InfintiySapphire

Program Used: Pixlr
Detailed or Simple review: Detailed
Message/Purpose of Graphic : Just a testing of blending the characters and changing the colors to see if they match well and practice.
Your concerns, if any: I just want to know whether because i didn't use much stock like how to find the perfect ones and if its enough.
 

Hello, I want to apologize for taking so long to write this review. Life had been very eventful than I had anticipated.  I was going to suggest to you a place that provides tutorials, but it looks like you've already visted some places, which I'm delighted to see.

FIRST GLANCE/IMPRESSION
 
I see you're trying to go for a more darker outlook and that works just fine because you're able to blend more areas with black and white than you would with a colorful palette. It's less cluttered than your previous work and I find it nice that you're taking more consideration for how much stock photos you should add to the graphic. It's always better to start minimal before you go off and add more things, which can become complicated and messy if you're not careful.

This one also has a good focus point with the shattered glass and the girl's semi-straightforward stare. I'm not sure if you angled it that way youself to try it out or you didn't re-size the photo proportionally. Though I'm still bothered by the upper part of the girl, above her head specifically looks lighter and has sharp edges around her. It almost looks like it's part of the glass shattering but I'm sort of doubtful of this since it looks like it's part of the girl's photo. On cases like this, you can use the blur tool to blur it out so it can blend more with the background instead of having the lighter shades of grey above her head pop out too much. Or if you prefer another simple way, you can erase the sharp edges with a softer brush so the lines abover her head are not so defined. And lastly, you can try to integrate it with the glass so it could look like she's part of the picture with the glass. But that's a lot harder than it looks.

MOOD AND THEMES
 
It's dark and serious so I think it's safe to assume you're going for a angst poster. The expression on the girl really illustrates that and probably a bit more on the thrilling suspense with the broken glass, considering glass is a fragile material, it leaves that uneasiness on the poster. It's very on point with 'shatter me' since the viewers will expect to see something broken. Though, I say be careful how you use glass, just like real life, it can cut you (not literally) if you don't know how to handle it right. Some of the edges of the glass is crossing over their faces and that's fine if you intend it to be that way. I just find it distracting how it seem to go over the guy's neck a little too much. It's nothing bad, but just to let you know, you may want to consider how much you want to overlap onto another picture. But otherwise, it is a very straightforward theme.

 
COLOR HARMONY
 
It's not a large range of colors and it's mostly just the black and white. I think another thing you can play with is the 'hue & saturation' which ultimately sharpens and fades out the colors the best. I believe you've already tried it since it's black and white, but I think you should try increasing the 'lightness' (the third option) as well so the characters can pop out a little more.

STOCK USES

There are about three to four obvious pictures and it's very minimal. It's a nice thing because you're allowing each of the objects to breathe. I think you could have re-sized the glass so it doesn't overlap onto the characters too much (as I said earlier) but that is up to you on how much you want it to be attached to the characters. I think it would be better if you had remnants of shattered glass below the characters or beneath the glass in general so it doesn't look so tightly squished between the characters. Aside from that, I think more glass would portray the 'shatter' part of the title because by limiting it, it mostly illustrates 'broken, crack, hit...etc. sort of verbs. It's also harder to tell it's glass if the cracked lines don't extend far enough (a bit hypocritical, but it depends on intention) or some of the pictures are shifted due to the broken glass (the harder part of editing). So I think it's best to add a bit more pieces of glass below the characters to show the word 'shatter' more effectively.

The girl's images look more sharpen than the guy's. Have you tried using the 'sharpen tool'? It can increase the sharpen on the area you apply it on so the lines are much clearer on the image. Give it a try if you haven't used it yet. Also, I already lectured on scaling images so they are proportional. If you have forgotten how to do it, once you've clicked 'transform' and see the box around the image, hold the 'shift' key and then move the box to re-size the image to how you see fit. Don't let go of 'shift' until you're done picking a size. :)

 
TYPOGRAPHY

It's very simple. I don't have much of a problem with it other than the word 'Me' the letter 'm' and 'e' are too far apart from each other. Why don't you connect them together like you did with the word 'Shatter'? That way, the letters be connected and because most of the time the point of using cursive is to connect the words together. Just like when you learn how to write in cursive, you have to attach the letters together too. You can think of it as if you were writing it yourself.
 

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES
 
I think you could have played with the brightness on the characters a bit more so they would be able to pop up from the dark background. It's mostly their shirt that sticks out more than their faces. I had already mentioned to use the 'lightness' on the 'hue & saturation' option, but then to intensify it further, you can go to the 'brightness and contrast' again under adjustment. I know it's tedious work to go back and forth, but that's pretty much what editing is about.

This is minor, but there is a white spot below the guy's chin that hasn't been erased and because it's white, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Some cleaning to that would be nice.

 
OVERALL

It's definitely an improvement from the previous work I've seen. There are still some things you need to keep in mind, like the re-sizing and brightness of the photo. It's still a lot to take in but I hope you're getting the hang of it.
 
I hope this review was helpful. :)