And Now, An Anatomy Lesson…

For Public Relations Tactics, for an article on how to write news releases that search engines can find and boost the chances your story winds up on Google News. (Basic idea: keep it short and sweet.) The editor sent me a low-res JPEG of an actual release, and suggested it be “done up like an old anatomy chart with a professor type pointing toward it.” The only creative part was the prof’s tweed coat. Scroll down
for a quick look at how it was done.

I used this photo of a brown tweed sports coat. I converted the 72 dpi JPEG to a
300 dpi Photoshop file, posterized the image to give it more of an illustrated look, then selected the entire image and pasted it into the illustration on a separate layer.  

I used the Clone tool to brush out the dark sleeve line on the sports coat, and deleted the part of the coat I didn’t need.

Finally I used the Dodge tool to lighten the coat and create the effect of reflected light. I thought the dark green sweater went well with the original coat image, so I
used the same color for the prof’s tie and a complementary color for the “green chalkboard” background. Here’s the final again.