Mid Term

       For this image I performed a color correction.  I felt that the original photo of my cat Levi was a great picture, except that it looked a bit too dark and blurry.  In order to correct this issue I adjusted the lighting levels using the curve tool in a new layer.  I also slightly increased the hue level in order to make the image less dull and grey.  Then I applied the sharpen, sharpen more, and smart sharpen filter tools.  I did this to address the slight blur that was present in the original photograph.  I feel that this correction greatly increases the quality of this image and gives it a more artistic and professional feel.

     This image is the combination of two separate photos.  The background is that of Hartshorne Woods in Locust NJ which I took when I went mountain biking.  What I like about the background picture is how it captures a great vista of the Atlantic Ocean along with a beautiful wooded area.  For the foreground I used an image of myself mountain biking which my friend took last summer.  I used the gradient tool to successfully blend the two images together.  Prior to combining the two images I increased the saturation on both of them in order to make them more vivid.  I like the way this composition came out, I feel that it does a good job of blending an image of my favorite hobby with an image of the location where I fulfill my hobby.

     This is an artistic image of my 1991 Vw Vanagon.  I altered the original photograph by heavily increasing the saturation and adjusting the hue in order to make the van look almost surreal.  I then made a duplicate layer of the van and added a radial blur effect to it to make the background of the image out of focus.  Once I did that I erased the portion of the layer in which the van was blurred out in order to keep the image of the van crisp and in focus.  I also accented the outline of the grill of the van with an orange paint brush, I did the same for the Vw symbol but with green instead of orange.  I also used the magnetic lasso tool to select the license plate which I then applied a crystallized pixel filter to in order to block out my license plate number.  Finally I added the word "Volkswagen" in orange above the van and the word "Vanagon" in lime green beneath the van to make it seem as if it were an advertisement of some kind.  Overall I am pleased with the way this picture came out.

      This image originated as a picture I drew by hand using the rules of three lines.  Once I completed the drawing I scanned it into Photoshop in order to work on it further.  The first thing I did was color in every bit of the picture using the paint brush tool.  I highlighted all of the black lines with the paint brush tool to accentuate the outlines of the objects in the drawing.  I then made a new layer in which I created a smoke effect flowing from the nuclear power plant and the large exhaust pipe.  To finalize the image I used a lighting effect to make the sun on the top of the drawing look as if it were emanating light on the rest of the image.  I also used a paint brush filter to smooth out and polish the drawing.  I feel that utilizing the filter and lighting effect in the way that I did makes this composition look just the way I envisioned it to.

      This image is an altered picture that I took of DJ Caspa at Webster Hall in NYC.  In order to improve upon the original photo I first cropped out much of the photo in order to focus the viewer's attention on the stage.  I then selected the word "CASPA" and the image of Caspa himself using the magnetic lasso tool.  I made these two objects their own layers in order to manipulate them further.  For the word "CASPA" I altered its hue to make it contrast the red background. I also added a plastic wrap filter effect to it in order to make it seem shinier.  For Caspa himself, I too altered his hue to make him contrast the blue background.  I used the blur tool and a motion blur filter to make him blend into the image better.  Finally I used the radial blur filter for the whole image into to better capture the sensation of seeing him live along with thousands of other wild fans.  I really like this image and feel that it does justice representing the live shows of one of my favorite electronic musicians.

    In my opinion this is the best Photoshop effort I have made thus far.  For this interesting image I began with a photo of the historic WWII submarine; the USS Torsk.  I edited the sub out of its original image by erasing it out.  I then spliced the sub into an image of a desert to give the composition a surreal setting.  In order to make the sub seem as if it were actually navigating through the desert I used the blur tool along its edges and used the paint brush tool to apply sand coloring along its edges, as if sand were splashing up along the sides of the ship.  I then added a cut out image of die-hard republican rock guitarist, Ted Nugent, on the bow of the ship.  I believe that Nugent's image worked well for this photo because of his extremely pro-military mentality which I feel complimented the presence of the war-time sub.  In order to make Ted seem as if he were really on top of the sub, I adjusted his color balances to reduce the amount of red that was reflecting off of him.  I then crafted a shadow of the submarine and of Ted Nugent by duplicating the image of the sub in black, flipping it vertically, and using the gradient tool to make it fade as it was cast further away from the sub.
     Once I did this I found an image of the suns from the Star Wars planet, Tatooine.  I edited the two suns out of the original image and spliced them into the sky above the desert.  In order to make the suns seems as if they were shining I used the lens flare render filter.  Finally I altered the saturation of the desert slightly to make the environment seem even more surreal and adjusted its curves to make it seem a little darker as if the suns were setting.  I did the same to the image of the sub to make it seem as if the suns were shining behind it.  I am very impressed as to how well this composition came out and I hope to make many more similar to this in the future.