Jerom Thambipillai's Media Blog: Construction Post 5: Digipak post-production

In order to create our DigiPak we used the software Adobe Photoshop CS6. Although I have had some previous experience with Photoshop a few years ago for a previous project, I had to reteach myself how to use most of the tools.

Before we began to Photoshop we were given the following template. This template had the correct dimensions so that when it came to printing our covers our image would fit in place.

This template was useful during construction as it acted as a constant guideline throughout the construction of the DigiPaks making sure we kept it in proportion and to the right dimensions.

Outside panels

Front Outside Panel

After taking our promo shots in Shoreditch we had decided to use the following images for our outside panels.

In order to obtain these images we initially used a bridge camera and attempted to turn on continuous shooting as Olamide jumped. However these images turned out blurry so we decided to use Matts phone instead which resulted in a clear image of Olamide in the air. We also took a separate image of the graffiti without Olamide to use for the back cover panel.

In Photoshop I adjusted the Hue/Saturation and used Selective Color in order to make the graffiti brighter and more vibrant.

The layers I created on the original image in order to enhance the graffiti.

The difference the layers made can be seen below.

Original image taken

enhanced image after I edited it in photoshop

After this I added the same stylized "Layla Obi" logo that is seen across all the content we have produced. This forms a synergistic link and acts as a form of branding,

Our amarillo font for the stylized "Layla Obi"

The words "London Colour2 was then added with the "Nova Font". We picked this font as it managed to stand out despite being in front of a vibrant wall full of graffiti. Borders were then added to make "Layla Obi" and "London Color" stand out more.

The final front panel

Back outside panel

The back outside panel was slightly more complicated to achieve. This is because first I had to select Olamide out of the original picture.This proved to be extremely difficult and took me quite a few tries before I was able to isolate her and was a huge challenge to overcome. The main source of difficulty with this task is that Olamides curly hair was hard to select in much detail due to its fine detail.

The first tool I used was the magnetic lasso tool however this did not work well as it could not isolate her well. The outcome would always result in accidentally selecting too much of the image or too little. After numerous failed attempts using this tool I eventually moved on to use the quick selection tool.

The magnetic lasso tool I originally used

The quick selection tool was far superior in isolating Olamide from the graffiti. This is because it had options to go over the selected area. This meant that after selecting a very rough outline of Olamide I was able to go over and make the selection more accurate. This did take me a few attempts but it was a much more suitable tool for this task.

The quick selection tool

The negative select option was extremely useful with this tool as I could go over the area I selected in more detail

This tool also had an adjustable brush size. This meant that I could zoom into the picture and use a smaller brush in order to finally isolate Olamide from the picture.

the adjustable brush length gave me accuracy with selection that I simply couldn't achieve with the previous tools

After I had selected Olamide I used refine edge to select her in more detail, this was mainly in order to get a recognizable and smooth shape for her hair. Within refine edge I played with the smoothness, feather, contrast and Shift edge functions in order to get a decent shape for our silhouette.

The refine edge options

After olamides silhouette was finally selected we added a clipping mask layer and put the graffiti image behind it.

The silhouette with the graffiti layered behind it

However after seeing what the graffiti looked like we decided to use the Clone stamp tool to merge various images of graffiti from the wall to make an entirely new piece of graffiti. Me and Matt spent a lot of time as this was very much a trial and error process. At times the graffiti clashed and simply did not look good. However after several attempts we ended up with a image we we're happy with.

Our finished version

After this was done our back cover was almost completed. I looked into various album covers to find out the conventions when it came to institutions. I came up with the following list

Barcode
Artist logo
institution logo
website
Copyright information

Adding these conventions were quick and simple in comparison to isolating the silhouette so I managed to complete this in a few minutes

Inside Panels

Front inside panel

After shooting our promo shots we decided on using the following image.

Our original idea involved a side-profile shot of Olamide however after viewing the ones we shot we decided to scrap this idea. However from an interview we filmed during shoot week we managed to screengrab the following image

A minor challenge was that with this image Olamides eyes we're initially open however this was quickly resolved with the use of paint.

The two images were then selected and put onto a white background. However due to these images being produced in a studio the white did not match. This problem was easily resolved by simply increasing the brightness.

Matt originally made a version which had a font stylised as writing, however it seemed cheap and as simply not effective. In order to resolve this issue we used Olamides writing, we complied a list of words which were then written on a piece of paper. I also added a few doodles as an experimental idea which i think worked really well. The list of words were designed to reflect our artist as a person and to represent her inner thoughts. This draws back to the idea that Layla Obi was a person that audiences can relate to.