cd cover progress

MY FIRST CD COVER USING PHOTOSHOP! when getting used to using photo shop I took the inspiration of "lana del rey" as planned before but after at least 3 decent attempts I decided to do my research on Robin Thicke and his "blurred lines". my source of inspiration changed due to the realistic aim of use in models and backgrounds when using my original photography. my first attempt on photo shop whilst using other images from google was this: as a first attempt i expected it to take a little longer than my future attempts, as i was getting used to it. i learnt how to rasterize a layer (lana del rey) and then set her above a background. from this attempt i decided a full image was simple but effective and the bold writing was a good way to grab someones attention. after this attempt i thought it would be a good decision to look at Lana Del Rey's previous CD covers and see what back ground she used; i noticed it was mainly fussy with palm trees but usually a different coloured filter to her body shot so i thought id take that idea and use it in my second attempt. i thought the vintage theme varied from different times with her album covers and therefore i realised i then had more ideas to create my own original cover yet still relating to my inspired cover. MY SECOND CD COVER! with this CD cover i chose to rasterize the image by cutting out the original background layer and adding the palm trees behind her. i kept the large bold lettering font of her name but also added a previous CD cover label "bad" in a sightly more vintage style font to represent the vintage-like image the artist usually goes for. in this image the usage of cutting and cropping went a bit more smoothly but i still felt the background still didnt match up to the main image of Lana. i then thought i wanted to give priority to my main image over the background so i tried a plainer background colour for my 3rd try and ended up with this... THIRD CD COVER ATTEMPT!

this was the main attempt that inspired me with my own creations and ideas. for example i decided as far as backgrounds go i wanted them so pain they didnt distract from the main image at all there for whites were the main plan. i then noticed most images on CD covers, the artist looks directly into the camera so i then came up with the idea to cover all eyes in my original photography (my most important idea) and then to have either the name of the artist or the album cover name covering the eyes of my main model.i felt props in the image were fairly important e.g the cat in this image; so i thought something quirky and fun will add character to my final piece. i then decided to try out blocking out the eyes here:

i used a previous image that was used in my first cover attempt to create this. from here on i decided my main idea would be to have the eyes covered with either the artists name or the album cover; i thought this would be quite a creative idea as the models chosen arent professional therefore the eyes which would usually be the main feature will be covered making the cover look more realistic as if it actually was a cd cover. after creating this idea i tried it out on a few different images such as these:

JW9NXbjWG8/UneFYVYk22I/AAAAAAAAAC0/wpkZnyij8q8/s1600/BLURRED+LINES+TAKE+TWO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> after creating these covers i started to think more about the background and the amount of people used in the picture, so i decided the blurred lines one would be the inspiration image i wanted to try recreate so i decided the more models used the more of a plain background i needed to use. so i ended up with this image that i made on photoshop