on 'edit' and then 'copy' and then 'edit' 'paste' it so as you have a copy and then delete the original image as you now have the subject that you want without all of the unwanted parts in it.  

This is what we are left with and we can resize and move the image to where we want. 

When you have finished moving and resizing to subject you can zoom out to see how the placing looks.

This is the final placement of the subject.

Lasso and Move Tool.

This image will be the background of the image and is opened in photoshop on layer 1.

This image will be edited on to the the foreground of the image, opened in the same work space as the background but on a separate layer. 

The foreground image has now been sized and placed where i want it to be, it just needs to be cut around to remove the bits that aren't needed.

So as we get the image as close to perfect as possible, we zoom in so as the lasso tool will be closer to the edge.

The best lasso to go around the curved line of the balloons is the magnetic lasso as it will hold on to the lines and get rid of the rest.

After the lasso has gone round all of the subject it can be moved away from the rest we don't need and that is deleted so we are left with the subject that we want.

This can be moved in to place and the lines can be tidied up and blurred so as it looks as though it should be part of the picture. 

This is how the image looks when it has been tidied up.

Adding Colour

I am going to change the colour of the rose from its original colour of pink to blue. To do this I first need to add a new blank layer over the top of the image so as I can paint on to that and not the original image.

Here you can see I have 2 layers, the blank one is over the top of the image.

Im choosing to first desaturate the image so it will show up a better colour. Also, the background will be greyscale with no colour.

Here is the desaturated image.

I then choose the paintbrush tool with the colour in the small box at the bottom. 

After painting over the rose on the top layer this is what I'm left with. 

To get the image to look like a rose again we need to overlay the layers, which is done by clicking on the layers box and choosing 'overlay'.

This is the image that we are left with afterwards.

Vignette Effect.

A blank layer is needed to be on top of the image so as the vignette has it's own layer. 

You now have 2 layers and this box says that the blank layer is above the background layer which is what we're looking for. 

Choosing the type of brush is important as it needs to be soft edged to give the right effect. 

This is the image before anything has been applied to the image. 

By pressing the 'control' button  and holding down while you pain, it allows you to paint a straight line down all of the images sides.

To make it so as the lines are less obvious and are faded, you have to apply a Gaussian Blur to the layer that the bordering is on.

This is how you choose how blurred the black lines are. The higher the number is, the blurrier the lines will be. 

This is the image with a 90.0 pixel blur, however the lines are still very bold.

This is the image with a 250.0 Pixel blur so the lines are very faded but attention is still drawn to the center of the image.