What do you think of this image. Furthering my deisgn skills

I see you're an owner of "Photoshop Top Secret". It's a great course but some of the more advanced effects are a bit too "overdramatic" for the average niche graphics that most of us require for our products. The strategies can definitely be refined and tempered down though, to give your stuff an added flair.

Overall I think your first effort was a solid one. All I would say is beware of overdoing it. I know that sometimes it's easy to consider the "coolness factor" before taking into consideration how the graphics will make your prospective customers feel when they're reviewing your offer. Will the graphics turn them off and detract from your site or presentation? Just keep that in mind when you're designing graphics for marketing purposes.

PS If it's just your overall graphic design skills you're honing (no marketing attached), as an owner of this course myself, I truly don't think there are any creative limits to what you can accomplish.

I agree with Ian. It would be better without the blood on the other side of her face. Without, its a cool image. With, it smacks of the kind of domestic violence that we want to put an end to. I think the bloodied face part would turn away a lot of people.

It is all depending on who wants what.

Looking at the design effect, it does look like a piece of artwork. It is nice for my view.

Again, this design may be suitable for certain kind of website but not for mine though even I love it. Knowing what one person wants and you create for that person, it will be fantastic.

Design for a purpose and you will achieve.

Why does she have a swarm of bees on the side of her head?

Hi Andy,

These are just opinions...

The image looks a little unbalanced, to be honest. It doesn't require symmetry to make an image a standout, but it does require somewhat of a balance of eyeball anchors to get the brain to see the *drama* in an image.

This is often accomplished with the use of triangular anchor points (that's where your brain creates a focal area using 3 points on the image) that subliminally draws your attention to an area. There can be more than 'one' triangular anchor points in any given image, but your eye naturally seeks these out and wants to find them. Again, it's subliminal, and almost no-one is aware that that is how they view images or objects.

A second thought is the 'graining' of the backdrop overlapping the fore image tends to take away from the depth of the image. This tends to remove some of the drama from the image. Adding depth to the boundry between the fore image and the background would help.

Also, fracturing the left side of the image and exploding it into a monotone black void makes it appear superfluous. Again, there is no depth to give it visual substance, so the eye can't tell if it is looking at a 'net' coming in from the left to cover her face, or is it her face that is fracturing. That kind of ambiguity is not of the the same quality that makes an impressionistic image look like one thing to someone, and something else to another, but rather it just tends to confuse without adding value.

We all have our own sense of what we like to see, and those were just some thoughts that crossed my mind, so don't give them too much weight

Best of success on your artistic journey,

KJ