Magazine Cover Editing

Clare: We started out our editing process using Photoshop, the same programme that we previously used for our film poster. Since we had taken photographs of our protagonist both covering her face and then a usual portrait image with her face being completely shown, we could merge the two together. I uploaded both the images to Photoshop so that they could be viewed in two separate windows. I then selected the area of the uncovered image around Anna's eyes, and dragged them onto the photograph of her hands covering her face as a new layer. Since this was created as a separate layer, it allowed me to erase the unwanted areas around the actual eyeball and lashes, leaving literally just the shape of her eyes on top of her hands.

Now that I had completed this part of the editing process, I made a new blank, white canvas with the right dimensions of a typical A4 magazine cover, as we wanted to make our magazine cover look as professional and exact as possible. On this blank canvas, I imported our magazine logo and placed it at the top of the canvas. This is because from doing previous research on Empire and Premiere magazine designs, we discovered that on a typical cover the title was placed behind the main image, and the image covered it a small amount.

I then imported the image I had created on another canvas and placed it as a new layer on top of our magazine title, in a similar style to other magazine influences for Empire. My next job was to zoom in close to the outline of the photograph and erase the unwanted background that was from our original picture. This was a long process, however, in order to get a precise outcome this editing part was essential. 

I also edited the vibrance and saturation of the photograph to give it that paler, more ghastly effect. This made Anna's character appear drained and empty looking, reflecting her feelings inside.

Afterwards, I used the 'dodge tool' to make Anna's eyes appear brighter to catch the attention of the viewer immediately. They now seem a pale baby blue as opposed to a darker colour, in pattern with the overall pale and white colour of her face.

Now I proceeded onto adding in all the various titles and extra pictures onto our magazine cover. Keeping in mind that we wanted to attract a younger audience, I remembered to keep the main titles very trendy and aimed at what would be in their current taste e.g. the new release of the Hunger Games franchise. I also remembered to vary the font style to keep it new and exciting and add some bright colours to attract their attention.

I used the font tool box to adjust the sizes and make the main title 'Through My Eyes' stick out from the other sentences. It also allowed me to browse through the various font types and decide which ones would be best suited for our cover. The options also allowed me to change the font to bold which would drag in a lot of attention, or italic to make it appear fancy and professional looking. The screen grab to the left demonstrates the many layers that I ended up with after the text process.