Experimenting with editing techniques - digipak progress update

Experimenting with editing techniques

I felt like my images were fairly bland, due to me not knowing how to use Photoshop - subsequently resulting in a lack of editing done to my images. Now that I am more confident with using Photoshop and its various tools, I have decided to edit my images in a variety of ways to see which I like best. Upon referral to my research into indie digipaks, often a 'vintage'/'retro' look is added to the images. For example, on Mumford and Sons digipak for 'Sigh No More' an almost old-style effect has been added:

A vintage effect is also featured on indie band Two Door Cinema Clubs digipak front cover for 'Tourist History':

And again on Vampire Weekend:

Therefore, I have tried to emulate this in my own print work. I have created both a subtle and bold version of the vintage effect on the front cover of my digipak image.

Here is the more bold version of my front cover image. It creates an old, vintage style to my digipak. 

However, I don't feel as though these images work too well in regards to the indie genre, as they are perhaps too heavily edited. 

Therefore, I decided to begin editing a more subtle vintage style of image.

Here is a before and after of my edited front cover digipak image:

I achieved this much more subtle vintage look by adding three adjustment layers, levels, black and white and gradient, where by I manipulated the colours featured in the image. I heightened the yellows and reds in the image and decreased the greens and blues, lowering the opacity at the same time, which has created a more washed-out look to the image. I then proceeded to add the artists name and album title. I have been experimenting with various fonts to use for the album title, but I have decided on this one which I downloaded from 'DaFont':

I chose this font as not only is it bold enough to stand out, but it also has a handwritten feel to it which I think works well with the indie genre.

After this, I decided to edit all four of my images in this 'vintage' style format. 

I also resolved the issue of my squashed images as mentioned in my class feedback, by cutting and re-sizing them.

Here is a comparison between my non-edited images and my edited images:

I still feel that I may need to edit my digipak images further to cohere with my print advert.