Choosing The Right Image For The Magazine Cover

These are the three images that were narrowed down to be the image that went on the magazine cover. Out of all the images, I personally liked the top and bottom ones. The bottom one was really striking to me. I took all the images and when I took the images, I made sure there were a variety of shots and I felt like having a low angle shot to make it look as if the villain was looking down to the readers. She looks menacing and the costume and make-up were strongly highlighted in this picture. There were several challenges with this image as when I took the image, I got a bit of the studio wall in the back which was white. On Photoshop, I used the bucket tool to fill the back in black but it was clear that the black fill was different from the black she was standing against. I tried to stretch the masthead across the top to disguise the white background but it was noticeable as well, nothing seemed to work. Another challenge that I faced was that the masthead would cover the majority of her face as conventionally, a masthead appears at the top of a magazine cover and her face is pretty much at the top. I even tried to cut out the image using the lasso tool so that I could change the positioning of her on another background but the white background kept getting caught every time I went to lasso her out. From all the challenges and complications that I faced, I thought it would be best to reject this image as it would be too time consuming to edit the image and make the actual magazine cover especially as there was such a short deadline. I consulted my group and told them all the struggles that I faced with this image and we all agreed that it would be best to explore some other options with the main image.

The image in the middle was chosen because it was an extreme close up shot and darkness was being represented. The main thing that would be shown would be her makeup and this is important for the readers to see as it shows her blooded. Although this is a good image, it wasn't a good image for the magazine cover. The extreme close up shot would mean there would be no space to write any texts on it. Magazine covers normally have features on them and this would be quite impossible to do with such a shot. Again I tried to lasso the image out but it didn't work because of how close up the shot is. I tried seeing how it would look if the masthead went over her forehead and it didn't look right at all. This shot had to be rejected as there wasn't much we could do to transform it into a magazine cover. The shot type was completely wrong for the ancillary text we were producing. This shot perhaps would work a bit better on the magazine cover as magazine covers tend to have less text on it.

The top image is the image that my group and I decided to go with. My media teacher thought that the image was really focused and I agreed. It's a medium close up shot which is a shot type that is normally found on magazine covers. The image came out so focused which was easy to allow my group and I to edit the image. If the makeup needed to be darkened, this would be easier. The image at the top has been cut out using the lasso tool, this is why the edges look so choppy.  As the picture was taken on a clear black background, it would be easy to smooth out the edges using some of the tools and effects in Photoshop. Also the way the image has been cut out allowed the image to transform so that we could make it smaller so that we could apply texts all around to make the magazine cover look realistic. This was the only image that allowed space at the top for the masthead to go and there were no complications when importing the masthead; it fit well unlike the other two images. This image was perfect for the magazine cover, there was enough room to fit the text and masthead on and it would be easy to edit and transform.