One of my first Photoshop projects involved altering the cover image to one of my favorite novels. Below is the cover from this novel,
Crown of Shadows by author C.S. Freidman. This is the unedited picture as it was originally painted by artist Michael Whelan. While I did edit the entire picture, I only included the image of the main character Gerrald here due to space constraints. The
complete picture is much larger and has far more background, including the top of the two trees and an active volcano.
For some time I had been wondering if it would be possible to edit out portions
of this picture in such a way that it would look as if nothing had been done to
edit it at all. For my first attempt, I decided to take out the two trees that
are framing in the character, Gerrald.
The removed left tree
I began by first taking out the trees in the easiest sections of the picture,
those which have dark or solid colors in them, which will make it easier to conceal
the alterations. Within the second picture I have fully taken out the
tree, but there are some imperfections, as seen to the right. The base of the lefthand tree was very difficult to blend into the rock, and so there remains a rather sharp angled section of ground as a result. There also initially was a distinct line towards the lower righthad corner of Gerrald's cape where I was unable to blend the
colors of the background together. However, in the final version of this picture I created, as seen up top, I have corrected the color blending error Also, the light smoke around the top right
peak of the volcano is also slightly off, with a line visible there as well.
The above
imperfections are still in the final edited version of this picture, but on the whole I believe it looks very good.
Gerrald's glowing fist
I then decided to take the editing even further, and remove the sword that Gerrald is
holding above his head. To the left is the result of that. It proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. The sword itself was rather straightforward, but Whelan painted in a "halo" around the blade and its handle in grey-blue. This aura extended over Gerrald's hand and wrist. After some time, I was able to perform the delicate work of taking out the aura around his hand, and the final result is almost perfect.
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