Just a couple things to take note of, and these are personal taste for things that work well for me, as well as what I've seen done that I have found to be appealing to my eye.
1. I would create more seperation in the poster overall. From the background, to your font, to your subjects in the foreground...they need more seperation. This can be achieved many ways whether it be with a stroke, drop shadow, outer glow, etc.
2. Make sure your color balance is correct and even across all images you have on the poster. Your skin tones vary drastically and it takes away from the overall impact of the poster.
3. Try to avoid having the 'floating athlete syndrome'. What I mean by this is, don't just drop your cutouts on the background and do nothing else. If you do this, they will appear as if they are just floating in empty space. Do something like create a duplicate layer, flip it vertically, drop the opacity about 60% or more and it can appear to be a shadow or reflection on the court. Also, Paul Alesse has posted somewhere about how to do a nice gradient to make the player blend into the background as well. I see you tried this with your 2 outer images, but it didn't work too well.
4. If you are going to 'flip' an image, make sure it doesn't have any writing on it. The image on the lower left has Cougars and 10, as well as the writing on the basketball reversed. This can easily be fixed, especially if this is the only image you have that will work in the poster layout. Just use your selection tool, trace around the letters, make a copy and paste it onto a new layer, flip it back to normal and place it where it needs to be then use a quick mask to make everything look as if nothing had been changed. The basketball will be just as easy by following the same steps.
5. Lastly, I would lose the square format and at minumum go with a 2:2.5 aspect ratio or a 2:3 for true poster feel.
I would add to Billy's comments to change the font to something a bit more flashy...... it looks fine but something a bit more dramatic would make it POP a bit more.....Maybe try to match the "cougars" font?
Thanks for the comments guys its exactly what I was looking for. I will work with the things you mentioned and try to repost sometime. Didnt even notice the font backwards How do I change to a different aspect ratio?
Billy and Trevor have given you quite a bit to work on. One thing I do want to mention... never flip an image. There are certain nuances within the face that only the subject and those close to the subject will notice. Could be a mole or a scar or the fact that one side is symmetrically different than the other. Not to mention, you'll miss letters here and there. On this shot, you would not only have to flip the lettering on the jersey, but all the lettering on the basketball.
You already have a lot of constructive comments and I think your primary image is very good, but for a 1000 point club poster, I would like to see an image of her shooting.
BillP57 wrote:
You already have a lot of constructive comments and I think your primary image is very good, but for a 1000 point club poster, I would like to see an image of her shooting.
Bill
+1 - it was the first thing I noticed. The other comments are certainly applicable too.
How do I change to a different aspect ratio?