Create a MySpace Music Playlist at MixPod.com

credit should be given to these sites

http://www.lonelyplanet.com
 http;//WWW.brusheezy.com
 http://www.flickr.com
www.africa-24.com
these were very helpful sites, really worth visiting... thank you so much

WHY I CHOSE THIS FESTIVAL.

i occurred to me that most of the interesting things i enjoyed the most in my O'Level was the history of south Africa, starting with the origin migration and settlement of most of the southern African tribes and more specifically the Zulu people. they are one of the most unique tribes on the whole entire planet and their cultures are extremely interesting to know about,for example in this festival hundreds of women parade at the kings palace very September for the king to choose a new wife, isn't that interesting?? Doing a project on a tribe like this was definitely one of the few things that would require me to explore photoshop on a rather more diverse perspective, it was challenging but it required my attention to the software and i had to do it. i am impressed by what i came up with and if you don't know a lot about this festival, simply do some research, you will never regret the time you will spend. thanks to all and be blessed!!!

                                                                                                                                          Peter Niwagaba.

NOW THE FESTIVAL

-but then there is something else, i found out the need to add a time subject, so now we all know when the beautiful festival occurs.

-i also changed the outer glow of the Zulu text and made the yellow color even brighter,

--the most significant change i made here was i changed the color of the outer glow on the large Zulu text.

-i used the screen blend mode and 100% opacity to make it appear lighter than before.

- i came up with something like that, quite impressive,

-exactly the same style, an did the word dance which by now tried to look beautiful but not yet impressing.

-so i played around with the text and came with a better one by using the skew effect.(edit>transform>skew).

- used the same method below but this time i did not create an elongated line on the reed text.
-rather i put it on top of the long line for the first text.(select brush>adjust brush size hold down shift and drag)

-the next text  was the festival title,looks scary but its simple, after typing the word ''THE''

-press b to bring up a brush, reduced the size held down the shift key and clicked then dragged on letter T.

-i got back to the fx button and gave the title an orange outer glow to blend with the text color(yellow).

NOTE; the same method applied to the rest of the title.

- for the titles, i started with the biggest but certainly less important, look at the huge Zulu text behind the rest.

-i typed my text(the font>capture it) in a new layer and placed it behind the dancers.

-to the bottom of the layer panel, i clicked the fx button and gave my text an outer glow of a dark brown.

-with the layer selected, clicked on the word fill which is right on top of the layers panel and dragged left to 0

-there i was reducing the fill to expose the layer under the text. notice everything else under the text is visible.

-it acted as a clipping mask for only that this time the back ground remained fully covered.

-at a close range , you will notice an outlined image of a traditional king but it was simply to guide me.
-it may be a little covered by the end but i used to help me arrange my work.

 

-at this stage i inserted a dancer in a new layer i adjusted the image by changing color and removing some unwanted parts of the image(re-touched it)

-and then duplicated the layer 4 times to make 4 dancers.

-i then changed the blend mode to screen which even made it light and hid away the black.
-notice it blends in even well, yet its background is solid black.

-i added layer masks to each of the dancers in order to fade them  into the floor untraced, went really well.

-then i imported my 4th texture into the composition to act as the floor.

-notice that it covers up the protruding bit of the texture below it as seen in the last step.

-also it creates the illusion of a traditional Zulu hut.

-i then dragged in my 3rd image in a new layer under the second image,

-notice that it fills up the gap from which a piece was cut.and gives it some depth.

-then i opened my 2nd image of the hut and dropped it on top of the texture.

-notice some empty space in the middle for now, i cut out a man as you must have seen in the original image.

- i dragged the texture i wanted to use as my standing background and dropped it in the composition.

photo retourch,

 

the original image but after i cropped out the white overlaps but before any further changes, not really goo so i tried to make it better!!

 

-the original image needed some cropping which i already did and even adjusted the brightness and contrast. -to adjust the brightness and contrast you go to image(with layer selected) adjustments> brightness contrast

-next try to adjust the color in order to show some variation which brings out the beauty in the picture.

-i normally change them in RGB color format it should be easy to adjust the reds, greens and the blues.

- after properly adjusting color to my liking, i started partial changes,
-i selected the t-shirt and put the exposure completely down to make it dark.
-i did the same to the shorts, and cap to make them differ from the original.

-the wall with graffiti can be a stubborn thing so all channels must be taken care of, u need to adjust the yellows and to do that its best u put it in cmyk color setting.
-i then adjusted each color carefully to avoid leaving out any detail,
- u can go to image adjustments, levels or curves..

-i however came to simple conclusion that simply emphasizing every color in the image and of-course  the skin tone to match the composition would do good, so i did exactly that and i came up with something like that. looks pretty good,

masks and channels( the clipping mask)

-choose a location of your own depending on where you would like to be.
-get the the image and drag it inside photoshop

 

-activate the layer and using the laso polygon tool, select the area you would like to replace.

 

-duplicate the selected layer to give it its own layer.(you can rename it) we are yet to see why.

 

-drag the image with which you would like to apply to the layer you selected.

-adjust it accordingly and place right on top of the layer you isolated before..

-with the image layer selected(the face in this composition) go to layer>create clipping mask.

-make the necessary adjustments basing on how you may want it to fit on the area you chose.

 you should be able to come up with something close to this, or even better, this one way of applying 

 the clipping mask under masking and channeling.

photo manipulation

this smoke image is what i used in the process of making the composition .

finally it should look close to this , an extremely disturbing dance environment with so much smoke and wind.

-you can add a stroke or two to make it even more dramatic
-apply a few effects like the bevel and outer glow to the stroke(s)

-duplicate the smoke layer as many times as you may require to create smokey windy environment.
-apply the same effects as before on each

-drag the smoke image on to the composition and use the screen blend mode.
- liquify the smoke and then apply the wind effect to show more movement

-duplicate the image and then apply the find edges effect,
- invert the color by pressing control i for the image to have that extreme contrast.

-use hard light mode

desaturate the photo by pressing control, shift u which takes all the color out in order to make it look like that.

original image of a south African dancer showing traditional dance skills.

some photo retourch extreme make over

sample images

these images are going to be my wallpaper images, i might chose one of them, or even combine more than one or even cut out and add up to make up my wallpaper, it will entirely depend on how each one of the ideas looks when i try them out!! the images include Zulu dancers, reeds used during the festival plus some textures
.
 so help me GOD!!

photo retourch,

just a simple African model whose color i adjusted and changed a back ground, nothing much but i just felt like i could upload it for reasons i can't explain. maybe to show m improving a little.

so i hope you comment accordingly!!