Image Editing Case Study
- Getting the most out of your images
Sometimes you want to create
a particular theme or "feel" to something.
Something that triggers an emotional response
in the viewer. It can be an intimidating task
trying to recreate what you see in your mind's
eye, but with a little planning it's not as hard
as you might think.
The key is to break things down into individual
components.
For example, mirage design was recently asked
to create an invitation with a "Midsummer
Night's Dream" theme. The client (the local
school swimming club) had a very clear idea of
what they wanted - champagne in the background
with words reflecting the theme of the evening
sprinkled over the top with something down the
bottom (but no clear idea what). So there were
three very clear components required to the image.
At this point I have to confess my ignorance
- I've never read A Midsummer Night's Dream (I've
not even seen the movie!). So I did a little research
on the net to get some idea of the plot and the
setting. Once I'd done that, it was much easier
to determine what that final component should
be.
First the champagne. "Easy," I thought.
A bottle of champagne, a large vase, lots of bits
of tinfoil, marbles and bicarbonate soda later
I had a couple of blurry images that were dark
and seemingly useless! (Hey I never said I was
a master photographer!)
Second the text. LOVE your thesaurus. It is your
best friend and it never lies. It introduces you
to words that you never even knew existed! A "Roman"
style font was an obvious choice. Text done.
Lastly the feature element. We produced three
samples here.
The first was a fairy on a lilly. Nice photo
of a lilly that I had lying around (more successful
than the champagne anyway) made that part easy.
Trying to convince my twelve year old (tomboy)
daughter to dress up as a fairy and have her photo
taken was another matter. In the end I gave up
and worked with an illustration. But the client
felt the fairy in the illustration looked a little
aggressive (okay so she did have a slightly Amazon
look to her).
The second was a series of roman columns from
a photo of a ruin. Not bad, but kind of floated
on the page and left the whole thing looking a
little bit "nothing".
Finally the solution we had been looking for
was found right under our noses. There I was sneaking
out the front for a moment of quiet at the school
ball when I looked up to behold the front of Brisbane
Town Hall. "Eureka!" I cried and started
furiously snapping pictures. Unfortunately I was
cold and shivering...you guessed it - blurry,
dark images. But I had a secret weapon!
Photoshop. Now let me stress right now it is
much better to start with a good image than to
fix a bad one. But, when you have no option, you
can create minor miracles with Photoshop and a
little knowledge.
First some serious lightening of the champagne
image and a pale yellow colour overlay to brighten
it up and give it a golden shade (hey it was only
cheap champagne after all). A little bit of cloning
to fill in the gaps and to cover parts where the
rising bubbles looked like little scratches and
things were starting to look much better.
The image of the Town Hall got much the same
treatment, only a lot of cutting and pasting to
get rid of the bright red banners in the foreground.
Then it was masked off from the night sky and
the clock tower removed.
Finally the text. A simple Illustrator file exported
into Photoshop.
The final result - a dreamy image that conveys
the theme of the invitation (and I don't look
like such a bad photographer after all!).
