This week I worked on altering a photo of myself. I made a few changes to it. First, I changed the color to greyscale. I did this by choosing the image tab, mode, and converting to greyscale. Next, I decided to crop the picture so that there was less happening in the background. I used the crop tool to complete that task. Lastly, I decided to make the entire background a solid color so that it looked more like a studio shot. I did this by using the clone stamp tool. Once I selected my clone stamp tool, I sampled a part of the background I liked and used that sample to apply to the places I wanted to change. 

During this process, I encountered a few obstacles. It was very difficult to make the colors blend well using the clone stamp tool. Even though something looks like one color, there can be shadows. If you select the shadows and clone that onto your image, the image can start looking extremely touched up. To avoid this, I sampled a few different areas while cloning to ensure I wasn't cloning the same sample over and over again. I also struggled cloning the background around my body and the chair. I accidentally cloned over my clothes and hair a few times. To fix this issue, I made the size of the selector smaller so I could get into the detailed areas.

I don't use photoshop that often in my career anymore, so the cloning was a new experience for me. I learned how to change the size and hardness of the tool so I could make things look more natural. Photoshop can help me in future projects. In past projects, I've had images I wanted to use but the lighting was bad. Photoshop can help me fix those images for future projects and allow me to use them instead of having to find a different image.