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My finished design for Stage One: DVD Amaray Case Wrap
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As mentioned in Blog Post 11, the first element of the DVD Case Wrap that I will be explaining and evaluating is that of the front cover. The front cover consists of a large range of elements which when brought together form the finished front cover. For reference, my finished design is posted here. In regards to the different elements of the front cover, these include the following which will be discussed and explained: Background, Trio of Cars, Gene Hunt Portrait, Title, Tag Line, Miscellaneous Icons/Logos. The next element that will be explained and discussed is that of the Trio of Cars...
Trio of Cars
For this second section of the Front Cover, as per Blog Post 10, one idea that I have had from the beginning is to combine the three vehicles from the previous series' of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes with that of the "new" car of Gene's; the Ford Capri. The difficult part to this element is that I wanted the Capri in the middle, however the Cortina and Quattro to be slightly angled to the sides to create an aesthetically pleasing result. Luckily, I was easily able to procure a photo of the Capri as I took a photo of this myself from the angle that I wanted. In a similar style to that of the background image, once again I needed to research online for the photographs suitable for both the Cortina and the Quattro. Google Images (www.images.google.com) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) were once again used, and I was luckily swiftly able to find a suitable image of the Cortina and also at the correct angle that I was looking for; slightly offset to the right which would be suitable for that of the left hand side of the photo.
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| The Cortina: Before and After. |
Once I had opened up the Cortina image in Photoshop this meant that I could start editing the photo to remove the background. Having tried and tested lots of different selection tools in the past (Blog Post 2) I decided on using the quick selection tool. I set the options of the tool to a point size of 50 and hardness of 100 which would allow me to quickly select the majority of the car. At this point I also purposely went just over the edge of the outline in some areas, and this meant that I returned with the quick selection tool afterwards, however set to subtract from the selection, and the point size of 20. This meant that when I zoomed in to 100% zoom I could precisely go around and choose exactly which area I wanted to selection. However, the quick selection tool was not the only selection tool I used at this stage. For the very intricate details, such as around the headlights and also the tyres I opted for using the Polygonal Lasso Tool. With this tool set to subtract from a selection, this meant that I could precisely draw around which areas I wanted to remove. This level of detail meant that the polygonal lasso tool was particularly useful in this area. With the Cortina then selected exactly how I wanted it to be, I could then go to Refine Edge, whereby a few settings were tweaked. Firstly, the Smooth Edge setting was set to 2 and this is because this would give less of harsh "cut out" look, and make it more natural. Also, the selection was also outputted to a New Document, which I could then Duplicate the Layer into the Cars PSD file where I would be compiling the three cars.
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| Transformation of the Quattro. |
The next car that I decided to tackle was that of the fabled Audi Quattro. Once again, just like the Cortina, Google Images (www.images.google.co.uk) and Bing Images (www.bing.com/images) were used to research pictures. This time I was looking for a photo of the Audi Quattro angled to the right so that it would be symmetrical to that of the Cortina. This unfortunately posed very difficult indeed and there was a short supply of images available online of such a car. Although it appeared on screen a lot, this meant that they were very low resolution and could not be used unlike that of a still image. Therefore I ended up settling for a photo of another Quattro that was not used in the film, so was was going to need some altering anyway, however it was also the wrong angle too. Luckily, I did manage to find a photograph that was angled to the left (the same as the Cortina), so I decided to attempt to flip the image of the Quattro. Therefore the first stage was to download and open the Quattro photo into Photoshop which meant that I could start editing it. The first stage was to double click on the Background Layer which meant that I could then unlock it from editing and begin work on the image. Then, with the entire canvas selected (Select -> Select All), I could navigate to Image -> Image Rotation -> Flip Canvas Horizontal. Clicking on this then flips the entire canvas along the horizontal axis which produced the mirror image effect that I was looking for. This meant that I now had an image of the Quattro that was angled slightly to the right, which I was originally looking for. However, when the photograph was taken the photographer decided to angle the shot for a pleasing result. This worked well, but unfortunately this was not good for me so I needed to rotate the image. Navigating to Image -> Image Rotation -> Arbitary... meant that I was able to precisely rotate the image. After some trial and error I finally decided on a Counter Clock Wise rotation at 9 Degrees which meant for a flat looking image. This meant that I was now at the stage where the base image was nearly right, so I decided to remove the background as, just like the Cortina, I only needed the car itself. Once again, I opted for the Quick Selection Tool. To begin with, I decided on a 75 Point and 100% hardness which allowed me to swiftly select the majority of the car, and I once again went over the edges very slightly. Then, I decreased the point size to 25 Point and altered the settings to subtract selection. This meant that I could then precisely select the areas of the Quattro that I did and did not want. Once again I also used to the Polygonal Lasso Tool to carefully and intricately keep the areas of important such as the tyres and headlights. Once I was happy with the selection that I had made then navigated to Refine Edge, whereby some settings were tweaked, namely the Smooth Edge to 17, which gives a less obvious "cut-out" appearance to the image. Also, the Shift Edge was set to +6, which ever so slightly adjusts the edge of selection. In this case the edge of selection was increased by 6, which I felt benefited the end result. Finally, the selection was going to be output to that of a New Document. However, the Quattro editing was finished yet...! Moving to the Cars PSD file, I needed to resolve the slight issue of the Quattro not having a number plate, and the display plate being now back to front from the previous flip. The attention to detail of the correct number plate was a must, as the JLY 751V number plate is very iconic indeed. However, I once again had an issue in trying to find a number plate at the correct angle. Using Google Search I was able to locate a similar angle, however further editing was going to be necessary. Once the photo was opened in Photoshop, I was able to draw around the number plate using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, and once again used Refine Edge, and output to a New Document. Then, this layer was duplicated to the newly created document with the cut out of the Quattro. I now, however, had the issue that the number plate was still the wrong angle, so editing was needed. Navigating to Image -> Transform -> Skew allowed me to move the corners of the numberplate so I could skew the look of the layer and therefore allow the numberplate to look natural. Through trial and error the end result was most successfully indeed. This marked the end of the editing for the Quattro which meant just the Capri was to follow...
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| Stages of Capri Editing. |
For the Capri, I did not need to use any search engines to source the images, as I was able to take photographs of my Capri and therefore use them. This was really rather fortunate, as I now had the correct angle that I wanted for the Cortina and Quattro, so the Capri was left. I decided to put the Capri in the middle as a straight on shot as it would be the main focus as the other two cars were no longer in use. I did indeed take photographs of my Capri, however I must admit to using another photograph of a Capri that was previously in my family's ownership a few year's ago. Bizarre, you might think, however when I first tried editing the image of my Capri, I did not like the fact that the front light shrouds were white in colour, and on other Capri's they are Black in colour. Personally, I think that they look best in Black and this is a modification that I am planning to undertake on my Capri in the future so in this case I really wanted the front cover to include my Capri with the black light shrouds. I firstly tried to recolour and/or tweak the colours/lighting of the shrouds in Photoshop however the end result was not as successfully as I wanted, hence reverting to another base image. Luckily, I had previously taken this image myself and knew that it was of a high resolution. However, the only issue was the base car red in colour! This posed a slight issue, however once I had selected just the car (Quick Selection Tool), navigated to Image -> Adjustments -> Replace Colour. This enabled me to select the colour to be replaced using the eye dropper tool, and then select the colour to replace it with. By adjusting the hue, saturation and lightness I was able to replace the colour to White and therefore resulting in what I was looking for; a white Capri with black light shrouds. Finally, using another image of my Capri, I was able to I was able to draw around my number plate using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, and once again used Refine Edge, and output to a New Document. Then, this layer was duplicated to the newly created document with the cut out of the Capri.
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| Trio of Cars in the DVDAmarayCover PSD |
With all of the three cars then ready, once in the Cars PSD file, I could then move the cars around to my desired location. Using the Move Tool I was able to move the layers around, and also even slightly rotate if needed so that the end result was just as I was looking for; as realistic and natural as expected. At this point I also spotted that the cars would stand out too much against the background which is rather dark. So, to further the realistic element I decided to customise the Levels of the photo to darken it slightly and remove the saturation, which I felt worked well. Then, the Cars PSD could be duplicated into the DVDAmarayCover file. One the three cars were duplicated into the main file, I was able to move the trio of cars to my desired location to ensure that a realistic result was created. Also, to just finish this off, I utilised the Burn Tool on the Background, which was set to 75 Point Size with a Exposure of 50% - this is so that I could subtly darken the areas underneath the cars (in the form of shadows) as to make them look as realistic as possible.
Having completed the rather time consuming trio of cars element, the next stage of the Front Cover is that of the Gene Hunt Portrait.
References
Ford Cortina - Link - Last accessed 3rd February 2014.
Audi Quattro - Link - Last accessed 27th February 2014.
Audi Quattro - Link- Last accessed 27th February 2014.
