Jeff St John 
ePhotoPros Staff
The OC
Forum Fanatic
Posts:535
 | | 11/17/2008 8:43 PM |
| First off, let me say that I cheated a little this week. Two things really: 1 - My document size is really 8x12 at 150 dpi. This is really just so the computer doesn't slow to a snail's pace as I record what I'm doing in Photoshop. Otherwise, I'd probably go 20 x 30 at 300 dpi, and 2 - I needed an olive branch shape, so before starting the project I found an image online, traced it with the pen tool, and converted it to a custom shape. I figure tracing the olive branch probably added four or five more minutes. OK, so with that little admission of guilt, onto the video...
- First, I desaturated the image of the actual kiss (Shift CTRL U, Mac Shift Command U). I then pumped up the shadows and highlights with levels to give myself darks and lights only (it's more dramtic that way I think).
- Next, I added a color overlay to the image. But before I could do that I had to double click the layer to make it editable. For my color overlay I used a deep blue and set the effect's blend mode to Color. I also lowered the opacity to 50 %.
- I then dropped the image onto the blank white canvas with the move tool.
- Using Free Transform I scaled the image down somewhat and positioned it in the center. Next, I added a layer mask and used a black to tranparent gradient to obscure the bottom of the image. I then used a large, soft round brush with black to obscure the right side of the image and a small, distracting element by the groom's head (working on the layer mask of course). To finish them up, I hit 7 and 5 on the keyboard to lower the opacity of the layer to 75 % (I had the move tool selected as I pressed the number keys, because if I was using brush tool, pressing 7 and 5 would have lowered the opacity of the brush, not the layer).
- Next, I gave the bridge image the same desaturate and Levels treatment as the kiss image. After dropping it onto my canvas, I ALT/Option dragged the color overlay style from the kiss to the bridge layer.
- I used Free Transform again (CTRL/Command T) to scale the image down.
- Much like the kiss image, I added a layer mask to the bridge layer and used a black to transparent gradient on the bottom and top to obscure them and blend the two images together.
- After positioning the two images, I added some text (the "actor's" name) to the upper left corner. Holding Shift and ALT/Option, I dragged out a copy of the text in a nice, straight line and changed the text to the actress' name.
- In between the names I added some fake award text (like you'd see from Cannes) and lowered the opacity to 50 %.
- I then added my olive branch custom shape and changed the color to the same color as the text. Holding Shift and ALT/Option, I dragged out a copy of the olive branch directly across from the original olive branch (By the way, those pink lines that showed up as I dragged out a copy were smart guides, and they can tell you if your elements are lined up exactly - View > Show > Smart Guides)
- I then added the movie tag line and title text to the bottom of the poster. To make the title text stand out I highlighted it, highlighted the font name, and hit I and M to change the font to Impact. I then scrubbed the text to a size of 64 (scrubbing is positioning the cursor over a variable like font size, and moving the mouse left or right with the button depressed). Next, I changed the font size of the word "Kiss" to around 140 and changed the color to a darker blue.
- The last thing I did was add some "Coming Soon" text.
And that completes the fake movie poster. Using the same layout you could probably do the same thing using the original color from the images. I demo'd a monochromatic scheme because I thought it looked more dramtic. Until next week...
jefe
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