Photo Editing Project

The intended audience consists of adults in their mid 30's, ripe to make a change to their health through natural medicine. The onset of clinical and heritable diseases takes strength. It would be targeted specifically towards people who know little about the healing and nutritional benefits of whole foods, and who often turn to over-the-counter medicine to treat their symptoms. This image would most significantly impact people who are encouraged to improve their health, while having the time and resources to do so.

The pill bottle, representing modern medicine, is repurposed in the image to create an association between medicine and the power of food for healing. By having images of whole foods intertwined with pills, the concept of food as medicine is reinforced to the audience. The image takes two concepts, food and medicine, and brings them together as a synonymous solution to health problems. The images lack of texts encourages the viewer to think about this correlation and reflect on how they cope with their own wellness. The simplicity of the image, as well as the variety of colors, draws the viewer in and makes it easy for the audience to understand what it is they are looking at. For a lot of people, health is a confusing and complicated subject, so the images simplicity shows just how easy it can be.

After choosing the background image (pill bottle with pills spilling out), I decided to add images of whole foods mixed in with the pills overtop. I used the Quick Selection Tool to isolate the images of the foods from their backgrounds, moving them onto different layers overlapping the background image. I then used the hue/saturation properties panel to change the background color to a lighter blue, lower the saturation of the blue, and increase the brightness of the background color. Once all of the images of the foods were isolated and placed on top of the background layer, I added a drop shadow to mimic that of the pills. I used the distance, spread, size, and opacity features on all of the images to match the existing shadows on the image.

Working on this project I learned the power of altering images from their original state, and how this change leads audience members to wonder what aspects of the image were altered and why. I learned that simple designs with short phrases and little to no words are more welcoming to viewers, leaving more room for individual consideration of an images purpose. I also learned how to use the saturation/hue feature, and how to add and alter shadows on an isolated image.

On the next project I will keep with the same theme of functional medicine, but will aim to create a message that gives the audience more information on how to change their daily lives and the way in which food impacts health directly. I will use words in conjunction with images so the audience has concrete advice on how to move forward with functional medicine. Finally, I will continue to make use of the features of photoshop I learned from this project on my next one.