Photography Link-up: Favorite

<a href="http://www.sweetviolet.net/search/label/photography%20link-up" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7005/6625818915_d8725ee1d3_o.jpg" width="200" ></a>

This week the link-up theme is "Favorite" - it can be one of your favorite things, people, places or just a favorite photo from the week!! This photo is of my sweet boy with one of his favorite snacks. Plus it's one of my favorite photos from the last week or two.

I hope you'll also link-up on Friday to the Poetic Winter Photography Challenge  that I am co-hosting (the linky opens at 9am Central) the theme is "warm".

Simply Style Week One Interview

Today is the start of my first new class of 2012!! It's called Simply Style and it is especially written for craft business owners and niche bloggers. Each week, along with the tutorials I'll be including interviews from established business owners and I thought I'd put this one on my blog too. 

Name: April Bowles-Olin

Blog/website: Blacksburg Belle 

Twitter 

How long have you been selling online?

 Almost two years.

Could you share some of your story?  

I received my master’s degree in social work from NYU and started practicing therapy. After a few years, I realized that it was too emotionally draining and I needed a creative outlet. I started scrapbooking, making jewelry, coming up with my own recipes, and writing. I landed a bunch of paid writing gigs and the money I made from it was more than I was making from practicing therapy. I left my job as a therapist, started writing, and pursuing my other creative interests. Now, I mainly focus on helping other creative entrepreneurs build their dream businesses.

When you're looking at someone's product photos what are some things you love too see/hate to see?

I love to see natural lighting and detail. I want the colors to pop and to see different angles of the product. I also want the product to be the star—not the background.

I hate when I think that the product is something that I want to buy, but the picture is so awful that it completely turns me off. Dark shadows, harsh lighting, and blurriness all lead to me to click away and purchase from someone else. 

What would you say is the top one or two photography tips to improve sales?

1. Actually read and learn from your camera manual.

2. Compare your pictures to really good product photos and make adjustments until yours are comparable. Don’t just do the same thing over and over. Try to learn and grow on a regular basis.

another day, another photo

Josiah's hands 

and an orange 

we were working on 

peeling

my week in instagrams

I mentioned earlier in the week that I'd finally succumb and bought an iPhone and with the wonderful help of my super-hero husband am now a happy member of the instagram crowd. I just had to share some of my favorites from this week. Some of them turned out really nice.

editing editing editing...

Today I did my first edit on my new mac in photoshop CS5!! I haven't loaded any actions into Photoshop yet so I just added some color layers and messed with the light levels to bring up the blacks. This whole system has me tearing my hair out most of the time... and I'm not even sure I love this edit, but it's a start!

original

Poetic Winter Photography Challenge: Week 1 Solitude

My interpretation of this week's challenge is a bit random - but these photos were some of my favorites from my photoshoot the other day - and what I had planned for this prompt tanked. We have this one bush in our yard that is kind of depressing to look at - is's brown and wilted but there is some kind of melancholy beauty about it. 

"What good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?" - John Steinbeck

Kristy of Life-n-Reflection is offering an exclusive freebie for the participants of the Poetic Winter photography challenge. You can download it as well as read a tutorial on how to use it at Kristi of Live and Love... Out Loud's blog. I got a sneak-peek of this overlay and it's simply wonderful.

with texture

sooc

Thanks to the following sponsors for partnering with us to bring you these fabulous deals; created exclusively for Poetic Winter Photo Challenge participants and valid throughout the month of February.

ClickinMoms
ClickinMoms is a community where artists, hobbyists and professional women photographers connect and learn from and with each other. Enjoy a 7-day free trial discount to the ClickinMoms forum with discount code RKAFTRIAL. Additionally, receive 10% off the lovely actions/presets sold in the ClickinMoms store with discount code RKAF10.

AdoramaPix
AdoramaPix is a great source for fine quality photo prints, photo books and all your photo finishing needs. Discount code pxwinpb15 gets you 15% off your next photo book order.

My Four Hens Photography 
My Four Hens is your one-stop shop for Photoshop actions and more. 
Use discount code m4hfun30 for 30% off your next purchase.

Simply Photography

Simply Photography e-classes are perfect for women on the go. Make the big switch from auto to manual shooting, learn how to photograph the children in your life and more with Simply Photography. Click here to receive the special discounted rate of $40 for any spring class.

.........................

check out the other blogs hosting this challenge Rebecca of Bumbles and Light, Alicia of Project Alicia and Kristi of live and love... out loud

Just a few details:

All are welcome regardless of skill level, time commitment and geographic location.

Each Friday, we'll have freebies, discounts to some of the hottest photography resources, photography tips and inspirational quotes or poems to get your creative photography juices flowing.

Share your favorite images inspired by the weekly prompt. The linky will remain open from 9am Friday – 9am Thursday CST. Link directly to your Poetic Winter blog post or Flickr photo, not your blog’s home page or Flickr Photostream.

Feel free to share your photos in our Poetic Winter Flickr Group as well and don’t forget to visit and comment on the previous entry in the linky list.

This time around, we'll be pinning our favorite photos to the Poetic Winter Pinterest Board. Not on Pinterest and need an invite? Let me know in the comments section and I'll be more than happy to send you one.

And last, but not least, don't forget to grab our lovely button.

<a href="http://liveandloveoutloud.com/winter-photo-challenge/" target="_blank"><img src="http://liveandloveoutloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Poetic-Winter-Photography-Challenge.jpg" border="0" alt="Poetic Winter Photography Challenge"></a>

Next week’s prompt will be warmth. For a complete list of upcoming prompts, head on over to the Photography Challenge page.

sneak peek

Tomorrow is the first day for the Poetic Winter: a Photography Challenge which I will be hosting with Alicia, Rebecca & Kristi  and the theme for the first day is: solitude This gorgeous texture that I added to this photo is from Life-n-Reflection and will be available as a freebie tomorrow as part of the photography challenge as a thank you for participating.


As I've been thinking about solitude and what I could do for this challenge I thought about how wonderful and cozy it is to be alone in quiet house in the middle of winter on a cold day with something hot to drink under a warm blanket with something good to read.

But winter can also be an isolating season - you can get stuck at home with kids, wishing the weather would turn nice so you could go to the park. Sometimes its a lot harder to get out during the winter and you can start to go stir crazy - I know I do! During this time of the year I have to make a more concerted effort to not hole myself up in my house and get out to be around people.

During one particularly isolated season of my life I cam across this verse and I have carried it with me as a promise. In the context this verse is talking about God's care for those without home or family - here he says He is provider of both and I have found Him to be true. He has been so faithful to me to provide friends and a spiritual family.

Photography Challenge: a different side of me

<a href="http://www.sweetviolet.net/search/label/photography%20link-up" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7005/6625818915_d8725ee1d3_o.jpg" width="200" ></a>

I'm so sorry that this post is going up late. I'm annoyed when the link-ups I want to participate in are not up when my post is ready and a really hate to be one of those bloggers with late link-ups... so I'm sorry.

This week's optional theme for your link-up is "a different side of me" or in other words a self portrait that is outside of your usual comfort zone. This was inspired by this post that was linked up the other week. I tend to do self-portraits at arms length with my DSLR but this one was taken with my iPhone capturing my reflection in our computer's screen (and you can see Josiah in the upper right corner - he's playing a video game!) and edited with Instagram. We just recently switched from PC to Mac and I'm a little lost but am glad we made the switch. I have all of the hubs music on my computer now! I'm listening to Adel right now and very happy about that.

I can't wait to see your photos!!

52 Weeks of Editing in Elements: Week 3 - crop with rounded corners

The baby is down for a nap, I just brewed my self a fresh cup of coffee (Starbucks started selling K-cups for my Keurig and I'm simply over the moon!) and now I'm ready to start week 3 of 52 weeks of editing in elements. This week I want to show you how to make those cute rounded corners for your photos. 

One way to do this - especially if you are going to be using these photos on your blog or website is to use the ever-so-talented Rita's Coffee Shop Rounder Corners for Web Action for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. This is by far the easiest way to do this. 

If you don't know how to install actions you can reference my attempt at an explanation in  last in last week's tutorial and there are links for more thorough tutorials if you're having trouble. 

a photo of my hubs, his mom and our baby Eli

Once you're installed the Coffee Shop Rounded corners for the web action, click on the action and then click "apply" to run it.

While the action is running you'll have a chance to set the dimensions for your image. If you are going to be posting these to your blog a good width is 640px 

This action has now given you rounded corners and re-sized your image. It's super easy. Make sure you save this as a copy of your original - you never know when down the road you might want to print this image or have it printed on a canvas wrap and you'll want this image closer to it's original size and without the rounded corners.

Just for the fun of it I'm going to show you another way to round your corners which is definitely more complicated- this is just one way. There are probably others, and they are probably easier but this is how I do it:

Right click on your rectangle tool. This will give you a drop down list of options - choose the rounded corner rectangle.  

Look up at the toolbar for the rounded rectangle tool - choose how many pixels you want to round the corners to - I used 100px for this demonstration. Make sure you do this before you use the tool - you can't edit it later. Draw your shape where you want to crop your image. If you need to adjust the crop switch to the transform tool and you can adjust it. 

Right click on the background layer and click "duplicate layer"

Re-order the layers by dragging your shape layer below the duplicate of your background copy

Click on the little "eye" (which toggles the visibility of a layer) to make the background dissappear

You can use the menu to Group the layers or press Ctrl+G to group the copy of your background with the rounded rectangle shape

This is how it looks in Elements!

This is your rounded corner crop completed!

If you want to add a drop shadow click on the shape in your layers tray. Click on "style" and pick a shadow

Double-click on the effect icon (the little "fx") to edit the shadow

I'm linking up here

So there you go! I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions please leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!! If there is something in particular you'd like to learn how to do let me know on my Facebook page and I'll cover it ASAP.

Pin It

<a href="http://www.sweetviolet.net/search/label/52%20weeks%20of%20editing%20in%20elements" target="_blank"><img alt="52weeks 200x200 copy" height="200" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7146/6653238939_0d95357cda_o.jpg" width="200" /></a>

I'm not providing a link-up this week since that hasn't been popular but if you like this series you are welcome to put a badge on your blog!

Do you enjoy this style of learning? I just got my first copy of CS5 and will be working on writing a class for it soon! I'll be taking you step by step through everything I've learned how to do when it comes to editing.

Want to participate in an editing class? Be the first to know when registration opens!