Spotlight Moon - Photoshop

Photoshop is mainly used to photo manipulation and composites. Many people use  it for photo editing and colour correction. While researching photo manipulation I found myself surrounded by a myriad of artworks and artists and didn't know what I really wanted to do. After some time browsing, I found an artist who made surrealistic landscapes and found his work to be quite interesting and beautiful, his name is Justin Peters.

Figure 1: Melting Moon (Justin Peters)

The artworks that really inspired me were his artworks involving Universe and the Moon, I found that he had an interesting take on the possibilities that the human mind can imagine.

Figure 2: Galaxy Eye (Justin Peters)

Eventually I decided to try something myself using photoshop. I chose three photos that I took myself, a photo of the moon, a spotlight and Mount Etna. I started imagining and brainstorming in what way I could use these images together to create an  image that conveys some sort of meaning.

Figure 3: The Moon (Original Source)

Figure 4: Mount Etna (Original Source)

Figure 5: The Spotlight (Original Source)

I decided to use the Mount Etna picture as my background and use the Spotlight as my sky, and position the moon in  the central position of the spotlight thus making the moon a spotlight, The spotlight of the night sky. I started this process by duplicating the background and selecting the sky in the Etna image, then I refined the edges and proceeded to cut the selected area leaving only the foreground. 

Figure 6: Work Space (Original Source)

I then edited the image with some adjustment layers mainly exposure, brightness/contrast and curves. I then imported the spotlight image and positioned it behind the landscape by moving the layer behind the landscape layer. I then opened the moon image in an other window and proceeded to cut the moon form it's background and then dragged the moon to the previous work area and positioned it in  the middle of the spotlight also putting it's layer behind the landscape layer. Thus creating the Spotlight Moon. 

Figure 7: Spotlight Moon (Original Source)

Figure 8: Animation (Original Source)

I also decided to animate it for good fun!

References

Behance, (2018). Justin Peters on Behance [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.behance.net/jstnptrs [Accessed 1/11/2018].