Key to the City
Lately I’ve been inspired to look at things through a new perspective as I’ve always been fascinated with thinking about things in a new way. Subsequently, for my next series of blog posts I’ll be creating works that take something common and look at it with a new twist. For this first installment, I’ve created a piece called “Key to the City.”
Step 1 – Image Resources: This is probably the most crucial step to any good photoshop project, as your initial images will set your creative gears in motion, not to mention the quality standard of your image. I typically don’t work with anything that is less than 300 DPI or 1024 x 800 (depending in image dimensions). If you can’t find what you’re looking for, pick up a nice digital camera, 10 Megapixels or greater (they get cheaper every year and the quality keeps getting better and better), set up some basic lighting elements, and take a picture of whatever it is you’re looking for with a background easy to crop such as a plain white piece of paper for smaller objects, or a contrasting solid color wall for larger images. I personally have been a big fan of Canon’s PowerShot series/ recently picked up a new SD980 IS and am EXTREMELY pleased with the quality and results it produces…
When working in photoshop, something to keep in mind is that the image can always be reduced in size and maintain quality, however, the reverse is much more challenging (albeit do-able as seen on the photoshop support website). As well, when preparing resources, it is always best to crop, edit, retouch, etc. the full size image before scaling it down and using it in your project… If you decide to make changes later or use it in another way, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration not having to go back and re-do everything to the original resource.
Moving forward, after searching for quite literally months, I finally stumbled across the right key words and images on Google Images and was ready to begin.
Step 2 – Visualization and Creation: For the initial stages, I still didn’t quite have the resource I was looking for, but using Photoshop’s incredible transform function (Apple + T) I was able to rotate and morph the initial key image into a workable state… After cutting out the excess background using the magnetic lasso tool (advised when cropping for the smoothest edges after a little bit of practice) and stretching the image to meet my ideal spec, I noticed the quality was a little rough on the main key shaft. Not wanting to find a new image resource to work with, I decided to take an analogous looking metal flute image and overlay it on top of the metal key shaft after some minor touch up, cropping, fading, and re-creation to remove the flute finger-holes. From there, I had my starting point for the main key resource.
Step 3 – The “City” Teeth: For this next step, I wanted to find a city skyline that had some character to it as well as some unique dips and grooves to mirror that of a traditional skeleton key. After narrowing down my results from an initial pool of roughly 5 or so skylines, I came across the winner and cropped/ resized the image to fit nicely over the key resource I had prepared.
At this point, the edges were still a little sharp and didn’t quite fit well together as one image, so I duplicated the key and city layers, dropped the color to create a black silhouette, and added a subtle gaussian blur in the background. This is an easy effect to do and can be fine tuned to meet your specific objectives. I wasn’t satisfied with the effect, so I added a second layer behind that to make the image further pop out. At this point, the city still hadn’t quite meshed into the key, so I reflected the city image, dropped the opacity, created an overlay layer, and used a soft brush to remove the excess and create a very subtle, natural looking reflection effect on the key shaft.
Step 4 – Background: This step can be very tricky to find the background that is exactly right for your particular project, however, one simple Photoshop layer feature can help solve your problem with some very uniquely satisfying results. I stumbled upon a couple images and wasn’t sure which to use at first.
After tinkering with the image, I decided to use the darker of the two as a background image, and placed the lighter blue image over the top using the Overlay feature in the layer options (found by simply double clicking the desired layer) for a unique color blend and image alteration.
Step 5 – Finishing Touches: From here, I inserted the background into my City Key resource image and touched up a few areas I felt needed work, dropped in my logo, and ended up with the finished result below.
The high-res can be seen in my “Photoshop” section by clicking the image below:
Splat in D Minor – Wall Art
I recently decided I wanted to spruce up my place a bit and after being inspired at work by a colleague’s freshly installed professional artwork, I decided to do a little research and create something of my own.
After a few hours of research, I stumbled upon Blik Wall Graphics and a particularly unique design called “Splat in D Minor.” The thing took awhile to arrive, but once it finally came it, I cleared up a nice workspace and began work.
Step 1 -The Empty Canvas: Fairly straight forward really. I got a fresh Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponge and wiped away all the dust/ dirt on my wall. If you’ve yet to experience the magic cleaning power that is the “Magic Eraser,” I highly recommend it…
Step 2 – Alignment & Initial Placement: This stage actually proved to be the trickiest part of the whole deal… as I didn’t have a tape measurer handy, I had to resort to using the poster tube that my graphics came in and moving it across the known flat edge of my couch, marking the top of the tube with blue painters tape as a reference.
From there, I tacked up the initial transfer sheet and rubbed on the basic music bars. Next, I placed and added the Staff… So far so good.
Step 3 – The Musical Graphics: This next step started out great and ended in disaster. *Note, if you attempt to install a Blik wall art graphic yourself, a) DON’T… get them to professionally install it, or b) make sure you NEVER let go of the wall transfer under any circumstances… as I learned, the transfer paper used to tack the graphics into place is less adhesive than hoped…
I let it go to take a step back and check the placement only to watch in slow motion as the transfer began to curl off the wall , fall, and in mid-air, close on itself, taking the instruction paper in with it… I spent the next 2 hours trying to peel everything back apart from itself, and sadly, many features were lost in the struggle…
However, due to powers of observation, I noticed the material bore a striking resemblance to the electrical tape I had used but a few month’s earlier to wire up my surround sound, and I was able to cut out and remake all of the lost graphics. From there, I had a few more incidences and decided to cut each graphic our individually from the transfer paper to minimize trauma if it collapsed on itself again.
Side Note – The Transfer Method: At this point I realized I’ve failed to mention the transfer method and have decided to touch base on it now for any of those attempting to do this themselves. The transfer process seems like a cince, but looks can be deceiving… First, once must painstakingly rub each of the graphics onto the transfer paper so that they come off of their contact paper backings and are prepped for placement. Then, when removing the contact paper, it’s best to fold it directly back on itself and almost roll the paper back, otherwise the graphics will stick to the contact paper, not the transfer sheet, and will requite another attempt. When it comes to the actual wall transfer, the graphics come with a nifty plastic scraper that is extremely useful. Spare no elbow grease when it comes to this part, as the graphics will form bubbles underneath and/or peel off the wall if not given a stern application of force through the transfer paper.
Step 4 – Clean Up: Self-explanatory… see pictures below.
Step 5 – The Finished Product: After all was said and done roughly 4 1/2 hours later, I had my finished product. It looks great if I don’t say so myself, and if any of you are looking for a unique way to fill an empty wall space, I highly recommend checking out Blik’s large collection of incredible art!
