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.
Walking through the new Lightroom 2 features!
I promised y’all to post the video walkthrough here on the site as well as on the podcast where it was released yesterday. It’s the iPod/iPhone optimized version I’m posting up here as well.
Photoshop variables, useable for a lot of things!
Do you know about Photoshop variables? If not then I suggset that you take a look in the tutorials section for a tutorial about it to learn it. If you have, then read along (if you haven’t, read along too to learn a bit about them).
So as you may or may not know there is a command inside of Photoshop (under the image menu) that’s called variables. These little cool guys lets us set up a layer or a photo or text to be edited and replaced for a certain graphic or some text that we define in another file (excel file for example). We can also define whether a layer should be visible or not. All this we set up through the define part in the variables under the image menu. I’m not going to talk more about how to do it so if you don’t know, read the tutorial about that.
Variables are really useful however – something which I’ve found out recently while making price signs for the place where I work. Now before you have the time to say anything, I know that InDesign might be easier to do it in but that isn’t the option as we only have PS. Their old way has been doing this with Powerpoint because that’s what they’ve known. I felt it was waay to tedious to do and took a lot longer than it needed so I decided and took it upon myself to make a new system. While thinking about it I somehow got to think about variables. How much simpler wouldn’t it be if they just needed to go to an excel file and update the price, specs etc. and then have it ready to print and go? Well a whole lot!
So from now on the new system is really really simple. We have an excel file with the variables set up where you just simply and easily can add cameras and edit the existing (or remove). Once that is done they just save it out as a tabbed text file and import as a dataset in Photoshop. Then just export all of these out, make a contact sheet from it and print it out! It takes really just a fraction of the time it used to with…yeah, powerpoint.
Why am I writing up all this? Well it is simple. I’m asking you and telling you to get creative with some features in Photoshop to be able to use it in more ways than you’d think. The people doing the price tags at that place are no Photoshop people, in fact as of now they kinda fear Photoshop. Doing it this way it doesn’t need to be hard and you hardly touch Photoshop much at all!
A lot of Photoshop features are excacly like this. You can make it simple and use it in creative ways for purposes that may or may not have been thought off. Now for the disclaimer. I would probably have done this in InDesign if we had it.
Create an expanding CSS box in DW
I got a question from a buddy of mine, Dino. He wanted to know how to make an expandable CSS box inside of Dreamweaver. I wrote him a reply and figured that it also would do pretty good as a video tutorial. Now keep in mind that I’m doing this all in code. Why? Because it is simple in this case and learning it doesn’t do any harm!
Photo tip from the road
I’m in southern Sweden with my cousin and his family this weekend as I previously wrote. However I thought I should give y’all just a little on the road tip. When you are out shooting and travelling, do stock up on memory cards, even if you have your laptop with you. You don’t want to be loading all the shots over to your laptop and throw them away from the cards. You’ll want to keep them on the cards and load it over to the laptop. That way you have an extra backup copy of the shots, just in case anything should happen to, say the laptop during the travel or a HDD failure. You’ll probably not have had the time to do a backup on your photos. Don’t learn this the hard way!
Brand new iPhone Center revealed!
I’m proud to release a brand new iPhone Center on the site which holds tips and tricks on the iPhone as well as reviews of iPhone applications. We have many tips and reviews up already but we plan to expand on the center as time goes! Click on the image above or follow the link here to the iPhone Center and please give your comments on it!
Wednesday News
A lot has been happening in the tech world, especially since the iPhone 3G release. I’m going to try and focus a bit less on all iPhone news and instead go in on the other things that’re happening.
- What is the world coming to?! A father of three got complaints from other parents when he was at a park with his sons taking pictures of them. He was accused of being a pervert and even for taking pictures of children and putting them on the internet. The whole story ended with the father getting a police officer to confirm to them that he was doing nothing wrong. Read the full story.
- Last week I told you about the interview Scott Kelby did with attorney Ed Greenberg. Well this week on this weeks Photoshop User TV, Scott is doing a follow-up interview with photographer and copyright advocate Jack Reznicki. It pretty much takes off where we left with Ed last week and finishes up the major concerns a photographer and graphics designer might have. Scott has the interview clip on his blog.
- A buddy of mine turned me onto a very cool site called woork. On the site Antonio Lupetti talks about different techniques, scripts and css styles to make cool web things. The posts are always interesting and contains great information overall.
The deal about Copyright, Model Releases and Public Shooting
There are a lot of discussions going on always about what you can do and can’t do when it comes to legal issues and photography. As Ed says in the interview, photographers have a trend to ask other photographers to get a simple solution to the problems. Well, most of them aren’t true and most times don’t apply to the situations as you think. Scott Kelby however took a little different approach and asked Intellectual Property Attorney, Ed Greenberg to come on as a call-in guest on Photoshop User TV which is airing next week. Scott posted the clips of the interview yesterday on his blog however. In the interview, Ed clears up the major things about Copyright, Model Releases and Public Shooting.
Book Tip: Adobe Lightroom - The missing F.A.Q
Today, I want to share with you something really cool. A friend of mine, Victoria Bampton (aka. The Lightroom Queen) has very recently released an e-book about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The book is really cool, named "Adobe Lightroom - The missing F.A.W", it’s an F.A.Q with questions and clear, precise answers to them. It’s just a great way to be able to find the quick and clear answers to your questions if you have them and the book really contains most of the most asked questions there actually is about Lightroom. I asked Victoria to describe the book a bit, talk a little bit about her goals with it and why she wrote it. She kindly enough agreed to do it.
Lightroom was officially released on 19th February 2007 after a long public beta period, and it became an instant hit. The problem everyone had, though, was that it was an entirely new idea, and there was very little information available on how best to use it. The help files are never the most scintillating read, and half the information wasn’t in there either. As a result, people flooded the forums looking for information, and a really good community developed around it.
Over the course of time, I realised that exactly the same questions were coming up time and time again, and whilst a few good books had been published, there was no real reference material. A lot of people like to dive straight into software without ever reading a book, and just want a reference guide when it all goes wrong. Others will sit down and read a tutorial book, but when they have a question, tutorial books often don’t answer it. And if you got stuck, you’d have to spend hours searching the web for other people who’d had the same problem, or ask on a forum and wait ages for someone to help.I’ve spent so many hours answering all of these questions on a variety of forums, it made sense to compile it into a large FAQ book. It’s the questions that people ACTUALLY ask, rather than the ones that engineers think you will. It’s full of answers to questions that everyone hits at some stage, and other questions that you just don’t think to ask, but that make you say "oh, THAT’s how you do it…!!!" when you find out.It’s been fascinating to write - I started out thinking it might be around 50 pages, but it’s just grown and grown, and the 1.4.1 version is now 329 pages, and the 2.0 version will be even thicker. But the great thing is, it’s laid out in such a way that you can easily skip to the bit you want, and the PDF is fully searchable, in case you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for.So I’m just busy finished off the 2.0 version ready for release at the same time as 2.0…. in the meantime, 1.4.1 version is available for instant download, 2.0 version is available for pre-order on the website, and there’s a discounted bundle if you want the 1.4.1 version right now and to pre-order 2.0 too.
You can go and read more about this book over at her website, the Lightroom Queen. The e-book runs for £14.95 (which is about $29.95) and you can get it on her website. What’s more cool though, Victoria released a discount to readers of this blog, so upon checkout, just enter the code BM2008 for a discount on the book!
How to: Shoot Fireworks
For all in the USA, July 4 is coming up tomorrow and there’ll likely be a lot of fireworks displays. I posted this little how-to right before new years this year and reposting it again for all of you going out tomorrow to take some shots. Good luck and have a safe and fun evening!
How To?
First off dial in Manual mode and set the aperture to f/11 or f/13 or something in the likes then set the shutter speed to Bulb, usually indicated by a B. Now when the firework explode, press the shutter and then when the burst has exploded and is wearing off, you let go of it and you should have a working picture of a firework. If you wish to capture many in one frame, just keep it pressed and make sure the frame is pitch black until the next firework goes up. Adjust the aperture as fits between the shots.
Equipment?
It’s best to have a camera that you have full manual mode on but special firework modes can work, although best result is given with a full manual mode. It’s really necessary to have a tripod because you’ll be working with second long exposures that you simply can’t hand-hold. Also learning from own mistakes, never extend the center column on the tripod, even if it feels like you need to, I did it last year only with a good sacrifice in quality in the images. It also helps if you have a remote release to minimize camera shake further as well. I think also a lens in the zoom range of 18-55 or similar works really well because it allows you to get close enough in the sky (if you are close) and also to get some foreground in there as well if you want to, without changing lenses, changing lenses is a no-no!
Position and Preparations
Get to the fireworks display in time and make sure that you know where they are going to be shooting from and set up in a good place where you can see the display and if you want also include some foreground such as the water or something alike. Also make sure you have clean memory cards that are formatted and that they work, also make sure to have your batteries charged and working! Don’t forget to take something warm to wear if it is cold outside either, and good gloves! I hope this little article can benefit you and it is really fun to photograph fireworks!
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