FINAL PROJECT

So there were some issues, obviously.  Working with this many effects turned out to be pretty ambitious of my abilities in Photoshop.

The picture that I had selected was much fuzzier in terms of focus than I had anticipated.  I could have shot at a higher ISO than I did, but I didn't want the image to be very grainy so I opted for the ISO 800 with a slightly lower shutter speed.  At the end of the day, that may have made the image I had to work with for background in better focus, but I digress.

My only issue with the ice hand was the fact that I just couldn't get any sort of steam going in a way that looked convincing.  I tried a few different methods, but at the end it just looked better without it.  The fire effect was a bit more stylized-looking than I had intended as a final product, but overall I'm happy with it.

The standing roommate is where my biggest issue was, obviously.  Of all of them, his features were the most blurred, so I actually needed to downgrade the image quality of the texture I mapped onto his skin so that it would at least look somewhat natural.

The bubble in the background, while it wasn't done the way I had gotten through the tutorial, was something I'm particularly pretty proud of.  In the tutorial it was rather straightforward since the bubble was the only thing in the image, so the illusion could be sold with a simple ellipse.  However in my case I had objects in the foreground to worry about.  As it turned out, a simple layer adjustment and lens flare mixed with some creative use of the eraser tool and an addition of a lens flare for the final product, while perhaps not quite as convincing as the tutorial laid out, did make a somewhat convincing illusion.

For all my jpgmag submissions

http://jpgmag.com/people/cityrunner13#

And here's a taste of the images that didn't make it:

"Consumerism"

"Creepy"

 "Paradise"

"Pretty Ugly"

"Where I'm At"

Fleshed-out Final Project Proposal:

The impossible image will depict three people, apparently roommates, who are in the midst in their day of a typical college-life... if a typical college-life involved superpowers.  The foreground will include someone preparing food, apparently using an ice-based ability to chill their drink, rolling their eyes as their super-powered roommates apparently argue in the background, a telekinetic surrounding themselves in a force field to protect them from harm as they mind their own business.


Clearly this will require a lot of photo manipulation, and I have a plan for how I intend on accomplishing each effect:

Foreground Subject:
For the ice effect in the foreground, my idea is that the subject will be holding a beer or soda bottle of some sort, where I will add an ice blending effect that will be more subtle, but take hints from the image here:
http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-create-a-chilling-photo-manipulation-in-photoshop/
To sell the superpower, I'm probably going to go for some sort of manipulation in the subject's eyes, giving them an unnaturally blue iris.

Background Subject A: Fighting Roommates
Fighting Roommate 1: The Thing
This is really a sort of similar effect I'm looking to do on the Foreground Subject's hand, just redirected at a subject's face for different affect.  The subject will appear to have a rock-like surface to his skin, much like the man depicted here.  I intend on adding the effect to their hands as well, which may turn out to be somewhat of a challenge.
http://www.photoshopstar.com/effects/adding-texture-to-the-skin/
Fighting Roommate 2: The Firestarter
The other fighting roommate will feature a much different sort of photoshop effect (by "much different" I really mean "the same mapping effect simply applied to imaginary lines rather than pre-existing surfaces" from the previous two, this time in the attempt to create a "Living Torch" sort of effect, taking cues from the following tutorial.
http://anothera.net/v2/tutorials/photoshop-tutorials/fire-lines

Background Subject B: The Non-confrontational
And to give the guy who just doesn't want to get involved an actual bubble to hide in, the final subject will be a telekinetic, who has apparently created a shield around themselves to keep the fight from interfering their reading time.  I feel that selling this one may be the trickiest, as I'm looking to take the bubble effect from the following tutorial link, but not the explosion.  I'll definitely need to get a little creative as to how I want to sell it, but I'm confident I've got some ideas on how to go about it.
http://10steps.sg/photoshop/creating-a-nuclear-explosion-effect/

To give an idea an what sort of images I'm thinking about for each of these, I'm attaching some images below.

Foreground Subject:

Background Subject A:
 For the Thing think this:

Mixed with this:

And the Firestarter's going to look something like:

Background Subject B:
 Again, still struggling with how well this will be pulled off, and I couldn't find anything to better represent it than the final product from the tutorial that was linked earlier, so here's a look at that again.

Looking to have all the photos for these shot on Monday evening.