Dani Ward

Designer | Teacher | Consultant

Clone Stamp

Photoshop Adventures: Power Lines, Be Gone!

By Dani Ward / August 6, 2015 / 0 Comments

This week, my company has been working on a client’s website, making some slight design adjustments and choosing new photos for some of their pages. They’d expressed a desire to use this image as the header for their site:

original

The most glaring problem was the pole and myriad telephone lines distracting from the main subject of the photo. So they were the things I took care of first, creating a new layer entitled “clone stamp” and using the clone stamp, healing brush, and paintbrush tools to clean everything up. This was rather painstaking, taking about 40 minutes to do since some of what I was removing was in heavily detailed areas, like the white house on the right and the tiles on the main building.

no-lines

Then I wanted to adjust the color and contrast a bit. I created two Hue/Saturation adjustment layers: one for the whole photo, and one with just a mask to target the main building. I also created a building-specific Color Balance layer to help it stand out just a little bit more. Finally, I created a Curves adjustment layer to adjust the contrast of the entire image. Here is the final result:

shopped

And just for funsies, here’s the before and after together.

photoshopped-building

Photoshop Adventures: Color Correction & Cloning

By Dani Ward / July 23, 2015 / 0 Comments

Not too long ago, my partner and I discovered the joy that is Aaron Nace‘s Phlearn Photoshop and Photography Tutorials. We spent hours almost every evening for a few weeks watching the tutorials, and it seemed like a whole new world had opened to me. I’ve always been competent in Photoshop, don’t get me wrong. But suddenly it seemed like I could move from mere competency into proficiency. In fact, I must heartily thank Phlearn for making their valuable resources so readily available, as even little tips and tricks I’ve picked up from the show have been so helpful to me in my job as a graphic designer.

Particularly when working with stock imagery that’s close to what a client wants, but not quite.

Connect With Me

A mock-up of a letter-sized booklet or magazine. On the left is the magazine open to a spread. On the right is the closed booklet to showcase its cover.

8.5x11in Booklet or Magazine Mock-up

A mock-up of a letter-sized booklet or magazine. On the left is the magazine open to a spread. On the right is the closed booklet to showcase its cover.
2 versions of the Dani the Designerd logo, along with business cards, resume, and envelope, all arranged on a light gray background, to demonstrate logo design and samples of business materials for portfolios or project presentations.

Logo + Business Materials Mock-up

2 versions of the Dani the Designerd logo, along with business cards, resume, and envelope, all arranged on a light gray background, to demonstrate logo design and samples of business materials for portfolios or project presentations.
Designs for an RSVP and envelope, along with an invitation and envelope, are displayed on a light gray background. The purpose of the image is to demonstrate how you can present your designs for a client or your own portfolio.

Invite & RSVP Presentation Mock-up

Designs for an RSVP and envelope, along with an invitation and envelope, are displayed on a light gray background. The purpose of the image is to demonstrate how you can present your designs for a client or your own portfolio.
Small seed-envelope, front and back, displayed on a white and gray background. The name of a salon, Eminence Salon, along with the tip amount and who it's for, are included for the purpose of demonstrating how designers can use this mock-up for client presentations or portfolio.

Tip/Seed Envelope Mock-up

Small seed-envelope, front and back, displayed on a white and gray background. The name of a salon, Eminence Salon, along with the tip amount and who it's for, are included for the purpose of demonstrating how designers can use this mock-up for client presentations or portfolio.
The words "thank you" are written in a thick upright script, stacked on top of each other. The purpose of the graphic is for designers who are designing thank you notes or cards and want something unique to use for the text.

Hand-Lettered "Thank You" Graphic

The words "thank you" are written in a thick upright script, stacked on top of each other. The purpose of the graphic is for designers who are designing thank you notes or cards and want something unique to use for the text.

Testimonials

Chyrl Graham

student at HCC from 2017-2019

Cindy Garland

client via Icon Graphics from 2011-2016

Jaime Schwartzbeck

client via Icon Graphics from 2013-2016

Kwame DeRoché

freelance copywriter I worked with for a mutual client from 2012-2015

Samantha Field

freelance client

A. M. Leibowitz

freelance client

Matt Swain

marketing and copywriting colleague for one of his clients

Kelly Faist

former Senior Manager of Trade Show Operations at PMMI; one of my contacts when PMMI was a client of mine

Ellen Smith

former graphic design instructor from my college years at HCC

Skylar Swain

former Senior Graphic Designer at Infocus Marketing while I was Junior Graphic Designer from 2009-2011

Matt Swain

former Marketing Manager and Director of Marketing at Infocus Marketing when I was there from 2010-2011

Sean Maher

former web design and development instructor at HCC from 2006-2007

Jeannine Gibson

former Director of Marketing at Infocus Marketing when I was a Junior Graphic Designer there from 2009-2011

Despite her youth, Dani has a very solid grasp of how graphic design works with messaging. She is a consistent performer and her work ethic is noticeably positive. Without her, the Marketing department would not be able to keep up with the variety of projects and increase of special requests from Business Development, email list marketing, our current list products, external clients and company marketing initiatives…Dani is a solid pillar that can be relied on.