The picture for Week 4 homework (framed picture at the top of the page) was created using a photo of the fireworks I took after the Sammy Hagar concert on July 6, 2008 and Photo Shop Pro X2. The concert was pretty good (actually a little loud for my taste and I would have enjoyed it more if Sammy didn't keep dropping the F-bomb), the fireworks were sensational. I tried to give a concert patron my camera when he stopped at our office to pick up his $1,000 professional quality camera. We stood together on the steps of the office shooting pictures. I can't help wondering how his pictures compare to mine.

Anyway, I took the original shot and cropped out the excess black sky. My next step was to resize the image to 400 pixels wide. I added a distortion twirl of 60 degrees. My next step was the Effects Menu, Reflection Effects. The setting I used were:

Horizontal Offset -2
Vertical Offset 50
Rotation 2
Scale -20
Edge Mode: Reflection
#petals 10
# orbits 0
Radial Suction 5

My next step was Image/Picture Frame. I experimented with various frames and finally settled on Round Edge. I used the Materials Pallette to pick a color from the firework and used the Flood Fill tool to make the background around the fireworks the same color as part of the fireworks image. I added a border using a color I picked from the fireworks. When I added a matt border, it overwhelmed the photo so I skipped ahead to the frame and added a gold picture frame. I'm pretty impressed with the final picture. The original photo is to the right.