Lens Based Projects
Title: Memories of a Long Friendship
Size: 25.4cm x 25.4cm Medium: Photo Collage Completion: November 2023 Exhibition TextMy piece “Memories of a Long Friendship” is a digital photo collage inspired by the 7+ year friendship of my best friends and me. My overall theme for my artwork is relationships, and I wanted to depict one of my strongest relationships. I decided to use my two best friends to emphasize our strong, loving friendship. I formed pictures of us into the shape of a heart. And I have surrounded my heart with images of landscapes where great memories and stronger friendships were made.
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Process
My first step was to pick out photos I would like to make into a digitally edited photo collage. I wanted to pick pictures that represented memories of my friendship with my two best friends. I picked out five photos of my friends and me and then another five pictures of areas where we made great memories. The website I used for this project is Photopea. When I first went onto the Photopea website, I clicked Start new Projects and labeled this project “Lens Based Project Relationships 1”. I then made sure to change the unit measurement the website would use. I changed it from pixels to inches. Right after, I changed the dimensions to 10in x 10in; I changed the DPI to 250. Initially, I wanted to have the background white, so I left it as that.
The first thing I did was upload all my photos to my Photopea project. I started by uploading the pictures of my friends and me and then the landscape photos. When I uploaded all my photos, I cut out the images of my friends and me, so the pictures didn’t have a background and would just be left with the subject (friends and I) in the picture. I did this by using the magnetic lasso tool to outline the subjects in the photo and then clicking the refined edge to outline better what I wanted to keep (the white square in the top left) and subtracting what I didn’t want (the black square in the top left). Throughout this process, I often adjusted the size of the brush I was using to get a cleaner line. When I was done refining the edges of the subjects, I clicked okay, and a new layer with just the subjects and a transparent background would appear.
After I repeated the previous step to separate all the subjects from their original photo, I moved them all to one tab on the Photopea project. I then uploaded the landscape photos to that same tab. Then, to hide them so I could focus on editing the subject images, I clicked the eye button on each landscape layer to hide that layer. After that, I was just left with the subject photos. I wanted to make them into a heart shape to represent a loving relationship. First, I shrunk the photos down to a smaller size by going edit/transform/scale. Then I went to the edit/transform/rotate to rotate the photos as needed. Once I was happy with the shape, I wanted to fix the value of the picture to match better. I went to image/adjustments and then either picked brightness/contrast or hue/saturation. I edited the majority of the subject photos to balance the photos.
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My first step in working on the landscape pictures (which would act as the background to the subject photos) was to hide all the subject photo layers and unhide the landscape layers. When all was unhidden, I moved the landscape photos where I wanted to place them. Then, I adjusted their size (edit/transform/scale) to fit the space better.
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I wanted to emphasize the shape of a heart in my piece, so I decided to give a pink/red drop shadowing behind the subject photos. I did this by merging the subject’s photos together into one layer and then duplicating that layer. I drew a heart around the subject pictures with that new layer. When that was done, I moved the first layer of the subject photos back to the top to create a slight drop shadow effect.
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My final touch on my piece was to add more to the background. I initially wanted to keep it simple, but with the addition of the drop shadow, I needed to balance out the foreground and background more. My solution was to merge the landscape photo layers into one layer, and then, using the smudging tool, I played around with the smudging and blending between the different landscape photos. I was pleased with the smudging tool because it created a nice texture. After I finished with the background, I moved back to make a final adjustment with the subjects. I wanted to change the overall color of the subject photos to contrast the rest of the vibrant photos. I decided to change it to a black-and-white scaled photo collage. I did the same process as above, image/adjustments/hue-saturation.
Experimentation
When I started my process, I needed help identifying the subjects of the photos correctly and then separating the photo’s background from the subjects. I initially tried the eraser tool but found it too hard to get straight lines when needed. I then found the magnetic lasso tool. I started by clicking on a starting point of the subjects in a photo, then slowly went around them. At first, the magnetic lasso wasn’t doing an exact outline of the subjects. I soon realized it was doing it based on how the colors were showing up, so I started over, and before I let the magnetic lasso tool sit on a section of an outline, I made sure to click precisely where I wanted the outline to go so it came out with a better form. Even after figuring out the magnetic lasso tool, I still couldn’t determine how to erase the background. When I used the eraser on the image, it erased the subjects. After playing around with the tools a bit more, I realized that once I was done outlining the subjects with the magnetic lasso tool, I would click refine edge, giving me a rough outline. I could then make further refinements to the outline to provide a better form for the subjects. Once I was satisfied with the outline, I clicked okay, and then I was left with just the picture of the subjects.
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When I finished outlining all the subjects on separate tabs on Photopea, I needed to figure out how to move all these images of the subjects from different tabs to the first tab with a white background. I initially struggled because I wasn’t sure how to do it. I first tried looking at selecting the image and tried Ctrl C and Ctrl V on the first tab, but it didn’t work. I then tried moving the tab the photos were on into the first tab with a white background. When that didn’t work, I tried selecting and moving the specific layer of just the subjects from a tab and moving it to the first tab. Finally, that worked, so I chose repeatedly and dragged the subject layer from different tabs to the first tab.
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When I had all the subjects on one tab, I created a rough heart shape using the subject photos, using their size and rotating them to form a rough heart shape. (size - edit/transform/scale), (rotation - edit/transform/rotate). When I looked at the heart in proportion to the background, I wasn’t happy with it; the initial size of my project would be 19inx29in. I didn’t like the rectangular look proportionally with my heart. I went to image/image size to then edit the background size. However, while I could still change the size, I couldn’t change the proportions of the sides. I wanted a square base, but Photopea wouldn’t let the original proportions, which made a rectangle, change. So then I had to create a new photopea project with a new square background of 10inx10in. I transferred the heart image by downloading the image and a JPG. I then uploaded that original image to my new Photopea project and repeated the same steps as above to separate the actual image from the white background. After that, I was satisfied with the heart proportions and the square background/base.
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When I started working on my background, I wanted to blend the different landscape photos together for a smoother transition that added texture. However, because the landscape photos were on different layers, I couldn’t blend the images as I wanted to. But I figured out that when you right-click on a layer, you can merge it to another layer, and the layer will keep the photo in the same position it was already in. So, I merged all of the landscape photos into one layer. This then made it possible to use the smudge tool to blend and add texture to the landscape photos for the background.
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Another component I wanted to add was a more defined heart shape to emphasize better the shape the subject images were creating. The best way to do this was to make a drop shadow behind the photos. Going to image/adjustments/highlight-shadow would add a shadow effect behind the images. However, it adjusted the value within the photos. So, I decided to experiment with the drawing tool. I used the drawing tool and pink/red color for the heart and adjusted the brush size and the texture the brush would leave. (I chose to use the soft round). I then drew a heart over the image and tried bringing the image forward in front of the heart, but it wouldn’t work. So, I erased the heart and right-clicked on the subject image layer to duplicate it. Then, on the duplicated layer, I redrew the heart and moved the original subject layer in front of the duplicated layer so the subject image would lay on top of the heart.
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Reflection
I have acquired and refined some of my digital working skills throughout this project. Processes and techniques. Throughout this project, I refined my skills and processes of cutting out certain things from photos. That is a skill I have always wanted to learn and have been learning and working on them over the past year. This project brought me a learning experience to refine not only my precision and cutting out areas from images but also taught me new methods to do so. It taught me to cut things out yet leave a transition between what was left in the photo and what is now open space. That refinement in my skill also led me to acquire new techniques and processes to achieve my desired composition. I learned how to transfer images and layer them together so they are separate when I need them to make edits or when I want them layered together to edit them together. I have never done anything like that before, but I am happy I took the time to learn because now I can use this process to help with future projects. I developed as an artist because I was exposed to a new medium I had never dug deeply into. I have always given thought to it but never acted on it. This project has now exposed me to a new medium that, while challenging to learn, is fun and valuable for art projects and other projects in general. I was surprised I enjoyed the process as much as I did. However, I struggled with many of these processes and tools Photopea had to offer, considering I have never really used any of them. The only tools I have had experience with were the basics of most editing apps, including contrast, highlighting, shadow, saturation, etc. This project does tie together some previously learned concepts. Concepts of adequately adjusting the basics of colors, value, shape, size, and texture all have balance to add to the unity of the piece, except this time, instead of doing it in a physical medium, it was done digitally. My favorite part was understanding how to use specific tools and processes because it made certain aspects of my piece look how I wanted them to. Still, they added a slight time efficiency, not because I needed to learn how to use them. With more practice, I may get faster and better at using them. Another one of my favorite parts was finally seeing my piece come together in unity. I hope others view my work as proof to try new mediums, to expose themselves to getting out of their comfort zone to try things that may initially seem challenging and tedious.