Because the images all were shot in different locations, different times of day, different light, even different parts of the country, the colors seemed to fight each other. The theme was cohesive, but the overall color was not.
To add color harmony, and unify the images, I hand painted the image to the right. This is the original, full color image, which is pretty bold. On most of the images, I added it in Photoshop as the top layer, and used a softlight blending mode to tone it down. I then masked out the key areas, such as everyone’s faces.
I also used it as the background of our address labels, as well as the background of our website for the following year.
Below are links to the pages that explain & demonstrate the different aspects of our 2013 Christmas card.
- The inspiration for this card
- I.U. Graffiti
- Ninja Turtle dream van
- Clay vandalizes the wall with the Purgatory Golf Club logo
- Tenna paints the hummer wild pink
- Asher and his posse
- Mike gets even and spray paints the minivan to a golf course scene
- Blue loves Snoopy
- In memoriam and starting over
- Color harmony
- The process behind our cards