The document describes steps taken to design album cover art using Photoshop. It involves editing layers, adjusting colors, experimenting with effects like embossing and beveling, resizing and skewing letters, adding borders, and merging layers. The goal is to create a design that looks like a real pop/indie album cover with bright neon colors, space or rock themes, and a professional visual style.

1. Skills Development
Journal
CD

2. I copied the original
image to create another
layer. I then changed the
copied layer to black and
white so I could colour
splash the image making
it look more like a pop
cover.

3. I took the original
image and used colour
range to pick out the
colours I wanted to
show on the black and
white image. I used
plus so that I could
take the green and the
pink from the image so
it was more effective.

4. I experimented the
brightness and contrast
to make the pink and
green look brighter and
more obvious, therefore
giving a more bold and
neon effect suitable for a
pop album cover.

5. I then changed the
vibrancy and
saturation so the
colours looked more
neon and fuller so it
looked more
realistic yet fake so
it was suitable for a
pop cover.

6. In this I used colour
range so that I could
take the white
background away from
the words ‘neon lights’.
This then makes it look
free and more
professional like a
proper cover.

7. This shows the final
image with the words
finalised and the
colours of the eyes and
lips finalised. You can
see that there are
different layers as this
was easier to edit the
image.

8. In this I was
experimenting with
the letters in ‘Lunar’.
Therefore I used scale
to make the letter
bigger and smaller
giving it a more rock
effect that I was
practising.

9. In this I was
experimenting with the
skew so that I could
make the letters look
more original and
funky. This helps to
make it look more rock
and effective.

10. In this I downloaded an
brush set to use in
Photoshop so that I
could edit the letters
and rub out an under
layer I created making
it look purple and
black.

11. Here it shows the
brushes being used
to create a space
effect suitable for
the title and give it
a rock effect. I
varied the size of
the brush so it gave
more effects with
the same brush.

12. I then used Bevel
and Embossing so
It looked more
realistic and gives a
more spacy effect.
Also it makes it
suitable for the
genre.
In this I embossed
it so that the
purple was
standing out and
the black was
‘pushed down’.

13. I edited the
brightness and the
contrast in the
background of the
final CD cover so
that it looked paler
and the images to
go on top were
more obvious and
stood out like a
pop/indie CD.

14. I edited the pictures
so that they had a
border around them
and looked a bit
more pop and
similar to a real CD
cover. Also it makes
it stand out more
because it’s not
natural unlike the
image and the
background.

15. I merged the layers of
‘Water and Ocean’ so
that it was easier to
move around as a
whole as I was happy
with where I had
positioned the words.
Fonts: Miama, Callie
Hand

16. The finished back
cover. I used the
same technique to
add the word’s as
before. Then Just
added a barcode
from a external
creator.
Fonts: Miama, Callie
Hand