Contributions: logo, typography and color palette, directing photo shoots, photo selection and editing, and visual design

Poster for events and video shoots, vertical banner for events and stage use

Promotional hand out

Sponsorship sign for adoption lobby

Our chapter continues to receive generous donations to the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund to help those affected by this disaster. You can make a donation by visiting redcross.org.

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is a non-profit advocacy organization that is the medical and public health voice for policies to prevent nuclear war and proliferation and to slow, stop and reverse global warming and toxic degradation of the environment.

http://www.psr.org

1. Determine the focus of the photograph. Enhance it when needed.

This photograph is intended to demonstrate how a product (the bag) might be used in a real-world setting. Many things in the photo distract from that focus. Several tools can be used to reduce or eliminate these distractions. Below are the steps I took to improve this example.

A. Simplify the color.
The orange sweater and flowers pulled the viewer’s eye away from the black bag and the woman carrying it. Unifying the color scheme into natural colors and green accents helps to draw the eye between the woman and bag, rather than stopping on the wild orange coloring.

B. Darken the corner of the sky.
The left upper corner was too light and empty, which became a dead zone. Adding a darkening gradient to the corner helps reactivate that space and bring the viewer’s eye back around into the photograph.

2. Enhance the focus item in the photograph when necessary.

The bag that was photographed was a sample, and therefore was lacking the proper supports that the end-product would include. The result was a bag collapsing on itself and unable to roll behind the user as the real product would. I was specifically asked to correct this. The process involved a significant amount of cloning, patching, burning/dodging regions, and creating a shadow to match the new shape.

3. Retouch skin, but don’t over do it.

I regularly see disasters in this area. I have retouched thousands of faces, and trust me when I say that people want to look better than they really do. However, if you’ve got a 40-something woman, they will have some wrinkles. Everyone will have some darkness under their eyes. The trick is knowing where to draw the line between idealized beauty and realism.

I love the patch tool on skin. It’s great for removing/reducing wrinkles and blemishes and also for reducing under eye bags. Take extra note to enlarged veins in the hands, especially on pale skinned people, and be sure to clone away stray hairs.

Often, however, that does not go far enough. In this example, the light source came from behind the woman, which caused her face to be in shadow. The result is a low contrast face and eyes with abnormal looking darkened skin. Adjustment layers and whitening/lighting the whites of the woman’s eyes goes a long way to bringing back her natural beauty.

Below is another example of a photo that I edited for the client.

While it is not the most glamorous photograph, this shot was intended to show the vast amount of storage that the “Space Maker” product would add to the stroller. Again, I removed the distracting elements and retouched/edited the woman as needed.

Lightened and color corrected skin. Removed house numbers from sidewalk. Removed branding from water bottle. Removed a few stray hairs. Reduced under eye wrinkle. Touched up arms.

Major problems in this photograph included the shadow from the photographer’s umbrella and the unhealthy brown patches in the grass. I corrected these and reduced the opacity of the “trend” hole in the woman’s jeans, since it was distracting.

The client asked for “citrus-y colors and text that looks like it’s from an old book” and text that looked “typewriter-ish.” Essentially, the goal was to reflect the feel of her mixed-media work in the overall site design. I also noticed a pattern in her work of strong textures, such as painted canvas and papers, which I reflected in the artwork I created for the navigation and title.

The splash page features a Flash slideshow which stops on mouse hover, and resumes when the cursor moves off. The galleries feature JavaScript code originally developed by Lokesh Dhakar and adapted for this site.

Plant Operations quarterly newsletter:

UH Plant Operations Newsletter; Click to view in Flash

Conference logo design

Banner design

Tee mockup

Brochure design, front/back

Brochure design, inside (click to view)

The original concept was to create a dark scene with a martial arts expert. To create contrast within the piece, I used silhouetting (dark/light contrast) and complimentary colors for the skyline and for much of the swordsman’s body.  The embers are intended to create a sense of movement and action throughout the piece.

Working title: Kensei, Ablaze

Here is the final product: A “Thank You” collage of the company’s products and logos, set inside a Photoshop clipping mask.

1. Adobe Photoshop CS4 Optional plug-ins

With CS4, Adobe moved some of the standard plug-ins into the Goodies folder on the DVD, or alternatively, you can download them from their website. Some of the plug-ins are old standbys that I personally wouldn’t want to be without. Download for Windows here, or for Mac here.

Contact Sheet II
PhotomergeUI
PatternMaker
Web Photo Gallery

2. Eye Candy 6

Add beautiful, realistic looking effects to your digital artwork. Some of these effects can take hours to produce on your own. With a few clicks and tweaks, create them swiftly with Eye Candy. I especially love using distortion tools on these effects to make them look even more realistic (like Liquify, Warp, etc). Download a demo here.  Some of the great effects:

Smoke
Water Drops
Fire
Drip
Glass
Icicles
Perspective Shadow

3. Xenofex 2

Also from Alien Skin Software, create dazzling effects such as Lightning, Clouds, and Crumpled paper.

Download a demo here.

4. Backdrop Designer

When you’ve got a great portrait, but need a more fitting or simplistic background, you don’t have to settle for white.

Get the demo here.

5. Foto Edge FX

Create interesting borders for your photos. These can be used well for publication layouts and websites.

Download and learn more about it here.

6. Dreamy Photo

A free plug-in from Auto FX Software. I think it simulates the diffusion print process quite nicely. Get your download here.

7. Grunge Textures

Since everything seems to re-emerge every 20 years, I’m expecting a resurgence of grunge. Here’s some nice free textures to get you started on the trend. Download here.

8. Grunge Brushes

Compliment your grunge look with brushes. The site also has some nice trees brushes. Get your grunge brush download here.

9. Stamp Brushes

Simulating the look of stamps on envelopes and letters has never been easier. Get your free download here.

10. Brushes at BruSheezy

A variety of free brush downloads. Some of my favorites are the 24 Clouds, Poldersky, and Ecol Brushes.