Hi
There were some excellent images in last week's ballroom challenge . This week I've gone for something a little different.
It is 45 years since Pink Floyd released their album The Dark Side of The Moon. Its songs explored greed, mental illness, the passage of time. The iconic album cover was created by Hipgnosis' Storm Thorgerson, who designed many album covers with very clever manipulation of photographs, and George Hardie who created the prism artwork. The band requested a "simple and bold" design.
So the challenge this week is this. If you had been asked to come up with the cover design for The Dark Side of The Moon what would you have created?
As usual, anything goes as long as it meets the forum rules on decency, copyright etc.
Anyone is welcome to have a go - whether you are a complete beginner or a Photoshop expert.
There are no prizes - just the chance to practice, show off, or perhaps bring a bit of humour and fun.
When posting your images please use jpeg/png and size at 1200 x 1200 pixels
Have fun
Dave
Explore related tutorials & articles
51
Replies
I couldn't let it dies like that Dave, and it was such a nice idea. I'm going to 'try' and use my own pictures from my Flickr stream where I can with future challenges, and where I can't I'll try and illustrate. Of course I am going to be completely stuck with the next one, but that's the plan. Despite what I wrote in the description of the picture of my Chris, as I remember it, I was looking towards the sunset camera right, and I turned round and there she was! Goodness knows how she managed to climb up there?
There's a great story re the sheep. They use sheep to keep the grass down in the vineyards at certain parts of the year, but Peter Yealand is into Sustainability and tried using guinea pigs. Unfortunately, they also encourage falcons in the vines to keep the birds off, and the falcons ate all the guinea pigs. So Peter got these pygmy sheep that eat the grass, but can't reach the grapes, oh..... and they are too heavy for the falcons to carry away. It's a true story.
BTW I have pretty much got my new computer all sorted out now. All but two of the drives are connected, so I can access all my pictures, and I have most of my plug-ins installed
I haven't got to grips with Topaz yet, as they seem to have changed things since I last installed them. I have a Bundle package which includes a lot more than these three.
But the others now seem to be in Topaz Studio which is confusing as I don't have license for all these plug-ins, and I do have a license for some that are not in either list, like DeNoise (I think it is called). Luckily I have _all_ my old emails, as it looks like I am going to have to hassle their support again. I have to do this every time I do a fresh OS install, and they give me a new key each time, but don't add it to my account which is why I have the hassle all over again next time.
If anyone has the skinny on Topaz Studio and wouldn't mind sharing, I'd be grateful.
I also have a license for Filter Forge, but what a strange plugin that is. It's a real 'can't find the wood for the trees' deal as it is semi open-source, and you have to hunt down the right preset for whatever effect you are after. So it ends up being more trouble than it is worth, and it was fairly expensive IIRC.
OK, I wasn't sure what version I had, and I had to install it to find out. It turns out that I have V6 Pro and would have paid US$119. It has a ton of effects. Probably the most inclusive Photoshop plugin available, but that makes it a pain to use.
As I remember it, I originally bought it from its Droste Spiral effect.
If you can't find what you are looking for in the extensive list of presets that installs with Filter Forge (it's 115Mb download) then you can search the online database which currently stands at >12,000!. Hmmm... maybe I am being a bit hasty in dissing it. A test of the search facility found 56 effects for Fog, 34 for Mist, 105 for Fractal, but only 10 for Filigree. Yes I definitely think I was being too hasty... 130 chrome, 170 for gold! 
Good to see you are up an running Trevor
I like that image, it reminds me of some of the later album covers such as Wish you were here or The Division Bell.
Trevor.Dennis wrote
I'm going to 'try' and use my own pictures from my Flickr stream where I can with future challenges,
I like to use my own photo's wherever possible, although the brain in post 1 was a free 3D model on Turbosquid and the earth was from NASA. I don't think I could have directly photographed either of those 
I will be taking an image today for this coming weekend'd challenge - but I would welcome anyone who wants to put up an image for future weekends. Just let me know.
Dave
'Digging' ? I haven't heard that word for a while , man, let it all hang out and too use Jodi's word 'groovy'
Right. This thread makes me feel old. I know I am, but jeez... I think that's why I liked Jodi's contribution so much. It's a fresh and new take on something everybody's taken for granted since 1974.
"London Calling" is nostalgia today. There's an iconic album cover for you, but even that is reduced to fashion store accessoire for the posh today. That's The Clash, Terri, they were...oh, nevermind. It's a long time ago. But no sheep.
Here's one with sheep. The Orb, recorded live at Glastonbury 1993:
(no, I didn't make this, it's a real album)
That made me laugh out loud Dag. An inflatable fluffy sheep with an ironic twist on the Battersea Power Station angle. Hey, whatever happened to BPS? There were plans to redevelop it when I left the UK in 2005. I just checked Wikipedia, and apparently Apple are now involved with plans to house 1400 Apple employees there. That's totally spooky.
I'm not sure where 'digging' came from, but I suspect it was driven by the thread content. I have a feeling that a loot of people reading this thread will never of even heard of Beatniks but they were who I'd associate with 'digging'. Even I am a touch too young to have been involved with that scene, but my memories of beatniks is that they wore duffel coats and smelled a bit.
Jodi_Frye wrote
And the D stands for ... ??
Let's just say Dylan...no wait, that makes me sound like some American high school kid 
In fact it's Dag, which is a perfectly normal Norwegian name, but one that just doesn't roll naturally off an English-speaking tongue. It tends to come out as dog, not really the intended flavor. I discovered this the first time I went to England. If I moved there, I might change it to...Dylan. Or Dan. I don't know. Here I'm just D.
Trevor, AFAIK the term "dig" originated in the beat/jazz community in the late '40s. Interestingly, back then it didn't really have a positive value connotation. It didn't necessarily mean you liked it - it was more like...getting into, flow with it. Give yourself in. Read Jack Kerouac and you'll get it. Later the hippies took it up (probably via Allen Ginsberg), and that's when it subtly changed meaning.
Jodi_Frye wrote
I like the name Dag ... If you move to England I think you may want to consider a Nik name ... Like Fozzy ...
Oh dear. You've started something now. 
Those did start out as Dag's eyes, but I am not sure if there is enough left from the rework to tell.
I like that it's so surreal, but I still don't understand this thread one bit 
Fossie and Dag, Trevor and sheep. I think you guys must have done some serious damage with too many hallucinogenic substances in the seventies. I thought Battersea Power station was owned by the Alton Towers people? How did Apple get hold of it? I know they ripped the roof of a listed building and were in line for a big fine so might have needed to sell.
Don't worry Dag , it could be worse. This picture recently emerged of a certain forum member before undergoing radical experimental surgery
I don't know anything about Pink Floyd-was he some kind of color blind communist? Anyhow, all I could think to do was an album cover as I like doing double exposure images-sorry Dave
Sorry Dave, I have been a bit preoccupied on the Muse forum this week now that Adobe has axed the program leaving a lot of very worried people. I must admit I don't really get this challenge, what's the significance of the sheep in Trevor's last image-very weird. Anyhow I've tried to be equally weird here. It took months to train that panda.
AdChoices