For my Surreal Composition, I was inspired by the emotions I felt from the trip I took the original photo from. The message I want to convey with my piece is the feeling of freedom and adventure I felt climbing the rocks at Monterey Bay. I wanted to represent these feelings by making the composition as if my friend, featured in the back, and I, featured in the front, were climbing above the clouds and were captured by a new universe during this trek.
The techniques I found useful for this project were the use of blend modes, changing the opacity of the brushes and layers, using quick start selections and the refining edge brush, using smart objects, and also the use of clipping masks with solid color adjustment layers. I additionally used interpretive art techniques to fix parts of the hair when the refining edge brush couldn’t get all the hair details. With all of these skills, I was able to layer each part of the piece correctly, while adding additional highlights to each of the layers to create my final piece.
I think that during the process of creating all the surreal and realistic compositions, I have been able to expand my Photoshop skills with all that I have learned from these lessons. This creative knowledge opened my eyes to new ways to edit within Photoshop and how I can even go into fixing specific details within photos which could come handy in photo editing/photography jobs.
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