Digital Photography and Imaging - Week 5

04.05.2023 (Week 5)
Vanessa Kei Kurniadi / 0360525 / Bachelor or Design in Creative Media
Digital Photography and Imaging
Week 5 - Photo Manipulation

LECTURES

This week Mr Fauzi has provided us a detailed explanation on parts of a camera, what they do, and how it works. Since I am not using a camera very much, I don't know many things about cameras, and this docs file helps a lot to help me understand.

fig 1.1 A page of the docs

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TUTORIAL

Mr Fauzi has attached for us a tutorial on how to do a photo shoot at home.

https://youtu.be/JiVVWiqTnQc

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PRACTICAL

This week we were told to create a photo manipulation. We were given a photo of a Mansion and Shazam. We are gonna put shazam inside the photo to make it seem like he's standing in there as a whole image.

Fig 2.1 Tutorial Video

Mr Fauzi has provided us with the tutorial video in case we need any help with the execution. I did my photo manipulation alongside watching the video just so I won't miss any steps.

I did the steps according to the tutorial video, but I also added my own additional little step. I gave an extra shadow on the water reflection using a soft brush and about 18% opacity, and then give some shadows until I see fit. I also gave some more shadow on Shazam's clothes to create more contrast in the lighting source. I also used some clipping mask on this project, but just so there isn't too many layers, I merged some of them.

Fig 2.2 My work in Photoshop

Here's what I came up with in the end:

Fig 2.3 Shazam Photo Manipulation

Next, my job is to create the same photo manipulation, but with me as the character. I don't have many photos of me, but this is the one I chose to do this project

Fig 3.1 Chosen photo of me for the photo manipulation

The sun is particularly strong in this image, thus I know I'll have to do some shading to the clothes. The angle is also not the best one to do this but I think It'll suffice.

First what I did was to take my picture out of the existing background. The tutorial video was using a quick selection tool to do this but since it's not working well for me I used the masking tool to do it.

Fig 3.2 Using masking tool to take me out of the background

Then I put "me" into the mansion and start manipulating it. The first thing I notice is the effect "match color" adjustment has quite a different effect on "me". I had to drag the "fade" slider to almost the end of the right side and made some adjustment here and there with the luminosity and color intensity (I don't remember exactly the exact number of each of them but I don't know where to see it after I press ok)

Another thing I notice is the lighting. The lighting on "me" is very strong, thus I had to add shadow not only on the background, but also on the parts of "me" that got the effect of the light source. I used some round brush and a dark blue color picked with the eyedropper tool from the background, and made some soft shading to "me".

I also did some little "editing" to my hand (lol). It's not exactly the right pose when you're touching a pillar but since it's very small and not so clear I think it's good enough. All I did was use the lasso tool and circle my palm, transform, and rotate it to my liking.

Fig 3.3 How "I" look after some photo manipulation

Last thing I did was adding the reflection. There isn't much different than when I worked on Shazam. I made sure it's dark enough to fit the background reflection and some shading on the deeper end.

Here's what the finished work looks like:

Fig 3.4 Final Look

I find it a bit funny that I might have unconsciously made myself short and tiny just like my real height. But overall I'm very satisfied with the whole work. On the first glance it definitely seems like I'm in the mansion. Though I can't be so sure if we were to look very meticulously in the details.