One of my more popular pug Christmas card designs came about by accident a few years ago as I was learning how to use Photoshop.
I love the look of pugs, they are just adorable and they are also very popular so a few years ago I decided I really had to make a pug Christmas card for one of my Zazzle stores.
The design started with this photograph of a black pug puppy –
I uploaded the photo into Photoshop and using the eraser tool deleted the background. I then found a creative commons vector image of a Santa hat and put that onto the pug’s head.
When I uploaded the photo to Zazzle to put on a card I realized that it accentuated all of the mistakes I had made with erasing the background as you can see –
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The background appears very mottled instead of the pure white it was supposed to be. I had spent so much time that I could’ve cried, but then my daughter came in and saw the image and loved it, especially the mottled background! Instead of deleting it I published the card and waited to see what would happen.
I sold my first card within the first week which I thought was amazing, but I waited and waited to see if I would get a return – I got a re-order from the same person instead!
I’m so glad I didn’t delete it, my only wish now is that I could re-create the mottled looking background easily for some of my other designs! Over the past few years this card has continued to be a popular holiday card so the moral of the story is – even if your design isn’t as perfect as you wanted, it may be exactly what other people are looking for!
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He is a cutie patootie…..I love the design too. Glad you didn’t change anything. Pugs rock!
Thanks Olivia, you’re quite right pugs rock!
So very cute! You sure did an excellent job of removing that background! I have never been able to master Photoshop like you clearly have. Impressive! And, I love the Santa hat you found.
Thanks Cynthia, I’m a lot better at Photoshop than I used to be, but it’s like everything it gets easier each time you use it. That’s one of my favorite Santa hats that I use (I have 3 go to hats depending on how I want them to sit).
That’s adorable! The picture is cute as can be and the design is just perfect. Lots of pug lovers out there certainly would choose this Christmas card!
Thanks Susan, I have a number of family members who are besotted by pugs and always sharing gorgeous pug pictures which has managed to get me hooked on the cuties ….. I think my own dog (an Amstaff) is a little jealous of all the pug adoration happening here!
I love this story, and I also love your pug card. Sometimes our mistakes aren’t as bad as we think we are. When others view our photos, they don’t realize what we intended and so they aren’t seeing what we thought were mistakes.
Thanks Barb, I’ve definitely looked at ‘mistakes’ in a different way since!