Create a Postage Stamp in Photoshop
The tutorial for this assignment was very good. I just followed the steps and it all came together. I created all of this, including the perforated stamp edges. The dahlia photos are from my front yard from last summer. I put 46¢ on these because postage is just about to go up. I should have put them as Forever stamps now that I think about it!
Photos and Photoshop adjustments by David Pierik
Photos and Photoshop adjustments by David Pierik
Postcard
So this was an incredible assignment, I had no idea I could pull off stuff like this. I still feel like I'm just getting started. Okay so I did a background, rendered clouds, put in my photos, and trimmed them all out. I'm getting better with text and gradients, this is really a lot of fun for me for some strange reason, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment.
The back of the clock is a picture I took at the Seattle Art Museum. The zombie is a photo I took of a guy in a costume, an exhibitor from PAX, Pop Cap Games, makers of Plants Vs. Zombies, he was part of a group. The frog I took just outside my work in Shelton, and the ribbon cutting is for a new photography studio business from across the street from my office. After I built this I realized it needed something more so I gave it a worn look with a postal image from Microsoft Images (public domain) that I desaturated, then added some filter effects and noise and put some opacity on it. It actually looks kind of real, I'm very happy with how it came out.
With two images from Shelton and two from Seattle I figured I would go for the Washington USA angle on this one. Admittedly it is a bit eclectic. The white stroke around everything on the second image (below) is deliberate, I wanted to tie it all together. After some feedback I tried it the other way also.
Photos and corrections by David Pierik
The back of the clock is a picture I took at the Seattle Art Museum. The zombie is a photo I took of a guy in a costume, an exhibitor from PAX, Pop Cap Games, makers of Plants Vs. Zombies, he was part of a group. The frog I took just outside my work in Shelton, and the ribbon cutting is for a new photography studio business from across the street from my office. After I built this I realized it needed something more so I gave it a worn look with a postal image from Microsoft Images (public domain) that I desaturated, then added some filter effects and noise and put some opacity on it. It actually looks kind of real, I'm very happy with how it came out.
With two images from Shelton and two from Seattle I figured I would go for the Washington USA angle on this one. Admittedly it is a bit eclectic. The white stroke around everything on the second image (below) is deliberate, I wanted to tie it all together. After some feedback I tried it the other way also.
Photos and corrections by David Pierik
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Align & Edit
Okay so the family photo with the hammock was right out of the CD from the Adobe Photoshop CS6 Classroom In A Book, for this assignment. If you look at the original below, you will see slight differences in the man in the turquoise shirt and the girls on the hammock. This technique begins with two (or more I suppose) similar photos and it involves using a feature of Photoshop that aligns the layers to more easily get the more perfect photo that you never took - the composite that includes everybody looking at the camera with eyes open and decent smiles.
The other examples are my daughter with my sister in law and her dog. I liked my daughter's expression from the photo at right below, and my sister in law's from the one at left so I used this technique on that photo. The other one is my daughter and her friend at Halloween, which was perfect for the exercise. I used the photo with the dog for everything except for my daughter's head (I thought the extra angle from the one with the dog below looked a bit more fiendish). I edited the dog out of that using the layer from below it . You will notice the hand is different also. It's subtle. The extra image is of my daughter from a dance recital. I used her eyes from the Halloween photo, after flipping them horizontally and for this one I used an extra layer copy. The original had a great deal of flash on the eyes and the red eye tool just couldn't look like her eyes.
Photos and adjustments by David Pierik
The other examples are my daughter with my sister in law and her dog. I liked my daughter's expression from the photo at right below, and my sister in law's from the one at left so I used this technique on that photo. The other one is my daughter and her friend at Halloween, which was perfect for the exercise. I used the photo with the dog for everything except for my daughter's head (I thought the extra angle from the one with the dog below looked a bit more fiendish). I edited the dog out of that using the layer from below it . You will notice the hand is different also. It's subtle. The extra image is of my daughter from a dance recital. I used her eyes from the Halloween photo, after flipping them horizontally and for this one I used an extra layer copy. The original had a great deal of flash on the eyes and the red eye tool just couldn't look like her eyes.
Photos and adjustments by David Pierik
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Motion Blur
Above: a couple of photos I actually took with my phone; the one on the left, my wife took. It may not be from the Nikon but the worst photos are the ones you don't take at all, and my Droid does all right. The originals are below, prior to adding motion blur effects in Photoshop.
Okay so in case you are wondering, that is me and my daughter at the EMP's Science Fiction museum getting shot by a Dalek (Dr. Who monster). On the right, we were at a homeschool event and my daughter climbed into a neat old military truck for the photo, no she is not driving (she's 11). Bonus photo! below is a shot I took of an exhibitor vehicle at Pax last year. It wasn't really moving but it looked like it should be so on the left is what that might look like.
Photos and corrections by David Pierik
Okay so in case you are wondering, that is me and my daughter at the EMP's Science Fiction museum getting shot by a Dalek (Dr. Who monster). On the right, we were at a homeschool event and my daughter climbed into a neat old military truck for the photo, no she is not driving (she's 11). Bonus photo! below is a shot I took of an exhibitor vehicle at Pax last year. It wasn't really moving but it looked like it should be so on the left is what that might look like.
Photos and corrections by David Pierik