Feb 4, 2009

CD Covers


Painted Hand Ruin, Hovenweep, Four Corners, Colorado

Painted Hand Ruin
©Joe Bridwell
Some of our Four Corners heritage springs from Ancient Anasazi habitations. The inset is Painted Hand ruin in sw Colorado. Anasazi inhabited the area from 700-1300 AD. Often, their protective towers sat atop a canyon wall, giving wide view.

Could such ruins help create a provocative CD cover and generate an appealing, marketing tool from a memorable Anasazi ruin?
Here is an original Anasazi tower near sunset. With some masking in Photoshop CS3, we simply created a circle with the elliptical marquee, clipped the ruin by making a white circular mask shaped like a CD, then used an arc to impose various semi-circular embossed texts to advertise workshop particulars.
Now, having ignored HDR during capture, I decided to enhance this capture using Lightroom. Two opposing dark-to-light gradients modified outer boundaries on nne and ssw azimuths, creating filters roughly parallel to the ruin's broken edge. The left gradient also sharpened and enhanced mid-tone clarity of the ruin. In effect, this choice of gradients focuses the viewer’s eye along the ruin's jagged edge, thence upward to our Lightroom 2 Workflow title in an upcoming Workshop. Then the eye can finally ascertain other information, should the viewer desire to explore farther.
An image like this, a CD Stomper, CDs, CD Cases, and Matte White Labels – and you’re prepared to supply Workshop CDs… or perhaps you prefer another way to get to a similar goal!

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