Break Down

"Break Down" was a graphic inspired by the popular game "Dance Dance Revolution" , and named for a particular song on the game that I'm fond of.

Effects Deconstruction

Extraction
Some of the effects and techniques used here are more obvious than others. Since the model was a stock photo there were some things that had to be done right away, like extracting her from the original background. To do this I used the "Channels Technique". After selecting the channel that showed the most contrast I duplicated it and began using a hard brush to fill in the model.
(I was aided by the fact I'm using a Wacom Tablet).

Having filled in the model I proceded back to the Layers panel, where using my selection tool I feathered the area that I had just painted in (about 2px) and went on to mask the layer. As a personal preference in my work flow I like to save my models as smart objects after this point. The are several reasons for this but one of the primary one is that I prefer to do as much non-destructive editing as possible.

GlamourShop
A lot of designers I've talked to rarely if ever do any additional work on the models after they've extracted them (the exception being for photo manipulation, or examples of airbrushing). I usually prefer to make them my own in some small way. In this case that meant that I added additional highlights and shadows to her using a new layer group consisting 2 layers (one for shadow one for highlights), both set with the overlay blend mode. After that I did some minor airbrushing to the model and a few touch ups on the makeup she already had, and finally I changed the bland gray jump suit she was wearing to the more interesting lavender one she has now.

Vectors
The vector illustration in this particular design was minimal, but was approached purposefully. For those of you not familiar with the inspiration for the image "Dance Dance Revolution", the game consist of attempting to dance by following steps designated by moving arrows, timed to the beats per minute of a particular song. In keeping with that theme I used arrows in the same arrangement as they appear within the game. I applied the necessary gradients and shadows to them. Originally I was not completely satisfied with their presence in the upper left corner. As with most of my commercial graphics, I always like to establish an interesting background, foreground, and middle ground. I had not completely settled on the sound wave effect yet, so placed the arrows there and added my crossbar and was satisfied with how that came out.

Generating the sound wave was interesting, and the approach I used for this was to draw an uneven vertical stroke and to manipulated it with the Wind Filter, then rotate it horizontally.

Next there were the "Pop Circles". Originally I had intended to make a translucent version of the DDR dance pad, but that idea didn't seem to fit with the design once it was fleshed out, so instead I decided on the Pop Cirlces. Ultimately this came down to use of the distort tool, followed by the neccessary gradient, inner glow, and outer glow effects.

Background
The background was very straight forward. After settling on a gradient gray, I went on to create back lighting by creating a new layer to render the light effects on and then proceeded to use a guassian blur on them. Following that was the noise layer. I created a new layer, and using the selection tool created and "X" across the background and used the paint bucket tool to fill it. After that I selected the add noise effect from the filters, and set it for monochromatic and applied it to the image, before going on to soften its edges with a soft eraser and changing the blend mode to soft light.