The document describes the editing process taken to modify several photographs. For the first photo, the editor darkened one side of the subject's face to hint at a dark side, and lightened the other side using exposure and blurring to create contrast. Motion blur layers were added to make the subject appear to be moving too fast to capture. The second photo involved cutting out the subject and adjusting curves to intensify contrast and silhouette the figure against blue-tinted fog. The final photo colored the subject red using curves to appear dangerous and menacing while reaching out, with a red-tinted lens flare and blurred clouds in the background to complete the explosive theme.

1. Photography Edi.ng
Phoenix Smith

2. For this I wanted the picture to look
grand an epic. I chose to make it looks
almost like dawn is breaking, with the
warm yellow glow on one side of the
subjects face. But I wanted to hint that
maybe this character or story also has a
dark side and so I darkened the leB side
of the face. This creates contrast
between the two sides; dark and light.
The light half was created by
duplica.ng the right side of the
face, I used the right side because
that was where the light naturally
was in the original, and turning up
the exposure. I then used “Box
blur” on this layer and turned the
transparency down. This creates a
glowing, almost soB focus look.
Next was the dark side. I duplicated just that side
and used the RGB curves to darken it and add
contrast. I tried not to make the contrast between
this side and the light one too great. I then just
used the eraser with no hardness and a low
opacity to blend the two sides together.
To give the image a synthe.c, film quality, I added a lens flare coming of a natural spot of light on the
glasses.
Finally just to blend everything together further I created an adjustment layer using the RGB curves. I
gave the whole picture an orange/yellow .nt to warm it up and .e the dark and light sides together.

3. I built up layers of
horizontal mo.on blur on
new layers but keeping the
face in focus. There is a
copy behind the original
with a high mo.on blur
and lowered opacity, and
then a copy on top with a
lower blur and low
opacity. I erase a hole in
this top layer so that the
focused face would show
through.
Based on the pose and expression I
wanted this character to exude power
and be almost in.mida.ng. The layers
of mo.on blur make him look energy his
emana.ng and also gave him movement
and energy. It’s like he’s moving to fast
to be photographed yet his piercing
glare is clear.
The colour correc.on was
done with RGB curves, trying
to make the face smooth
with a lowered contrast and
have a green .nt to it.
Finally I wanted to darken
the really bright spots on the
right of his face. I just
duplicated that area and
lowered the exposure.

4. What I wanted to create was a
mysterious figure emerging from
the fog, perhaps something
supernatural about him. The
genre here would be dark
fantasy, going towards horror.
I first cut out the figure from his
original background and refined
the edges. I then used the RGB
curves to increase the contrast
and lower the brightness to try
and make the figure striking and
solid, almost like a silhoueRe.
However this ended up crushing
the face into darkness and I
thought that given the product I
was edi.ng for it was important to
clearly see the characters face. So I
selected the face area with the
lasso and duplicated it onto a new
layer. I used the curves, hue and
satura.on, and brightness and
contrast, trying to make the face
smooth and defined. I then just
blended it into with the eraser.
Next was to render clouds in the
background, use curves to .nt them
blue, and then erase them so that they
faded out around the edges. A white
glow around the figure picks him out
from the background.

5. I wanted this picture to be
dangerous and menacing,
the figure reaching out to
something ominous. The
obvious colour to go with
was red. I used RGB curves
to give the figure a red‐hot
look, lowering the blue
and green and bringing up
the red. I also increased
the contrast.
I placed a lens flare
in the boRom right
to match the ligh.ng
and colour corrected
in to red so as to
match the rest of the
image. I thought the
lens flare would add
a movie look to the
picture as well as
help the explosive
feeling I was going
for.
I wanted to blend the hand in with the rest of the
picture a bit more so I duplicated it onto new layer
and increased the contrast and lowered the
brightness. This just made it match the darkness
and high contrast of the rest of the image and .ed
everything together.
The background con.nues the
dangerous and explosive theme as a
layer of rendered clouds with a radial
blur on the zoom seVng. This gives
the effect of energy burs.ng from
whatever is causing the lens flare.