This is a set of stock images I sent to Strong as possible options. The idea being to ground overlaid effects and text in reality with a photographic plate.
These two options were the favorites among Strong staff.
This is a progression of how I built this background plate:
1) After cropping the original image, I masked out and duplicated some of the gifts and put them on the left to balance the composition a bit.
2) The second frame has shadows painted in with a simple soft black brush with low opacity. This simple technique grounds the gifts which previously looked detached, appearing to float.
3) The third frame added Strong's main logo
4) This level of blue tint is what was chosen for the final plate. Varying levels of saturation were tried.
These are 5 of the variations sent to the Strong decision-makers.
