Working in the graphics design/publishing field I come across at least 10 photos a day that could use some drastic help. Washed out, overdeveloped, under exposed; These are all things that we’ve all had to deal with with our photos. Well, Here’s some simple processes you can follow to punch up those colors and get your images back to looking the way they should, GREAT! Inspired by the new little ducklings that have recently hatched in our back yard, we snapped some shots on a point and shoot Canon. As you can see from the original image, it’s good… but i thought it could be better. The following steps to enhance your photos shouldn’t take you any more than 5 minutes, and once you learn the procedure you’ll be editing your photos in no time!

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Title: January OCMETRO Cover, The ECOnomics Report, Special Green Issue

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 4-8 Hours

About: OCMETRO’s first “Green” issue. They wanted something to capture the feel of the large green movement in Orange County.

Designer Notes: Thanks to online tutorials (via PSD Tuts), this cover was not only fun, but also a huge learning experience. The client loved the idea from the start.

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Title: February 2009 OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Lincoln Salazar

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 2 hours

About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.

Designer Notes: This was my 6th design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine.

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Title: December OCMETRO Cover, The Best & Worst Issue, Tiger Woods

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 2-3 Hours

About: Cover design for OCMETRO’s Best & Worst Issue with a special Tiger Woods feature. The Tiger Woods Learning Center was featured as one of the ‘Best’ events in Orange County California, 2008.

Designer Notes: Getting to work with a cover image of a well-known, famous face really opened the perspective up to produce a great cover.

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Title: January 2009 OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Clarissa Ngo

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 2 hours

About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.

Designer Notes: This was my 5th design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine and third in a horizontal layout.

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click the image above for 100% size.

As any good designer knows, typography is a main element of design. With the thousands of typeface choices many designers get overwhelmed. Modern design dictates that type not only be treated as an element on a page, but a main eye catch as well. Graham at ImJustCreative.com created a site, lovehelvetica.com, to simplify the typeface jungle, and pay homage to one of the classics… Helvetica. Being such a versatile font, Helvetica lends itself to a world of design with it’s huge variety of weights.

This design is my homage to the great font, Helvetica Neue. The thought process behind the design was to use the ‘a hole’ (thanks Albertonomo via flickr) to “peel” back into a heart shape and convey the idea of ‘love helvetica’. The 2.0 gradient shading has been my design kick for the month, so there’s some of that in there as well.

Comments/criticisms are always welcomed. Or design one of your own and sent me the link! Fond me on twitter to let me know as well @lhodsdon

Title: Sneak peak Nine Three Studio logo & Glowing text in space.

Client: None, Personal Project

Program(s) Used: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2 (for logo)

Time Span: 10-20 minutes, not including logo

About: Thanks to a GREAT, and fast, tutorial at Denis Designs, I was inspired to give my own take and twist. The tutorial is super easy to follow, and the results, as you can see, are pretty spectacular! Hey Denis, ever think about the tagline “You can’t spell design without Denis.”

Designer Notes: Easy to follow tutorial steps, great result i can’t really say much else! By the way, if you hadn’t noticed, this IS the new logo the site will be using in the re-design that is, god willing, still slated to happen mid year this year. Big plans in my brain… getting them out might be the hard part.

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Title: December 2008 OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Chris Hite

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 2 hours

About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.

Designer Notes: This was my 4th design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine and second in a Horizontal layout.

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Title: November 2008 OCMETRO Cover, The Hot 25: Revealed

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2

Time Span: 6-8 Hours, concept to completion

About: Annually OCMETRO chooses it’s “Hot 25″ business people of Orange County California. This year we wanted to try a fresh new look, with a feeling of anonymity to appeal to the readers and grab their attention.

Designer Notes: I really got to strech my design wings with this cover. Working for a business related publication, design like this is a tough sell. The image pleased enough of the decision makers and i got the green light to go ahead with the cover and cover story.

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Title: OCFAMILY.com Masthead

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCFAMILY

Program(s) Used: Illustrator CS2

Time Span: 3 Hours

About: Churm Media requested a way to show it’s readers and advertisers the success it’d had at this year’s annual PPA (Parenting Publications of America) Awards Convention.

Designer Notes: I really wanted to explore trying to make the banner really appear as if it was intertwining throughout the Masthead. Piggybacking upon the great success of OCFAMILY’s website at this years Parenting Publications of America’s Annual awards contest & ceremony. Here are what some of the judges had to say about the website itself.

Gold: OC Family; Kimberly Porrazzo; Kristen Schott; Jeff Kitchen
OC Family’s web site provided rich multimedia content for its users. The highlight of this content is the ability for OC Family’s community to contribute photos of children. The photos are tastefully incorporated into the Web site’s design and provide an engaging entry-point into the site’s additional content. The directory of community businesses provides detail with both contact information and a description of services.

Title: November OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Leila Entezam

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 2 Hours

About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.

Designer Notes: This was my 3rd design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine.

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Title: October OCMETRO Cover, What’s at stake for Orange County? Obama – McCain

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Illustrator CS2, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 4 Hours

About: The cover story told of ways that each presidential candidate could effect Orange County, since we’re a hyper-local magazine media company.

Designer Notes: I wanted the cover to look vastly different than anything we’d produced in the past, bringing techniques and ideas which Churm Media hadn’t explored before. The idea of adding in the Orange slices was to really bring the hyper-local aspect to the cover, and to get a nice bright splash of colors.

Full image after the jump…
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Title: CEO Centerfold – Andre Filip, OCMETRO 10-08

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop

Time Span: 1 hour.

About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.

Designer Notes: This was my second CEO centerfold design for OCMETRO Magazine, and the first ever horizontal layout for the section.

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Title: September OCMETRO Cover – Tito Ortiz

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop

Time Span: 4 Hours total project

About: October Issue cover design for OCMETRO

Designer Notes: This was the first issue of the re-design, and my first cover for OCMETRO (Previously i’d been designing OCFAMILY & Inland Empire Family Covers & layouts)

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Title: OCFAMILY TV Logo Design

Client: Churm Media, in association with OC Family Magazine

Program(s) Used: Illustrator CS2

Time Span: 2 hours Conceptual. 2 hours design.

About: ocfamily.com needed a logo design for their new video feature in which anyone can upload videos of their children. The idea was to make them a TV star, on the web.

Designer Notes: I really wanted to add an element of freshness to this logo. In the end the company decided to take a darker direction and make everything black based.