For this post I wasn’t completely sure where to go and how to create my piece. I knew I wanted a poster with the title of the bike but I wasn’t completely sure how to incorporate extra photos into the piece without ruining the balance and cleanliness I wanted.
The base picture was one taken by a friend of mine, Luke Hollister, who is credited in my initial image collection post. I wanted to use this as my main focus because I appreciated how clean and well lit the picture was. I began by placing a photo I got for free from Pixabay as the background for the work. This picture was found at https://pixabay.com/en/arid-background-climate-desert-21799/
While this image of dirt was underneath the picture of the the bike, I used the quick selection tool to grab the bike as a whole so that I could separate it from the background. I then turned down the opacity on everything but the bike itself, thereby exposing the dirt background.
I wanted the bike itself to stand out as well, so I decided to darken the corners around it in order to highlight it. I used the elliptical marquee tool to go around the entire photo, then selected the inverse so that only the corners would be selected. I then painted feathered and painted the corners black, then turned down the opacity.
For the title, I wrote out the text before blurring it and using the filter and distort tool to place the text up against a picture of lightning, thereby causing small wrinkles in the text. The image I used to distort was also found on Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/en/lightning-storm-weather-sky-399853/
For my final draft I think I’m going to have to come up with a more creative way to incorporate the elements I want. I feel like the draft turned out decent but I’m going to have to spend more time getting used to the program.
Dan's Moto Blog 
Dan, this is a great image. It offers multiple elements to work with. The picture is clear, and the focus is easy to establish.
Since the bike is the main element of the picture, to make it standout even more, you could contrast the colors on just the bike. As well the lighting from the sun is a distraction at first glance – my eyes immediately went to that spot first. To help avoid that, you could add an adjustment layer to the background to make sunlight not as prominent.
Lastly, the text KLR-250 could use more layers to make the lightning effect noticeable. Maybe change the font style or the color of the text. Adding a different blending technique could help as well. In the post it mentioned how it this is supposed to resemble an ad, look at other bike ads for the way they presented their texts. Adding a stroke to the text or a drop shadow could be an option as well.
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Dan, I think your graphic looks good but are a few things you could do to improve it. You said in your post that you wanted the bike to stand out from the background but it stands out little too much and doesn’t blend into the background. If you were to maybe turn up the opacity of the background it would look more like a single photo, rather than two photos put together. The second thing I would suggest improving is the corners. I would maybe try to lighten them just little and make them less dramatic. That way you still get the same effect of putting the focus on the bike but it doesn’t make the graphic look fake. You did a good job with the title, by distorting it just enough to where it’s not overwhelming. I think overall your graphic just needs a little bit of work to make it look like one cohesive photo then a bunch of separate parts.
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After reading the comments on my piece, I decided that there were a couple of adjustments I could make. The first of these is to work more with the text to make it blend better with the overall project. I will probably use a different font and color to make it fit better visually. At this point I feel that it doesn’t really fit and just looks like it was laid down on top. I also might go ahead and add more text such as a sub headline to add even more color.
I’m going to go ahead and make the main object in the photo blend a little better into the background. The bike really stands out at this point, which I was kind of going for in the first place when I designed the draft, but now I’m thinking that I will blend it back into the background.
I think I will come up with ways to incorporate more objects and effects into the poster as well, but I’m not sure about how I will do this yet.
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