In order to place the barcodes onto my images, I used Photoshop. This involved many steps in order to create an image I was happy with and so I have listed these steps below.
The first thing I did was adjust the levels of light in the picture. As mentioned in my work record, I had issues with lighting which meant that my images were quite dark. The use of levels allowed me to correct this and bring light back into the picture.
I then used the brightness/contrast tool to further this correction as I felt it was looking too light on the background - the contrast bar fixed this as I was able to create darker tones.
As I was placing the barcode on the neck of the model, I wanted this to be a clean surface. As there were a few freckles on the girl's neck, I used the spot healing brush to remove these. This meant that I would not have anything laying under the barcode which would make it look unnatural or unappealing.
Once I was happy with how the layer image looked, I brought my barcode into the image. To start this process, I placed the barcode very roughly in the place that I wanted it to go so I could get an idea of how big I could make it.
As the barcode had a white background to it, I used the magic eraser tool to completely erase any white from the image layer. Once I did this, I used the transform tool to make the barcode bigger and to move it into the exact position I wanted it to be.
As there were still small bits of white around the black lines that I could not erase myself without making the lines look messy, I used the multiply option on the drop bar. This made the edges darker and therefore covered the white portions.
As the barcode was a flat image, the way that it was sitting on the neck looked extremely unnatural and I was not happy at all with how it looked. so, I used the warp tool under the transform tab in order to manipulate how the barcode sat on the neck so that it followed the curves and contours of the model.
This was how the barcode looked during warping. For the top and bottom halves, I pulled the corners out slighting and pulled the top edge up. this made it look like it was truly following the shape of her neck, giving the illusion that it was on her neck when the photograph was taken.
Again, the barcode still looked slightly unnatural on the model. This was because it was too dark on her skin. If the barcode was a tattoo, it would be slightly faded as it would be below the skin. So, I brought down the opacity slightly so that it gave the same effect.
Once I was happy with how this looked, I changed the image too black and white using the black and white adjustment tool. Using this allowed me to adjust how certain colours appeared. With this image, I wanted quite high contrast and so I brought down the yellow as this was the colour that adjusted her skin. I then darkened all other colours so that the black portions of the image were as dark as possible.
Finally, I decided to add a gaussian blur to the barcode as I felt that it looked too sharp. Whilst I wanted it too stand out and be the focal point of the image, I felt this was too much and looked out of place in the picture. Adding the gaussian blur softened the appearance of the barcode and made the image look better.
Before:
After:
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