Project 2. The Hyperreal Self-Portrait

Original:

Final:

My concept is based on the television programme MTV Cribs.

In the show, it showcases many rich celebrities’ extravagant homes and they give you a tour of their everyday lives as well as introduce cool rooms that we, common folk, will never get to experience.

I don’t really take myself too seriously, hence I wanted to make a parody of this ridiculous show while adding a vintage Chinese twist as many of the patrons in the show are westerners. I decided to go with the Forbidden City as it is one of largest ancient chinese establishments that still stands today.

Here is a video to summarise my editing process:

This is the original image.

First I masked out the figure so it will be a clean removal process.

Next, I proceeded to clean the image, mainly the face where tiredness and weariness show through, using the clone stamp tool.

I brightened the image using curves as it was a little dark.

As I was going for a vintage theme, I decided to tint the image a little yellow using a colour balance adjustment layer.

As well as to add more reddish tint to the lips with a hue saturation adjustment layer.

I also added a high pass layer for the eyes so that the eye whites would look much brighter.

I then shifted the image and masked out the unnecessary portions. I composited an arm to give the impression of introducing something.

I darkened the hand with curves so that it would look more believable.

I composited in a fur coat to mesh the images together.

I proceeded to add a dreamy chinese backdrop.

Darkened it.

Composited the Forbidden City in after masking it out.

I converted the Forbidden City layer into a Smart Object layer and played with lens correction to give it a far away feel.

I decided to darken the forbidden city with curves so that it will match the mountainous layer.

I darkened the figure with curves once again as it was too bright.

I tried to emphasize the blue shadow tint with colour balance.

I took out the warmth in the figure as it was far too yellow.

I darkened the figure once more to blend with the lighting in the Forbidden City.

Adding a yellow overlay over the whole image.

And adding noise so that the images would look cohesive.

I masked out an image of an old television screen.

I masked out the screen portion.

Resized the composited image into the television.

I reduced the opacity of the composited layer as I wanted to imitate the resolution of the television screen back in the day and added a noise layer with thicker particles.