Good morning all – fast breaking news as I have an extra tutorial this week. I was working on my portion of a collaborative project last night and saw a note pasted into the picture for me as a reminder of some rather important settings for the layer masks. It reminded me of the usefulness of making notes and saving those with the pictures! You can make text notes or audio notes with this feature, so check it out at your leisure. I’ll link to the dedicated page for now, and upload a flash version when I get home later today. In the meantime, enjoy!
Month: November 2007
Welcome to the Land of Confusion
Well…I am torn now. After administering both this blog and two other ones (granted the first was very half heartedly), I am finding that Wordpres, while apparently becoming the de facto standard for blogging, is not without it’s problems. It seems themes are not universally cognizant of several features that I would have thought would be common to many bloggers – first and foremost, being multimedia. Sorry, but the plugin and configuration settings for getting basic videos to play right in a blog is just damn confusing for me. Now I grant that I am no web designer extraordinaire, but I know the basics of html, CSS, php, etc., and am (hopefully) developing my multimedia skills by virtue of this blog, but this is rediculous.
The other problem that I am noticing about WordPress is documentation. Or should I say the quality of documentation. Nothing is very easy beyond adding a plugin. Once it’s added, then you must activate it. Beyond that, configuration. God forbid you want to publish multimedia in different formats (flash for the blog and Quicktime for iTunes). The whole thing requires practically a full-time job. Blogging I thought was a venue for hobbyists who wish to share their thoughts and experiences on a more visible level. Sorry, but the requirements for blogging and podcasting are WAY beyond a “hobbyist” level.
And now, here’s the kicker….say you want to customize your blog!!! Either I am making it too difficult, or my expectations for customization are too high, but I rather do not care for the default headers others choose. I get that everyone has different takes on things, and that’s the whole purpose behind themes, but if you are going to design a theme and make it WordPress-friendly, I would ask three minimal things:
- Write your documentation well…don’t assume I know what php stands for, nor expect me to have read all the ins and outs of how to adjust CSS styles and scripting. I would wager that many who would be otherwise inclined to share their thoughts regularly via blogs and such toss the idea either after investigating or trying a few things and getting wrapped in a confusing set of circular logic.
- Consider that your “theme” is just that…a theme, which means it should be customizable, and done so easily. If you want people to use your theme, then let us change the background color easily. Let us change the header image easily…and most importantly: tell us how!
- Finally, in recognition of your web skills at creating themes, help those less fortunate by ensuring your theme is widget friendly, multimedia friendly, and validates. Also, if you want people to sing your praises, and continue to use your theme beyond a few months, when releasing updates and fixes, see if you can’t deliver them in a way that doesn’t re-set everything back to default values. It’s a roya pain to re-load every customization (especially when you’re not a designer by trade that instantly knows the header image is stored in the wp-content/header.php file, and that the sidebar widgets you’ve configured need to be re-installed and activated (and sometimes reconfigured afterwards). Seriously…how the hell am I supposed to remember all that crap – if I knew all that I’d design my own theme!
I would actually pay good money for a blog that did that. Any takers?
Whitening Teeth
While it’s not the most glamorous thing in the world, when we do portrait work, a lot of the post process focuses on minimizing flaws and maximizing peoples assets. Part of this process can include giving a little more polished look to people’s teeth. Today, I walk you through the process of how to do this in Photoshop. It’s pretty straightforward, but a very useful skill to have regardless. Anyway, give it a try after watching the tutorial, and in the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on the podcasts thus far either via email or the comments section. I’ve also published an article in m previous post that explains various settings for apertures and shutters to achieve the best composition in your photography, so check that out too.
Fair warning on the tutorial this go around – I think I have the format issue figured out for those on Macs and to increase the portability factor, but these files are pretty big (.mov format), so it may take a while for you to get these downloaded. I will still have the flash as an option for web viewing, so feel free to view online and download for playback later at your convenience. Since iTunes picks up the first uploaded attachment, the Quicktime version will appear first. The flash-based version is right below that though, so pick your poison. Let me know if either of these doesn’t work for you. Thanks and looking forward to the feedback on this one! Have a good night and happy shooting!
Link to Quicktime format for downloading: Whitening Teeth
Video tutorial delayed
As the Thanksgiving holiday recedes into the past, a few lingering tasks remained so the tutorial that I had planned for production tonight is not complete yet. But, never fear, fellow photogs, I have something to share. It seems recently that there has been a lot of focusing (bad pun) on photoshop techniques, yet we have these amazing devices that can really do wonders if we know how to use them – called cameras. As a service for those that could use some additional explanation, and as a refresher for the rest of us, I’ve put together a paper on determining the best apertures and shutter speeds for various compositions. Check it out below. In the meantime, happy shooting, and I promise a tutorial will be available for viewing tomorrow. Until then…enjoy the written word!
Postscript: As an additional thought – I keep a cheat sheet of this info in my camera bag as a reference chart for what different apertures and shutters accomplish at each stop’s setting. If anyone would like a copy (it’s laminated and easy to fit in a side pocket), email me and I’ll get you a hard copy.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING – and thanks to all the viewership!
Thanks to the good folks over at www.good-tutorials.com, I’ve hit a new personal record with Canon Blogger and in the last 24 hours got almost 500 hits – 451 to be exact… beating the previous high mark of 421 back on October 29th. Quite exciting for a blog that’s only been around for 2 months. Thanks to all that have found interest in the blog and the tutorials to take the time to visit.
How appropriate to be giving thanks to all that have enjoyed the blog thus far – on THANKSGIVING! Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and we’ll see about getting a few holiday-themed tutorials up in the next week or so. Until Monday though – it’s holiday time for me! 🙂
Creating re-sizing actions in Photoshop
For those who like to create actions for their own work flows in Photoshop, I’ve created a set of re-sizing actions that I use pretty regularly to resize image from their camera raw settings to either 800px or 600px on the longest side. It took a bit of manual, but simple math, and then some tedious manual size adjustments, but the results are far better than anything you would get from a one-stop adjustment tool (unless of course it’s another action). If you’d like to see the completed action, just drop me a line and I will be happy to share the action on an as-requested basis. Thanks again for tuning in, and enjoy the podcast!
Home project extension…
Well, the homeprojects are almost done…with one minor extension…the acrylic based paint I added in teh guest bath does not apply easily, so to get the edge area where I had hand brushed to match with the roller-applied areas beneath it, I guess I need to get an edge roller and blend that in after taping off the popcorn ceiling. What a drag…my hands and arms are really sore and sick of paint and cleaning, paint and cleaning, paint and cleaning. Too much time working, not enough time shooting! Anyone out there have any shots or photo stories to share? Things here have been kind of on hold for the past few days (since Saturday anyway)…
Watching paint dry…creating worlds
Today as I entered the final stages of my home projects (2nd coats of paint), I proceeded to enjoy some Sunday football as the paint dried. Not being one to sit around much lately, I kept the TV on in the background and looked around for something else to do on the project list. Since I was waiting on the last coat of paint to dry, I was left to either watch football, watch paint dry, or create a new tutorial. Creativity won out, so here’s the latest installment for the video tutorial series…creating globes via special effects in the program we all know and love – Photoshop! Enjoy, and I’ll post back later this week with the series of home improvement projects I’ve been working on so much lately.
Shooting Sunsets
Last evening was a club outing and I was able to capture a few sunset shots. One was en route and the other was after I arrived. Ironically, the first was darker, and this was likely due to how I metered the shot. Just goes to show you, photography requires attention to detail! Anyway, thought I’d share both of those shots with the viewing audience as my POTD’s since I’ve not had any images in a while…enjoy!
Weekly Video tip is finished
The regular video tutorial for this week has finished production and is ready for viewing here at Canon Blogger. This week’s subject: Using path selections to define your workspace. This is a great technique for adding text in a non-linear path (horizontal or vertical). You can use any of the pre-set marquee shapes and sizes, or make a custom one for your needs. Today, I used this technique to create an alternate logo for Canon Blogger. Other outputs could include posters, stationery, web graphics, designs, templates or pretty much anything that needs some graphical influence.
Shots of the completed housework should be forthcoming within another day or two as well. It’s been a week-long process, but I am almost done (just as well after all the electrical, plumbing, painting, and drywall work)… more news on that later. For now, just enjoy the vid, and as always feel free to leave feedback here or via email: jason <at> canonblogger <dot> com :