Magazine Construction: Image Manipulation

Before I could create the magazine cover, I needed to edit and manipulate my chosen image from our photo shoot in order to make it suitable for the cover of a film based magazine.I began by using the pen tool to select an area of the actress’ face to edit. I selected the scar on her head, which I had painted on previously in the photo shoot.

After selecting the area, I went into the image tab and adjusted the colour balance so I could make the fake blood darker and seem more realistic.The picture on the left is the result of my alterations.

As the actress is supposed to be dead, I decided that her skin needed to be paler and lifeless. By using the pen tool to cut around her face, I was able to make her skin paler by adjusting the saturation and lightness of the selected segment. This also made the face paint I had applied in the photo shoot more even with less visible patches.

Next, I used the pen tool to adjust the darkness of the black eye make up under the actress’ eyes. I altered the brightness of the section and increased the contrast in order to make the dark colour stand out against her pale skin.

I decided to adjust the darkness of the actress’ eyebrows in order to give her a more bold and harsh look. I used the pen tool as I did in the previous transformations before altering the saturation and lightness of the area.

In order to make the horror theme more apparent, I decided to use the paintbrush tool to create blood shot eyes by drawing in faint pink lines within the actress’ eyes.

After looking at the finer details, I realised that the image as a whole was too light. I made the whole image darker, which made the actress’ pale skin stand out even more.I also noticed that the actress’ t shirt would not fit in with the them. I removed the logo by blending the area with the replacement tool, using the plain areas of the t shirt.

This is the finished, fully manipulated image which I am now ready to use for the magazine front cover.