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Photo Editing Tutorial #1
Photo 1
Photopea Tools: 3 image layers, "Magic Cut" feature, "Soft Light" layer blending applied to 2 layers
In Photopea, I combined three images: two of myself presenting at a research luncheon and one of a California grassland, which symbolizes my study site. To remove the background from the photo where I am standing and presenting (located in the bottom right corner of the image), I utilized the "Magic Cut" feature. I then applied the "Soft Light" layer blending mode to both the edited image and the other image where I am depicted sitting at a table engaged in a conversation with other students. I did not change the colors on the background image of the California grassland as I wanted its natural hues and vibrancy to peek through the other two images.
Photo 2
Photopea Tools: 2 image layers, "Lighten Image" blending
The creation of this image involved a simple editing process in Photopea. I combined an image of myself sitting in a brush patch at UCSB's North Campus Open Space with an image of volunteers working at the site. I then applied the "Lighten Image" layer blending feature to the frontmost layer where I am seated.
Photo 3
Photos downloaded from "Unsplash"
Photopea Tools: 2 image layers, "Magic Cut," "Hard Light" layer blending
My current research involves studying the efficacy of grazing for native grassland restoration at the San Marcos Foothills. For my third image, I aimed to capture the goal of this project by combining two images downloaded from Unsplash: one of a herd of sheep and one of a grassland. I used the "Magic Cut" feature to crop the herd of sheep from the rest of their pictured background and blended the layers of the two chosen images using the "Hard Light" feature. I adjusted the placement and size of the sheep to make it appear as though they were naturally proportional to the grassland image.
Photo Editing Tutorial #2
Photo 1
In Photopea, I created a layer with an image I photographed of my friend Frankie Seely and added the text "take it easy". I adjusted the size of the text to 160, centered it and changed the font to Smokum. Then, I moved the text to the right side of the image. Next, I added a new image layer to create a masked text effect. I used a picture of the skatepark where the portrait was taken for this layer. After that, I went back to the font layer and applied a "flag" warp effect to the text. I adjusted the bend as well as horizontal and vertical distortions until I was satisfied with the result.
Photo 2
For my second image, I used a picture I took of my friend's band called "Lemon Generation". Once this background image had been uploaded to Photopea, I added a text layer with the band's name, adjusted the text size to 91 to fit the image, and changed the font to Fascinate. To enhance the text, I added a pattern overlay, a 3D effect, and a wave distortion effect.
Photo 3
While I used the first two images I created in this exercise as opportunities to experiment with Photopea's text editing features and explore creative ways to edit my photographs, I wanted to use this third image as an opportunity to create a logo-style image for my personal portfolio. In Photopea, I uploaded an image of myself sitting in a patch of flowers. I added two text layers with my full name, "Marian" and "Walker," using the Smokum font and adjusted the size of each text to 68. I used the arch warp feature within each text layer to manipulate my name into a circular shape. To make the text stand out from the colorful background of the image, I applied the 3D glow effect.
Photo Editing Tutorial #3
To create this collage in Photopea, I started by uploading a background landscape image that I had taken at my research study site, the San Marcos Foothills. Next, I added a picture of myself presenting at the American Geophysical Union national research conference (shown on the right). I used the "magic cut" feature to separate myself from the background of this image and then refined the edges around my portrait using the "feathering" tool. I also included another image of myself operating a tractor, for which I used the "remove background" feature to crop the subject of the image. Additionally, I added a picture of a research poster from my previous work, which is shown behind both portraits of myself.
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