Opie - self- portrait

1. Opie self-portrait
So that I could complete my Opie self- portrait to the highest of standards I had to
use tools that I have no experience with at all, for example I used the magnetic lasso
tool. This tool allows you to take an outline of a certain image and add it into a new
layer. It uses colour to do this, for example say a face was pink the lasso would
follow the line of all pink and create the shape that you wanted. This would then
create chevron lines around the image and then you would copy it to another layer
in Adobe Photoshop.
Firstly, I had to take a picture of my face so that I could add it to Photoshop, I used
Photobooth to do this and its extremely simple. The image is saved as a jpeg, this can
then be added to and changed.
The second tool that I used to create my self-portrait was the fill tool. I used this to
change the colour of my face so that it looked more computerised. I used this with
the colour picker as it allowed me to get the skin tone accurate, you simply click onto
the part of the body that you want when selecting the colour and then it uses the
computer to find the shade you want. They were all extremely simple to use. These
are their icons in Photoshop.
Finally, I used both the paint brush and the pencil tool to help me draw in the finer
details that the lasso was unable to do. Firstly, I used the paint brush tool to fill in
certain parts as the magnetic lasso left gaps when adding new layers, I also used it to
round my hair as the lasso made it jagged and rough. The pencil tool was the best
tool in my opinion as it allowed me to get the finer features perfect like eyes and
lips. I found these tools easy to use however because I was controlling the pencil and
brush I didn’t get the lips exactly how id would’ve wanted them to turn out. This is
something I would consider I need to work on for next time, as I don’t have the
steadiest of hands and I’m not the best at computer drawing. These are the paint
brush and pencil icons in Photoshop.
I only found one tool that was particularly difficult to use and that was the magnetic
lasso tool. I found it difficult because at first I was clicking of the lasso and when I
was attempting to undo the tool I kept clicking to try and get off it but it was just
adding more lasso points. Having overcome this problem then when I was trying to
lasso my hair it was making it extremely jagged and angled when I should have been
more rounded hence why I had to use the paint brush tool to round it myself.

2. I felt that my Opie self-portrait was fine enough but not as good as it could’ve been if
I had spent more time and care on it. I thought the best part of my portrait was the
shape of the face and also the hair. I particularly liked the detailing on my jacket as
well as the way I correctly managed to get the colour scheme and shades of colour
right on certain parts of the image. If I was ever to do it again I would definitely not
use the lasso for my nose as I felt it went wrong, but instead use the pencil tool to
get it the way I want it but apart from this small niggle I feel that it was a good try
considering it was my first time doing a Opie self-portrait.