Barking Pixel to handle Texas Mutual Work Safe, Texas retouching

Barking Pixel was hired to handle retouching for the Texas Mutual Work Safe, Texas ads. The original image needed minimal retouching – remove some logos, tape, fix hair, etc. The man pictured is a true superhero – recovering from a devastating accident and becoming stronger than ever. So, we decided to have a little fun with the original Texas Mutual image and present this one to him as a gift.

Composite Image for TK Fit

Texas Mutual Unretouched Image

12 Years A Slave Solomon Northup Trail Guide App

A little over a year ago Frank Eakin of Eakin Films and Publishing and Barking Pixel embarked upon a journey that would take them through the back country swamps and bayous of Louisiana to the Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne’s office in Baton Rouge to a huge media launch with 12 Years A Slave director, Steve McQueen and actor Louis Gossett, Jr.

12 Years A Slave is a true story about Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York, who was abducted and sold into slavery in the South. Steve McQueen and Brad Pitt’s production company brought the story to life in their Academy Award winning movie 12 Years A Slave.

During the app launch, we celebrated racial harmony with actors Deneen and Devyn Tyler and descendants from the actual families mentioned in the book 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northup. We spent a day touring the Northup Trail with them and ending the day with a wonderful celebration honoring the descendants in the city where Solomon Northup was freed, Marksville, LA.

Our purpose for creating the app? To bring Solomon Northup’s story to your phone. Take the tour from anywhere in the world, or take a historic trip from Alexandria, Louisiana to Marksville, Louisiana and experience in person his years spent as a slave.

12 Years A Slave Solomon Northup Trail Guide App is narrated by Louis Gossett, Jr. and is available for purchase from iTunes and Google Play.

Barking Pixel completes retouching for Clean Cause Water Austin

Barking Pixel is happy to help out startup Clean Cause, LLC. with their retouching needs.

Look for Clean Cause water in stores today, and order accessories online at http://www.cleancause.com. Clean Cause uses 50% of it’s profits to support recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. From their website at cleancause.com “At first, these funds enable us to hire individuals in recovery. YOU are making this possible. But that’s just the beginning of the CLEAN Dream. Our goal is to create a sustainable source of funds that will enable us to help cover the costs of desperately needed services including rehabilitation scholarships, intervention and family counseling services. CLEAN water comes from America’s second largest aquifer, the Carrizo-Wilcox. We use a proprietary purification process that results in a water that’s super smooth and CLEAN – from molecule to mission.”

Check out the image below – retouching by Barking Pixel.

Leaves of the Tree Movie Poster

Recently BarkingPixel.com, was hired to create a movie poster for Leaves of the Tree, A GOGI PRODUCTION filmed in Houston, TX and Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. Adapted from the book “Kindness for the Damned” written by D.J. Healey, Directed by Ante Novakovic and starring Eric Roberts, Sean Young, Federico Castelluccio, Kresh Novakovic, Marisa Brown, Armand Assante and introducing Sarah Sebastiana.

Leaves of the Tree Movie Poster Starring Eric Roberts, Sean Young, Federico Castelluccio, Armand Assante

The poster was created entirely from pictures taken during the filming and merged together to create background and foreground elements. Because there was not a straight-on shot of Eric Roberts available, and a reshoot was not possible, his photo is made up of several different images. By manipulating the existing photos, we were able to “turn” him to face forward.

Leaves of the Tree is currently making it’s way through international film festivals to sold out screenings. Currently is has been awarded: Best Dramatic Feature, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Eric Roberts) and is nominated for: Best Feature Film, Best Director (Feature), Best Cinematography, Best Score, Best Supporting Actor (Federico Castelluccio and Best Editing.

Book Cover Design for Jennifer Morgan

What a fun project to create! We worked with our super talented photographer and also author Jennifer Morgan to create her new book cover for Come to the Garden. You can view the before and after on our main page. The garden was inspiration for the cover, however it was shot at the end of winter and needed some greenery added. We took it a few steps further and created a whole new composite photo that entices the reader to enter the book.

Each element is separate. Sanjay provided the photography for the angel, table dog and base shield. Barking Pixel took these elements and added some of our own photos. Then, we took the plastic shield and created something entirely different.

Here’s what the shield looked like originally:

Come to the Garden by Jennifer Morgan will be available for purchase and download soon.

Ash Wednesday

Here’s what you get when you have a group of guys, some cigars and Duane Osborn (a really talented photographer we work with) – an Ash Wednesday.

Notice the blue color of the unsmoked cigar? We didn’t do that – We discovered it seems to happen naturally. Cigar smoke has a blue hue, inhaled smoke does not.

Texas Monthly cover image retouching

This December issue of Texas Monthly celebrates Texas food – check out the yummy-looking cover: photographed by Jody Horton and retouched by Barking Pixel.

Creative concept photo for a large jewelry company

This beautiful bridal image was photographed by Duane Osborn of O-Photo Studio in Austin, Texas for a large jewelry company. The original client needs were fairly straightforward and the photo itself was so perfectly styled and photographed, it needed only basic retouching. Jewelry was added in separately and the image was color-corrected, background extended, etc.

Then, one day we decided to play with the image to create something a little more fun. Stock photos were used for various elements to help create an alternate mood and story. Before we knew it, a different reality started coming together in the photograph.

This is just one example of how an already great photograph can be retouched to be something much more than one might expect.

Call to action flyer for Honor Our Soldiers

Photo Compositing and Flyer Design

We have a lot of fun when a client needs something created out of nothing. Sometimes clients have an idea of what they want, but many times they just know they need something creatively powerful that really makes a statement and calls the viewer to action. Usually they have no idea how to get there – and that’s where we step in.  We design, compose and execute a beautiful image that exceeds their needs.

This particular image is being used in a flyer we created for the Civil War Trust’s new national campaign to honor American veterans, past and present.  The Civil War Trust is the nation’s largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization. The multi-media campaign will recognize the tremendous sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform, and includes an online petition — http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/honor-our-soldiers – through which concerned Americans can show their support for historic battlefield preservation.

We hope you enjoy this image as much as we did.

How well do you see color? Take the X-Rite Pantone Online Color Challenge based on the Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue Test

We scored a perfect score – see how you do! According to this site, 1 out of 255 women and 1 out of 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency.

http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge