Tuesday 7 May 2013

Photoshop Headlines Experiment.

I wanted to do some digital experimenting on my photograph stills, I really liked the headlines idea on the newspapers which were included in my shoot but I wanted to make them more relevant. I found this picture below on google images when searching for devastating headlines, it could cover the whole of the photograph I would be editing so I decided to use it in a similar way a double exposure of two photographs would be created on photoshop.
- First of all I opened my own photograph into photoshop, I chose to use the bright newspaper photographs because these were bright enough to allow the headlines photograph to stand out rathe than be unseen like it would be on my more blue and dark still photographs. Also by not using my plain photographs I was enhancing a photograph that had already been enhanced, taking its limits even further.
- I then dragged the headlines photograph from my desktop to the document with my photographs in, this will let it appear as another layer in my layers box (below, the background layer being my image, and the image layer my headlines image).
- I then resized my headlines image by holding the shift key to keep its measurements accurate and dragging it out enough to cover my whole photograph.
- Finally I adjusted the opacity by lowering it to 77% from 100% which was just enough to make it slightly transparent revealing my photograph underneath.
I really like my above result, I felt that it was quite poster like, she looks down and upset, vulnerable, which is how somebody would feel if they were kidnapped and on the news, the variety of headlines let us interpret many narratives, the words dead and crack stand out which make us think is she dead? Is crack to do with it? Are drugs the result of her problems and existence like this? The phrase 'the news' gives away that she is being searched for and that this is a serious case.

I then typed missing people headlines into google and the photograph below came up, this shows real missing peoples profile changing up, this was very personal but I thought this would work well and give more meaning to my photograph because it is more shocking, also the famous face of Madeline McCann would instantly give away the narrative which will shock.
I used the exact same method as I did for my first experiment. Below is the image on photoshop, I have stretched it up to cover my photograph and also erased the man from it so the narrative doesn't become too busy and confusing, the focus is fully on the missing people and the police info.
Below I have shown the step of having two layers - my photograph and the image.
Here is my result, I preferred it because of the perspective change and the more personal aspect, the far tit has numbers for people to get involved too. The photographs and text still looks quite like a newspaper because of the newspaper background, it hides the irrelevant headlines and works well with them to create a relevant newspaper effect.
I did the same thing again with the photograph of her facing the words on the wall, we can figure out what they say when we really look which adds more story, it shows her helpline and the fact she is physically trapped, this could also be interpreted mentally.
I enjoyed this because it was quick and simple but effective. To improve them I would create headlines of my own and photograph them and use these as the top layer, I could create a singular and personal narrative this way. When brainstorming my ideas for a final piece this will be considered.

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