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creativematrix | all galleries >> Archives >> Special Challenge Archives >> May 2010 Concept: Use Your Imagination! > First Sentence
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16-MAY-2010 Melody

First Sentence

The first element to suggest itself was the title of the album--a phrase repeated frequently in a radio drama that caught my fancy. Next, I chose to create a trio performing folk rock music in the style of Peter, Paul, and Mary or the Kingston Trio, a favorite genre of my youth. Finally, I browsed through a phone book to chose names for my trio members. Because the title suggested a debut album, I selected a foggy sunrise scene I'd photographed some time ago. Again, because it is a debut, I selected a spring-like green for the text. Finally, I extracted a clip art figure from the challenge of that name last year, copied it twice, reversed two copies, used the texture filter on them and selected three colors from the lower portion of the background image so that they would blend in without being identical stark black silhouettes. I used outer glow and bevel on the figures. For the album title, I used inner glow, bevel and emboss, and stroke; for the trio name, drop shadow, inner glow and stroke; and for "folk rock reborn," inner glow and stroke. All work was done in CS4, which I'm gradually becoming comfortable using, though I have LOTS yet to learn about its full capabilities.


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Veronica Fresh27-May-2010 01:33
You have so thoroughly researched your image, no wonder it's a hit! Top 10!
V.
creativematrix18-May-2010 00:04
Thanks, Almita and Mary. In fact, the "gradient" was the natural appearance of the sunrise sky, mediated by the fog. I probably enhanced the contrast a bit when I first processed it about 5 years ago, and I smoothed out some of the noise this time around after cropping and resizing, but it's basically what was really there that morning.
creativematrix17-May-2010 21:36
It's great, Melody. I love how the figures are floating in the air. It's almost like they are Tap Dancing. Nice gradient too. --skunk
creativematrix17-May-2010 17:11
Love it Melody! And thanks so much for the detailed description of your process. It is a very nice example of the way to create an attractive commercial image, and what's more, it's quite believable--I might want to listen to some of their songs.

Almita the cybergrannie