Photo Restoration 2

This picture has taken me a while to finish. There are still some little bumps and areas that I need to and want to fix but right now, I am happy with the end result I have achieved.
(MORE EXPLANATION TO COME!)

-Gorecki.

Honesty of Poetry

This picture shows "teen angst." Poetry is used to express feelings and emotions towards something. Usually teens use poetry as an escape. Either they write about love or death. The emotion is true and they will always feel as strong about whatever they are writing about for the rest of their lives. But then again, teens are going through a lot, and later on in life they will think that THIS was challenging, whatever is happening to them right now. This picture shows the thoughts, expressions, and feelings of high school teenagers. Their thoughts are about either life or death. Love or hate. Different dimensions of writing and poetry make us different and set us apart from each other, and it also brings us closer together as human beings.
To make this picture I made the dimensions that were needed, then I chose a picture of a skull. At first it was oddly placed but then I added a picture, well a painting, of a heart shaped tree. I changed the layers so that the skull was in the front. Then I used the burn tool and added depth and shadows underneath the tree and around the skull. Next I used the text tool and added the title. It's a pretty simple picture, but it says a lot.


- Gorecki.

Photos Restored

Okay so here is the photo I restored. There isn't much of a difference, but I hope you like it, and find it satisfying. I don't know who these people are, but if the person who actually owns this photo, if they find it, then well I restored it for you. Your welcome. Don't worry. No favors. Just money. KIDDING! Stephen and I did the same photo, I think his is better. Just saying.


Before and After
To create this picture, I used the cloning brush and took away the white lines and yellow-ish border around the photo. Next, I changed the yellow-ish colours to white, so that the picture looked more realistic and didn't seem to be as old as it looked. To do this, I used the Enhance, Adjust Colour, Replace Colour tool, and adjusted the lighting (contrast and brightness) of the photo. Then, I used the sharpen tool to make the photo not look so blurry or fuzzy. Viola! A new photo, from the old photo.

- Gorecki.

Gorecki Digital Paintings

This is not my fortay. They suck I know, but I tried. I feel like I am better with photo manipulations. Here are two paintings I have done.

"Our Murder"

To make this picture I started with a blank canvas specified to the specific page size requirement. Then I used the paint can and painted the background black. This image consists of many different layers. Layers are key. First, I started with a paint brush, in the biggest size I could make it, and then I painted a squiggly line in the bottom left corner. Then, I went to Filter, chose the motion blur button, and chose radical, and changed the specific area to make the curve and lines. Then I wanted a bright colour, so red, and did the exact same thing but did not make the lines so big and spaced out. Next, I made another white line over the circular white layer and used Filter, Wind, and gave it a weird affect to create some sort of fog affect. Then, there was an empty space, so I made a red circle and added a blue line in the middle using paintbrush, and paint can. Then, I went to filter, motion blur again, and used the linear choice. I changed the length and area of the lines to make the circle end up the way it did. I looked at this picture and said to myself that I thought it looked like a reflection in water of the moon, and there was a weird ripple in the water. So, lastly, I added another grey line, Filter, Motion Blur, and blurred the line to make it look like a weird cloud covering the moon.

This picture represents a different time. Everything is disrupted and looks off. The moon is red, and hurt, and there is a secret in the air. This picture is like a murder scene, everything is there, but the little details are always missed. The lines across the moon look like they don't belong, but they really do. There is an eery-ness in the air, or in this case, in the picture, or the reflection on the water. The moon is hiding behind something, but what? This picture is a reflection of someone, we all have secrets and hide behind a lie. What's yours? We change our reflection of ourselves in many ways.

"The Balance"

I created this picture by starting with a canvas size that was "9x11." Then I used the paint can and painted the background black. Then I used a pink gradient and drew a line to make the bigger shaped triangle. Next, I added another layer and added another gradient in a smaller triangle on the right side of the picture. This gradient was blue and it faded into a lighter blue into the right side, and I screened it over the original picture. After adding another layer, I used a yellow/orange gradient in the form of a triangle on the left side of the picture, and dodged it over everything. ( The smaller triangle. ) Next, I used the white paint brush and drew out squiggly lines in the bottom right side of the picture. Then, I used Filter, Motion Blur, Radical, and the squiggly lines turned into a weird circle. This created a light side to the picture, and then the other side I did the exact same thing but with a black paint, and didn't make the lines so big. I think this balanced out the picture well. There is the light side, and dark side to the photo, and each side has a circle that brings you into each side. This could be metaphorical for that our lives are all about choices. There are the choices that bring us into the dark side, and the other choices that can bring us into the light side. It is just a matter of which side you want to be on, and who you want to be. Though, there is the balance of good and evil in this world, and they balance each other out. There can't be one without the other.

- Gorecki

Beckinsale Graceling

While working on my overlay project and making my face a lion, I was working on my culminating for English. The culminating was we had to read a book and take a character from the book and make an essay on them. I read the book Graceling. Of coarse, I read this book before and absolutely loved it, and there is also a prequel/sequel. You can make it both. A graceling is someone with two different coloured eyes and they have a special talent. This talent could include mind reading, seeing the future, fighting, etc, but no two gracelings are the same. Katsa is special, she has the grace of killing. She has one blue eye and one green eye, and she was the inspiration for me. Due to the fact this isn't a real person, I got inspired while watching the movie Underworld ( I'm a big fantasy freak ) and thought about using Kate Beckinsale. She does a lot of kick-a** movies and I think she would be the person Katsa. Though the age difference might be a little bit of a problem, considering Katsa is supposed to be 18, and Kate Beckinsale is 30-40. Anyways, here is how I made my Katsa.

Firstly, I had to change the eyes, so I took the lasso and drew around the eye, then used a bright blue colour and painted over the area with the paint brush. I changed the eyes by changing their normal, and having it react with the original colour of her eyes. (The button around the opacity) This is how I created her dynamic different coloured eyes. Then, using the burn brush, I shadowed all around her face, making her features more prominent. Then, I used the Enhancing button to change the contrast and brightness of the picture, to also make it more dynamic. After, I found a texture that was cracked and added it to her face but overlaying it. I wanted the scars to look more raw so I took the paintbrush and painted over the lines in red, then overlayed it. I think this gives the picture more of an edge, and shows all her battles she has been through and her strength. Lastly, the blood. That was the trickiest part because I had to make it look somewhat real and not so much painted on. I used different layers and different shades of red and changed the opacity and layer. (Again, using the button around the opacity) I am not so sure about the blood but I think overall I am happy with what I did, in only 10 minutes.

- Gorecki.

Crumbled Lion Face

BEFORE: As you can tell in this picture, my face is obviously photo shopped a bit. What you don't know, is that I took this picture without makeup, and I was sick that day. Also, when you look at the picture, my eye on the left is a copy of my eye on the right. I didn't like the way my eye looked so I changed it, and luckily it worked well and looked rightly placed and real. I used the cloning brush to cover the original eye and eyebrow, then used the largest and highest quality smudge brush that I was able to use, and smudged the skin smoothly together. Afterwards, I blurred everything together to make it not look very choppy. Yes, I know this picture looks off, and that it doesn't look totally realistic, but I don't feel comfortable putting a picture of myself up that looked the way it did before I photo shopped it a bit. I hope you can respect that.

AFTER: It took a lot of effort and small details to concentrate on to make this picture end up the way it did. I had to find pictures of a lion, a henna tattoo, (Yes, I know that part doesn't make sense but I have a weird sense of style. No one really sees henna on a lion) and a picture of high quality bark. I changed the colour of my eyes, from... well whatever colour they are, to a blue colour. To do this, I painted a whole new eye over the existing eye using the paint brush, and used different shades of blue. Then, for the other eye I just copied the blue eye I had already done, and pasted it, and flipped it to fit into the right eye. Then to make it look like it was real-ish, I overlayed it onto my existing eye. Then, I added the henna tattoo. I had to erase the background colour using the paint bucket, and then overlayed it onto my forehead. I do not know why I did this, but this picture kind of reminds me of someone from NARNIA. I wanted to do something different with my face, so I found a picture of bark, and overlayed it on my face as a mask. I had to erase around my face and neck so that they were the only areas of the picture that were "barked." After, using the lion's head, I had to cut around the head using the eraser, and then I transformed it, and sized the picture to it well into my face. I had to burn this picture onto my face. Unfortunately, there was a set back. The face was too orangey and dark to match with the background of the picture, my neck and my hair. So, I found a way to make it work. I went to the Enhancing button, and changed the brightness and contrast. This worked perfectly, and I managed to make it all the same shades and colour. Then, the neck was a bit of a problem. I missed a couple of areas of the neck so I used the lasso and coped and pasted tiny areas into the non-barked areas. Then, to make sure it didn't look so copied and pasted, I blurred and smudged it a bit. I think it worked out well because it brings a bit of depth into the picture. I had some problems with my nose as well. Due to the fact that the lion picture was overlayed, the nose stuck out a bit, so I had to use the smudge brush, and I smudged my nose down and out, to give it more of a lion face, and to match up with the lion nose. I thought my picture was finished but something was still missing. Then I realized, I had a cat on my face but no whiskers. In the end, I used the airbrush in white to brush out whiskers onto my face, which I think was the finishing touch. Hope you find this picture intriguing.

You can think of this picture any way you want it to be, but for me it is that we all have animals inside us that our dying to get out, only, mine is ripping and crumbling to get out. We are all different. Also, if you noticed the lion I used was a male instead of a female. I have nothing against the female lions but I just prefer the male lions. They are fluffier and a lot cuter. :P

- Gorecki.

GORECKI SURREALISM

"The World Around Us"

When you read the title of my surrealistic picture, I am guessing you are thinking to yourself, this is NOT the world around ME. This is where you are wrong. We make the world how we want it to be. We see the world how we want to see it, so when you read this title and look at my picture, this is just a small interpretation of what I see in the world around me. So now let me tell you a little bit more about my picture, and why a rabbit is stabbing a nail into a heart, and why an elephant is hatching out of an egg. Let's start with the elephant. The question is always there, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, what about elephant? Did they just appear in our world fully grown? Were elephants born from an egg and then populated our world? How did civilizations occur and how did we become known, and how long did it take to have our own thoughts and feelings? As you notice, I am asking a lot more questions than answering them, but that is because our whole life and world is about questions. These questions we will never be able to answer. To make this picture, I had to find a picture of an elephant and an egg and crop them out using lasso tool, and copying and pasting them into my picture. Then I had to change layers and put the elephant in front of the egg. Next, I had to crop around the elephant so it looked like he was actually coming out of the egg. To do this, I took the lasso tool again, and went around the area I needed to delete, and then deleted it. I tweaked around the edges a bit so it would fit better using the eraser. Then using the burn tool, I created a shadow on the ground. Also, to make ti look like the elephant and egg belonged there, I had to change the lighting and contrast using the Enhance button.

Moving on to the rabbit stabbing a nail into the heart. For this I had to find a picture of a bunny standing up, a heart that looked somewhat real, and a nail that would suit the picture. Once I found these, I cropped them out, using the lasso tool, and pasted them and tweaked them a bit as well to make it fit together. Next, I had to add shadows to the pictures to make it look like it was actually happening, so I used the burn tool and put shadows all along the nail, heart, and rabbit's hands. To add a red eye to the rabbit, I made a new layer and tool the paint brush and painted around the eye, and changed the opacity to make it look somewhat real. Let us be realistic here, there is no devil bunny, only ones in Monty Python. Again, with the burn tool, I put shadows on the ground so that it showed they were really there. Then, I burnt around the ground to make it look like the bunny was coming out from the ground to surprise attack on the heart. This is saying that you can't always trust yourself or anyone, you could be stabbed in the back by someone else, even if they look very innocent. Also, you have to live your life day by day cause you never know when it will end. Just have fun with your life and imagination.

Now, the clock in the sky. It obviously represents time, that it is melting away. Sometimes when you aren't paying attention, your life can flash before your eyes. In turn, you lose track of time. We always look at the clock and ask ourselves, when will this be over? What we never do, is look at our position and realize that we have it lucky, and we should cherish every moment we have together. To make this clock, I found a picture of a click I liked, using paint bucket cleared the background away, and melted it by going to filter and liquefy. Then, I just changed it around to make it look interesting, and fitting for the picture.

You can ask yourself, why is there a woman in a wedding dress kneeling on the moon? Well, let me answer that for you. She is the one who had lost someone she loves, she is the one that is lost to the ones that love her. We associate shining stars or the moon, with relatives long past, the ones we miss and hope to see again. When we think of them, we think that they are always looking upon us and they are thinking of us as well. Sometimes, something that is sad is only contentment. Not everything that is lost has to be a bad thing. No one ever looks on the bright side to things anymore. Be optimistic, because no one is ever lost to you forever. To make this lady, I found a picture of her kneeling and lasso-ed around her and cut her out, then pasted her on top of the moon. To make her look like she is fading, and sort of distant, I lowered the opacity, so you can see through her but you do not know what is on her mind. Then, I used a brush tool to make clouds, because I thought this brought everything together and took away the empty space on the picture.

For this project, we had to have a lamp post in our picture. I chose an old lamp post, which I am pretty sure everyone else did as well. They are beautiful in their history, and are our lights to see the world. I found this picture, then took the paint bucket and deleted the white background around it. Next, I made it smaller to fit the screen by transforming it. Then, I placed it in front of the small purple light from the sky in the background. This is just to make it look interesting. Then to create a shadow from the lamp post, I used the burn tool and burnt the ground to make it look shadowed.

Lastly, you see the doorway, opening with a bright shining light on the other side. This is our hope. We go through birth, life, death and a new beginning. (At least this is what some believe.) We have hope that once we die, we go to a happy place, and get away from all the bad, where in the end we will live happily-ever-after. We take the steps to get to where we want to go, and to who we want to be. If someone is hurt, they want an escape from their reality. We can just step through the doorway and find ourselves again, see what we want to see. To create this, I had to find a picture of a doorway that was not copyrighted, and stepping stones that would get smaller and smaller, which would end up leading to the doorway. I took the lasso tool and cut around the doorway frame, and the steps. Then, I cut it out and pasted it to my picture, and sized it so it fit perfectly. I had to transform these images. Next, I coloured the door in with white, with the paint brush, to make it seem like there is a bright light on the other side. After that, I copied one of the doors and placed it to open on the side with the light, this will make it look like the door is opening. Then, I transformed it to make it look like it was actually opened, and not a floating door on the side of the frame. I sized this picture as well. To make the light beams coming out of the doorway, I used a brush and made little light strokes throughout the area with the door. Then, I changed the opacity of them to make it look like actual light beams. I also changed the lighting and contrast of the doorway by using the Enhance button.

The background is what ties this picture together, I found two pictures, one was of the moon and stars, and the other was the pasture. I changed the colour of the grass with the Enhancing button to make it look a bit orange and dead, and I cut it so the trees would fit nicely over the background of the moon and stars. I changed that picture as well, by using the Enhancing button. I just played around with different buttons until I found something that I liked and thought fitted the picture well. I cut around the trees with the pasture picture by using the lasso tool and drawing around it, and fading it by 10px. I hope you enjoyed reading this. Sorry you had to. I can't help myself sometimes. It shows in my writing and my work. :P

- Gorecki.