Overlay Portrait

For my first overlay portrait, I used the photograph taken in class with the light to create the black shadow, and by changing the levels on the photo, the shadow became more distinct. When I took out the background, I kept it plain black to blend in with my face shadow and make my face stand out more. I rotated and dragged the red smoke on top of my face with a lower opacity to fade into my face and this texture worked out very well. The red hair highlights go well with the red smoke and the low-opacity brush tool cooperated with me easily to blend the black into the face on this portrait. I could have removed those faded red lines since they are not an important part of the image, and I have just noticed at the very right I dropped a dark red line instead of black.






















For my extra portrait overlay, I used the same photograph and changed the levels again to give off the same shadow effect as before.. I took out the background and replaced it with a gradient from a deep red to black to match the shine from the hair. When I put the texture over top my face, I lowered the opacity and erased unwanted areas. I didn't think it looked very natural due to the contrast of black and the brown/yellow, so I tried to make the edges darker with the low-opacity brush tool of black, and I think it helped a bit, but not as much as the first image. I didn't like how uneven the erasing around my hair against the gradient background turned out because it looks quite raggedy and unrealistic too. The gradient itself turned out great to match the red glare from my hair.

In both overlays, I used the rule of thirds when I cropped the images. I only erased the texture from my eye in both portraits and not my eyebrow because it was too light to show it naturally. 

This is the original, un-cropped photo.