Extract Photograph with Wispy Hair for Accurate Background Replacement

original image: teal background conflicted with mauve background of business card template. Challenges: wispy hair, left-side shadow, earring glare)

First extraction with mauve background. Note, it has a slightly lighter halo around image. I also increased saturation to enrichen the brown complexion of the original.

Used techniques from second video tutorial to darken the halo around image so that darker background could be used.

The final image has transparent backgound. I thought it looked best on the template which had a slightly gradient background though it appeared solid.

Brainstorming ENP logo: Playing with Inkscape Tiled Clones

I was looking for a plain vector black arrow when I came across this arrow collage. Still inspired by the two main visual concepts of "people" and "arrow" to represent a slogan "Moving Forward and Up Together" as well as the stock photo below I thought of doing a collage of people in the shape of an arrow. Remembering an Inkscape tutorial, I used Tiled Clones and perspective to attempt the idea. The original tiling of people had to much uneven "negative" space which I couldn't figure out how to resolve with the Tiled Clone settings so I ended up having to hand tweek the placement of each clone.

Although I think my final graphic is a decent design, I don't think it functions well as a logo. Its too complex to translate to an avatar and may not show up well printed, etc. But at least I finally had a chance to test Inkscape cloning technique. My "people arrow" might be great graphic elsewhere.

Translating ENP logo sketches in Inkscape

Brainstorming for ENP logo and slogan

After discussing the success of my online community for lupus survivors during my vocational rehabilitaion classes, I was asked to create a social networking website for the Employment Networking Program (ENP). This group currently meets weekly to network with fellow members who have gone through the TN Vocational Rehabilitation process and are now ready to get a job. The group has a VR facilitator that provides helpful exercises and presentations for job readiness. The ENP group is a program and has no formal mission statement, slogan or logo, so in addition to developing the SN website, I am working on a logo and slogan to use when I customize the graphics on Socialgo.com the free social networking platform I have chosen for them.

I had an idea of representing the members not only networking with each other but being a support to each other move forward as they get past their disabilities which may have been holding them back. The ENP group is an eclectic group of people of different backgrounds, but as the facilitator constantly reminds them they have one thing in common, "You all want to work!" From this I came up with "Moving Forward and Up Together" as the beginnings of a slogan. I began doodling figures inspired by key words," group" "people" "networking" "forward" "up" and "together" in mind. My final concept is an abstract group of people with an arrow representing movement forward and up.