Photoshop Induction 1

For our first Photoshop tutorial we were taught the basics of the program, a lot of which I already knew, things such as creating a new file or a new layer. Despite having quite a large basic knowledge on Photoshop I did learn quite a lot, and I soon realised that the techniques and tools I learned about were a lot easier than what I had been doing in the past. I discovered this through experimentation with the eraser tool. I never realised that by changing the brush settings of the eraser that it could be used to blend together two parts of an image. In the past I had always just resorted to using the mixer brush tool, and it would end up being blurry and quite unrealistic. It was fine if I wanted to blend colours together in a drawing I was working on, but when it came to photographs it didn't quite work the way I wanted it to, so I'm really glad I found out about this feature.
I put this knowledge to the test a task we were assigned. We were to try to compose an image by taking sections of sample photographs and blending them together. My result is the image above, and I think I did an okay job, I'm particularly happy with how I was able to add shadow in the foreground and extend the height of the cliff.

In the second half of the tutorial, we were taught about layer masks and adjustment layers, two things I had never heard of before. I remember seeing them whilst watching other people working on their own photoshop projects in the past but never knew what they were for or why they were there, so it was nice to finally learn for myself. In the next task we were assigned, we were to make a new image to test our ability with using masks and adjustment layers, as well as the blending technique we had learnt that morning. I again took a series of images and put them together, including giving the man some armour, but this time I added a hue/saturation layer to adjust the colour of the background, as well as a black and white layer for the man and goat, as I didn't like how bright he was. I also felt this looked best considering there was a lack of colour in the background. To continue with the "murky" atmosphere, I tried to make the photo look foggy, using a similar method to how I included shadow on my previous image. Overall I think I did a pretty good job at creating some interesting images, and am looking forward to see what else I can put together.