Art Portfolio Project: Album Design Process

In this post, I will be showing the process of me making my album design in Adobe Photoshop. These editing process will include my typography design that I designed in Adobe Illustrator, the photoshoot that I took for my album, and some of stock image for overlay.

The first ever step is to set my canvas for my album in Adobe Photoshop. I open Adobe Photoshop and click on File>New and a New Document windows will shop up. Since I have my own preset, on the Preset Details I set the title as Album 1, then the measurement unit I change into Inches with 12×12 width and height with 300 dpi resolution. Since this album is for printing, I set the Color Mode to CMYK Color in 8 bit. Then I click on Create and my canvas is set.

My first album that I sketch was divided into 4 parts, so, I am going to divide my canvas into 4 parts too. To do that, on the left tool, I click on the Crop tool then right click to extend another tool, then I click on Slice Tool, then. I right click on my canvas and a new menu will show up, in that menu I click on Divide Slice. 

In this menu, I tick the Divide Horizontally Into and Divide Vertically Into. on both slices down and across, evenly spaced, I set the digit into 2. Then I click on OK. 

Now my canvas is set into 4 parts and I can now work on that part individually and properly without missing any measurement. There are crucial part that I am missing here that is the bleed part of my canvas. I need to bleed my canvas to make sure that my printing is perfect and will not cut the crucial design on my album. To bleed my canvas, first I need to turn on Rulers. I turn it on by click on View on the top bar menu, then I click on Rulers. Now I have ruler on my canvas. 

Then I use my mouse to drag the guidelines on the rules to the edge of my canvas on all edge. Then, when I click on Image>Canvas Size and a new Canvas Size windows will show up. On this menu, I set the unit to inches, and change the Width and Height to 12.375 and I click on OK. Now I have bleed on my canvas. I should keep my design like text and image inside this bleed do it won't cut out when printing. 

Now the first design that I am making required a head from Ange and me, and I want to add tear effects on it so it look like it rip off from paper and imitate collage technique. To do that, I go to File>Open and open my picture that took, then I click on OK. The picture was too big, so I click on Crop Tool and crop to the size that I want. 

Now I want to select just around my face without the bottom. I do it by clicking on Select>Subject and a selection will roughly select my face, this is convenient because of my picture have green background. With the selection, I click on Rectangular Marquee Tool and right click on the selection and click on Select and Mask. 

In this section, I just want to keep my hair and head. So, first of all, just to refine, I click on Refine Edge Brush Tool and on the top bar, I click on Refine Hair and the selection of my hair is now refine. To remove the bottom, I use Polygonal Lasso Tool with Subtract from selection mode and roughly select the bottom of my head, then after roughly selected, I use Refine Edge Brush Tool and brush around the rough selection that I made. Then I click on OK. Now I have my selection of that part, in Rectangular Marquee Tool, I right click on my selection and I click on Layer Via Copy, so that the selection is now on another layer. Now, if I turn of the visibility of the background, I have my head with transparent background.

I want to make my face in paper torn effects, so I am going to use Paper Torn Effects brush that I downloaded. First, I add a another layer by clicking on Create a new layer on the bottom left bar menu, and on the Layers section, I drag the new layer on the bottom of my head layers, so if I brush something it will be below of my head. Now, I use the Paper Torn Effects brush and brush around the edges of my head with white colour. After finish that, I use General Brushes with Soft Round with black colour and colour it a bit under my head to make a realistic shadow effects, I lower the Opacity to 53% and Flow to 31%. Then I turn on the visibility of my background to see how is it.

After that, I save it with PSD file since I will be using the head again with another design. Also I did the same process with Ange head.

Now back on my main canvas, I want to fill the colour and the colour is already chosen in my sketches. I am going to make 4 different layers for four different part for safety reason. To do that, I just click on Create new layer 4 times, and I rename the layer for each one by double left click on it, which are TR (Top right), TL (Top left), BR (Bottom right) and BL (Bottom left). To fill in the colour first I do it in my TR layer, I use Rectangle Tool and make a rectangle on the top right, then I fill it in and it will automatically snip into grid, on the top bar I make sure it is in Shape mode and Fill. To change the colour, on the Fill, there is a box right beside it, I click on it, and there will be extension menu, right there, to open colour picker, on top right corner, I click the colour icon, now I have Color Picker (Fill Color) windows on. For the top right, I have decided to go with #FF9922, however since I am doing CMYK, I convert it to C:0%, M:40%, Y:87%, K:0%, so on the bottom of the menu CMYK, I change the digit and I click on OK. I repeat this steps 3 times for other boxes, and the colour for top left is C:100%, M:0%, Y:50%, K:47%, bottom right is C:0%, M:100%, Y:100%, K:20%and bottom left is C:0%, M:100%, Y:0%, K:80%.

Then to add text which is Japanese, first, I am going to use translator which is from here,  I write Sha and I am going to proceed with シャ. I copy it, and back to Adobe Photoshop, I create a new layer and rename it シャ, on that layer, I click on Horizontal Type Tool and left click on my canvas. Now I have editable text on my canvas, I double left click on that text and paste シャ, I set the size into 220pt with Kozuka Gothic Pr6N font on top bar meny, then I use Move tool to rearrange it in the middle. I do the same steps with bottom right with ンジ. 

Now to insert the image of Ange head and my head and I want to change the colour style. I click on File>Open and open the photoshop file both of my head and Ange head. Back with my head canvas, I duplicate the layer of my head and lock another one and work with copy layer just in case I want to use the original layer back. On that layers of my head, I want to change the colour to black and white, I do that by clicking on Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation. On that Hue/Saturation menu, I set the Saturation all the way back to -100 and I click on OK. 

Now to enhance the black and white values, I am going to change the curves. I do that by clicking on Image>Adjustment>Curves. This is the value and the results:

Next, I want to change the exposure too. To do that, I click on Image>Adjustment>Exposure, then Exposure window will show up, I set the Offset value to -0.2391 and the Gamma Correction value to 3.34, then I click on OK. 

From here, I want to select on the black colour of my face, I click on Select>Color Range and a Color Range windows will show up. Here, I slide my cursor into black part of my head, then I just click on OK. Now, the black part of my image here is selected, I go to Rectangular Marquee Tool and right click on the selection and I click on Layer Via Cut. This is my new layer:

Then, I try to add the torn paper effects but honestly it does not look  good. So, I decided to not use it just leave it like that. I repeat the same process for Ange head and copy the layers into my main canvas.

As you can see here, the image of Ange is kind off vague. So, I decide to change the background with lighter and brighter purple. I did some research and this is the colour that I am going with C:46.0 M:48.7 Y:0.0 K:26.7

Now it look visible. Now the last step of design that I am going to do here is applying an overlay I download some of overlay from Unsplash and to apply it, I open the picture and duplicate the layer into my main canvas, I use Move Tool to cover the whole album, and then, on Layers section, I change the Blend Mode to Multiply and I set the Opacity down to 70%.

This is the other 5 design that I made: