Archive: May 27, 2011

The Art of Listening

May 27, 2011

“Okay, that’s it. Time Out!”

Through the wailing and sobbing I hear, “I listening. I sorry.”

This is a common response from my 2 year-old son when he’s placed in time-out for something I’ve asked him repeatedly not to do. In my head I’m thinking, “No. You’re not listening otherwise you wouldn’t have done it.” (okay, sometimes I say it, too). Generally, I thank him for apologizing and try to emphasize, “You need to listen. If you listen and do as I ask, then you won’t have to be in time out.”

Aside from all the parents out there, does this situation sound at all familiar? What about the designer-client relationship? How many times have you been placed in ‘time out’ by a client because you didn’t do as they asked? You weren’t listening. If you had only done what they asked everyone would be happy, right? Wrong—it is not that simple in a valuable designer-client relationship.

Read More

Get the Red Out

May 6, 2011

Or perhaps I should say, “Another way to get the red out.” To forego potential legal issues with Visine (heh).

For the past nine years or so I have been removing red eye in Photoshop using a process that requires a number of steps. The quick and dirty explanation:

  1. Make a selection around the red area
  2. Feather the selection
  3. Copy the selection to a new layer (so you are not being destructive to the original photo)
  4. Desaturate the selection
  5. Then use the burn tool to darken the pupil

So when I stumbled across this method while looking for a way to remove or reduce glare in pupils created by flash photography (which I’m still looking for), I was completely ecstatic.

Read More