Process & Reflection
Being the first Photoshop, I decided to be more experimental, using techniques and tools I knew before this lesson.

I first found the picture of this cat swatting at something, deciding to base my piece around this image. After that, I continued down my usual direction of incorporating aquatic elements and marine life, and found this picture of the ocean from the bottom up perspective, with a shark being illuminated in the sunlight.  With these 2 images, I wanted to create a piece that looked like the cat is chasing the shark underwater.

Firstly, I edited the underwater picture, cropping away the sides and masking away the shark. I then created a copy of the shark, changing the direction of it to face the right, then using brightness and exposure layers to adjust the lighting accordingly. Afterwards, to make it more realistic, I used multiply, pin light, and overlay layers accordingly to create shadows under the shark, more hard light on the top of the shark as per the sun rays, and reflected light under the shark. The adjustment layers for the shark were all created with the aid of a clipping mask and layer masks, so it only changes the lighting for that specific item.

Next, for the cat image, I cropped out the background first, using the object selection tool, then expanding and feathering the edges accordingly, to create a smoother and more natural look. Firstly, I used a multiply layer to create shadows on the areas of the cat where the light would not hit. Then I adjusted the cat using levels and brightness layers to soften and adjust the lighting. For the brightness layer, I also used a layer mask to mark out specific areas where the light would hit more. Afterwards, I duplicated the background layer of the ocean, then using hard light mode, changed the lighting on the cat. Lastly, I brushed out areas on the top most points of the cat where the sun rays would illuminate, using hard light mode. Similar to how I used clipping marks and layer masks during the editing of the shark, all the adjustments for the cat were also done in the same way.

When I was done editing these 2 images together, I realised something was missing. I then sourced for an image with underwater air bubbles, chancing upon the picture of the woman underwater. I picked it due to the colours of the picture being similar to my original underwater image.

Firstly, I cropped the image of the woman to only feature the bubbles, then erased most of the background, and changed the layer type to soft light. Afterwards, using a layer mask, I created a gradient that slowly erases the visibility of the bubbles from the top left. I then positioned this layer in the background, below the cat. Then I duplicated the adjusted image, bringing the position of the layer all the way on top, erasing more of the bubbles so they don’t overlap the ones on the bottom most layer. I changed the layer type to colour dodge and lowered the opacity to 36%, then used a layer mask to erase visibility from the top down. This created the visuals of air bubbles, from the bottom of the cat, emphasising its speed and movement while chasing the shark.

For the final touches, using the pin light layer mode, I lightly brushed more white on the top of the image to create more dramatic lighting. Then I used the same font as the movie ‘Jaws’, to create ‘Paws’ and placed the type on the bottom right of the poster. To make it more similar to a movie poster, I added fake credits below the ‘Paws’ type.

Overall, I liked this activity and my final piece as it is both comedic and realistic, and tested my understanding of Photoshop techniques.