Bernskiold Media

New Online Course: From Coded Design to WordPress Template

It’s finally here! My first online training course titled From Coded Design to WordPress Template has now officially been released. It’s a totally free course that you can view over at its own special section.

There is a constant demand on learning how to go from a coded design to a fully working WordPress template. In this online course we go through how you can convert your coded design to a WordPress template, really simply. The goal is that you should be able to understand how WordPress templates work in the basics at the end of this course and that you shall be able to convert templates on your own.

This course is made by me (Erik Bernskiold) and produced by Bernskiold Media Group and the Bernskiold Media website. It’s made available for free for everyone with no time limits only because we believe in training for free, for creatives worldwide!

Watch it today and help spread the word about it!

The He Said – She Said article that was supposed to go live today has been postponed for a week due to a sudden passing of a friend of Firgs. Please join me in offering my deepest condolences for her, her friends family and her family. Thank you for your understanding!

Thursday Morning News

It’s a semi-early Thursday morning here and I’m yawning my way through work before it’s time to get up. Here are the news:

• A couple of days ago a very cool application called Fring was released in the App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch. What makes it remarkable is that it’s the first one to allow Skype calls (while on WiFi). It doesn’t only work as a normal skype ID client, but it works with skype out and skype in numbers alike! Get it in the App Store, for free!
   
• Microsoft has decided to extend its support for Windows XP through July 31, 2009 which is a full six months more than they originally planned! Good news for all still on XP who don’t want to move over to Vista.
   
• If you’re looking for a good provider of online training classes (and I mean 1+ hour ones) then go and check out the Kelby Training website where they offer some really great classes for only 19.95 a month. Also if you like seminars then go over to the Adobe seminar page where you can sign up for city tour events but more interestingly for eSeminars. If you don’t have the time to be available for an eSeminar, take a look at their long list of OnDemand Seminars that you can just load up and watch!
   
• CS4 is coming closer to being released by every day. Just a reminder, if you recently purchased a version of any of their programs that will update in CS4, contact them and check your eligibility for a post-announce upgrade (free upgrade) to CS4!

5 Great Lightroom Resources

While Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a great program in and of itself, that some wouldn’t really think about extending further than development presets, there are a few really good resources that does make the application more powerful.

LRG Complete 3

LRG Complete 3 is one really cool web gallery that you can add into the web module. It lets you basically create a whole site, with shopping cart and all! Plus it does look nice as well. The best about it all is probably that it is fully free! You can view a sample gallery demo on their site or just go and download it directly here. Definitely go and check that out!

LRB Portfolio

Moving on with another web gallery, the LRB Portfolio, produced by Sean McCormack, lets you basically create a Lightroom gallery that behaves like a portfolio site and less like a Lightroom generated gallery. A word of warning if you are using LR 1 though, it does only work with Lightroom 2 and above. It’s available on his site for €10.

Graduated Filters

New in Lightroom 2 was the graduated filter tool and with it comes the ability to create presets for it, which is what Sean McCormack has been doing. He’s created a magnificent set of graduated filters that you can just apply with a click to any photo. You can buy them from his site, for €5.

Camera Profiles

This real goodie shouldn’t really be left out from the mix here just because it is from Adobe itself! In your camera, you have a few profiles that render your image differently, and going from a RAW file showing on your back LCD screen, to the RAW viewing in Lightroom will definitely be a change, because on the LCD screen of your camera, it’ll need to convert the image for viewing. Therefore you can get these profiles, to mimic what you saw in the camera! Download them here at Adobe Labs.

Learning, Blogging and Extending – combined!

If you like to learn new things about Lightroom in a video format, as well as read a good blog and extend the program with presets? Then you should go and surf over to Matt Kloskowski’s blog and website Lightroom Killer Tips. On there, he posts a new video tip and tutorial every week as well as a weekly preset and some discussion inbetween. It’s simply a great resource!

Wednesday Newsflash Goodies

Here’s some goodies for today, Wednesday.

• As y’all know, the big photo convention Photokina is going on in Cologne (Köln), Germany. WIth my hectic schedule right now, I can’t possibly follow up on all (I will on some stuff) new releases from home here so I’m going to link you to a sum-up of the news so far, from 1001 Noisy Cameras.
   
• It can be really hard to find good quality free fonts sometimes especially as the font databases like DaFont is getting so large. Thus, I really like the releases Smashing Magazine are doing a little now and then. They’ve gone ahead and posted some free fonts of the month over at their site. They’re really good and really useful. I’ve played around with some and I do find them super.
   
• I’ve been digging the LumniQuest Softbox III for a while on and off and been pondering if I should get one. I was really happy to see a review of it by David Hobby at the Strobist. David really knows what he is talking about so it’s really good to be able to hear what he thinks!
   
• Finally, with the CS4 announcement yesterday there were a bunch of learning centers published (I wish I would have the software to be able to create one myself, but I’m just not an adobe partnert there). If you wish to learn the new Photoshop CS4, there is no better place than from the Photoshop Guys over at NAPP, at their learning center. If you wish to learn about all the new suite, Layers Magazine has put together a great learning center online as well. Both are free!

Friday Newsreel

The beauty of weekdays is that there is always so much going on that is always as fun to share!

• Earlier in the week we saw the release of Lightroom 2 and I then also told you about some great resources to learn all the new features and also posted a review of the missing FAQ book. Now the presets are rolling in. First out here are some really cool ones from the great guy Sean McCormack over at the Lightroom Blog. He’s released a collection of more than 70 graduated filters. The collection is available for only €5.00 from his site with samples there as well!
   
• More Lightroom 2 things. I’ve just finished the recording of my walkthrough and just editing it up to post it to the Creative Suite Tips & Tricks Podcast later. I’ll also be making it available here on the blog but then you have to wait until tomorrow. Podcast subscribers get the scoop first
   
• Are you blogging? Do you want to do it from a desktop application? If so you might be interested in this article from Smashing Magazine where they review 15 Desktop Blogging Tools.
   
• If you’re coming along for the Worldwide Photo Walk on August 23rd you might want to know that there have been a lot more cities added over the days, making it a 113 total at the moment! That’s some really cool numbers. I’m going to be leading the walk in Gothenburg, Sweden (the city where I live) along with my buddy Rickard Niklasson. Our walk details have been set and posted on the site now so check it out!

I think that wraps it up for today. I’ve got the video coming up later and I’ve got cool things planned for the entire next week as well (and the weekend) so see you then!

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.

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.

This weeks KelbyTraining news

I like to keep an update of what’s new in training from the good folks at KelbyTraining (note, I don’t get any perks from them by doing this, I do it just because they’re super). This week there are two new online classes going online.

• First up we have a new class from the great Lesa Snider King and this time on Photoshop Elements. The class is called Practical Photoshop Elements and in it, Lesa will take you though the most practical and non-destructive techniques in Elements. If you are an elements user, this class is definitely for you!
   
• Secondly we have a new class from Taz Tally called Professional Scanning Secrets. In this class, Taz will talk about how to scan properly to get the highest quality results.

If you haven’t been to KelbyTraining I would strongly suggest you go there and look at the classes, books, dvds and more that they offer, they are great. I have my review up of their online training as well.

Real Monday News

The weekend is over and everything is back to full swing. Below are the news:

• Are you a keynote user? If you are a mac user and not a keynote user you really should be! In any case, iPresentee has released a lot of free objects (100 of them in fact) for both Keynote, Pages and iWeb! They are really cool and yeah, they are indeed free. Visit the iPresentee site to download.
   
• A little sneak-peak at the future. I’m working on a DVD, unluckily for most of you guys, this first will be about Photoshop Elements and only available in Swedish here in Sweden in one place. I might make the DVD available for order online here (I probably will) but I talked to the boss at the camera store where I work and asked if I could provide a DVD that he can sell/pack with the Elements purchases and I got an OK, so I’m at least getting out there.
   
• I’ve been a NAPP member for a little longer than a year and I really like it and if you’ve been thinking about it, now it s great time to join. Why? Because it is summer and you most likely have a lot of time to learn. Now, NAPP isn’t just about tutorials but also about a great member forum and lots of discounts, reviews and more. Go and visit the NAPP Site.
   
• The top photo is another one from my trip this weekend! Enjoy and see you back tomorrow!