starlight-turtle

Detailed or Simple review: detailed please~
Message/Purpose of Graphic: I did it out of boredom, but was inspired by Luhan's departure and his now broken friendship with Lay, who doesn't want Luhan to forget him. It's kind of an attempt at angst, but not heavy angst.
Your concerns, if any: I just want to know how I did in general. This is now my 4th graphic, but I'm most confident in this one. Could you point out areas where I could improve? Thanks~

Translation of Quote:

"The past me was too selfish,
 only caring about myself
 The past me was too foolish
 to understand your heart
 The me of now is changing every day
 Clearly, you’re not by my side
 But I am changing because of you,
 because of the love you gave me"

(provided by: starlight-turtle)

FIRST GLANCE/IMPRESSION
 
My pc has a tendency to resize the images, along with my phone, and I was surprise on how big this graphic actually is. I was curious why the eyes looked so blurry and after enlarging it, I can tell that you resized it so it is much bigger than the original. It is both highly disturbing and takes away the quality of the photo, especially since the rest of it are more than likely orginally large in size. I'm guessing you enlarged the eyes on purpose and to give more focus on his expression, but then, what other part of his face cannot portray that? When you use eyes or eye contact in general, it's usually the viewers first instinct to look it. Why? Because the general population are raised to look into someone's eyes when speaking or understanding the truth about them, which leads me to think that is the angst you're trying to illustrate. Not only that, the eyes conflict with the attention the guy below him is asking for because he is looking directly at the audience. Though barely since the eyes are extremely large in size and the skin color stands out amongst the dark colors. So, I'd recommend making the eyes smaller or switching the photo overall because of its lack of quality, and you can easily fix that by first changing the size of the entire graphic and then adding the set pair of eyes.

MOOD AND THEMES
 
Even without the translation of the quote, I'm relatively certain there are mixed feelings and some angst going about on this graphic. The expression on the characters shows that message pretty well. Though, I'm really uncertain how relevant the other stock images are to the theme, but at the same time it makes some sense. I'm guessing the conversion from nature to industrialization displays luhan's departure and how he's turning over to the new area literally by leaving the city area, which is where lay is at. In that sense, it is understandable and correct me if I'm wrong, the lanturn are in representation of luhan crossing the 'otherside' and being guided to a new path, I suppose. I'm not in depth familar with this cultural concept, but I know some are to guide spirits safely to the otherside. Anyway, if that's how you intended it to be, I think you displayed that on a really deep level.

 
COLOR HARMONY
 
It's pretty good, actually, one of the things I should applaud you on. You've kept it consistently around the red-orange and blue-green colors and those are quite fitting. Also, the color ranges are pretty easy on the eyes and do not aburptly change colors, which is good since you're giving the viewers' time to adjust their eyes to the new shade of colors. I'm guessing it has to do with the theme as well, from natural to industrialized, and those are pretty nice themes too. Good work on this area.

STOCK USES

You have many photos in use here, the majority being symbolic to the quote, and I have a feeling that you're able to edit landscape better than people. As I've said earlier, the pair of larger eyes needs to be adjust so it is either smaller, the graphic should be resized first, or the photo needs to be completely changed. Although, you do have a good mindset of choosing photos since the characters suit the theme quite well, however, the editing of the photos need to be practiced more.

The guy on the lower half of the graphic is edited really oddly, like you've had a difficult time deciding which area should be erased to fit around him or you did this mindlessly without much thought. I'm thinking you centered the graphic namely around him since he has so much more clarity than the upper half of the graphic, and as I've suggested to resize the entire graphic to even out the blurs. As many designers have demanded, it is preferred to use high quality photos when making a poster because it ensures the quality of the graphic. And sure, you've keep that clearly for lay, but you distorted the quality for luhan's image. Playing around with sizes, as you would probably learn later, is not fun. You want to make sure the large pictures are in good quality before resizing them and you want the smaller photos to be in good condition before using them. Sometimes it's okay to enlarge them, but you need a different set of editing skills, like using topaz clean, which many of the intermediate designers are capable of using.

Anyway, aside from the resizing, I think lay's photo should be lowered because his photo is too high or it seems that way because the lower part of graphic is a bit longated. Cut it shorter with the crop tool if you must. I think you've erased a lot over his head because you're blending it with the mountains and it just makes his head a lot smaller than it really is. Also, I believe his extended hand is unnecessary and I say that because it distracts the viewers from the text you have overlapping him. It's also a very meaningless gesture since you have his face as the primary focus. In addition to that, gestures can suggest something else and it'll end up giving your message some misinterpretations.

 
TYPOGRAPHY

It's pretty simple and easy enough to read. As I've told many people when you use cursive, it is usually to connect the letters together and form a word. This also gives a separation for certain words that may be too close to one another. The spacing is fine between 'never forget' but the letters themselves are not really connected. A simple suggestion would be to go under the character/type box tools and change the number for the spacing between each character by decreasing the number. And yes, it takes negative numbers. The most complicated solution would be to rasterize the type and edit it yourself with either the brush/erase/smudge/...etc. tools-- however you deem the easiest the get it done.

Though from the looks of it, it seems like you added a pattern and then a blend or maybe the picture is the guy. It's most likely him since majority of his body is shown through many of the other images. Anyway my point, the color the crosses between him and the beginning of 'forget' becomes a bit darker and starts to become the same dark shade. It looks nice, but for clarity sake, please make the colors around the 'f' a bit lighter so it may be seen or move it further away. It's at the tip of being difficult to read and being barely visible for the viewers to read and see it.

As for the quote paragraph, it would be wise to change some of the colors around the guy. The characters on the left side are hardly visible because of the color and I'm assuming the blending effects on the text has something to do with it as well. Though, I'm quite curious why people think it's okay to put the characters over someone's face, but then I realize it is in your face literally. Also, to take out the guy's arm as I've mentioned earlier and how it is quite distracting from the quote, which makes it harder to read the characters.
 

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES
 
It's mostly the erasing I've noticed around the guy on the lower half of the graphic. The soft edges around him look like you've used a relatively large brush to erase around him instead of using a small brush because the sharp edges around him are still visible. There's nothing much you can do about the areas you've erased already other than redo the entire photo again or simply edit it until you're satisfied. This is the time when textures are called for and I've noticed that you hardly or don't have any in this graphic at all. You rely mostly on the stock images and that's good for a base, but it can't get you far enough to blend everything together. Some things work without it depending on the theme and concept and since you have really symbolic images, the textures can be very minimal. For say, the blurs, designers tend to use smoke to cover up those mistakes or hide them behind other objects. On lay's photo, you could have easily covered the edges of the erasing you have around him with other stock photos and textures. If you're having difficulty finding some textures, you can visit some of the shops that offer resources or simply search 'wallpaper textures' on whatever search engine you use and find some textures you would like to use.

As for blending, I think you understand the basics, but probably need to experiment more of the different options, like the 'filters' tab on top.

OVERALL

It's better than most of the average graphics around here and it has more depth towards the message, which I believe is a good thing. It's not as clear that it's about luhan leaving and that might give you more ideas on what you need to fix. Also, don't be afraid to use CS2, it's still as good as using the current photoshop.

I hope this review was helpful. :)