Audience / Purpose: This photo edit was intended for NFL Football fans, in addition to sports fans in general with knowledge of the history of the Washington Commanders and their consistent failure and mediocrity as a team for essentially my entire lifetime. Sports fans, football fans, and ESPECIALLY Commanders fans (like myself) are all too familiar with the trials and tribulations of this franchise, with the team only making the playoffs one time since the 2000's. But, recently, the team has seemed to turn some sort of a corner. They were able to draft dominant defensive player Chase Young in the first round of the draft 2 years ago, and also have enjoyed sustained success from star wide receiver Terry McLaurin. This has inspired some hope in the fanbase, with the two elite players making fans believe that a Super Bowl trophy was maybe attainable for the team. This image is supposed to bring up these feelings in my desired audience, as well as compose the message that the team is still failing, and the dreams of a trophy are starting to fade.
Image: The image that I created effectively conveys my message, because it features the goal of the Commanders organization (the Super Bowl trophy), the two best players on the team (pictured), and a dark, gloomy background. In addition, the main point of the photo is that the trophy is fading away, indicating that the dreams of attaining this trophy are fading in the minds of fans as well. The message featured in the photo, "The Dream is Fading," echos this sentiment.
Process: I relied upon a tutorial I found on "PSD Stack" that taught me how to make an image appear as if it is dissolving. This tutorial admittedly gave me some issues initially, because it featured a lot of steps and features of Photoshop that I had never utilized before. But, after restarting the entire process twice, I was finally able to create an image that I was happy with. Then, after completing the trophy portion, I simply used background eraser tools and quick select to crop the players in the photo from their original photos, and placed them into the background of the trophy. I made sure to make them appear small, in addition to putting them close to the trophy, in order to emphasize the importance of the honor of getting the trophy.
Learning: I learned a few valuable lessons from this project. Mainly, I learned that you cannot give up while following tutorials revolving around Photoshop. If you stick with it, you will learn the material and be able to learn it in the future. Also, I learned that I am pretty good with the Lasso tool! I have a relatively steady hand, and feel comfortable making small adjustments to crop images out.
Next: I will give myself more time to evaluate other tutorials, because I saw a lot of cool ideas and portraits from my classmates. While I am happy with my submission, I will spend more time browsing effects in order to find the very best one for what I want to do on the next project!
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