Blog Post

1. 25/01/2016
Photoshop
Photoshop skills are required in order to manipulate images before running them
through After Effects to be animated and used in film. I have used basic tools and skills
to place one image over the next to create the illusion of a single image.
To begin the process, unwanted items had to be removed from the background image.
This was done using the rectangular marquee tool to select the image and use the
content aware option to replace it with what would be behind it to produce a smooth
image.
Next the foreground image was selected and the Polygonal Lasso tool utilised to select
the unwanted background from the astronaut. Once this was completed the new
foreground image of the astronaut could be placed onto the Mars background.
Although the astronaut had been ‘cut out’ the Polygonal Lasso tool had to be used again
in order to resolve the issue of the blue Earth background still being visible in the
helmet. To prevent the image looking over- edited and out of place, the transparent
helmet visor needed to stay in the final image but with the new background visible
through it. I cut around the transparent part of the helmet and separated it from the
original image by placing it onto a new layer. I could then change the blending mode of
this new layer to screen so that the red Mars layer could be seen through the
transparent helmet visor.
Simple enlargements were then made to the foreground image using the transform
controls so that it fit to the proportions of the background layer.