For the second postcard, I chose to do the Hoover Dam because it would show that there is more to do in Las Vegas than
what is on the strip. What I wanted to do was add pieces of the Hoover Dam to the postcard that couldn't be captured with
just one picture. Therefore, the pieces that I planned to add were going to be small because I didn't want the viewer to think
that this picture was altered too much.
The first thing that I wanted to add was one of the large water overflow holes. These holes are actually on the sides of the Dam
and are used in case the water rises too fast so that the water would go through these holes and bypass the Dam. I first ended
up cutting out the hole by using the Lasso Tool and Scaling,Skewing,Distorting it to make it look like it was a part of the side
wall in the picture.
Placing The Overflow Hole In The Picture
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Using the Lasso Tool and then Layering the hole by a Cut, I was
able to copy the hole and place it on the original picture.
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Now that I had the hole on the picture, I had to transform it
so that it looked like it belonged on the side wall. I accomplished this by Distorting, Scaling, and Skewing the hole until
it looked right.
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| Accomplished by: |
Lasso Tool |
Edit - Transform Path (Scale,Distort,Skew) |
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The next piece that I wanted to show in my postcard was Lake Meade (the man made lake behind the Hoover Dam). I wanted to make it
look like the Colorado River wrapped around and continued on, so the first thing I did to the picture was cut out the top which was
where I was going to place the picture of Lake Meade. After that, I searched through all my pictures until I found the best picture
that would fit, cropped it, and placed it in the picture. Now, besides the white mountain sides in the Lake Meade picture, the
picture looked like it belonged there.
Adding Lake Meade To The Picture
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Cutting out a portion of the top where the picture of
Lake Meade would end of going.
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The picture of Lake Meade that I was going to add to the postcard.
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What the transformation finally ended up looking like.
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| Accomplished by:
Filter - Stylize - Glowing Edges
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Another piece of the Hoover Dam that I thought be interesting to add was one of the beacons on the Lake Meade side.
So, after finding a good picture that had one of the beacons, I cut it out and pasted it onto the picture. Again,
I resized the beacon to fit in with the surroundings but after placing where I wanted it, I still wasn't pleased. What
didn't look right was that there was no shadow coming off the beacon. To solve this problem, I pasted another beacon
on the picture, Skewed and Distorted it to make it as flat as possible, then adjusted the contrast so that it was one
color and adjusted the brightness so that is wasn't a dark shadow. Now it looked complete to me.
Adding a Beacon
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After copying the beacon from another picture and placing it where I wanted, I still wasn't satisfied with the look.
Therefore, I ended up adding a very light shadow on the lake for the beacon. Deatils of how I accomplished this
are in the paragraph above.
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Accomplished by:
Edit - Transform Path - (Scale,Distort,Skew) &
Adjusting Brightness/Contrast
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Next, I wanted to add a piece of history besides adding several other items that make up the Dam. So I took a copy of the
Hoover Dam plaque and placed it in the picture; however I wasn't exactly sure where I was going to put this. I first thought
of placing it on the mountain where I put the hole but after studying the picture some more, I realized that I could hide
an ugly part of the picture with this plaque. That ugly piece was all the concreate on the right side of the picture which
had gotten washed out by the glare of the sun. Placing the plaque over this "bright spot" would help make looking at the
postcard easier.
After placing the plaque over the "bright spot" in the picture, I thought I could make it look older by giving it rust speckles.
Luckily, I still had my custom brush made from the Las Vegas picture (the water tips) so I used that along with a rusty color
and randomly painted on the sign. The effect turned out just as I had planned. Below is a before and after shot of the plaque
with the rusty speckles.
Adding Rusty Speckles To The Plaque
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A picture of what the plaque looked like before I added the rusty
speckles with the custom brush.
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The plaque with the rust speckles.
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| Accomplished by: |
Paint Brush |
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| Original Picture(329 kb) |
Finished Product (384 kb) |
