Creating my Magazine Cover

Firstly, I wanted to 'airbrush' the image, in order to give it the same treatment as images in mainstream magazines. To set the image up for airbrushing, I had to remove some of the "flaws" from the skin. To do this, I used the spot healing brush.

Following this, I used another flaw reducing technique which utilises the yellow layer of an image. To do this, I switched the images mode to 'CMYK Colour' (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key). I then duplicated the yellow layer, put this layer in front of the original, changed the blending mode to 'Soft Light' and reduced the opacity, giving the effect seen in the third image above.

Next, I started the 'airbrushing' process. I duplicated the image and named the new layer 'Smoothness'. I used the 'Surface Blur' filter and blurred the image until the details of the face could barely be seen.

Next, I needed to bring back the details. I duplicated the original, and used the 'High Pass' filter, which highlighted the details.

 I then changed the layer's blending mode to 'Vivid Light' which gave the effect shown above.

Next, I increased the size of the axehead, in order to make it look more threatening.

Next, I used the spot healing brush to remove more "flaws" such as stray hairs and creases in the clothing. This gave the effect seen above.

 Next I began work on the masthead. I decided that the magazine's normal masthead would be most similar to the 2nd one shown above. However, for this particular issue, I wanted give it more violent connotations, to match the feature article. 

I found a bloody texture and changed the layer's blending mode to 'Subtract' and reduced the opacity. The effect can be seen above.

Next I increased the saturation of the image to make it look brighter and more visually appealing. I also increased it's size to give more space for text on the right hand side. I found a somewhat grimy texture and put it in place of the background.

Next, I added all of the cover lines, puffs and plugs etc.