Been experimenting with different effects in class today in relation to my theme of addiction . I wanted to experiment with adding images on top of other images as well as merging two images or aspects of an image together to create one final. I feel that by doing so before producing my photographs it will allow me to have a better understanding of what, where and maybe how to shoot for best results. I also wanted to be more aware of what was achievable within photoshop as this has again changed my ideas.

The image above is an example of experimenting with adding and editing wires to a photo. My initial idea was to create an image which portrayed the wires entering the fore arm, similar to that seen in addicts when injecting. To achieve this i used an existing image as the background then added the smaller wire from another existing image to the foreground. After this i then began experimenting with merging the two images together to create a more realistic appearance,  for example changing colour, brightness/Contrast as well as overall detail and quality. I also had areas where free hand skills were used for example the painting and creation of the vein to get a protruding, bulging like effect as well as the shading on the underside of the small wire to create a much more realistic appearance in relation to the background image. Overall as i do struggle with photoshop i did find this difficult especially when it came to creating mask layers although when i began i did find it became much more easier to understand the more i worked on it allowing me to understand and try more effects. Personally i still feel the image could be edited more as i can see areas which if improved could result in a better more realistic final image. If i was to do this again i would consider using a much more realtic foreground image, as i feel that due to the lighting and overall shape and positioning it resulted in alot more editing and adjuments needed to be applied which overall added to the  lack of realaisum. Due to this i think within my own work i will use real objects within the shots insead of photoshopping them in as this will not only aid me in producing the right effect wanted but will also allow me to manipulate the image alot more freely.

 I do think that doing things such as this help me massively with my editing skills and are defiantly something which i want to continue doing future within this project. This is something which i want to produce within my final images, i just need to work on planning the correct images to capture to which i can then best edit from.