Scott Kelby's 7-point System

So yesterday I was waiting for a test photo to print at Costco, and I had a few minutes to kill. I ran into this book and had a few seconds to browse through it:



I was really impressed because Scott Kelby simply goes through 21 separate photos and exactly what he does to make them go from ok to outstanding. He shows you how to use the same tools again and again instead of taking one chapter to show everything about one tool ... which you proceed to forget next time you need to use it.

I considered ordering it on amazon, but then thought about the BYU library. As it turns out they have an online copy of the book, so I can just read it there! I've only been through the first chapter, and I've already learned a TON about some tools in photoshop that I'd never heard of or rarely used before. Camera Raw 4.5, lab color, using actions ...

I've tried a few things, and while I'm not even really into the book, I'm pretty happy with the results 12 hours later. I took all of these pictures in Thailand, and while I like them, the colors didn't turn out exactly like I wanted them too (especially China Town and Bangkok)

Before:
After:

Buddhist Idols in Phitsanulog Thailand

Before:

After:

China Town in Down Town Bangkok

Before:

After:

A view from the tallest building in Bangkok

It's amazing how much you can work with the lighting and color in a photo. As you can see, the book shares some pretty impressive stuff. I'm already converted and can't wait to learn how to work photos even more.

DNA Barcoding

I decided to combine 2 things I'm doing now and make a theoretical logo for the bio project I'm doing. I'm working in Dr. Keith Crandall's evolutionary biology lab on a DNA Barcoding project. We are building a micro array that will aid in identifying primer sites for the CO1 gene across animalia. More simply, we're aiding in the quest to identify animals by their dna alone.

Because I've been working a lot on the project lately (downloading and aligning thousands of sequences from online databases), I thought it would be cool to make a logo for DNA Barcoding. This is how it came out:

I found this really cool barcode font, and the rest it just shapes and effects.

Business Cards

The past week has been the business idea week. After a recent baby shower, my wife and I realized that diaper cakes aren't just fun to make (more fun for her I think), but generally the markup is Enormous! (diaper cake businesses charge anywhere from $50 to $150 for a cake made out of diapers) We've thought about making diaper cakes and selling them locally on craig's list, just to see if the idea could go anywhere. So between that idea and me still toying around with the idea of freelance web and graphic design, I decided to make business cards for our hypothetical businesses.



I used a business card design tutorial from psdtuts.com (my favorite Photoshop Tutorial site). We'll see if either of these ever actually happen, but designing the business cards was fun!