My Expectations
Photoshop is an extremely powerful tool that can help turn an image into a powerful visual tool. I know nothing about Photoshop and only have a little bit of experience with editing photos through Canva and Microsoft Photos. I know that learning Photoshop will be a challenge for me, but I know that the rewards of making better visuals for digital media content or posters will help me in the long run with my career.
Tutorial Experience
Going through the entry-level tutorials was a great experience for learning where all the features are located and how to do the simple things. However, I did run into some frustration while trying some of the more advanced tutorials. While I enjoyed the walk-throughs, I found it more helpful to look for YouTube tutorials on exactly what I needed.
Tutorial Techniques Used
There were a few key techniques I used in this graphic. The first one was inserting shapes into the graphic. The next was creating a shape to fit a space while keeping borders even. The last technique was embedding photos into each of the shapes.
Inspiration for Graphic
It all started with a billboard I saw driving back on I-70 from St. Louis to Columbia. The billboard read “Save MO Live” and underneath it said, “sponsored by the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety”. I thought the use of “MO” instead of “more” was super cheesy and loved every bit of it. I wanted my graphic to be more of an invitation to discover more of Missouri’s natural landscape since many people know very little about the state. I wanted it to be an internet graphic or even a poster. The hardest part was starting!
How I Did It
I first went through a mess of pictures that I have taken of the Missouri landscape over the years and sifted through which ones could be usable in a semi-professional graphic. Once I narrowed down my pictures, I googled “graphic template” for inspiration on how I wanted to format my pictures. I saw one graphic that used triangles with some fun patterns that took up about half a page with some text on the side of it. I figured it would be a great start for my Photoshop journey, so I got to work! I first started by inserting two different triangles to the left and right sides of the page. I was then able to create a triangle to fit the space at the bottom of the graphic. This took a decent amount of work playing with the X and Y coordinates of the triangle to get the placement just right to keep a consistent border around the shapes. Next, I was able to go in and edit the shape by embedding photos into each shape. This took some plug-and-play to see how the photos worked with one another and the story they can talk about how beautiful Missouri is. Lastly, I threw in a cheesy saying “Discover MO Nature” to tie the whole piece together. I can’t wait to play around more with the program to see what I can do!