Final Project

28th May 2019 (week 9-)
Daryl Pung Xi Ern (0333743)
Digital Photography and Imaging Final Project

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Week 9: Final Project 
For our final project we were tasked to make a surrealistic composition based on a selection of artists that were given to us to choose from. I decided to settle on leafandpetaldesign's work as I quite like the distinct vintage feel it has. More specifically, I chose this piece:

Here are a couple of stock photos I found that were close enough to the original artwork:

I decided to crop the objects (unfiltered/edited) and compile it together to give myself a rough idea of where everything will be placed. I also added an extra patch of clouds to make use of fill the corner of the sky, much like the original one. 

However, I wasn't particularly satisfied with the composition as it was too challenging to find the correct elements to make up the picture. I decided to change my idea and I chose an artwork done by Thom Easton. 

Pictures that I plan to compile together:

I started off with a very rough idea of the position of the elements. I put the man at the same height as the original and I realized that his torso is way too short, his posture is also wrong. 

Using the free transform tool, I adjusted his shoulders to be slightly tilted and I erased/painted part of his clothing to match the original. I then added a vintage filter.

Since the lighting was slightly off I used a black airbrush to shade the edges to create a shadow and to accentuate on certain parts.

Next up, I added the clouds in the background and I lightly erased the bottom parts of the cloud to give it a lighter. transparent look. Then, I adjusted the color of the dirt background using a brown overlay and I also changed the hue/saturation. After taking a closer inspection of the stars, I realized that in the original picture there was a very bright star in the middle, while the stock picture I found didn't contain it. I went ahead and found a star from another picture and pasted it in, while making minor additions like making it brighter.  Using the airbrush tool, I blurred the edges of small hills to make it more natural.

The colors of the flowers were too bright and vibrant, so I used the curve tool to turn it down. I tried to make the parts that contained black closer to a grey-ish shade to give it a more muted feeling. For the sides of the water, I gave it a very light shade of red. 

Finally, I moved on to the overall filter of the composition. In the original picture, it had a slightly grainy feel to mimic a vintage effect. I searched on youtube how I could do it effectively to achieve the desired look.

I still wasn't satisfied with the result. I found two different textures to accentuate on the sky and the ground: 

I used the overlay blend mode and I made further adjustments with the curve tool.

The final result!

However, Mr Jeffree recommended that I stick with my original idea instead. After making a few more changes such as adding buildings in the background this is the result:

My final animation using after effects: