Kristan Franco Graphic Designs and Web Resources

Showing posts with label Photo Manipulation. Show all posts

Free Wallpaper: The World is Still Round (Abstract)

Posted by Kristan Tuesday, February 8, 2011 View Comments

I entitled this piece as "The World Is Still Round", it means, out of every negative things we ought to perceive, we should still remember that the world is full of beautiful things, things that are enough to give reason that life must still go on.

As we can see, the different things on this piece, living and non-living, such as, bananas, luxury car, flowers, and many more (including my favorite retro icon: Marilyn Monroe, and the face I use is my face, I just manipulated it to make it dull and spooky.

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Concept for Suspense/Thriller Movie Poster

Posted by Kristan Saturday, February 5, 2011 View Comments

4 months ago, our school's (NDDU) held its 4th MassCom Short Film Festival. This annual event showcases short films originally made by NDDU's Mass Communication students.

I happened to have a MassCom friend and I was given the chance to design and conceptualize their film, AL LILAW. Without hesitation, I took the request and design them a poster that would match the films scheme.
AL LILAW is a thriller film which the story mainly revolves around 5 characters haunted by a psychotic killer in a dark isolated island.

So what I did during the development was to review different suspense movie posters and conceptualized a unique idea from them. The movie posters from Sorority Row and Nightmare on Elm Street helped me build up the proper concept of the short film.

I just applied the basic approach to the poster - the killer on top of the victims. By enlarging it, the emphasis on the "killer" is greater. It would really catch the attention of the ones who view the poster. Font style is also important. You wouldn't try Comic Sans in a thriller movie poster, do you? I searched for free horror fonts and came up with those. Textures are also important. It gives a crispy detail on how a thriller movie poster would look like.

So that's it.

Just in case you would like to learn some basic tips on how to create suspenseful movie posters, just check my blog post HERE, this would be of a great help.

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Create a CD Album Cover Out of a Sketched Canvas

Posted by Kristan Saturday, January 23, 2010 View Comments

I found myself doodling and sketching while being admitted to the hospital for some medication, and after a week, examination took its toll on me. It's great to be back blogging again after a week of examination. One new post after a week or two!

Since i've been admitted for almost a week at the hospital, I was able to design two sketched canvas, with just pure sign pen. Anything out of imagination, 2 abstract drawings were made. Sketching is exciting, do you agree?

So, as you may notice that this drawing is so dull and looking at it might be uninteresting. To optimize this drawing, I decided to turn it into an cd album cover.

Music has been an inspiration to me. I've been into a band and making Album covers must be fun and exciting. With the use of certain splatter brushes and textures found around the web, I was able to make this hoax cd album cover.

Here are some tips in making awesome CD Album covers:

1.) Prepare your drawing.

You have to scan your drawing. In my part, I just shoot this drawing on a clean floor, with the highest quality as much as possible.

2.) Prepare the brushes and texture.

I was able to find some splatter brushes around the web, so go help yourself. In the texture, I've been a reader of Inspiredology and the author offered high quality textures.

So go download them.

3.) The genre of your Album cover.

You wouldn't want to entitle your album cover as "Lovely Hearts" when you notice that the design is pure grunge, would you? So decide for an appropriate theme for a title of the album.

For example, I just choose Chicosci's previous album title, "Method of Breathing" for my hoax Album cover. It is somehow related because my drawing is abstract, but can be seen and can be percept as people. Life is related to the album title.

4.) Setting the blending options to MULTIPLY.

You may notice that when you try to overlap your drawing into the texture, the texture will be covered with the canvas' white background, mainly the bond paper you scanned.

So the solution to this problem is, set the blending options of your drawn piece into MULTIPLY

5.) Splatter brushes over the layers.

To add a more dramatic effect, we use the splatter brushes. Complimentary colors are brilliant to see, so we get hold of these colors.

Be sure to create a new layer over all the layers, and brush as much as you want. After brushing, now you're almost done. Set the blending options to Linear Burn and see for yourself a good transformation out of the drawn canvas.

6.) Album Title has the impact.

For the finale, add your album title in a simple or complicated way. In my piece, I just use a very basic font in order to contrast with the grungy background. With this, contrast became an impact.

So here is my final work:

Credit for PSHero for the awesome slick cd container.

See? Just viewing your own work makes you want to be a rockstar!

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Applying Lomo Effect to Photos Using Photoshop

Posted by Kristan Friday, January 1, 2010 View Comments

Applying Lomo Effect to Photos Using Photoshop

Have you heard about Lomography? If you have seen photos with weird and crazy colors, then you should probably meet lomographs. In a more vivid explanation, photos with false colors, these make up a whole lomograph.

In the early 90s, a group of students discovered a Russian camera, a bit small and complicated Russian camera, known as Lomo Kompakt Automat. The discovery led to artistic experiment on photography showing their unusual frolic shots. After having their photos mounted on panels to form a thousand of Lomographs, vast amount of viewers were astonished.

Having been introduced to cameras, more specifically DSLRs, I wanted to shoot scenes using one of the lomocams, such as Holga, and the Lomo itself. The rules in shooting: Just point and shoot! So easy!

Since Lomocams these days became expensive with the fact that these gadgets use film for developing, Photoshop has been a good tool to produce photos that are lomo-alike. With various resources, I was able to learn applying the lomo effect on digital photos.

In these part, you'll learn the process on how to apply the effect of lomocam, and you'll definitely love how the colors pop out!

1st Step: CHOOSING A PHOTO

Open Photoshop, and choose your photo that will be processed! I'm using this photo I shoot a year ago because, there's a huge contrast.

2nd Step:THE LASSO TOOL

Select the lasso tool (L) and create an oval shape into the photo, set the feather (Ctrl + D) to 80 px. This will soften the edge of the lasso you recently made.

3rd Step: SETTING LEVELS

Invert the selection you made using the lasso tool. After inverting, select levels (Ctrl + L) and set value just like below. If you got the step right, a part of the photo darkens, and the focus of the light is in the center.

4th Step: WORKING WITH CURVES

You're done with the levels, we're halfway there! Diselect the marquee (Ctrl + D) to proced in the curves. Open curves (Ctrl + M) then create a slanted "S" on the graph just like below: Click preview to make sure that you'll see the temporary output. Click OK.

5th Step: NEW LAYER WITH BLENDING OPTIONS

Now we're done with Curves. The next process takes place in the layers palette. Create a new layer. fill it with black. Notice that the photo below cannot be seen. Change the blending options of the layer to HUE, and reduce its opacity to 30%. Look at the output, it's quite vintage now!

6th Step: LAB COLOR

Do not forget to MERGE ALL the existing layers, in order for you to proceed in this process. After doing so, you have the output of a dull photo now, go to the menu bar, select Image>Mode>Lab Color. We'll work with the channels now!

7th Step: LAB COLOR LIGHTNESS CHANNEL

We are almost done, the next thing to do is to select the Channels tab in the layer palette, and select the Lightness channel. You'll see that the photo is now black and white, its ok.

8th Step: UNSHARP MASK

After selecting the lightness channel, in the menu bar, go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. Since I liked sharp photos, I set the amount on a higher value, 49%.

9th Step: GOING BACK TO RGB COLOR

Now we're at the peek of this tutorial, we'll see the final output by selecting back the RGB color, go to Image>Mode>RGB Color. Poof! You're done.

Here is my final output: Popping and highly contrasted colors

Don't forget to share your output!

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Tips on Creating a Horror Movie Poster

Posted by Kristan Thursday, December 31, 2009 View Comments

One of my dream job is to be a part of a movie where you are acquired on an advertising team who creates the whole concept of the movie poster. Everytime I watch a movie, I usually look for the poster first. The movie poster will eventually catch a viewer's attention. The poster's theme, on the other hand, should generally fit the movie.

I recently took shot of a busy crowd observing a bushfire near our place, sadly, when I viewed the photo in my computer it was slightly out of focus. Since I forgot to set the photo in a higher quality, I end up hitting VGA. Fortunately, instead of trashing it out, someone inspired me to create a horror movie poster out of it. My younger brother told me that the people in this photo look liked ZOMBIES. From that moment, the idea on creating a conceptual movie poster buzzed me.

With online resources, I've come up with this:

Here are some few tips in creating the movie poster you ever wanted to make. You're hoax HORROR MOVIE POSTER:

1.) choosing a BACKGROUND that will dominate the viewer's eye. In my version, I used the photo above.

2.) download various GRUNGE TEXTURES to make your background more appealing.

3.) Apply blending options and the basic filters of Photoshop. Experiment to achieve your desired output. Adding noise on the background can be a good way.

4.) Enhance the levels and curves of the photo. In this way, the contrast between the photo and the title itself would be high.

5.) Font that would fit a HORROR MOVIE. In the title of the movie poster I created, I used Living Hell font to fit the grungy background.

6.) Adding subtitle. Aside from the the title add a subtitle that will drive viewers to curiosity. I used the subtitle, "Who will survive and what will be left of them?" from the old Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If your title's font is bold, the subtitle should not be as thick and as big as the title, or vice versa.

7.) The credits.It's either located at the top or at the bottom of the poster. In my homemade horror poster, I just cut out a credit portion of the another movie poster. If you want to create your own "credits" part, the common font used is UniversLT font. The color of your credits font should match the background.

In case you wanted to study how I created my own Horror Movie poster, you can download the PSD file here.

These are the basic steps to start of your own Horror Movie poster, who knows, someone out there would discover them up! Buzz me if you got one!

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Tips in Creating Your Own City

Posted by Kristan Monday, December 28, 2009 View Comments

I got some tips on creating a hoax city of yours. Not just some good experimentation is needed here, but also with some good photos to develope your own "weird city".

This photo was taken somewhere in the road of Davao City 2 years ago. This photo is so interesting to manipulate. Aside from it's good angle, I also considered how it was put up and the way it was shoot through a moving vehicle, it's natural.

This is the original photo, before it was being manipulated, it is dull and the output level is somehow untied. No clouds at all, but we will consider it's good shot on the road.

After collecting additional photos from Google, a globe, building, and a signage, I've come up with this:

Here are some tips in making this manipulated city, or whatever we call it:

1.) Patience - of course.

2.) Compatibility - select photos which contain good angles, and compatible angles with other photos.

3.) Be guided with Levels (ctrl + L) and Curves (ctrl + M) - you don't want to make your output look dull, are you?

4.) Filters, Filters, Filters - involve the Filter menu in whatever you manipulate. I used Radial Blur in that photo to make it look dashing or in-motion.

5.) Burn with Burn Tool (O) - levels and curves are not enough to create desired shadows or highlights, that's why we use burn tool to darken certain parts of the photo, and dodge tool to lighten it.

6.) Gradient Overlays - to create a certain tone of photo, use gradient overlay to transform highly saturated photos into low saturated photos or vice versa. With this, you could also set some standard tuning of colors

7.) Experiment, Explore - well, that explains a lot. Just buzz me if you got anything new.

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Topaz' Photoshop Filter for Your Photographs

Posted by Kristan Monday, December 21, 2009 View Comments

There is always a limitation in using a certain camera, but one thing's for sure, do not limit your creativity.

Since i've been limited into short range shooting, more specifically 18-55mm lenses, and pale color output, I eventually use Photoshop to help construct my output.

In basic photography, one thing that is important in a composition is adjusting the contrastt, cropping, or the other way around, rendering with the help of Photoshop.

Topaz' PS Filter is a great way to set the contrast in your photos to produce photo's popping effect. The package offers great photo effects template and manual sliders for the colors and contrast. It's good to experiment and its interface is very reliable.

This one is a shot from Tropicana Beach Resort, one of the beaces here in Gensan. To add a more dramatic effect, I turned it into black and white, and set the contrast high enough to distingush the two shades, I also use curves. To tweak more of it, I pop the image using Topaz.

This highway is located in Panabo, Davao del Norte. Since the original output of this one is pale, and the sky was so clear, where you can barely see clouds on it, the best thing to do is to turn it into black and white. In addition, I added a crisp on the photo using the same Topaz' filter.

If you are a Photography hobbyist, you can check the software here, and see for yourself.

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Zap Your Brain

Posted by Kristan Saturday, December 5, 2009 View Comments

You know what I love about this second semester? Weekends. The only way I can let myself be free from stress is Saturday and Sunday. It's my second year being a frustrated IT student, and right now, i'm feeling the pressure of being one.

From the least expected minor teachers, down to profound terror profs infamous for their mind-blowing exams and quizzes, it's really a big deal to pass this semester, just to proced in the third year, which serves as the pivot point for most of IT students.

Another week of pressure, yet i'm always ready. Keeping my brain electrified just to withstand consecutive 2-hour lectures from different major subjects.I finally found myself busy these past weeks and i'm expecting the same these coming weeks.

I've been loaded with most of the subjects during MWF. While I have most of my free time in TTH.

MWF: Reality check.

4:30 am - My phone alarms (One Missed Call tone) but snoozes it into 6 am!
6:00 - i'm awake, gargles mouth, and stare blanky (starting up my brain)
6:10 - Eating my breakfast (A MUST!)
6:15 - Shower mode, (soap's getting thinner)
6:30 - I'm probably out in the shower room and grooming my self for 30 minutes!
7:00 - I'm off to school (15-minute ride would do)
7:30 - Psychology Class (The blah blah's of the works of our brain)
8:30 - PE (I hate early PE's, that means, i'll be sweating myself early!)
9:30 - My first major class, IT 225 Object-Oriented Programming (Working with VB .Net 2003)
11:30 - 1-hour lunch
12:30 - History (This class is so boring, trust me!)
1:30 - Two-hour class in this second major, IT 226 DBMS 2 (Fail!)
3:30 - Two-hour class in IT 224, System Analysis and Design (Fail!)
5:30 - No time for strolls, I'm going home.

TTH:

Usual routine, until...

7:30 - Physics class (THE MOST STUPID SUBJECT)
9:00 - Laboratory hands-on
10:00 - 2-hour break for lunch
12:00 - English class, technical writing (Somehow, this interests me)
1:30 - Religious Education (I've got a crush on my RE teacher. Yay!)

See? Would you agree that my week is toxic? Nevertheless, I still enjoy going to school (not just for my daily allowanc), but to the ongoing learnings I experience. One way to keep the enthusiasm floatin, ZAP YOUR MIND!

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The Downside of Globalization

Posted by Kristan Thursday, December 3, 2009 View Comments

I spent my free time playing with Photoshop, while saving up the half of it reading some notes. I didn't expect i'd end up hitting the topic globalization. Here it is.

This image is manipulated by Kristan Franco

We all know that globalization stiffens a nation's productivity, culture pooling, and progress into nations through cash flows. Unity among worlds to function as one happens in this state, yet, we are to see globalization on another side of the tale.

First of all, globalization has been cited to enhance human life standards and productivity among the nations. Seeing that the population of the world is increasing, the effort of productivity is also increasing, thus leading to inventions of machineries to support productivity. Since most of the industries used machineries, unemployment ignites, and loafers float, in this manner, people ended up falling into poverty.

Eventually, culture is also affected when globalization is peaking. Countries that are more financially advance are the ones who top others. Importing goods such as gadgets, clothes, songs, and movies is a clear example of losing the culture of an underdog country. Furthermore, risking a small culture that would gradually fade.

Decisively, we should not forget that Globalization has its disadvantages, major disadvantages. These are big deal. Unemployment would set in, deterioration of our culture arise, and competition among countries would be firmed. Furthermore, people look for enlightenment about this wrong usage for globalization can't be undone.

Disclaimer notice:
The elephant image is owned by National Geographic channel and photographed by Beverly Joubert
The globe and the scope are from google photos

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