Using Photoshop Nicholas Phillips

On this page I will explain how I used Photoshop to create the guitar necked effect for the strapline After fetching an image of a guitar neck from the internet, I selected all of the guitar neck by using the magic wand tool to select the white parts, and going to select > inverse, to select the guitar parts. I then held down the alt key while using the Polygonal Lasso tool to select the unwanted part of the guitar neck I then copied this cropped image to the front cover file, and added a colour overlay of white by going to Layer > Layer Style > Colour Overlay I then used the transform hotkey (ctrl T) to alter the size of the image to fit into position at the top of the page, while holding down shift to ensure that its scale ratio remains consistent, and the image does not become distorted. To create the guitar neck, I drew a rectangular box of the same width as the guitar head, extended it out so that all the words could fit on it, and overlaid it with white colour I then inserted the strapline text, in black, to stand out against the white colour of the guitar neck and head.

On this page I will explain how I used Photoshop to incorporate the main image onto the front cover The first thing I needed to do was to crop out everyone in the image, using the polygonal lasso tool. After cropping around everyone, I copied the image and pasted it into the magazine file, where it was placed directly on the background. I used the transform tool to scale the image, as it was only taken on a 3.2 MP camera. As can be seen, I needed to sort out the problem with their legs and feet as they are cut from the edge of the image. The way of solving this problem was by including a gradient, going from white to black from top to bottom respectively. To contrast better against the background and make the image stand out, I added a faint inner glow of black to the cropped image

On this page I will explain how I used Photoshop to create the masthead To start off, I typed the masthead in plain text, and set its colour to red. To give the masthead some form, I decided to scale each word in the masthead separately, as this in turn makes it look more original and eye-catching Furthermore, I added a faint drop shadow to make the masthead stand out from the page, and distinguish itself from the background To further develop it, I added an underlining to the ‘-Fret’, in effect giving the masthead more form and texture (standing out). In order to suit its name, I placed a set of white lines over the words, to represent the strings on a guitar, in effect making the words themselves the frets on the ‘guitar’

On this page I will explain how I used Photoshop to create the section of my DPS where the guitarist is intruding on the space of the article Using the polygonal lasso tool, I cropped around the guitarist from the original photograph I then copied the cropped image and pasted it onto the DPS, and scaling the size to fit comfortably and attractively on the page. I added a thick outer glow to the image, to distinguish it from the background image. Furthermore, this effect makes the guitarist seem important, and they stand out so much, similar to a sticker. To make the guitarist look more like he is facing the article, and is interested in the article, I flipped the cropped image horizontally, and positioned him so that the article actually shapes around him, again connoting the idea of power

On this page I will explain how I used Photoshop to create the fading effect on the upper left-hand corner of the contents page. Due to the fact that the background for the contents page was a texture, and not a solid colour, I needed to reference this texture before I could create a suitable gradient. To do this, I firstly selected a rectangular corner piece of the background. I then right-clicked on this selection, and chose ‘Layer via Copy’ from the drop- down menu This in turn created a shape with the same texture as the rest of the background, but does not alter the overall look of the background, if kept in position. I then added a gradient overlay to the new layer, from the Layer > Layer Style > Gradient Overlay option After adding the text in, this section of the contents became more authentic.