Amanda Alexander

GIT 334
Fall A
Creative Project 2
10/7/2021

Realistic Cyberpunk Facebook Ad

For my final project, I decided to do something fun and create a Cyberpunk Facebook ad.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a recent game that has come out, and the theme is based on the future. The
game has an 80’s city neon feel throughout. This is a vibe generated through their brand and
advertisements. The game and most advertisements are animated, but I wanted to edit a real-
life photo. I found a photo of a South Korean alleyway that already luminated a neon feel and
decided to go this route.

Technical Aspects
This project was done with an sRGB color profile since it is made for Facebook specifically. RGB
colors are best used for web spaces, so this is the choice I went with. For the image size, I stuck
with 1200px tall; this is because the largest height of a Facebook ad is 1200px tall. I kept the
proportions of the original image and did not change the width so the whole image would
remain in the frame. The idea would be to either center the gif in the Facebook ad with color
side margins or pick a side and add some text on the right or left about a release date or any
other information about the game. This ad was made with the thought that the game had not
been released yet.

Inspiration
I have seen several displays of upcoming video games all over the web. Depending on the hype
for the game, there can be YouTube trailers, Facebook ads, GIFS, announcements, memes, and
even trailer reactions.
It is common in the gaming world that social media pages boom with upcoming games and
unique bonus offers. Above are just a few examples of game art showcasing games before their
release dates. Below is some Cyberpunk ad art. These were a massive inspiration to me, and I
used them to get that 80’s neon action vibe.

Process & Techniques

At first, I began with the base photo by Steve Roe. I knew that I wanted to get rid of the people
from the photo to add my own. My first steps were to remove the people using masking. I used
the Content-Aware Fill tool to fill in the empty spaces of the multiple people in the alleyway.
After tweaking this a bit, I realized that they were in the way of the poster on the back wall. For
my next step, I decided to mask out the poster entirely. My next steps were to repair the back
wall. I used the blur and clone tool to fill in the areas of the missing wall. I also had to fix parts
of the concrete. I had to remove several shadows on the ground and match them with the rest
of the concrete. I used the clone tool to follow the colorful shadows and highlights on the
ground.

Once the photo was fixed and retouched, I decided to add some wall art I found in the blank
space on the back wall. I used the transform and scale tool to fit in where the original art was
and used the blur tool to try and smooth the edges, so it did not look straight-edge square.
After this, I found my photos of the man and the motorcycle. In separate tabs, I masked both
very carefully. There were a lot of small areas within the bike where the background was
showing through, so I used a tiny paintbrush to make sure I got each one. I added the images to
my main composition and used the transform tool to move and scale them according to the
perspective of the ground.

Once my foreground images were in place, I blended my three added photos with adjustment
layers, highlights, and shadows. I started with a Curve adjustment layer and used the RGB curve
to try and match the tone with the background image. I used the eyedropper tools to pick up
on the image’s highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. Once satisfied with this, I began working on
highlights and shadows for the man and motorcycle. I learned more about creating realistic
highlights and shadows with the inverse curve technique, which I found on YouTube.

For this process, I created curves and masks to make color highlights. I matched the color
highlight in the curves and painted the color within the mask itself with a soft round brush. I did
this for the yellow highlight on the man, red highlight on parts of the bike, and the blue
highlight in the middle of the bike seat. I used the same process for the shadows on the bike
and man. The man was initially photographed with much white light and had highlights over his
entire back, helmet, and legs. I darkened the majority of these since there is only one light
hitting his person in the composite. I used the same process for the bike since not much light
would be realistically hitting it in the background photo.

I then zoomed into the three added images, and I noticed some white pixels on the outer
border, so I used the selection tool and then modified it to contract to look better against the
background. I then added a color balance to the bike and man for the shadows and highlights to
pop more. My last step with the man and bike was to add a shadow for perception and realism.
I used a duplicate black silhouette and then used the transform and puppet warp tool to flip
vertically and align the shadows with the touchpoints of the subjects. I used a blend mode of
multiply and lowered the opacity to blend into the background. Finally, I added a bit of blur to
get rid of the harsh edges.

When the added images were finished, I went to work on the entire look of the composite. I
started with some Camera Raw edits and messed with the exposure, brightness, and color hues
until I was happy. I used a levels adjustment to mess around with the highlights, mid-tones, and
shadows to darken the image and bring out the brightness in the neon-looking colors. I used an
outer glow effect to make the neon lights more prominent. I created a new layer for another
pop, painted some pink, yellow, and orange colors, and changed the blending mode to screen.

To create a more neon effect, I decided to make some blank signs look like they were on like a
neon sign. I used the pen to trace the letters and used a stroke to add a white light inside. I
added several effects to these, including inner glow, outer glow, color overlay, and drop
shadow to make them pop and look like actual lights.

For my final steps, I added the Cyberpunk game logo on the image and added an inner glow and
drop shadow to make the logo look somewhat like a sign. For my last step, I added a stock
video of rain. I lowered the opacity, shortened the video but the playback to forever, and used
the blending mode Screen to make this blend well.
 Resources

Original Image: https://www.boredpanda.com/my-favourite-neon-photos-of-seoul-

2018/?media_id=1547851

Man: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/full-length-rear-view-shot-biker-
2026742171

Bike: (The link no longer exists to download even though I downloaded less than a week ago
but here is the image)

Octopus: https://unsplash.com/photos/KeakS9D1N7s

Cyberpunk logo: https://www.valencygraphics.com/cyberpunk-2077