We all have lists of things we want to do in any given calendar year, and without meaning to be the bearer of bad news, the clock is ticking on 2010! So, if you’ve got that one shoot, project, or other goal still dangling out there, just waiting to be completed – time’s a-wasting! Continue reading “The Clock is Ticking…”
Tag: calendar
Creating a Monthly Desktop Calendar
I alluded to it yesterday, and have already had several people inquire about the procedure to create this desktop calendar. It’s really quite clever, and kudos go out to Jeffrey Friedl over on his site for the script: http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/calendar He does a decent job at the basic explanation, but since we are a visual world, here are some step-by-step instructions on how to run things from beginning to end! Fair warning – this does require Photoshop as the script (I don’t believe anyway) will run in Lightroom because it uses layers…
1. Download the script from the link above (I downloaded to my desktop on Windows XP)
2. Copy the script from your desktop (or whatever download location you configured for your browser) to your Photoshop folder, as indicated in the screen shot.
3. Open Photoshop (if it was already open, you should probably close PS and restart it)
4. Open the picture you want to apply the script to (I started with the largest size desktop I wanted to configure it for, in this case 1600 x 1200.
5. Navigate to the Presets option in Photoshop and open the script
6. The interface lets you select certain information such as the month it will run for, when the week starts, etc.
7. Special mention here to include certain holidays – if you have custom days (say birthdays, anniversaries, etc) to add, create a text file for reference and point the script to that txt file location. If you don’t want certain days highlighted,you can leave this option un-checked and proceed with the script.
8. It may take the script some time to run (it took me about 58-61 seconds to run it on my computer, but I was multitasking with other things at the time…). When it’d done, you’ll get a stack of a lot of layers that looks like this, with the default layer selected of “Picture Mask”. Note: I’d also recommend checking the option to rasterize most text layers otherwise you’ll have up to 30 additional layers of text (one for each day of the month)! The layers underneath this are where all the really cool stuff is, and the other layers are dates and effects that you can change to suit your own tastes.
9. Once you have tailored the layers to suit your needs, simply flatten, save as a jpg and configure your desktop to use that image! Since I typically will save to multiple desktop dimensions, I start with the original and re-size to each output, from largest to smallest saving each as a jpg then letting the script use that to create the desktop calendar.
There you have it! The nitty gritty details on how to create a really slick looking desktop calendar for you and your clients. Simply print as pictures through your favorite venue if you like and watch the sales come in!
One final little news note that is time sensitive – DIY Photography has a very creative approach to contests and the prize package is worthy of a nod (don’t know how he/she/they managed to come up with this big bag of goodies!), so stop over here and throw your hats in the ring: http://bit.ly/aRQa9l
See you back here tomorrow for the latest in photo goodness! I’ll also bring up a couple tips on how to tweak the layers to your own ends, but feel free to begin exploring your own creative approaches! 🙂
December Calendar and blog alert
Happy Tuesday folks! A few curve balls have been thrown my way recently, so the content may shift a little and be more sporadic as I make some adjustments both professionally and personally. However, in the interests of keeping things positive, the December Calendar is ready for download! Enjoy the Christmas-themed desktop:
Here are the dimensions available:
And for those of you that know the specifics of the curve ball – there’s a donation button on the sidebar! If you like the desktop calendar download, feel free to help off-set the curveballs from there directly!
[wp_cart:Calendar:price:2:end]
More content is coming soon for all too, so be sure to stop back regularly! Enjoy the rest of the week and keep on shooting! 🙂
November News
Another month goes into the archives as we enter November for 2009. Here at the CB/LDP headquarters though, that means it’s announcement time for a couple of things, not the least of which is the latest contest news, the October newsletter, and something new for blog readers only! Let’s start with the contest news:
Fellow blogger, NAPP member, and active LDP participant, Karen Stansel was the winner of the October giveaway. She walked away with a Pro license of Noise Ninja from the folks over at Picture Code. Congrats to Karen (a.k.a. Mitzs), and thanks to Picture Code. With that contest closed, we are now into the November Giveaway. This month a pretty cool bundle is being offered up. The winner this go around will go home with the following prizes (yes, that’s plural!):
- A free copy of one of Matthew Bamberg’s books on photography (don’t know who he is, listen to the latest podcast! 🙂 )
- A DVD from Photoshop User TV – the best of the 11th year!
- A $25 gift card to B&H Photo (just in time for the holidays)
The theme for the November contest is: Winter (surprise surprise, since Fall was last month!) The usual spate of guidelines applies, but to be sure you are getting all the latest, stop by the Flickr thread and read the first post. Then, get ready and shoot because there’s only about 3 weeks again for getting your shots in. Good luck to all!
Next up, the latest news from the podcast and blog is the October newsletter. Painstakingly assembled over the last month after some really useful feedback, it’s now ready for download by clicking on the image below:
In one final bit of photo goodness, and in keeping with what many others are doing, I am happy to announce that CB/LDP is also joining the fray of photogs that shares their images in the form of a monthly desktop calendar! Download the November Newsletter for the links to the images, or follow these links here (only temporarily linked here in the blog – going to become a newsletter-only feature starting with the December issue! I am offering up 3 sizes based on the analytics of monthly traffic. If your desktop dimensions are not featured, let me know either in the comments or via email and I can customize one for you…otherwise, here’s the 3 dimensions:
Another little nugget I just was reminded of (this is why participating in forums is a good thing): Don’t forget to adjust your in-camera settings on the date/time for the change in daylight savings in U.S. (unless of course you never changed it forward in the Spring…)! Doing so will keep your EXIF data accurate! (Thanks to Dave from the NAPP forums for the reminder!)
Last, but not least, I would be remiss if I didn’t drop a hint to read the latest issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. Not only is it free, but it’s just chock full of great and useful resources. Also on the site is an active community forum of fellow photogs, full of great shots, creativity, and useful advice. All of it is worth your time, so be sure to stop in there and see everything Dave and crew has to offer…(oh yeah, I wrote an article for the October issue too!)
Tomorrow, don’t forget to tune in for a combo hardware/software review, the likes of which you’ll never believe until you read it! (Okay, nothing that fancy, but worth keeping in your feed reader, right? 🙂 ) Happy shooting all, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the latest!