4. Another Idea Picture

I have created another practice piece to cover the fantasy genre as I am still undecided on which to choose for the final piece I will create.

As with the horror picture I created the effects are evident, though I feel that there is progress shown in this one already from the last piece.

I started by comparing the landscapes generically used in fantasy covers and decided upon using a castle.

This is the original picture:

I picked this because I thought the sky and the placement of the castle was ideal to make that the focus of the image. Firstly I removed all of the ducks. Ducks are great, but I don't think there would have been so many lazing around in the middle of a medieval scene. I used the patch tool and the healing tool for removing the bulk of them and then the spot healing brush to smooth out the edges. 

I also tidied up the path, removing the puddles and the gravel from the grass banks. I added banners to the castle turrets and a flag to the upper middle section. I found this difficult as they looked obviously super-imposed, I tried to ease this look by adding an effect to them. The luminosity type worked the best and this is what they were left at. I had to create the flag pole from three separate photos as the original image didn't match the images consistency. I had to choose where to put the layers so that parts of the images I had used sat behind the flag itself. 

Lastly I added a knight in the front and centre of the image and covered the image with a sunburst effect. This is a consistent factor in fantasy images, I changed the opacity of the effect and used the overlay 'filter'. 

This is the edited image with the sunburst and then without:

I have shown this without the sunburst so that the retouching made on the grass and water can be seen easier. The knight in the front of the image does look super-imposed and I feel in this piece that has been my biggest place for improvement.