Research and Planning: Photoshop Trial

I have made a trial film poster for the genre I have chosen for my film; Horror. This was just to refresh myself with the uses of photoshop.

I started by opening up a photoshop document, and I turned the background black, as I thought this was the most appropriate colour for a Horror genre film poster. I then searched on the internet for a scary picture, which would be suitable for my poster. As this was just a photoshop challenge, I didn't take the images myself. I found a suitable photograph, which showed a girl with what looked to be a wooden background, I duplicated the layer, and cut out the girl using the magnetic wand tool, I then selected the inverse of the girl (one layer of the background) and deleted it. The reason for this being to change one layer of the backgrounds opacity, without effecting the opacity of the girl, as I wanted her to stand out. I also changed the brightness and contrast of both the background and the girl, in order to give it a more grungey look, but also to brighten the girl more.

I then decided to find another image which I could blend into the background in order to give the poster a more terrifying aspect, as it looked quite plain and bland. I searched on the internet, and found a picture of the haunted stairs, which I have blended into the background. I added this to my photoshop document, however I had to place it behind the duplicate layer of the girl, so that she appeared to be in front of the stairs. I changed the opacity of the image of the stairs, in order to slightly see the tinged background from the original image.

I then got the brush tool, and selected a red colour, to represent the horror genre, I also changed the opacity of this, in order for it to not look like a block red. I put lines down the image in order to look like blood. I also used the pencil tool - in a very thin brush size, in the colour grey in order to make the words "Keep Away" - which I hoped to give the impression that they were scratched into the image. I also got an image of a handprint off the internet, which I then made to look faintly bloody, using both a red and a grey - both with the opacity changed, in order to blend together.

I then downloaded the font for the title of the film off dafont.com, I chose this font as I thought it fitted in with the regular conventions of Horror. I chose to turn this font red, which blended in the red lines 0 and also represented blood, and the images of horror. I also downloaded Steeltongs from the internet, in order to add the film credits onto the poster, just like a real film poster would have.