When I saw this assignment, I immediately knew I wanted to do it! I love the concept, at first I was thinking to put myself on it, or play around with an original image by altering it. As I’m brainstorming, I’m listening to Micheal Jackson as I do my work. And the idea hits me!

Jacksons… I’m gonna keep jackson on the 20 dollar bill, but instead of Former President Andrew Jackson, The King of Pop Micheal Jackson!!

The Process:

1. I found a $20 bill I had (one of numerous… b/c well you know, I’m a college student. We are filthy rich. I stuff my pillows with em.), and took a photo of it.

2. When I uploaded it to my computer I opened up GIMP which is an image editing software. I found it a bit tricky to use, but one you get comfortable with it you realize how great it is. Googled an image of the late Micheal Jackson, saved it on my computer and also uploaded it on another GIMP window.

3. I then went to the color tab and desaturized the Micheal Jackson picture.

4. Then used the toolbox which is open in a seperate window automatically to the left and used the Ellipse Select Tool. This allowed me to select the region of the $20 dollar bill that had Jackson’s face on it and cut it out. Then did the same thing on the MJ picture, but instead of cutting, I copied and pasted it in place of the empty face in the $20 bill.

5. The trick is being careful to have the elliptical regions of both picture relatively the same, or the MJ one a bit bigger. That way you don’t have empty space where the 2 overlap each other.

6. Go to the Layer tab on the top of the screen, and select merge down. Save your new picture and close GIMP.

7. I then opened up my new picture via Windows Live Photo Gallery. On there, you click the color menu and down where is has color adjustment options I picked the center setting of the buttom row. labeled “original temperature, low tint“. This gave the picture a more even tone throughout without completely distorting the coloration of the bill.

… and voilà … ze mastabiece is complete!