New Header Image Added

Welcome back! Today, in order to add some more character to this blog, I updated our main header image for the Dragon Ball Den. The header now is a graphic of the main characters of Dragon Ball Z with the official Dragon Ball logo above them. This header was created using two separate images that were combined using the Pixlr image editor. The first image was just a picture of Goku and supporting cast members of the main Dragon Ball series, since the purpose of this blog is to discuss the storyline, themes, and characters of Dragon Ball.
As already mentioned, the header consists of two different source images combined. Each image (the image of Goku and the cast along with the image of the regular Dragon Ball logo) were legally labeled as free to use and share for non profit purposes. I was able to find images of this legal type through Google’s Advanced Image Search, which allowed me to filter out images based on their legal usage type. So for the purpose of this header, I explicitly filter towards images that are only free to share and use and filtered out images that were requesting profit or monetization to use.
As for the production process for these images, I used the Pixlr editor software to combine the logo with the picture of the Dragon Ball cast. Initially, I just added the picture of the Dragon Ball Z main cast as the first layer, fitting it inside the 1440×600 dimensions of the header. Then, I found the official logo of the main Dragon Ball series, and added it as a second layer on top of the first layer I had already placed. In order for this logo to blend in more with the first layer image, I manually lowered the opacity of the image, altering the transparency effect of the second layer.
Ultimately, from the manipulation of layers and transparency in my header image using Pixlr, the final result was much different than a single-layer bitmap image that Davison describes in the Journal of Visual Culture. Original image editing softwares like MS Paint only accommodated for one layer, and when other images were added on top, they were merged together as a single layer when saved. Pixlr on the other hand accommodates for multiple layers when new images are added on top of each other, which allows for the editor to go back and move, alter, or adjust images that were added before.