First I used the quick selection tool to delete the patch of grass. I used the eraser tool to clean up some of the edges, too. Then I put the galaxy layer behind the lava so it would show up where the grass was. I used the quick selection tool to cut out the astronaut and put that layer on top of lava layer. I thought the picture was missing something so I added the mountains in the back. I put the mountain layer below the lava layer and used quick selection to delete the sky from the lava layer. I then moved the astronaut all the way on top. Quick selection was good for most things but sometimes if was I was trying to cut out was really detailed I had to use the eraser, too.
- Posterize 2. Desaturate 3. Invert (photoshop file did not save on my flash drive so I had to make the edits on the screenshot of it)
To make my non destructive edits, I made new layers for the freckles, arm tattoo, bicep tattoo, and chest tattoo. I mostly used the clone stamp and the spot healing tool. I would use a close stamp to go over the tattoos with the surrounding skin. I would then go back in with the spot healing brush to blend it in better. For the freckles on the face I tried to do spot healing on most of them but a lot of times with the different colors of the skin, the way it would blend made it look like there were still freckles. I used the very very small patch tool in some areas to cover the freckles with matching skin tones. I also used the clone stamp on the face to add in the right colors and get some texture back. I then would go back in with spot healing to make sure it was blending. For the face I changed the blend modes of the layers to one with dissolve and one with lighten. For the lightened layer I lowered the opacity a little bit and it made it look a lot more blended.
I had a really tough time making sure everything was blended well. It was hard because the picture had a lot of texture so when I used spot healing it looked way too blurry compared to the rest of the picture. I tried to cover it up with the clone stamp but you can definitely still see areas where it is blurry. The skin on the face looks very patchy and not smooth. It looks like there are still freckles but I think its more the way I tried to blend the colors with the spot healing brush. Playing around with the blend modes definitely helped. I think I did the better covering up the chest tattoo than the freckles and arm tattoos. When I switched layers, sometimes I would forget and draw on the wrong layers which was very frustrating but after a while of switching between layers I got used to checking which one I was on and making sure it was the right one. I have definitely gotten better using the marquee tool and picking out the selection I want but I still need to work on cleaning up the edges of my selection and making it less choppy. I have been getting a lot more patient with Photoshop and instead of continuing trying to go over one thing I have started erasing my edits then trying a new method to see what looks better.
