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» Saturday News Nuggets

Saturday ain’t stopping me from sharing some news nuggets with y’all!

• One of the most debated things this week has been the iPhone application, I Am Rich which was priced at $999 and just showed a mantra if you bought it. Now, I say was because Apply removed it from the Apple store for unknown reasons, something many think is not fair. Sure, it is pointless, but if you want to buy it, you shouldn’t be stopped. Anyway there are a full eight people who apparently bought this app before it came to an end. Where do people get their money from?
   
• An article in the New York Times this week caught my eye. In it they wrote that "Tibet" can’t be in any hotmail address and suspicions arised that it was political. Now Microsoft has spoken and said that it isn’t Tibet that is blocked but that they are blocking usernames with names of banks and other similar to prevent fraud. The word that’s being blocked is actually "Tib" since there’s a bank with that name. A bit too much? Perhaps so…
   
• I want to send out the congratulations to my buddy Will King who will be getting to shoot college football games all the coming year from the sidelines, official! Congrats Will!
   
• To finish off this Saturday I’m going to send you looking at an incredible article a member of the Photography Corner forum wrote. It’s about how to shoot animals in the best way! It’s really really good!

That’s it for today, stay tuned for some tutorials tomorrow!

» Artist Interview: Erik Ludloff

This week the interview is with a fellow Erik, Erik Ludloff. Erik’s a freelance designer and digital artist based out of California, USA. He’s got a strong portfolio and he’s a really good guy as well!

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Erik and I’ve been a freelance designer and digital artist for about 18 years. Music has always been a big artistic influence for me. I started off as a wanna-be graffiti artist, but had a much better feel for pencil and paper than a spray can. I didn’t make the transition to wall art very well. I have always been a computer geek so I bought a scanner and CorelDRAW for my computer. I’d scan in my sketches and print out multiple copies, then hand color them with my Prismacolors.

In college I studied page layout and typography and began designing flyers for my friends’ bands to promote their upcoming shows. Eventually I started charging them to design cassette sleeves, album covers, and other band merchandise including logos, t-shirts, etc. After about a year, word spread around the local music scene and my foot was firmly in the design door. I saved up my design money and bought Photoshop. (Not because I didn’t like Corel, but just because all the print shops I worked with at the time told me I needed to switch.) It was a love/hate relationship at first, but now Photoshop and I are good friends.

Playing in Photoshop is one of my favorite ways to spend my free time. I really enjoy photo collages, combining multiple images into a single piece of art. I’m not much of a photographer so I mainly use stock photos to play with. Occasionally I’ll incorporate one of my own photos and that’s always a big kick for me. I find myself taking photos of things just so I can use part of it in a collage later. Photoshop is such a powerful tool that I’m truly limited only by my imagination.

Do you have any formal training/what is your background in art?

My training has been mostly informal. I took a few college courses on advertising and design. It was great to get a solid foundation of the basics: color theory, typography, page layout, etc. I also read a lot of books, so I consider myself book-taught rather than self-taught. I’ve looked at tons of Photoshop tutorials online. It’s amazing the wealth of information available out there. NAPP has probably been the greatest learning tool for me recently.

» Monday Stuff

It’s another Monday, it’s another start of the week. I have a lot of things to share with you this week and It’s gonna be a really cool week. One of them is of course the artist interview as every week (and I’m not yet going to give away who it is). I’ve also got an article or two planned as well as some new tutorials! But let’s get started with some Monday Stuff!

• I do a lot of work with the WordPress publishing system and I really do like it. Obviously there are things I like to see in it, but overall it’s really really good and powerful. I do recommend it as a good and light cms + blog system. However it can be a daunting task to learn to customize any new script which is why I’m going to send you over to a series called Designing for WordPress by Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks!
   
• Since I’m going to be working with moving computers around a lot today I’m going to give you a tip or two there to make it easier. They may seem obvious, but so many don’t practise it. Tidy the cables up. Especially good in small areas where it’s much nicer to have some cable foldings to put them in to minimise mess and possible outage. Also, if you’re opening the computer to do any replacement, make sure to both pull out the plug and set the switch to 0. Also use a special bracelet to ground yourself. 
   
• Finally, I’m going to leave you with a podcast or two today. First off, go and check out my Creative Suite Tips and Tricks podcast for tutorials, weekly, on the entire creative suite. Then if you are a photographer, go and check out the Image Doctors from the Nikonians Talk Radio. 

» Guest Rant: There are bugs in my programming by Elizabeth Gast

I am an imperfect person. Who isn’t? Like a finely crafted computer program - even though a lot of work, time, care, thought, stress, blood, sweat, tears, and sleepless nights went into developing my human data - I still have bugs to be worked out. I will always have bugs. Overreacting is one of my bugs. I overreact quite a bit, but after a given amount of time I will look back and realize that I have overreacted and then try to mend my ways in order to fix my ‘bug’. Overthinking is another one of my bugs. Usually, I can over think something to the point of killing it. Like when I write something. I will go back, even after publication, and adjust my article 10 to 20 times adding, deleting and rearranging until I drive myself insane trying to make what I am writing perfect. Overthinking is one of my bugs that I doubt I will ever fix.

The key to dealing with these humanistic bugs is to focus on the parts of your internal programming that do work. Also, being around people that point out your working parts and pat you on the back for them helps a lot. Without these pats on the back a person can end up feeling overlooked, unappreciated, and unloved. And who wants to feel like that all day? Unlike the development of a computer program, having someone point out my bugs doesn’t help in the removal of them. In fact it can make them bigger and more destructive. I know what my bugs are. I know I need to fix them. That is my job as the developer of me. The job of those around me (aka friends, family, bf) is to feed my ever-precious ego so that I have the steam to keep working on my bugs. Without those "warm fuzzies" as fuel, my developing engine shuts down and refuses to produce.

When I was in college I decided one day that I was going to make it a point to tell people the nice things I thought about them when I thought them. Even if it just meant blurting out random statements out of nowhere. I would start to say things like "You know, I like you. I think you’re smart." or "You’re fun. I hope you know that." or "I just thought you should know that I think you are pretty awesome." It was amazing what a difference this made in my social life. People always wanted to hang out with me because I made them feel good about who they were. Soon, they started to return the compliments. "You’re fun too!" "You’re so cool!" Turns out, I loved hearing it just as much as they did.

More often than not, the world of today is focused on fixing the bugs in the system. Generally we are very quick to point out the flaws in those around us. People just don’t walk around saying nice things to each other or giving out ego boosts. And if they do, the other person has this immediate "what do they want from me?" reaction. Which is really kind of stupid because nice statements are really just that - nice! This is such a simple thing that makes such a huge positive impact that I really don’t understand why it is seen as more of an attack rather than the building up of someone else’s system. Seriously, we as an evolved plant should know better.

Thriving on problem solving like I do, I have fallen victim to the "bug elimination syndrome" many many times - another personal bug in my human programming. I forget sometimes that I am not the only one who needs ego fuel. So in the promotion of fixing one of my internal bugs…

I just thought you should know, I think you are pretty awesome.

» Wednesday Artist Interview with Will King

There was a while ago that I used to be running these artist interviews pretty often but it slowed down a bit a short while ago because it’s been hard finding people that want to be interviewed. Nominated however by a friend of mine, Elizabeth was this time around the great photographer, Will King (who by the way nominated another person you’ll perhaps see next week) who shoots some really great photography. Now, Will is one of these cool photographers that masters a lot of areas. He shoots very nice landscapes and yet he captures some truly great wildlife photos. Anyway, enough with the intro talk and let’s get right to it!

Tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a husband and a father of one boy. My daytime job is a Network Security Analyst. I’ve been an avid photographer for about three years and have been using Photoshop for about two years now. I love and respect all genres of photography. My favorite subjects to shoot are landscapes and seascapes with dramatic light.

Do you have any formal training/what is your background in art?

I have no formal training in photography or art. I study the works of others and ask a lot questions. I have read several photography and Photoshop books and of course I’m a NAPP member which has been extremely beneficial.

» Lightroom 2 learning resources

With Lightroom 2 out and about you are obviously just waiting to put your teeth in it and just learn the tips and tricks and the stuff behind using the new features. So where do you go? Well, I’d say you first go right to the Lightroom 2 Learning Center from the guys over at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. It’s a free great learning center where you’ll learn the most about the new features that you need to know. Definitely go and check that out.

If you are also a member of Kelby Training and subscribe to their online training (if you are not you should be) you should go ahead and watch their two new online classes. Both are by Matt Kloskowki and the first is a three part class, Lightroom 2 In Depth, part 1, 2 and 3. The second class is Lightroom 2 Power Session. All of these classes are great ones and will definitely teach you all you need to know, from start to finish about Lightroom 2.

You can also go and visit the official Lightroom community over at the Adobe site! (Thanks to A.J Wood for the tip!)

In case you are still asking. No I’m not going to do a Lightroom 2 Learning Center for the site here. I am going to do a special podcast episode walking you through the new features (it’s going to be longer than usual because of that) but no special learning center from me this time. Now go and have some fun with LR 2 and enjoy the super program.

» Worldwide Photo Walk, Saturday August 23rd

On Saturday, August 23rd there will be a worldwide photowalk held in promotion of the upcoming Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. I’m going to be hosting the one in my home city of Gothenburg, Sweden. Go and check out the full deal over att Scott’s Blog and view the video below that explains it as well. I haven’t finalised the details for the walk here in Gothenburg just yet but they will be in a day or to. So if you want to join in my photo walk, check out the page here.

» Site Updates: Easier Searching + Video Tutorial Problems

I’ve noticed that the search feature of the site has been way too hidden. Some of you might even ask if there even was one. I went ahead and changed the header this morning to now include a search box. Just type your search query and hit enter to search the entire site. Posts, tutorials, reviews, quick-tips and all! This however made the photos go away that was in the header before because of two things, a) the site is more focused on general media and design and not so much on my own photography and b) I needed more room in the header for the longer navbar (which will be filled up soon ;)) and for the search box!

One of my readers, "Capricorn36" sent me a comment that the videos weren’t playing. So I checked into this and found out that my video hosting site, Revver decided to change the embed code for the movies (without notifying me) so all have been black with an error. I’m working on fixing all the tutorial pages right now and they should be working at the end of today!

» Friday Goodies

There is no hard explanation to why I never posted anything yesterday, I was just so tired after a long day filled with unexpected things. However some Friday Goodies is always needed before the weekend.

• Scott Kelby posted on his blog, Photoshop Insider, today about his latest book, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers and said that it was a complete rewrite of his old (about 95% new stuff). According to himself he’s streamlined his workflow, learnt a bunch of new things as well as learnt the most asked questions and how people use it. I can say that it is going to be a killer book!
   
• Mark your calendars, August 23rd. Something cool is coming. Just mark them and be with me there. No info as of now.
   
• A few votes in the poll are telling me that they don’t know what Photoshop World is so I thought I’d end that right now be telling. Photoshop World is a semi-annual convention for all Photoshop users. It’s held in the US once on the east coast on the spring and then on the west coat in Las Vegas every fall. This time it is coming up in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on September 4th through 6th. It’s an amazing conference and to read more, check out the Photoshop World website.
   
• Finally, if you need a mantra for all those times when clients are being a pain curtsey of my fellow NAPP member Michael. "I get paid either way, I get paid either way."

And with that nice mantra have a nice Friday eve and weekend. I’ll probably get some stuff up over the weekend as well.

 

» Blogging about mobile WordPress blogging

I know, I know. It is a somewhat corny blog title but that’s the best I could do at this hour. So anyway, I wrote two blog posts earlier today. One from the WordPress native iPhone App and one from the mobile WPhone plugin for WordPress. I had my complaints on the app that it can’t do pages and comments but while working with both for a while today and discussing it with Terry White, I’ve found my way which I think I’ll be using them.

There is just no better way right now to make blog posts on the iPhone than from the native app itself. It can post pictures (sadly you can’t choose where in the post they appear) and you can manage the posts far more easily. Sadly you can’t input hyperlinks or any text formatting in either of them which is a bummer.

The interface of the mobile plugin is really good for being a plugin and it is the best solution for editing comments, pages and users. You know, the extra bit on your blog. However the posting of posts is just noway near the advanced (under the circumstances yes) way the app does it. Now, I’m not saying there is not room for improvement. I like many want links, text formatting and a lot more. Yet I feel the app has a more positive feel to it and is the future for the editing.

Right now though, I can see myself sticking with both. I’m definitely going to use the app for all blog posts I do and if I need to do anything else, the mobile version of the control panel is a good step in the right direction and something easy to use for that. It just takes a little reassessment of what I thought would be in it to see that it is really good. I thought at least that comments would be there though and it is definitely (along with formatting) something that could well make use in the app.