Edit of Front Cover Photo ...

Editing this picture started off pretty easy. I raised the contrast and brightness levels, made the colour tones warmer and added more saturation to brighten the colours of the image. I then used the Magic Wand tool to select the irus' in the eyes and changed the colour balance to make the eyes bluer and brighter, because this is the first thing the audience often look at. I then used the magnetic lasso tool to cut around the edges of my subject, and separate him from the background. However, when I tried to do this, all of my edges where rough and jaggy, as if I'd cut around him, whereas I wanted the edges of my subject to be smooth, implying he's stood in front of the black background. To conquer this tricky problem, I used the paint brush tool with 0% hardness to carefully go around the edges of my image, because the softness of the brush blends the image with the background, meaning I could smooth over the rough edges and carefully blend the picture with the background more. I then used the paint brush tool to colour the background behind him in black too and WAlLAH! My image was created just how I wanted it!