Continuing looking into the photo folders I’ve taken over the years, I thought I would re-edit this photo of distractogirl as the famous Mara Jade Skywalker from the Star Wars franchise. Special shout to Cosmic Workshop where the holster harness was bought from.
Mara Jade Skywalker, a Force-sensitive human female who was during different times in her life, an Emperor’s Hand, a smuggler, and later a Jedi Master who sat upon the Jedi High Council. She was raised as a servant and assassin to Emperor Palpatine and became a high-level Force-using operative.
2020 EDIT PROCESS
I started with the basic changes I always do, by adjusting the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, HSL, and etc. Throughout this project of re-editing my older photos, I do not refer to the original edited the photo so I can see if I would make the same steps or make alternative decisions.
I wanted to “balance” the photo in terms of making sure the cosplayer was more centred in the photo. So, I cropped the photo to the centre, getting rid of any excess space within the photo around the cosplayer.
Next step was to change the colour tone of photo to make it more warmer and give a slight illusion that it was sunset, I increase the “temperture” slider to a warmer/yellow shade.
After those changes I made, I transferred the photo into Photoshop where I added the SFX of the lightsaber. When I first did the photo, I also remember adding the lightsaber SX to it, but I wasn’t happy that there wasn’t much of an afterglow from the lightsaber to the body, even though the prop used already was shinning its own light onto the body of the cosplayer. After looking up tutorials, I found this youtube video, detailing how to add both lightsaber and afterglow.
After skin smoothing and adding additional contouring, which is usually the last step I do to complete the photo.
I really enjoyed updating this photo with all the new skills I have gained over the years. I feel the 2020 edition is much superior to the 2016 photo. I love how much warmer and brighter the photo is as well as the updated technique to creating a lightsaber for this Star Wars photo.