Creating our front cover- Digi Pak

 

 

 

We started by using Photoshop to edit the image we had selected. As I was more experienced with Photoshop I had the lead role in it. To give the image a more professional finish I started by airbrushing Millie's face. The steps seen below are the ones I completed while editing Millie's face. 

 

 1) Change the colour mode to CMYK, copy and paste the yellow channel and invert the layer. Change the mode back to RGB and change the layer blend mode to soft light.

 

 

2) Copy background layer, move it to the top and then use the spot healing tool to get rid of blemishes. After that, covert all layers to smart object.

3) Copy layer and select gaussian blur - move scales until you can barely make out the skin but the eyes are still visible.

4) Copy the original layer again, select high pass and more scales so that you can make out skin details. Then, change to linear light.

5) Group all layers and insert a layer mask - use the paint brush tool to apply the airbrush.

6) Merge layers then use dodge + burn tool to contour.

 

After airbrushing the skin I made a few final touches; filling in her eyebrows, brightening the eyes, defining her cheekbones. 

 

The second part to editing was actually creating the front cover itself.

 

The image to the left shows the process of turning the photo to black and white.

 

  

 

 

Next we duplicated the layer and put it onto a light grey background. We cropped the image to make it CD size.

 

Next we added our artists name 'Nova' and the name of our album. We used a text called 'Basic title font' from DA fonts for the album title; this font is minimalistic yet sophisticated and doesn't take away from our artist's name. 

 

 

This was the last stage of creating our front cover and most probably the most complex. We started the process by finding a basic hexagon shape on google and copy and pasting it onto the photoshop document. We then used the gradient filter to create a fade in the colour, so from yellow up to blue without any definite lines that clearly show the transition of colour.

 

 

This is the final outcome of the front of our album. We are extremely pleased with how it turned out as we feel that it looks professional.If we were to do this again we said that we would try to use a larger amount of colours to make the cover look more vibrant.