Tag: steps

Creating a Monthly Desktop Calendar

Jason1 Comment

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)

Step 1 - Download the script

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.

Step 02 - Copy script to Photoshop Folder

3.  Open Photoshop (if it was already open, you should probably close PS and restart it)

Step 03 - Open Photoshop

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.

Step 04 - Open the image to apply the calendar

5.  Navigate to the Presets option in Photoshop and open the script

Step 05 - Locate the Script from Photoshop Menu

6.  The interface lets you select certain information such as the month it will run for, when the week starts, etc.

Step 06 - Configure Calendar Options

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.

07 - Specify dates to highlight if desired

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.

Step 08 - Customize Layers to taste

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.

Step 09 - Save and distribute your new 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! 🙂

Exporting Lightroom slideshows to the web

Jason3 Comments

After yesterday’s post to Youtube of my photo walk with Scott Kelby, and the fact that I mentioned that it was created first in Lightroom – I’ve gotten many emails asking me how I created it. The answer was quite simple – if you own a Mac.  Here’s how you can export Lightroom slideshows to the web is less than twenty steps:

  1. Create your slideshow as you normally do in Lightroom.
  2. Export the show to jpg files in a folder of your choosing.
  3. Close Lightrooom
  4. Open Garage Band
  5. Mix a track of audio music that will fit the theme of your slideshow
  6. Export that audio track to the folder with the pictures.
  7. Close Garage Band
  8. Open Photoshop CS3 (or your favorite pixel based image editor)
  9. Create an intro and closing image for your slideshow and save as jpgs to the folder
    *Hint* Make sure you keep the dimensions consistent with your previous images so you don’t get pixelation
  10. Close Photoshop
  11. Open iPhoto
  12. Import the photos from the folder you created earlier with the jpgs to a new album
  13. Create a slide show from said album
  14. Rehearse timings and check for image/audio quality
  15. Export to desktop (it will export as a Quicktime movie file by default)
  16. Take said movie file and upload to YouTube
  17. Add titles, descriptions as needed…
  18. Voila!

The key to this is iPhoto.  You don’t necessarily need Garage Band to make a legal audio track.  Many open sourced audio files are available for use, though a lot of that content is classical.  iPhoto has the built in ability to export slideshows as a movie than other applications like Lightroom, Powerpoint, Photoshop, and others.  Lightroom is also rather key too though as the backgrounds and text effects for the titles and everything were done in there.

On Windows, it’s a whole different story – you can do the Lightroom thing, but then you have to go out and buy a slideshow program to accomplish this for you.  While there are many options, and at varying levels of price entry, the ones that I’ve used that are good are Proshow Gold and Camtasia, from Photodex and Techsmith respectively.  The former prices out at $80 while the latter runs for a pricey $299 but allows you to also do screen captures, and lots of other stuff.  Either way, shelling out additional money to do something that is native on the Mac gives just another reason to consider the bundled functionality that Apple brings to the table with it’s computer lines.  (And this is coming from someone who has worked in Windows almost exclusively for the better part of ten years… as I tell people these days though, I work in Windows and play on my Mac!)

Finally, as we head into the weekend, there’s a couple fellow photographer/blogger types that are hosting contests and seminars in the upcoming weeks and months.  So, if you’re interested in improving your craft, there’s no better way than to either participate in a seminar and learn something new, or submit to a juried contest…and that’s just what Rob Jones of Towner Jones Photography is doing and Scott Eccleston, of Weekly Photo Tips!  Rob is hosting an impressive summer photo contest, and Scott is runing a Maine Photography Workshop that is sure to ignite the creative energies.  Act soon on Scott’s as registration is almost over!  Make sure you take these guys into consideration when planning out your summer activities!

That’s it for this week – I am off Monday for the holiday, so there may not be a blog post then.  Next week is the last week for the Lightroom giveaway contest though, so be sure you are getting your entries in to the Flickr page to win your own free copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – a $300 value!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here on either Monday or Tuesday!