The original:

The brief:

A bit late with this one - the 40th anniversary of the moon landing was last week, and I really should have seen it coming. I was intrigued by a radio interview I heard with some professor of something or other, who claims the landings were all faked. Something to do with the angles of the shadows not being right, or the quality of the light.

So I thought: how easy is it to fake a moon landing? Can you take this classic shot, and add or remove elements so that we can't tell the real image from the fakery? Pay close attention to lighting and shadow this week!

Finished work:

Click to view full.

July 2009 - Classical architecture

The original:

The brief:

Here's a classic Ionic column from the British Museum, with a section of pediment and a chunk of wall. Not a huge amount to go on, I admit, but is there enough raw material here to build something magnificent? The choice of building is up to you.

Finished work:

Click to view larger.

July 2009 - Five years on

The original:

The brief:

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Friday Challenge, and I thought we'd mark the occasion by repeating the first-ever Challenge.

The task was to take the lid off this boiled egg. The question is: five years down the line, are our Photoshop skills any more proficient? Have advances in Photoshop versions made the job any easier?

This is the original text:

Here's your first challenge, Photoshoppers. I placed this raw egg in an egg cup, and I want it boiled. I'd like the top sliced, cracked or broken off - whichever is your preferred method of opening eggs. What you do in the way of runny yolk, bits of shell and even toast fingers is up to you! You'll find a high res version of the egg here. Good luck!

You might like to include objects or people that could not have been in the scene five years ago - or, alternatively, things that we saw five years ago but which are no longer in evidence. How you mark the passage of time is entirely up to you.

Finished work:

Click to view full.

June 2009 - Shade and texture

The original:

The brief:

I was walking through a graveyard recently (the way one does) and I was struck by this impromptu still life. Not so much the arrangement of the miscellaneous items, but by the way the elements - the headstone, the watering cans, the pipe box, the statue - have all taken on the same texture and hue, almost as if they were all cast from the same substance.

So I'd like you to add a few more items to this group. The only consideration is that they must blend into the scene: I should not be able to tell at a glance what has been added and what was there originally.

Finished work:

Click to view full size.