AnneMFletcher

hi guys. i just wanted to get opinions on what i might be able to add to these covers i made for a friend. i'm still a photoshop newb, so any help goes a long way for me. thanks!

btw, i'm not making any kind of money from this, just for fun and the learning experience.

petersjm

Hi tmac. I'm pretty much a newbie myself, but I think I like the second one best -- at least the title stands out more against the red. One thing I'd do is try to clean up the pixels around the guys' heads -- especially the top right one. Also, it seems that a lot of Photoshop 'oldies' (well, if we're the 'newbies' someone has to be the 'oldies'!! [innocent] ) don't like the lens flair filter. I guess because it's maybe over-used? You know what they say about cliches! Hope that's of some help

AnneMFletcher

Thanks for the feedback Peter.

I like the red one better myself but I guess we're in the minority because 3 of them like the grey one the best.

Point well taken about the white pixels showing around the heads, I'll fix that. Regarding the lens flare filter, I assume you're referring to the flares on the 'Basswood' text. Well those aren't from a lens flare filter. Those are supposed to be shine flares (?) that I used from Mystical Lighting (Auto FX software). I'm probably just using the wrong preset and it's turning out to be bigger than it should be. [confused] Maybe I can reduce the width of the streaks but I'm not sure if it will get any smaller.

Any ideas how I can tweak their pictures better as far as filters?

Tanya

tmac: I like the overall design; the second one is my choice. The problem I see is that the faces are getting "lost" with the background almost as strong as the people. My suggestion is to lighten the background. The bottom left has good lighting however the top two were photographed a bit too dark. It's certainly modern! Play around with a few other ideas too.

Tanya

Bacardi

Good work, tmac!
Me too, I prefer the stronger colours of the second one. It goes better with the facial expressions. But Tanya is right: the upper two portraits are a bit dark. Perhaps you can lighten them a bit with curves, or by copying the layers on which they are and set the duplicate to another blend mode (this can do wonders with contrast and overall tone!)

But apart from these details, I really like the design. These are guys that clearly stand their ground!

AnneMFletcher

Thanks so much for the advice Tanya & Erik!

I had no idea what the 'Curves' feature did but I just messed around with it and it is just what I was looking for to tweak the brightness of the faces. [righton]

Be sure to check back here tonight and I should have something updated. Thanks again!

AnneMFletcher

ok, here is an updated version i just finished up. there's still something i don't like about it, maybe because it doesn't seem to blend in smoothly enough. however, i did bring out the colors in the Texas outline which shows some life in the background.

Sandy

hi tmac, welcome to the forum!
I think that maybe you don?t have to use a plugin to create the lens glow [or lens flare], you can load a custom brush set that comes with photoshop and use them in this case...

AnneMFletcher

well i didn't have a custom brush to load, and besides that, the standard brushes that come with PS are somewhat ineffective.

The Mystical Lighting software is pretty efficient in getting the size, shape, and color i need for that kind of stuff.

Thanks for the warm welcome. This site has been a tremendous help so far in my adolescent training. I'm learning something new everyday.

Sandy

The custom brush I was talking about is one that ships with Ps7 , but you would have to load them in order to use them...
photoshop?s brushes can be ineffective for your case but they?re usefull to create a world of different things...
anyway I will post this little pic showing how to load the brushes I?m talking about and some samples: