Making a collage using Adobe Photoshop

My original sketch of the layout

The original pictures I used in my collage

I wanted to make a collage which made the viewer see how greed and capitalism is leading to the destruction of natural habitats. When I think about climate change and the extinction crisis I feel both helpless and also disgusted with myself and my fellow humans. I wanted to portray humanity as a monster to illicit that disgusting feeling and also a sense of urgency.

To begin I selected the background. I chose an industrial landscape and a forest landscape from Unsplash. I wasn’t able to find a forest picture I liked aside from this one with the road in it.

To remove the road I used the pen tool to trace around the greenery which would be hidden behind the industrial landscape. Then go to paths, select marching ants symbol and move into position over the road.

Next I needed to make the backgrounds combine into one. I used the eraser tool to erase the right hand side of the industrial landscape. To make the two sides join together better I turned down the opacity on the eraser and erased parts of the industrial landscape near the forest like a cloud/mist.

I then imported a still shot of No-Face from the Miyazaki film Spirited Away. I chose this scene as No-Face is on a rampage, eating everything and everyone in their path. It is a scary part of the movie and touches on the theme of greed. The movie still had a very busy background so I wasn’t able to use magic eraser to easily remove the background. I used the pen tool to trace around No-Face, then went to paths, select ants marching symbol then press shift+ctlr+I to select inverse. Press delete and it deletes the background.

Once I dragged No-Face into the collage document I used the liquify option to push the forest landscape into his mouth. I used the eraser around No-Face’s teeth and mouth to clean up the overspill from the liquified forest layer. I duplicated the forest layer and made the layer underneath colourless. I then used the magic eraser on the top forest layer to erase the sections near No-Face’s mouth, making it look like the colour was being sucked away.

I struggled for a while to choose a face to represent humanity and cover No-Face’s face. I tried on a couple of people but none of them looked right. I then decided to use the Monopoly Man, despite my feeling that it’s a generally overused symbol and not very unique. I found a version with dollar signs for eyes and thought that was especially relevant.

After removing the background I used the free transform tool to stretch and change the angle of the Monopoly Man face to suit No-Face’s body.

The Monopoly Man face still looked very out of place- especially because it was bright white on a fairly dark and dingy backdrop. I tried lots of different effects, most of which seemed to do nothing. Smudging did help as the outline looked too crisp. I also went into image, then adjustments, then curves and changed the colour levels to give it a more black and red cast.

References for images:

Spirited Away. 2001. [DVD] Directed by H. Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli.

Red Bubble, n.d. Monopoly Man Money Eyes. [image] Available at: <https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/MONOPOLY-MAN-Money-Eyes-by-DleVerified/81183361.LVTDI#&gid=1&pid=2> [Accessed 2 August 2022].

Unrau, S, 2015. Empty road between trees through forest. [image] Available at: <https://unsplash.com/photos/v4e3JI7DDHI> [Accessed 2 August 2022].

Hendry, P, 2018. Factories with smoke under cloudy sky. [image] Available at: <https://unsplash.com/photos/6xeDIZgoPaw> [Accessed 2 August 2022].