Project Page 1

Wishes and Dreams

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   For this project I used a simple dandelion. The sun is setting and the dandelion’s petals are being blown away into the wind. The reason why I chose this picture is because when we are children we use dandelions to wish our hearts desire, our dreams. I had to touch the picture itself up a little bit before I could really begin the affects that would make this picture into the dreamy book cover I wanted.

   The first problem that I had was that the background had darkened trees that took away from the dandelion. How I fixed this was by sampling the colors of the sky above the trees and other places. I used the brush on a new layer and then used the Noise Affect to make it look like it belongs with the sky. With this done I was ready to start. I duplicated the picture and turned the blending mode in Multiply to give the picture a realistic dark look to the dandelion. On another layer I used the Radial Gradient Tool and put this layer in Soft Light blending mode. The reason why I did this was because I wanted to use a Vector Illustration of a sun shining with light coming from it. The Gradient Tool that I used made sure that it was believable because it went from a light middle to a darkened outside.

   I use Photoshop the base of my book covers but I use Illustrator for my text, or little decorations that I feel appropriate. For the main title I duplicated it twice so that instead of one layer of text there were three. While the first text layer had the blending mode of Normal the next one up had Hard Light on it and the third one had Overlay. I used clipping masks on all three for the type of look I wanted it to have. Text needs to flow with the rest of the project and help create the mood along with the photo and vector illustrations. I achieved this by using color modes and masks as well as choosing the correct front as well as thinking about the overall mood and color scheme. I used decorations to create a sort of frame and help lead the composition.