My comeback on Photoshop and survivor update

I hadn't used Photoshop CC in quite a while, and I had gotten bored with the near-completion of my family reunion program, so it was back to Photoshop earlier this week.

Over a two-day period (Tuesday and Wednesday), I created a publicity poster linking the 32 National Football League teams to the Bluebird Fund.  I imagined a league-wide campaign to raise awareness of Brenda Barefoot's charity, which would have two major functions:

• Help pay funeral costs if a loved one died unexpectedly under significant financial hardship that cannot be made up through insurance or other means;
• Provide grief counseling to individuals and communities suffering tragic events of great significance (recent examples would include the massive flooding in South Carolina or the shootings at a community college in Oregon).

Of course, the web address at the bottom of the ad is fictitious, but the need is real.  Organizations like the American Red Cross and some insurance agencies perform many of the same functions that the Bluebird Fund would do.

Now for the ad.  I went to NFLShop.com and accessed the pages on which customized NFL jerseys are sold.  On each page, I used the preview function to match the Barefoot surname to the numbers of current and former players from each of the league's teams.  Each was saved as a separate JPEG file, then transferred to a blank 20-by-16 canvas.  One by one, the right-hand side of each JPEG was cut away, leaving only the back of each jersey.  The resulting layers were then selected together and resized to make room for the text at the bottom.

The Bluebird Fund "logo" was created using the dry brush filter picked from Filter Gallery, applied to a personal file containing the bird.  (That's the same one that is on Buddy Wayne's shirt in the "official family photograph.")

While I'm on the subject of the NFL, my survivor pool has five contestants left: Rhett Jeffers was eliminated with the Eagles' loss to the Redskins (23-20), and "Baker Beth" was burnt by the Vikings' 23-7 loss to the Broncos.

Five contestants are left, and due to Bobby Ray's original Panthers having one of the week's byes, a redraw had to be conducted with the following results: Bobby was assigned to the Bears (Sunday at Kansas City), B.W. will now have the Steelers (Monday at San Diego), Billie now has the Lions (Sunday home to the Cardinals, his original team), Brittany Raylene was given the Cowboys (home to the Patriots on Sunday), and Katie von Hinz has been assigned the Titans (another home game, Sunday vs. Buffalo).

For a reminder of the complete list of contestants, see this post.