Original design by - Beth Icard
Process:
- First I made the image I used in Photoshop.
- I opened both of the below files in Photoshop.
- I selected the left half of the robot and feathered the edges 15 pixels, then copied the selection.
- I pasted the selection into the image of the redhead, then used the transform function of the move tool to size and place the robot half so that it fit over the woman's face at about the right scale.
- The picture of the woman was a little taller than the robot by the time I had both pieces sized the way I wanted, so I cropped the excess away.
- I merged the layers so I'd be able to see both halves in the liquefy window and created a smart object so I could open the liquefy window.
- I used the warp tool to help both pairs of lips match up a little better (the eyelines and noses matched better than the lips, so I needed to fix that) and I used the smooth tool in the liquefy window to help merge the two halves.
- I used the eyedropper tool to isolate one of the brightest shades of blue in the woman's eye, then created a selection in a new layer that was the shape of the robot's illuminated eye. I changed the color of the robot's eye so that it sort of matched the woman's eye.
Image found here
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Image by Maja Topčagić, found here
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Original image by - Beth Icard
Process, continued:
- I created a new project in Photoshop and sized it to the correct 11x17" 300 DPI dimensions.
- I created a black-to-white gradient on the background layer.
- I placed the image I'd made.
- I added the text and created a clipping mask using this image:
Image found here
Process, continued:
- I used the "soft light" blending mode and the blue color I lifted from the woman's eye to change the shade of the circuits before clipping the image into my text.
- I added a stroke to my text to make the letters easier to read.
- I tried my hand at the pen tool and made the black lines with which I surrounded the image of the robot woman and I used the ellipse tool to make the dots. (And I got pretty good at creating new layer groups in the process -- even now they're still more disorganized than I would like, but at least all those tiny layers are in the same folder.)
- I added the informative text at the bottom, in the same blue I'd pulled from the woman's eye, and I dropped in the UCET logo.
Design thoughts:
- I interpreted the "YOUcet" theme as learning how to add humanity back into technology, which is where I got my idea for the blended image I made.
- I liked the industrial look of the grey gradient, plus I had in my mind the idea from our reading that one shouldn't forget that black and grey count as colors, too.
- I chose a blue-eyed, freckled redhead over any other combination because I thought that was in some ways the most opposite the starkness of technology. Even though both the robot and the woman are blue-eyed, the robot is a cold white with blue accents, while the woman has a warm pink undertone to her skin, orange freckles, and wild red hair.
- I tried to imitate the same kind of circuit effect of the image I clipped into the text with the black lines I placed around the image of the robot woman.
- I wanted to keep to a black/grey/blue color scheme, with the exception of the woman, and then I was pleased that the UCET logo kind of echoed her coloring anyway.
- I just now noticed -- although I didn't consciously intend this -- that the strand of the woman's hair that wraps around her neck finishes the artificial shape of the robot's neck. Cool!