I created this for the school policy ESLR and I made it look like a blueprint for a construction project.  It composes of a grid as well as the blue splotches of color for the background.  The main title is scribbled to look like a sketch that someone would make for a drawing.

Magazine Cover

        I chose to make a gaming magazine because I enjoy playing video games and I also admire how they can be works of art while contributing entertainment value.  I decided to use this sample magazine because I liked how the text was one sided to the image and certain things were emphasized more than others.  I emulated this concept but I switched the side it was on (since my background had the streetlight on the right side). 
        I used asymmetrical balance by putting the text on the right side and the main image on the right side.  By using black and white colors only I had to bold certain text and i put more contrast on the main image from the background to create emphasis on certain things.  There is no real movement or rhythm in the image but by using certain art elements I created unity in the image, and nothing is overly emphasized over another image or text.
        There is a lot of negative space in between the images due to the dark contrast of the background.  There is a lot of organic shapes and most of the lines are implied since they are hard to see through the contrast of the images.  With the input of the main image, I created from and things look as if they are not 2 dimensional.  There is only dark and light values since the magazine cover is strictly black and white.
        In my magazine cover I used the levels adjustment to make everything look as close as a black and white image.  By going to edit ->desaturate, I finalized the black and white finish.  I put the image on top of the background and to create the rain I went to edit -> fill to create the main object.  Then I filtered the image and transformed it to look more like the rain that is found in the Sin City comics. 

I'm feeling nuclear - Final Collage CGA

 

        I chose this nuclear/solar like theme for my collage because I like how the look of the sun and other nuclear objects look in contrast to a dark sky.  The images give me a certain satisfaction and sense of awe.  

        In my collage I used many of the principles of design that help an image become better than if they were not used.  I made my collage asymmetrical but I did not skew the unity of the image.  There is a lot of emphasis on the image of myself because of its large size compared to all the other images.  I gave most of the images implied texture to help blend with the background better with many different tools.  There is a lot of contrast in the image, with the background being dark and the images on top of it having sharp colors that are further emphasized by the dark background.

        I used many tools in my collage to created different feels to the images.  One of the tools I used the most was the smudge tool.  This helped take away the boring circular shape of the images and it made it seem as if the suns were flaring and the images stand out from the background.  I used the levels adjustment layer and the curves adjustment layer to create sharper highlights and edit the midtones of the images.  I used color balance to create contrast between the images and the background.  I used many different effects for the images which include inner shadown, bevel and emboss, color overlay, and more.  I used techniques similar to our pug in the park exercise where I took the magnet lasso and went around the part of the image I wanted.

        Some ways I could have enhanced the effectiveness of the image was if I used symmetry so that the image seemed proportional.  I could have used more rhythm and pattern in the image to give a more dramatic feel to the collage.  My knowledge so far with Adobe Photoshop CS5 is limited but I hope to be able to learn how to use different aspects of it to make my future collages better.