Blog five - Furthering Knowlege and practice

I have picked up a large number of skills whilst learning how to use photo-shop all of which have helped me to begin creating my DVD case. I have changed my initial design back ground from yellow to having the pitch on as then I can create and add as many different images as i would like to, it's like having a blank canvas and being able to edit the blank canvas to look however I want it to. The yellow back-ground looked quite plain and boring therefore I decided to add a bit of colour however still keeping it quite plain as then any images which get added will not look out of place. 

Some of the tools I have use and learnt about whilst I have been doing this are; 

• Content aware tool – select the whole area, press backspace okay then the image will be removed
• Patch tool – to repair image when something has been removed from it, - to make it look neater.
• Edit transform flip horizontal.
• Camera raw filter
• Filter, render, and lens flare
• Saturation on the camera raw filter
• Destructive and non-destructive
• Layer mask,
• Add vector mask
• Gradient tool
• Anti-alias – with this you will have a perfect line
• Contiguous – next to each other,  - continual colour
• Magic wand tool

Whilst I have been using these tools I have edited a range of images to see how they work and what sorts of things you can do with them. All of these tools are useful when editing images as you can use them to create some weird and wonderful edits, making the image personal and unique to your ideas. 

I have created the following images using different tools and techniques, the top image started off as two separate images, one of a Koala bear and one of a desert scene, to create this image I just ensured that both of the images were opened up and that they were both visible and then coloured grey over the top of the Koala bear and the image behind began to show through. 

To create this image I had just the one image open, the tulips, they started off yellow with a red stripe however I decided I wanted to change this, I did this by using the add layer mask tool, hue & saturation and the colour range tool to select specific area's of the image and change the colours.  This can be quite useful when adding one image into another and changing the affects of it.

 

Once I had played around with these images I then moved on to making my DVD template the correct size so it will correctly fit in the case and there won't be any over lapping. I created the template printed it off and tried it for size. It was however to big for the case therefore meaning that I have to go back to my template so that I can make it the correct size. 

I had decided to use a picture of Thierry Herny in an action shot on the front cover of my case, to do this I had to edit him a lot by using the magic wand tool,  the rubber tool also came in quite handy  to get rid of outlines of the players, as when I put him in my template you could see the out line of where he used to come out to therefore using the rubber tool this allowed me too get rid of the horrible line edge. 

Blog four - Further Idea's

To futher the idea of the spine for my amaray case I have decided on the logo in which I am going to be putting on my DVD case and on the DVD it's self. I have decided to stay quite basic with colours as I don't want it to be too bright and put people off it. I want to have things in the primary Arsenal colours, Red, White/Cream and blue by keeping them simple and basic this will help to ensure that the colouring is not over powering the important information which is going to be on the case for example the ratings and what the DVD is about, if this information is covered up or hard to read then people may be put off it as they cannot fully see what it is about.

By keeping to the same colour scheme all the way through the case I am keeping it to the same style, if I was to change the style from one side to the other it wouldn't look that good.

I have had a look on the internet to see what DVD's that are already being sold with the same genre are like to get some ideas of how they are laid out.

Football factory – one main basic colour, bit bright, catches your eye

Bend it like Beckham – bright colours, looks fun on the cover, catches your eye, clear ratings

Green Street  - basic colours, plain, catches your eye

The arsenal stadium mystery – 1939, old basic colours

 

By looking at all of these cases it helps you to get a feel for what they are like and what makes a good cover/case.

By looking at all of these it helped me to decide on a colour scheme that I wanted to use, one which would look good but not be too bright and in your face.

Blog three - Key points

When thinking about key points and ideas in which to include within my movie I thought about things that have stood out in Arsenal's footballing history. 

Arsenal have not always had the best seasons but have always managed to stay in the top 4 of the table. Hopefully with this season being no exception. 

I have followed arsenal since I was twelve years old, I follow other teams but not with the passion I have for Arsenal. 

Since following Arsenal there have been many players go and a few new faces join. For me there's been two main blows for arsenal, when Robin Van Persie left heading to Manchester United and when Cesc Fabregas left went international and then transferred to Chelsea. 

Being an Arsenal supporter the seasons are never boring. Starting off in form and at the top of the table come mid-seasons were lacking but always manage to bring it back and remain near the top of the table. 

I chose a range of DVD cases to look at whilst designing my own case. There are a few things I needed to take into account. I was basing my design on Arsenal football club & I had to design the whole thing myself. 

I came up with this design for the spine of my DVD case;

 

I decided to call my DVD The History, The Legends. Arsenal. As the content of my DVD is going to be about the history of Arsenal and the legends past & present. I have chosen to do red writing with a white rim as Arsenal's primary colours are red & white.(However we have played in blue)

I have chosen to have the base case colour as a pale yellow as then it won't be in your face and you will still be able to see the detailing on the rest of the case. 

When thinking about what/who to have on the front cover of the case was a massive challenge to me as there are two legends who made Arsenal what they are today, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp. These two players stood out to me as they have had amazing careers at Arsenal and have in my opinion made Arsenal the name they are today.

However  I have decided to use other players, another one being Nicklas Bendtner as he also is a good figure for Arsenal.

Blog two - Introduction and original ideas

We have been given the task of creating a DVD or a video game, this task splits into three different parts. creating the design for an amaray style DVD case, creating an on disc lable complete with a logo and also creating a promotional DVD/Video to go with the art created. In my opinion this was a very difficult breif to work with as it meant that we had to choose an idea ourselves as there was no given guidelines as to what we should do, we were told things which we shouldn't include and should stear away from however.
The main and most key point we were told was to choose something we have an intrest in and that we know a lot about as then we wouldn't struggle for idea's.


When trying to think of a unique idea and something different to do I had a few idea's however none that I was completely confident with.

I came up with three original idea's in which I was going to later decide which one to use, I planned out all of my idea's so I could see all of them and this then helped me to decide on my final idea. I had thought about doing a video game however decided that I didn't really have much of an idea as to what I would do it about, or even how to put it together. I haven't really had much experience in creating a Video game or a DVD however thought if I choose something that I have a real passion about then I will be able to put more into it. If I did a video game based on Arsenal to me it would look a lot like other games already on the market, I would like to create something from scratch not using input from things already on the market.
By planning out more than one idea helped me as I had things to fall back out.

After looking at them for a while I had developed a few ideas and even began to investigate how it looked and possible colour schemes I could have.
My first three ideas where to do a movie based on photoshop as it was something that we are all learning about it and I thought it would/could be useful to have for later.
I also thought about a video game however didn't go into too much depth as I didn't really know much about it.
My final idea was to do something about something close to my heart and that I know a bit about therefore I chose Arsenal football club.

After a while of thinking I decided to go with the Arsenal idea as I know more about this than I do photoshop and it's something I have an interest in and can talk about more. 

Blog one - Introduction to Photoshop

On Thursday the 5th of February we had a lesson in developing skills using photo shop. During this lesson I was able to develop my skills and learn new areas which I was unaware of before. To further this I will do some reading at home to enable to develop them further.