Editing: Front Cover

The first thing I did was pick which picture I was going to choose as my main image. after much deliberation I have finally decided to use this picture:

The reason I have chose this image is because of the complete contrast it makes. Where Emily is pouting and exuding sex appeal, Jess has a slight smile to her lips which projects an image of sweetness and innocence. Also I wanted to comply with ordinary magazine conventions, therefore I have chosen to use an image that is shot in a medium close up.

Now that I have chosen which image I am going to use, I will now begin editing it. The first thing i want to do is get rid of the stuido background. Therefore I have selected the background using the quick selection tool on Adobe Photoshop. This then left me with my image against a transparent background. This is perfect because it means I will be able to easily add in my backdrop of New York. Before I do that thought I first want to make my models resemble the Sin City style I am basing my magazine on. Therefore I want them to be much paler. To do this I selected the correct layer and then I went to: Image>Adjustments>Vibrance. I than lowered the Vibrance to -68. Next I wanted to make my models lips stand out against their pale skin. To do this I once again used the quick selection to tool to select Emily's lips, then I went to: Image>Adjustments>Vibrance and this time I heightened the vibrance to +100. This left Emily's lips a bright luscious red. I then did exactly the same for Jess however for Jess I only Heightened the Vibrance to +68 as I wanted her lipgloss to glow, however I didnt want it to be a bright pink. Finally I wanted to change the eye colour of my models. I wanted Jess's eyes to be much a darker blue. Therefore using the magic wand tool I selected Jess's iris's and then I went to: Image> Colour Balance. I added +56 of blue to what her eye colour was originally, then using Hue/saturation I made Jess's eyes a much darker colour. I did exactly the same for Emily's eyes however istead of turning them blue I turned them green. This was the result:

Next I needed to add my New York backdrop and make it look like a Sin City style. So the first thing I did was add a new layour. I then went to Edit> Fill. I then changed the contents to 50% Grey. The whole screen then went grey. So I went to Filter>Noise>add Noise then I increased the noise to 400.00> Press Gaussian> Then tick Monochromatic. The screen will then fill with what looks like static.

I then went back on filter and selected> Blur>Motion Blur, I then changed the angle to 47 and made the distance 15. This gave me a page filled with rain. However the rain was very very weak. So I pressed Alt>L and Changed the darkness of my background to 230. However then the background was too dark. So I changed my levels again. So that the brightness of the rain was 130. that made the rain much more prominent. Finally so the background I had created looked more like rain, I added a Gaussian blur to it. Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur> 100.

However it was still very difficult to see the rain as the background was so dark. So using level I increased the rain drops brightness so that it the rain was more Prominant. I did this by going ctrl>L and then I changed the input levels to 300>1.00>255.

I finally Have my images from new york, so now I can add my background and add some more detailed rain so that it really stands out. This was my original image of buildings of new york.

I have chosen this picture as my New york background because of how close up the buildings are. I think the detail that can be seen is fantastic and will give my background an almost cartoon effect, which is exactly the effect I was going for on my front cover. However in order to fit this picture in with my Sin City theme I have to make it look as dark and sinister as possible, therefore I have decided to make the picture black and white. Also I have decided to highlight the highlights and the shadows. I have done this by going to Image>Adjustments> Shadows/Highlights and then I adjusted the settings until I got the image I wanted. This is my final Backgorund image on my front cover.

Now that I Have my image in the background and I have my models added over the top of the image I can Finally add my detailed rain. The frist thing I did in order to achieve the effect I wanted was create a new layer. Then I used the paint tool and dotted around quite randomly little dots. Then I went to Filter> Stylize>Wind.

I then clicked on stagger as I wanted the rain to look as realistic as possible and this was the best way to get a good effect. Once I had staggered my white paint dots I stretched the image until it looked sharp enough to be rain. I then began rubbing out and placing the rain in particular places. This is the finished effect with the rain and my models.