The intended audience of my photo edited image is people who constantly buy single-use plastics. Specifically, I would say people who are on the older end because younger generations have grown up with plastic pollution and are more aware of the problem. I was trying to communicate that if the world continues to use single-use plastic the ocean will be ruined. I was hoping for the audience to have a realization that things like plastic bags are similar to jellyfish, how every plastic bottle makes a difference, and how animals like sharks are endangered.
Some of the features convey this message to the audience. For example, the black shadows around the corner give an evil and dark feeling. The filter used is called plastic wrap and makes the entire image a distorted look conveying a dystopian future world. I left the filter off of the words “ban single-use plastic” so that it would stand out and people would understand the call to action I was making. The background of the wording is a picture of a gyre, one of the worst places plastic accumulates in the ocean due to the currents. The half jellyfish half plastic bag and the half-shark half made of plastic convey that plastic is slowly wiping out several parts of the ocean.
Firstly, I started by adding a picture of the ocean which already had a shark in the middle. Then, I added the picture of the jellyfish and used the clipping mask and other tools such as the erasers, paintbrush, and blur to erase the jellyfish's original background and right or left half. I repeated this step to the plastic bags after using free transform to place them adjacent to one another. I also used the ellipses and opacity tools to create a shadow for these half-plastic bag half jellyfish creatures. I also repeated these steps for the half-shark half plastic toy-looking creature in the center of the photo. Next, I added the water bottles and repeated the shadow creation. Additionally, I erased some of the parts to make them seem buried in the sand. At this point, I added the plastic wrap filter. Finally, I added the picture of the gyre and the text and proceeded to use a clipping mask and some of the tools within the text to give it a border. Lastly, I took the black paintbrush to give the corners a darker effect and brought down the opacity so that the picture was still visible. During several steps along the way, I had to combine layers, rasterize, create smart objects, and transform and use very common and basic tools.
From this project, I learned many things about photoshop and communication. Before starting this class I knew nothing about the actual photoshop app but I had previously used apps like procreate. I would say now that I am somewhat versatile in photoshop and know most of the basic tools. Additionally, I had a complete realization about how communicating without writing was so difficult. I found it a lot more intriguing and challenging to have to think about how to get a message across without blatantly writing or speaking my argument.
For the next project since we do not need to re-setup adobe, I will be able to start adapting sooner. Additionally, I will utilize the resources tab to find even more tutorials because I felt that those really helped me explore what could be done. I did not really enjoy that there are multiple ways to do the same thing and all the videos might show different ways. Therefore, for the next project, I will try to stay consistent with one YouTube channel so that I do not confuse myself or forget.