I’m happy to address you again right here in this issue of your neigborhood’s magazine, South Novato Living. I’m Joan Carlson, sole proprietor at my Creative Services company, Splashpaint Creative. This Case Study shows a type of design work I do, rather than a design project that I completed for a client.
THE SATISFYING WORK OF PHOTO EDITING
One of the most satisfying parts of my business is the magic I can achieve with Photoshop. It’s a household name now, and the app does many things, but mostly it prepares photos to look their best for print and web. We designers help bridge the gap between RGB color on computer displays (where each color is a blend of backlit Red Green and Blue lights), and how those same millions of colors will look when converted to print in CMYK (tiny dots of ink: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black). These edits are done extensively in all print and web images.
A particular kind of photo edits is called “Compositing.” In this process, a new photo is built from layered pieces of other photos. I accepted a 4 month contract on the Catalog Retouching Team at RH HQ, and that turned into nearly 5 years. Their photography is state of the art, which made the retouching and compositing a lot more fun. Some spreads had to be constructed from scratch, while other edits were about color corrections to match materials of all kinds — everything from woods and leathers, to fabrics, and metals. I came aboard very capable, but by the contract’s end I had skills I could never have imagined. Retouching remains one of my favorite tasks.
BEFORE
AFTER
PAINSTAKING PUZZLES THAT ARE FUN TO SOLVE
In photo composites, you isolate an object with a mask by drawing around it’s perimeter. Then copy and lay it into a different photo. Then you soften the edges of the imported piece so that the edit cannot be detected. It’s satisfying work!
This Case Study shows our cover shot from last month’s 2nd Anniversary issue. It’s cropped to focus on the “flyaway hairs.” During the photo session the wind came up and created some balloon and hair havoc. “Flyaways” are a common thing needing correction in retouching, and our cover shot provided a great example of how visually distracting they can be. The best way to solve it is to retouch them out by cloning careful dabs of nearby color, then making it look more believable by drawing in pixel-thin hairs that are smoother. Our otherwise-perfect cover shot had one other flaw I couldn’t ignore. I wasn’t even looking at the camera!. The solution was to composite a different photo of myself right into the cover photo. I found another taken a second or two earlier, so I dropped it in. Above are the shots after and before — See how many edits you can find that changed between the two.
Keep me in mind — I’d love to be the retouching expert you refer to friends, family, or clients.
You don’t have to be a company to work with me. I do all sorts of family projects too, from flyers, photo repair and color correcting, special-day posters, illustrations, and family coffee table books too! I’d like to be your go-to trusted creative resource.
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