This image started out as a poster for Valhalla High School, promoting this year's API (Academic Performance Index) goal of 840. We combined four pictures and a 3D render of downtown San Diego (that we built) into a movie-poster-style composition, with District 840 as the title and the start of California Standardized Testing as the release date at the bottom. When we learned of the 5 Weeks of 5 competition, we altered the title and changed the date to fit the criteria.

This project has been almost two months in the making and required the use of many of Creative Suite 5's new and innovative features. The Puppet Warp feature was essential when reconstructing part of the football field in the foreground. We used Content Aware Fill and the Content-Aware Spot-Healing Brush when reconstructing and repairing the football field, compositing the spaceship, and compositing the city/book buildings. In addition, we used the Truer Edge Technology when selecting areas of the spaceship to grunge. The new and improved Camera Raw's (Camera Raw 6.1) noise reduction and lens correction features proved very useful in enhancing the sky and removing noise from the final composition. Of course, the 64-bit support was wonderful and extremely helpful as the main workstation had 8GB of RAM.

As this was originally designed to be a poster promoting a High School API goal, there are certain elements that are well known elements of Valhalla High School. The spaceship was composited from a photo of the school and the text at the bottom is completely made up of references to the school and the mythology surrounding it's mascot. The football field is that of the school, as is the logo in the center.

Here is a link to the full-size version of the poster: http://maclab.guhsd.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/district5_full_02.jpg Read Less