The First Task

Spatial Montage
(from week 2 and long over due)

The First Task was, using the 6 images provided by the Uni, to photoshop 5 buildings into a dessert(?) plain. I completed finally  it yesterday in between my two exams (and for info I did bad at the one I thought would be easy and did fine in the one I'd die in XD). 

Since I was absent during the Tut for me it was all about recalling my limited current knowledge and experimenting a bit. First what I did was Get the 'Plain' image (seen right) and added another 5 layers to the images, where I would place the builings later on after I cropped them.

Since all the images are of very different designs and style I thought rather than make the buildings try to match each other - a dying cause - it would be better to have a mis-matched, abstract composition.

The first image - or 'Building 1' as I've dubbed it - I choose to open in photoshop has strange, abstract, circular buildings (seen left) and will be a nice warm up, since the building's outlines are fairly simple. As most of the buildings in the images provided are 'dominant' I thought it wise to snag the smaller builing here - not to mention easier XD - to later obtain 'visual balance'. I use the Magnitised Lasso (pardon my spelling if it's wrong) to trace along the outline. The MagLaso is a lot easier to use than other types of the Lasso. 

Going off topic, Lassos are used to 'select,' 'highlight' or whatever you call it objects. Photoshop has three types; the normal one - where you choose the border of the selected area by hand, the Poly(?) where the 'selection' of border is always in stright lines and the best (in my opinion) is the Magnitised Lasso tool which somehow is able to trace the outline of an ogject when led around by the mouse.

Anyway back to the Task. After I successfully traced a 'selection' that was roughly the outline of the desired building I left cleick on the slected area and clicked 'layer via cut' which transfered all of the selected area (the building) onto a different layer. I renamed the layer 'building 1' and the 'saved as' the thing in photoshop under the name of 'Building 1' for safe keeping. I then made the original image's layer - already labeled as 'Background' - not visible so that only the builing on the 'Builing 1' layer could be seen. Before the building is passable to be transfered onto the 'Plain' image the edges needed to be cleaned of any background along the edges of the building (such as small bits of sky and grass still slightly visible) as they would be seen when I place the 'building 1' in. So I zoomed in close to the image - using the side scroll - and erased all the little edges visible using different sizes of eraser to not disturb the building when cediting small ares such as between small balconies. 

The 'Eraser' tool on photoshop is different to the paint version as in paint the whole area under the 'rubber' is delected and made 'blank', however on photoshop there is an option where the edges of the eraser have lower opacity (are faded) meaning that when editing I didn't have to be anal about erasing each square and worrieng about killing the builing's outline and making ook unnatural. Done editing I then saved the psd. selected the builing using the 'spuare select' tool, which awesomely automaticaly picks out the building's (since it's the only object on the selected layer) when you change to the normal pointer and copy pasted the builing into the one of the layers in 'Plain' - renaming the layer 'Builing 1. And there's the 1st building! phew that was long!

Onto the second! Stay away from the 'weirdy' buildings the second image (right->) is of a city (Brisbane city if I know my city - which i doubt -_-;). All of the buildings are terribly dull, as expected from a city, so to keep with the 'abstract' idea and a bit of fun I choose the small 'book' building to the left for my composition. I followedthe same procedure as last time; re-saved it as 'Buildng 2', selected the building outline using MagLasso, made selected builing a new layer 'via cut', trimmed the edges and pasted onto the 'Plain' on a clear layer which I renamed 'Building 2'. I found using the MagLso harder this time than the last image, primarily down the bottom edge of the structure where the edges of the building was less defined in colour - I had to make more 'points' by clicked and restert the lasso over and over to get it resonable (or maybe I waqs just being really picky).

 'Building 3' was tken from the image seen left. suprisingly (or not) it was the hardest builind to crop and make fit into the final composition later on when I was fiddling with the all buildings together. I had to use the large building in the centre, cause wll there wasn't much else to choose from unless I wanted a motif that was from the side - which I don't. Same steps again above ( I doubt you want me to repeat THAT again XD) except with 'Building 3'.

Cause of the similar coloured buildings around the one I want I had to use the normal lasso by hand and try to get the out line closer as possible to the building's outline without ruining it, leading to alot more editing -  this turned out suprisingly faster XD. Also I croped the bottom 3(?) storeys pf the building so that I could hide the evdence of street lights that would out of place in the desert - this was tricky as the angle at the base of the building would be ackward, but I have a soloutions so never fear!

Seen right is the 4th image where I had little choice again to choose a building - I would have neede to find ways to hide/cover areas from the background builds. Out of all the buildings this in my opnion is the most abstratc in design.

I used the normal crop tool again because it's both faster and impossible to get proper definition - by my reckons - here with the magnistise tool. When clening up the edges I couldn't get rid of the streetlamp at the base so I had to cover it later on. The slight reflection on the building made it harder to define the edges of the building and I had to constantly check if I hada acidently croped the edge of the building off. For a more realistic effect when I past this in the final composition I erased the areas behind the supporting pillars of the building.

Building 5...well obviously the Empire State building...right?...then again looks a lot like a building from brisbane...oh well! I wanted the tall middle building as the style of it doesn't match any of theother buildings - which would promote the 'abstract feel'. All the bases of the main buildings here are covere by smaller contructions so if I decide to crop out all the things covering th bases of the building it will look staunted - and I'm hesitant to stretching it cause ... well it might look a but well strecthed XD. This ment I had to crop all the buildings around the base, and I did, to make the proportion look natural and all the little buildingshave the potentional to act as visual balancers.Used normal Lasso select.

All the buildings on the same file I arranged and fiddled with them - resizing tehm to fir the canvas and arranging them to my liking (like covering the lampost visible in the 4th builidng). The sole reason I made different layers for each building was so that I could edit and play with each one to my liking as mauch as I like without having to worry about effecting the surrounding background or the image being basically uneditable (if that's a word) after I've deselected it. The order of the layers had to change so that I could place some of th buildings to the fore-ground.

The final result is this (above). After arranging them in the positions I zoomed up again and went back to clean any rough edges still visible. The building where I croped the base and left a stange angle was placed so that it stood on a hill behind the other builldings. Also I inversed the direction of the 4th building so that it is both balanced and that the street lamp is covered and I had to crop the edge of one pillar which was poking out on the other side of th building in front, looking unatural. The book building was slightly rotated to be aligned with the ground. I have also placed the circular building so that the connecting bridge (which I've kept croped in for this purpose) look like the 2 buildings are connected. Later after happy with my tinkering I added shadows to the image by adding another layer and using block colour on opacity 33% with the paint bursh tool - took special of the shadows under the 'hill' I formed under one of the buildings so that they were placed right.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Images are thanks to :

•Andrew Mace - http://www.flickr.com/photos/acmace/4120587279/sizes/o/

• RaeA - http://www.flickr.com/photos/raeallen/68856492/sizes/l/

• Bobcatnorth - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobcatnorth/383409166/sizes/l/

• Sparktography - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparktography/91830784/sizes/o/

• harry_nl - http://www.flickr.com/photos/harry_nl/4031055107/sizes/o/

• ScubaBear68 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/22310955@N02/2551583663/sizes/l/