Artist Reflection for Project 3
     The best technical aspect was using the spot healing brush tool to remove the blemishes. Using this I was able to use the normal looking skin and use those colors brushed over the freckles and irritated skin spots. The result is that she looks like she had no skin disorder. Although this was my best technical aspect, it could have been improved some. If someone were to zoom in on the picture and investigated it closely, the patterns that I used my healing brush for can be seen. Maybe if I were to experiment with more sizes of the brush and use different patterns to mask blemishes it would create a more authentic looking result.
      The easiest part would be to use the tool to simply cover up the blemish. Click from one spot and drag is easy. The harder part is to be careful on what sort of displacement it creates with the colors. Sometimes the hair is on the very edge of the range and would create an orange streak through the skin. Other times it is the shadows that affect the tool. To see if a questionable stroke helped, I would quickly hit the "command" and "z" buttons to undo and redo, and a good portion of the work was left undone due to the difficulties I mentioned, and tried a different angle. This made the project easier by helping me understand how the brush worked better.
     I had achieved the goal of removing the blemishes by making her natural skin tone go over irritated skin points and freckles (and at one time an annoying strand of hair). Another objective was to change the eye color, but that would in the end make the picture worse because in her eyes the observer can see the bride and groom. Changing the eye color would distort the reflection in her eyes. This was an enjoyable activity in which if I had to do it again I would use another picture. I would also dabble more with the paint brush. In this project I didn't use it more than a few times, and it proved to help with spots that the healing brush couldn't seem to fix.

(The original)

 (The altered)

Artist Reflection for Project 2

     The strongest technical aspect would be choosing what to highlight in the picture. The intent of what to emphasis was the cat's intention to eat the small bird. Recoloring the eyes and tongue on the cat shows the cats desire, and highlighting the bird was pinpointing its target. This project was really simple so it is hard to improve upon it in this picture. To improve, a more complicated picture may be needed to challenge what is the most important aspect.

     The easiest part of the activity was filling back in the color where I desired. Making the picture black and white required a short process was also really easy when I had technical difficulties and had to repeat it. The most difficult aspect was to see exactly where some borders were to restore, but do to simply undoing, it was not an obstacle for long, just reoccurring. It proved challenging choosing a good picture for the project, but I knew what I wanted to choose for a picture, but many didn't have color in the right spots to make my objective clear.

     To demonstrate the objective I created two focal points instead of one. Both animals are the focal points of this picture, as explained earlier. If I were to repeat this activity, like I would say for most, I would use a new picture. Outside of my usual nature theme I would do something like highlight the main dish at a dinner set (example, the chicken and pasta in a bowl).

(The Original)

(The Altered)

Artist Reflection for Project 1

     With the picture of the bee, the strongest technical aspect would be the bottom the left flower. it started out as a plain yellow flower and through the use of a couple layers, it was transformed into a light purple flower. This flower stands out by being the most natural fitting adjustment to the picture, with similar colors already exhibited originally. Would I could have improved in my work would have been to choose better colors for the bee's abdomen to seem more natrual like an exotic species. had better shades been chosen, and opacity experimented with, it could be more believable.

     Several aspects of this project was easy, like filling in the color of choice on my target. Changing the degrees of opacity was simple and took little time to fidget with. Lastly it was easy to add a layer, the click of a button and it couldn't be easier. It was much more difficult to think of what I had wanted to edit, so I started with the flowers, because it was an easy place to start. this was also my first time using a Mac computer, and photoshop, so understanding what the layout was was a challenge in itself. It shouldn't be left out to say that editing the bee itself was not full of options to edit to a novice such as myself.

     The object was to simply edit the picture through the use of the paint tool, and I had done little work that was not with the paintbrush tool. If I could redo this I would have fun with making more colors in the flowers. It would also be fun to practice with other photos, most likely with more wildlife because nature has many beautiful shapes already, and to change those colors would make for interesting results in the very least. With different photos, I should try to to photos that have more objects in it that I can dabble with, and simpler pictures with fewer to edit.

(The Altered)

(The Original)