DIGIPAK/MAG AD: layering is key

A point I keep making: key to picking up the marks is shwing image editing/ICT skills, and the key means of doing this is through careful, creative layering, where you crop one layer to add to part of another and reduce its opacity.

Here's an example George was looking at from Mumford and Sons...

Its actually a little bit ... rubbish! But it illustrates what I'm referring to: you can multiple layers in use, and the opacity of one of these (which has been carefully cropped to remove the people from the original background) reduced to around 30-40% using Photoshop.

The overall concept (a rustic, old-fashioned photo album) works for a folk band, its just that the framming within the 4 photos of the added layers is very basic and wholly lacking in creativity.

What you should be thinking of (not the only way to approach it, but a useful way to start generating ideas) is a single main image you can add layers within; band faces on top of objects within the main image (or even manipulate a pic of a mantlepiece or shelving unit to insert framed photos; a notice board to add ... notices! (could work well for some digipak text), even a rack of LPs... there are infinite possibilities, but central is the multilayering.

Don'y forget, you could create a starker, plainer text as well - you may well prefer the look of this; just make sure you include a version which showcases your image editing/use of ICT.