I used the same tools for every picture in my collage. First I had to reduce the size of each image by going to Image>Image Resize and then I made sure that I had Bicubic Sharper (reduction) selected. Next I cropped each image, keeping the rule of thirds in mind. Then I used Image>Auto Tone and Image>Auto Color if I felt the photo needed adjustment. I also changed the Levels on my black and white pictures. I used an eraser with 0% hardness and a large size (over 200), and I erased the edges of each image so that it would add a watercolor effect. The piece has a nice flow, variety, and balance: there are color and black and white photos, and the variety keeps your eye moving across the page. The project goal was to communicate a visual story of my time at CVTC so far; so I included pictures of myself, my favorite quotes, and some of my artwork. I created the black and white background image; I did some watercolor painting, scanned it onto the computer, changed to image to black and white, and then made a brush in photoshop.
