Creating our magazine cover

CREATING A SIGHT AND SOUND MAGAZINEBy Kev Ishimwe

When I initially started creating the magazine one major problem I faced was that when I used the quick selection tool in Photoshop to select our character, it also selected parts of the background and looked very amateur and tacky (pictured right). This meant I had to do some research to discover how i could avoid this problem. This problem was fixed with the “refine edge” tool. The 1st step is pictured left.

Initial Development

2nd Step

3rd step – select “on black”

4th step – tick/increase smart radius

Now you mess around with the adjust edge features. For this one I didn’t need to. Now you select decontaminate colors and “output to” new layer with layer mask.

Final – new layer with layer mask

Now I have selected the character its time to create the magazine. I will create a sight and sound as they are independent like our film.

Paying homage using pastiche/intertextuality

I decided to create our poster by paying homage to this one using pastiche/intertextuality because I felt this poster had a lot that we should use in our own. The blue background connotes a dark, moody atmosphere commonly associated with the crime genre and links to our plot. Also it is relatively simple, which highlights his importance as there is nothing else to distract you visually.

1st step – Gradient tool

The 1st thing I did was select the background, then selected two shades of blue and went onto the gradient tool. After that I selected the horizontal gradient, which you can see selected at the top, then held down shift (which makes it straight) and experimented till I was happy.

2nd step – Mast head

Now time for the Title, barcode, date/price/issue and BFI logo.

3rd step - Extras

Then I added the featured articles and the flash.

4th step – Mast head

Now time for the mast head, which I had to use the quick selection tool to select it out of another poster and my logo.

Final and Alternative

Final Alternative