Bernskiold Learning » Tutorial

The Making of a Modern Advert in Illustrator

Erik Bernskiold — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:00:42 +0000

In this weeks Creatively Using the Creative Suite, we use some built-in patterns in Illustrator along with some simple text placement to create a modern-looking advert. You can watch it by selecting either version (low-res or HD) below, or by subscribing to either version in iTunes, iPod/iPhone or HD.

How to Shoot Fireworks

Erik Bernskiold — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Fireworks is a lovely thing to photograph but it may seem hard at first. I’ve been doing it for the past three years now and really feel that I’m getting the grip around it! I hope it helps to clear up some stuff if you are unsure since I’ve gotten a lot of questions about it this year, and that you go out and try it tonight, it is really cool and fun.

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, you just won’t have the time.

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! Questions; post them! I’m going to be here most of the evening apart from the time when I’m going to be out photographing the city fireworks.

Beginners Guide to PHP Includes

Erik Bernskiold — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:00:54 +0000

A lot of beginners to websites do the mistake to include all page elements on all the pages, making is hard to edit and very time consuming. Usually though, it’s because you don’t know what to do else. I remember the same when I first started out. So I’m going to go through how to divide a coded site into good sections using PHP includes, to ease everything for you later!

First lets describe the basic principle of PHP Includes, a principle that is pretty easy. Basically you put some content into one “reference” page (say we call it “sidebar.php”) and then using a simple code snippet, reference that page into another page; basically include the contents of that sidebar.php into your other file. When you need to update something in the sidebar, all you need to do is update that one PHP file, and the sidebar will update throughout the site.

Now, before we go into the code, I shall mention the only requirements here, and that’s that you have a server that will run PHP 4 or PHP 5 on it, otherwise this method is not going to work.

First off, we need to create a sample reference page. Let’s say that we want to include a sidebar into our index page. So we would need to create a page that I suggest you call “sidebar.php” and put in a folder called “includes”. That way you keep track on everything you include. In this page, you’ll use normal HTML formatting to outline your sidebar as you’d want it to look. Then on the page where you wish to include your sidebar, just type in the following code:

If we break it down, it’s first opening the PHP tags, then opening an include function. After that we are telling it to find the file “sidebar.php” that is in the directory called “includes”.

NOTE: You could have any file ending really on the included page including regular .html extensions.

Remember to now save this page where we typed in the include as pagename.php. It’s very important that you use the .php extension or else the file will not parse the php include code on the page.

Taking it a step further: As I’m sure you’ve realized, this is not only good for sidebars, but headers, footers and every site element that will always be repeated on a page without changes that are page specific.

This include system is useful for certain elements. If you have on the other hand a lot of pages there is another system that could be more useful, that will prevent the need to include these elements on all pages. We’ll take a look at that in another tutorial. Basically, use this system to include any repeating objects that aren’t page specific, like sidebars, footers and headers. If you have a lot of content, use the other system!

Tuesday Video: Replicating a Canvas look in Photoshop

Erik Bernskiold — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:08:44 +0000

In this Tuesday video we take a look at how you can fake the look of a canvas in Photoshop. Useful for displaying your photos in a nice way on the web or to show as a product advertisement.

Video Tutorial: Create a frame using an action in Photoshop

Erik Bernskiold — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:09:42 +0000

I’ve been really bad when it comes to posting new site tutorials and after fixing up my recording environment I have no real reason not to be posting a lot more. Here are a first in the lines of many more coming. This one is on how to create a simple, yet elegant, frame for your photography in Photoshop and also how to batch process a number of high-res photos to get them web-ready in size and border.

Create an expanding CSS box in DW

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:30:44 +0000

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!

Late Thursday News

Erik Bernskiold — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:10:11 +0000

I’m pretty tired after working a full day in the camera store and I’m going to be early because the day is repeating itself tomorrow. Fun but tiresome. Here are at least a few late Thursday news.

From screenshots of the new Apple App Store we can see that they are imposing restrictions in both price and application size. The maximum size is 2gb and the prices range between $0.99 to $999, where the latter probably is for more enterprise styled applications.
A new build of the Parallels Desktop shows support for both Linux as well as 3D graphics inside of Windows. To get the free update, just go under the help menu and chose Check for Updates.
One of the site visitors sent me a comment yesterday noting me on a tutorial error which is indeed a realism miss. In the Pixelmator tutorial about Creating a realistic sunlight effect I missed to at the end, flip the copied image vertically so that the small piece of the window comes at the top. So for anyone being affected by this miss in the recording, now you know how to fix it.
Over at his blog, Scott Kelby has posted a review of the Ray Flash. The Ray Flash is essentially a ring flash that attaches to a normal hotshoe flash to make it a ring flash. It sounds like a cool product so go and check that out.

That’s that for the news today, tomorrow I’ll be back with the Friday goodies, so stay tuned. Oh and until then, don’t have too much trouble, it is Friday 13th.

Wednesday Goodies

Erik Bernskiold — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:27:56 +0000

I’m proud to announce that I’ll be rolling our a couple of interviews soon with some amazing artists in various medias who I really think you’ll all like. I’m just waiting for the interviews to be completed before I get them out, so expect it in a couple of days!

Photomatix Pro 3 has just been released and is available as a free upgrade to current 2.x license holders, if you don’t have a license, they are available for $99. Updates in version three includes a much better interface and a lot of cool new features!
Adobe has released their new version 1.0 of the Adobe Meda Player now featuring a lot of cool free content among others, from Lynda, Total Training, Kelby Training and more. What’s also cool is they have a new channel called Adobe TV as well!
I was looking in my Feedburner statistics for this site’s feed and my podcast feed and I was stunned to see the podcast has over 700 subscribers! Thanks to everyone who has subscribed (although I doubt you are reading this since this site only has 12 subscribers ) in just two weeks!
I just finished writing a massive tutorial (over 14,000 characters) on how to create a simple website with only code which will be expanded on in future tutorials. I just posted it up for all NAPP members on the NAPP Member Forums to see what kind of reactions it gets and if it is all good, I’ll get it up here as well!

Fireworks – Tips and Tricks for photographing them!

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:28:26 +0000

Fireworks is a lovely thing to photograph but it may seem hard at first. I’m out for the first photographing of them right now in a few minutes and I took some time earlier today to write a little simple tutorial article on the tips and tricks when photographing fireworks! I hope it helps to clear up some stuff if you are unsure since I’ve gotten a lot of questions about it this year, and that you go out and try it tonight, it is really cool and fun.

So today must be the most popular time to photograph fireworks and although I far from consider myself real good at it or anything (you can only try it once a year) but I have some tricks and tips on shooting fireworks and one is I think the best tip I’ve ever heard on it, seeing as it worked perfectly the first time I shot fireworks;

I hope this little article can benefit you and it is really fun to photograph fireworks! Questions; post them! I’m out to photograph the first rounds of fireworks in 30 minutes from this posting

Monday News Tidbits

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:25:32 +0000

Today seems to be gadget day with most news being about some of the coolest gadgets available right now!

D3 and D300 Stuff, site + review

Starting off in the camera news, brought to you by the amazing wildlife photographer, Moose Peterson is an entire little (or not so little after all) site about the D that has just been released with more stuff being added along the way according to Moose. So go and have a look at the D3 Site!
Following the news of the cameras in Nikon’s latest release we have a great review by Terry White on the Nikon D300 camera posted today over at his blog! It’s based on his first impressions with using the camera for about a week now and he really seems to be liking it a lot. So if you are in the market for a D300 or just want to read up on it, go and read Terry’s review right here!

New Web Design tutorials coming!

So I’ve begun to write a couple of highly requested web design tutorials for the site here and the first one to be released is a tutorial on how to make a stylish portfolio header right in Photoshop that we’ll use to build an entire portfolio site, right in Photoshop! So go to the tutorial section and check it out!

Learn to polish up your vector art in Photoshop!

The amazing illustration guru, Nick La has posted up a very cool tutorial or article on how he uses Adobe Photoshop to polish up his vector art made in Illustrator. I found it very interesting and cool to read so if you are interested you should definitely take a look at it here!