Check out the new header, crafted by yours truly! It was my first time using a photo editor of any kind- I’ve never had practice with Photoshop or anything- but it was surprisingly easy! I used Pixlr to create this gorgeous piece of art and images found through a Google image search. By limiting my search to images with a Creative Commons Attribution license, my image options were significantly narrowed. This made my work a bit more difficult, as I had a specific vision in my head starting out, but even among the thousands of images returned returned to me, none were exactly what I wanted. It definitely would have easier if I broadened my search based on the incensing, however as a contributing member of the internet community, I am obligated to respect copyright laws. In the end, I was able to create this header by borrowing and remixing images from http://www.publicdomainpictures.net, commons.wikimedia.org and pixabay.com.

In order to create this image, I used a picture of a stack of albums and upped the the brightness and saturation to bring out the color. I then created a new layer with the vinyl record on it atop my background, removing the image’s solid background so that my record showed through behind it. I figured out the the wand tool on Pixlr was the perfect way to isolate just the part of the image I wanted. Next, I added a layer of text with my blog’s name: “Hit Shuffle,” and looked through a whole bunch of fonts, until I settled on one that looked sleek, clean, and not too cheesy. But it still didn’t feel complete. I finally felt finished when I added the shuffle icon atop my text, positioning it so it blended into the letters themselves. I had to crop the icon a bit and blend some harsh edges where my letters met the arrows, but in the end I think it flows together really well!