Practice Edit

The Kabeedies Truth

What I did
Before I start to edit and assemble my print production, I have done a practice edit of an album cover, for a band called The Kabeedies Truth. The programme I used to edit this was Adobe Photoshop CS4; using tools such as magic wand, magnetic lasso etc. I had never used Photoshop before doing this, so I am somewhat pleased with my finished results for a first-timer. However, the album covers are far from perfect.

Level 1
My Version Original

How I did it
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. First I opened the album cover template with Adobe Photoshop CS4. Using the fill tool, I coloured the background a yellowy-beige colour. Then, I dragged a JPEG photo of the band into photoshop and positioned it at the bottom of the album template. Using magnetic lasso, I carefully outlined the band members. Then, after selecting the inverting tool, I erased the white background, so only the band members were left at the bottom. After getting the band members in place I dragged the an image of two cartoon swirly plants, which I cut the left image using a cropping tool. Then I rotated the image and placed it near the upper-right hand corner. Using the magic wand, I selected the image and erased the white background and coloured the image a terracotta colour using the fill tool. Lastly, I typed in the KABEEDIES truth using the text tool and positioned them in the top left hand corner. Then, whilst holding the shift button on the keyboard I drew two lines using the shape tool in order to keep it straight, and positioned them so that the top line underscored the and the bottom line joined up with the t in the albums title, truth.

6.

Evaluation
Overall, I would give my version 6/10. The plant image and the position of the text is somewhat accurate. However, the colouring of my version is inaccurate. For example, instead having a beige background, it is more of a buttercup colour. I found it really difficult to get the exact font, which makes it look less accurate.

Level 2
My Version Original

How I did it
Firstly, like level 1, I opened up the template on Adobe Photoshop CS4. I then dragged a JPEG photo of the crumpled paper into photoshop and positioned it as the background. After fitting the background, I cropped the photo of the band so that I had four individual photos of the band members, by using the crop tool. Then, I dragging an image of some polaroid photograph templates into photoshop and promoted their layer, so that when I positioned the band members on top of the images, they looked like photographs. Afterwards, I simply typed in the bands name and title using the text tool and turned The with the rotate tool; positioning it at the top of the album. Then I filled in THRUTH red and lowered the grade with the opacity scale, so that it was almost translucent and finally positioned the text in the middle of the album. I would have used a gausian blur to darken the bottom of the album, but not did I run out of time, but I also struggled with using this, so next time I edit, I will research how to use such tools.

Evaluation
Like level 1, I would give the level 2 6/10. The font is more accurate than level 1, as is the positioning of the images. However, I could not find the exact photographs of the band, so my version is not exactly identical. Also, the background of my version is lighter than the original, which, if I had to do it again, I would lower the saturation.

Conclusion
Overall, the hardest part for me was trying to get the albums to look identical, which is why the colouring is inaccurate. However, I feel that for a first attempt, I have done reasonably ok. I have learnt basic skills such as cropping images, inserting fonts, layering etc. which will help me when creating my own print productions. I may find it easier doing my print productions, as I have that flexibility to alter my designs and be more creative. However, I will need to become more adept in using some of the more complex tools such as