Posts Tagged ‘Photoshop’
Digital Scrapbooking Goes Premiere
Now that the holidays are over, I am sure you have plenty of photos sitting on memory cards just waiting to be taken care of. Now you can either take them to your local photo printing retailer, get the photos printed and slide them into an ordinary photo album. Or you could create a photobook of your pictures and share the stories behind the smiles and torn wrapping paper.
I know many scrapbookers will use Photoshop or other digital scrapbooking software to create their scrapbook pages but your choice of digital elements will be limited. You can search online for additional elements and they will cost you anywhere from $2.00 and up for kits. And then there is the matter of printing your 12 x 12 scrapbook pages. Not all printers have this ability. And the ones that do can be expensive. Plus you have to buy the paper and the ink for your printer. The expenses just keep adding up.
The easiest way to do this is to open a FREE account with Heritage Makers. Heritage Makers is a web based digital scrapbooking program where you can upload your photographs, choose from the many templates or create your own and have your photos published into a storybook. And when your done, you will have a hard bound book that will last for generations. You can even share them online with family and friends or have multiple copies published.
Heritage Makers also offers a Premier Account which will give you access to even more digital elements. And right now they are offering a special on Premier Accounts. For $99.95 you will have 12 months of access to over 40,000 digital elements and countless templates. That’s less than $9 a month! And one of the best benefits to digital scrapbooking with Heritage Makers: Heirloom Assurance. So if your books or 12 scrapbook pages are ever destroyed or lost, Heritage Makers will replace the items for half price. No retailer that I know of offers something like this.
This Special Offer is only good for the month of January. So what will you do with your holiday photos?
All who subscribe to my Newsletter will be Entered to Win a 12 x 12 Scrap Page 3Pk.
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Thursday’s 13: The book edition
I just finally received my prize for having a digital photograph I took during the 2nd Annual World Wide Photo Walk back in July selected as the best photo from the city of Palm Desert. In case you have forgotten what that photo looked like or if you are a newbie blog reader, here is that photo:
The book is titled, “The Digital Photography Book: Volume 3” and was written by Scott Kelby. If you have never heard of Scott, he is a well known Photographer, Author of more than 50 books and he is the President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. You can check him out on his blog: http://scottkelby.com
I thought for this week’s edition of Thursday’s 13, I would go through the Table of Contents and pick out 13 topics discussed in Scott’s book that I am looking forward to reading. So here goes my list:
- The Pro Trick for Better Looking People Shots
- One Background, Three Different Looks
- Lenses with VR or IS Built In
- Shooting at Your Lens’ Sharpest Aperture
- The Three Keys to Landscape Photography
- Getting More Vibrant Landscapes
- They Don’t Always Need to be Smiling
- Get Out from Behind the Camera for Kids
- Isolate Your Subject for More Impact
- Creating Multiple Exposures
- Shooting in Tricky Low-Light Situations
- What I Pack for a Location Portrait Shoot
- Yet Even More Photo Recipes to Help You Get “The Shot”
Do any of these topics interest you? What would you like to learn about Digital Photography? You can let me know by leaving your answers to my questions in the comments or if you are shy, you can click on “Got a Question” located on the Navigation Bar up top and submit your question to me that way.
And before I go, just wanted to let you know that I am having a Giveaway this week. Click here to Enter!
Wishing you a picture perfect Thursday!
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Tuesday’s Digital Tutorial #2
In last week’s Digital Tutorial I discussed exposure and gave you some guidelines for setting your camera. This week I would like to answer a reader’s question about post-processing.
I’m new to photography and really love the whole use of presets, but don’t know how to use them. I am looking for post-processing software that isn’t too pricey and allows me to use presets. I have Photoshop Elements 6 too, but so don’t know how to work it just yet. Any suggestions on where to look and what to buy for spicing up my pics?
Thank you! – Nicole
I recommended Adobe Lightroom to Nicole. Lightroom is more than a digital darkroom. To begin with, Lightroom can help you get your photographs organized. If your like me, I have thousands of photographs just on my hard drive alone. I also have many more archived onto discs but those thumbnail images are still available to me via Lightroom as you can see here in this screenshot.
I think the best feature about Adobe Lightroom is the ability to post-process your photos in a non-destructive way without creating masks and layers as you would in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Instead of altering the photograph with your changes in Photoshop (or just about every other editing program), Lightroom saves your changes as metadata. Those changes are not permanent until you export your photo for printing or share online and even then those changes can be kept separate from the original photograph.
You can quickly adjust the exposure, enhance colors, crop, correct red eye and remove spots while in the “Develop” mode of the program. If you really like the changes you apply to one photo and want to apply it to others, you can do that by saving those metadata changes as a Preset. Lightroom also comes with 18 Presets for creating an Aged Photo, converting to Black and White, or making landscapes pop to name a few. And I have been able to find many more Presets online for free just by searching for them.
Another cool feature in Lightroom is the ability to apply a Watermark to your photos. You can apply a Watermark when you first import your photos into Lightroom or when you export them for printing or sharing online. I can not tell you how many times I have seen people ask how to create a Watermark in Photoshop. Let me show you how easy it is in Lightroom.
Text Instructions:
From your toolbar, click on “Edit” then scroll down to “Identity Plate Setup”. A dialogue box will appear. You can then type in your Watermark. Once you as satisfied with the font and the size, click on the “Custom” button and choose the “Save As” option. You can also add an image as your watermark and apply it to your photos before printing or sharing online. That is all there is to it. Your photos will now be watermarked either upon importing or exporting your images. The choice is yours.
Another plus to using Adobe Lightroom for you post-processing needs is that Lightroom supports Camera RAW files. If you are not familiar with Camera RAW, think of it as the original “negative” of your photos. Before I had Lightroom, I would have to upload my photographs using the software that came with my camera, convert them to jpg’s and then I could use Photoshop Elements to edit my photos. These steps are not necessary anymore in Lightroom.
I do still use Photoshop Elements for the things you can not do in Lightroom. Pse is great for cutting out people and dropping them into new digital backgrounds. I also use it for cutting out objects and placing them on transparent background and saving them as png files for digital scrapbooking. Oh and when you are exporting your photographs in Lightroom, you can have it open Photoshop automatically for further editing.
Ok, I think I may have overwhelmed you with this Digital Tutorial of Lightroom. One thing before you go, if you are interested in getting to know Lightroom, Adobe recently released a beta download of the upcoming version 3.0. From now until March or April you can use this downloaded version to get your feet wet and try some of what I discussed here today and future tutorials I have planned. Here is the link: Adobe Lightroom 3.0 beta download
I almost forgot my FTC disclosure. I am not in any way affiliated with Adobe nor have I been compensated in any way for sharing my love of their software. I am doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I do hope that you have enjoyed today’s tutorial. I am looking forward to your feedback this week.
Wishing you a picture perfect day!
Patty
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What’s Your Play #61
I finally feel like I am getting back into my blogging routine after it was abruptly interrupted a few weeks ago by a family emergency. This afternoon I began Week One of a Digital Photography Webinar Course generously offered by the guys at Creative Techs. I am also signed up for their 6 month Photoshop course which begins tomorrow and then a Lightroom Course which begins on September 14th. I am a firm believer in “the learning never stops”. Can’t you tell?
Back to my original reason for this post. A blogging friend of mine, Laura, over at DolcePics posts a photograph and asks her readers to edit the photograph and explain what we did. This photograph really captured my attention. Here is the original photograph:
This is my first edit I did of the photograph. I upload this photograph to Photobucket since I am not skilled at Photoshop yet hence the class I am beginning tomorrow, and first I cropped the photograph to focus on what I believer the photographer wanted to capture. The groom fingering his newly placed wedding band. I also vignetted the photograph to further emphasize the subject of this photograph.
Another way to emphasize the subject of your photograph, especially if it’s to be displayed online, is to frame out the photograph as I have done here in my second edit of this photograph. Before adding the frame, I also blurred the edges so that the main point of this photograph was all that was in focus. You can also achieve the blurring around the edges while taking the photograph. To do this, you would want to use an aperture of f/7.0 to f/4, depending on your camera’s settings.
One last thing before you go, would you answer this polling question for me, I would greatly appreciate it…
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It’s a busy Tuesday
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Tuesday has dawned once again in the desert. Life is rather hectic today here in the desert. A friend is coming over later this morning so that the children can play for a few hours while we try to enjoy some adult conversation which can be seriously lacking in our lives when our hubby’s are busy working outside of the home.
And in the land of Blog, there are a few things going on a well. As you can see from the digital photograph below, we are seeing Red. As in Ruby Red Tuesday Blog theme hosted by Work of the Poet. Be sure to click Dorothy’s shoes to see more Ruby Red Tuesday offerings.
And I would like to extend a warm desert welcome to all of those visiting from MckLinky’s Blog Hop. Brent hosts a Blog Hop every Tuesday to help bring new visitors to many blogs. While your here, don’t forget to red up About Me and then click on over here to see one of my favorite digital photographs I have taken recently. Actually it’s one I took just last week. The moon was just coming over the horizon and as I opened the shutter for 8 seconds, something moved in front of my camera. At first I thought the shot was ruined, but as our can see it turned out rather well if I do say so myself. If you are in to photography and would like to know more, then click on over here to learn about some FREE Webinar classes being offered by Creative Techs in Seattle, Washington. Some of their offerings include Photoshop and Lightroom as well as a 10 week course on Digital Photography. And don’t forget to continue on your Blog Hop journey just as soon as you leave some comments. Good or bad, I appreciate hearing what you have to say.
Click here to enter your link in the blog hop and view the entire list of entered links…
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