Friday, January 27, 2012
Hello, hello! Kylie here! :o) Just popping in on this lovely Friday to share the new FEBRUARY desktop with you all! YES, only a few days away until February ~ a brand new month…full of smiles, laughs and a little extra LOVE…oh and an extra day too! :o) I had fun designing this cute little “Valentine’s inspired” desktop with SP! We hope you like it too…and enjoy having it as your desktop the whole month through! You can find the download links below…but first, here is a little preview!
CLICK HERE to download the 1024 x 768 version
CLICK HERE to download the 1280 x 800 version
NEW to desktops?? If you are interested in our free desktops, but have no idea how to insert your own photos – please visit our TUTORIALS page and refer to the USING THE PIECE-A-CAKE .PNG FILES TO CREATE AN ALBUM titles :o) We offer this tutorial in both screen shot and video format, for both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. And, while the tutorial is not specifically for the desktops – the concepts are very much the same…and should help out a lot!
As a little reminder, the little purple heart on the tag and the cute (but definitely not recent) pics of my sweet little niece are on my example only – yours will be blank, of course :o) That way – you can add your own photos and messages for a very personalized, and much loved, desktop. Have fun working with this one! And remember that you can always find our latest free desktop by clicking the FREE DESKTOPS category located on the right side of the blog!
Thanks heaps for checking in today! If you happened to miss SP’s little blog note yesterday…well, be sure to drop by over the weekend as SP will be launching project SCRAP 2012 and you’ll be able to collect your FREE January templates ~ the beginning of a very exciting new year of fantabulous scrapping!! Can’t wait!
…and, P.S. Just a quick reminder that the Easy-As-Pie Template Challenge 19 deadline is SUNDAY night (12 midnight US EST), for all those still wishing to join in the FUN and have the chance to win a $25 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe! Don’t forget to add your comment/link to the original blog post after you upload your gorgeous layout to the Gallery! :o)
KylieFree Desktops, Uncategorized
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Hello everyone! Beckie here again, bringing you a little bit o’ photography goodness today :) I figure it’s time we tackle that photography topic that makes even seasoned photographers shake in their boots…er, I mean high heels…ISO!
A long, long time ago on the blog I did a very basic primer on photography and understanding how ISO, Shutter Speed, and aperture (that f number) work together to capture light to expose an image. The basic idea is that you want to set those three variables in such a way that your camera meter reads “0″, or it’s perfectly centered between positive (too much light), and negative (not enough light).
ISO is something that many beginning photographers don’t like to utilize in high ranges because either a) they’ve tried a high ISO photo and it didn’t turn out well (lots of noise), or b) they’ve heard from people not to use higher ISOs because their photo will be noisy! Well, let’s demystify and debunk some of that today!
What I’ve learned about ISO:
1. It is true that as you increase ISO, you begin to add “noise” to a photo. How much noise is added and when the noise is introduced (at what ISO range) is somewhat camera dependent. However, there are things you can do to mitigate noise!
2. Not all noise is bad. Seriously. It’s far better to CAPTURE the moment at a high ISO than to not capture the moment for fear of an imperfect image. Heck, all the photos from my childhood are either orange, polariods, or glued down into an album that has a plastic cover stuck to it. So really, put it into perspective – is a tiny bit of noise in an image going to ruin it for future generations? um…nope.
3. There are steps you can take to make the noise as minimal as possible. Let’s look at some of them next!
But first…what is noise?
That, my friends, is noise. This is a section of a really crappy photo, one shot at a pretty high ISO (ISO3200) that I under-exposed on purpose to exaggerate the noise. I also picked the worst part of the entire image to show you because you can see both types of noise…regular old noise (grainy chunky pixels that shouldn’t be there) and color noise (colors that don’t belong there – the flecks of pinks, greens, reds, etc that you see around this sample).
Typically you’ll get regular old noise in whiter, lighter portions of an image with the addition of color noise in the darker, shadowed areas. In this particular example, because it’s that bad, there’s also color noise over the white portion as well.
So…what can you do to prevent un-necessary noise??
NO MATTER WHAT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SHOULD YOU UNDER-EXPOSE THE PHOTO.
That’s pretty much it :)
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you actually should learn that you often have to over expose an image to capture it correctly. Slight over exposure is very easy to fix in editing software with simple sliders in ACR, Lightroom, even Photoshop (here’s a post that covers basic adjustments in ACR). And over exposing minimizes noise.
Another key reason why you need to over expose in many cases is that, well, the camera meter can be wrong. Well, it’s basically a computer so it’s never really wrong, but it can definitely tell you that something is “right” when it really isn’t. There are two main reasons this happens:
1. Your metering mode. I always shoot in spot meter mode because it takes a small, very specific portion of the image into consideration when it determines whether or not there is sufficient light. Canon cameras use the area just around the center focal point and evaluate the light to give you a meter reading. An alternative mode, called evaluative, considers a much larger area of the photo around that center focal point and gives you an “average” value for the entire area considered. I typically photograph people – my kids – and I want their sweet little faces to be properly exposed. Because of this, I want the camera to disregard everything around them and make sure the photo is exposed properly for their faces. So I put the center focal point on their faces, adjust the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed until my meter says “0″, and then I shoot.
In evaluative mode, the area around that sweet little face is considered as well. So if you have strong backlighting your meter will actually consider some of that brightness and determine that your average light value is higher than what it would get as spot metering on the face alone. As a result the face will come out darker. You can find many resources on-line to further (better?!) explain these modes, including your camera manual, but for now stick to spot or partial metering (partial metering is kind of in-between spot and evaluative).
2. The color of your subject. This one is really, really important so I’m illustrating it below. Your camera is designed to give you a meter reading as if you are taking a photograph of middle gray (18% gray). White reflects nearly 100% of light, black reflects nearly 0% of light, and middle gray is – you guessed it – in the middle. But the world, fortunately, is not shades of gray. Here’s a very common example/problem…WHITE.
In the series of photos below, I used spot metering and metered off the large white flower hanging down to your left.
In the far left image, my camera meter said I had the perfect amount of light to capture my image – assuming I was taking a photo of something 18% gray! But I wasn’t…i was taking a photo of red and white flowers.
So – to prove my point – I changed my shutter speed, kept everything else the same, and took another photo when my meter was to the first dot past “0″. This is called over exposing by 1/3 stop. That image is brighter overall, and looks better than the one on the left. I continued this, reducing my shutter speed to add 1/3 of a stop each time, until by the fourth photo I was one full stop over-exposed (according to my meter!).
The FOURTH shot is the best! Want to know why?
This screen shot says it all. My histogram shows that very little data in the image is blown (hitting up against the right wall of the histogram), and the portion that is blown is highlighted in bright red in the image itself. It’s all stuff I don’t care about! the back lighting in the window, the bright parts of the reflection on the floor…I’m far more satisfied having the flowers nice and bright even though some of the other portions of the image are blown.
Even if this post wasn’t about shooting at high ISO, it’s really important to know that a good SOOC (straight out of camera) image looks more like the photo on the right than the one on the left. I could scrap this photo as-is without having to do a single thing to it! Heck, if I really loved it (which I don’t, LOL), I could print it for my wall and hang it up. Learning to master white balance and exposure in camera, without relying on editing, is the single most important thing for a photographer to accomplish :)
ok – so now we’re ready to tie this back in to ISO…
Here’s a close-up of the noise from the first and fourth images from the exposure sample above:
The general brightness is just much better in the image on the right, but if you look more closely you can see a few other differences. The image on the left has color noise on the bottom portion of the white flower while the image on the right doesn’t. Also, the noise is much heavier, almost “bigger” looking in the neutral space behind the flowers in the image on the left. The +1 stop photo has much finer, smaller noise. And keep in mind – ALL of these images were shot with ISO3200, a relatively high ISO setting!
So – wrapping this up (you’re quite a trooper if you’re still with me, LOL!)…
1. PROPERLY expose your photos. That sometimes means “overexposing”.
2. Do not sharpen images with noise – it makes it SIGNIFICANTLY worse. I usually fix noise and then do some sharpening if it’s necessary, but they two kind of counter-act each other to watch closely as you make adjustments.
3. Learn to use noise reduction in your editing software. ACR has it, as does LR. I regularly use the noise sliders in LR to reduce noise. It’s so powerful, in fact, that it can virtually eliminate the noise altogether. Here’s a before and after with noise reduction applied:
{After settings in the LightRoom noise reduction panel: Color +18, Luminance +28).
4. and final…do your own ISO test so that you know how high you can go with your ISO with confidence. Do a test just like I did here!
That’s all I have for you today! Please don’t hesitate to ask questions or to share your own experiences in the comments section!
Join SP tomorrow for the launch of Project SCRAP 2012! Yay!
BeckiePhotography, Uncategorized
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Hello everyone! This is Kim here today with a bit of scrapbooking inspiration. It’s that time again… the beginning of another year. I know the beginning of a year makes us think of all sorts of things, but for us as scrap bookers, it often means the beginning of scrap projects! I don’t know if that makes you excited or intimidated or both!! I do know that sometimes the thought of starting a big scrap project can be overwhelming and I get asked a lot by friends how I get “organized” to start a scrapbook. Since these people know me and my obsession with taking pictures, I think what they mean is “How do you take the mountain of photos you have and make that into a scrapbook?” I’m not sure I have a simple answer to that question, and really there are lots of ways people organize their photos and scrapbooks. But I am going to share a few of my thoughts on scrapbooking with you and hopefully you can take some inspiration from these thoughts to help you get started in scrapping 2012 (or whatever project you are working on). So here it is… my “top ten” list of scrapbook advice!
Now for a little more about each of my top ten items.
Consider what the purpose of the scrapbook is: What is it you are trying to capture and want to remember when you look back at your book? For example, the baby books I have done for my children were meant to capture their first year in detail. I wanted to include lots of little stats like what they weighed and when they first rolled over and what their first food was. These books will be given to them when they are older so that hopefully when they have children and enjoy all those milestones, they can look back and see their own. However, when I create my family yearbooks, I don’t include quite as many of those details. Point is, think about what YOU want to show in your book, and let that help you decide what is important to be included.
Set certain times to sort through pictures and pick what will go in your scrapbook: This is one of the most important things I do myself to stay organized through a year of taking pictures. Why? Because our lives are busy and if you don’t set a goal for yourself and be intentional about it, it probably won’t happen. (This is my experience at least!!) For me, I stop at the end of each month and look at all the pictures I’ve taken. I copy all the pictures I want to include in my scrapbook to a certain folder in my computer I’ve set up for this. The folder can be deleted later when the scrapbook is done so you don’t have two copies of the same pictures. But I find it helps me to have the pictures I want to scrap set aside in a certain place.
Keep a running list of layouts/pages you want in your book: Once I have my folder of pictures for the month, I go ahead and organize them so I know what pages they will go on in my scrapbook. Because I am a list person, I keep a list of the pages I still need to work on. One good thing about this is that it helps me make sure there is not a single page layout that will not have another single page layout to print next to it. In grouping my pictures, some things are easy. If there’s a big event like a birthday, I know those all go together in a birthday layout. Some things are harder and take a little more creativity to decide how to group them. This is one of the things I have come to love about Project Scrap 2011. I can take several of the “random” pictures from my month that I love and intentionally include them in my book with a journaling overview of our month. I intend to keep doing this as we start up Project Scrap 2012… coming this Thursday!
Be realistic about how much time you have to scrap: Let’s face it. We love to scrap, but it’s not the most important thing in our lives. So I think it’s important to be real about the amount of time we have. Two things can help you be real about the time you have to scrap. Number one, pick a reasonable number of pictures to scrap. For me, I may take 200 photos each month, but I only have 50-75 that make the cut for my scrapbook! There’s no way I can scrap every photo I take! I say that just as an example. Your number may be different than mine, but make a realistic decision about what you will have time to scrap. Number two, remember that it’s OK to simplify the design of some of your pages. You may not be able to create a masterpiece layout for all your pages in the time you have. I very often do some “collage” style pages with simple design when I am getting behind on my scrapbook. Although I love to spend a lot of time on a layout and think over every detail, I can’t do that in every page of every project. It’s OK to simplify! And I might add that there are great products in the Shoppe that can help you too. Take a look at the piece-a-cake pages and easy-as-pie templates for some great ways to get layouts done more quickly.
Write down things you want to remember as they happen: If you like to include journaling in your scrapbooks, it is helpful to record things as they happen. There are a ton of ways to do this and different ways work for different people. I would just encourage you to be intentional about doing it!
Try not to get behind: Let’s face it. It can be hard not to get behind! When I mentioned that I look at my pictures at the end of each month and figure out which I’m going to scrap and group them by pages, I would love to add, “Then I go ahead and scrap all of the layouts from that month.” Sometimes that may happen. Other times, it just can’t happen! That’s why I like to do what I can to stay organized and keep a list of what I want to work on. But I will say that I do attempt not to get too far behind. It’s always my goal!!
Research book printers and pick one before you start: SP talked about this in her post to close Project Scrap 2011. She had a lot of great advice, so I won’t repeat what she said here. I do agree with her that it is best if possible to know what printer you will use before you begin a project and to follow their bleed and trim guidelines. It will save you time and headache later. One other comment I would add about book printers is that I find it helpful to know what their page limit is. One popular book printer I have used works great when I am doing a shorter book, but will not work for my family yearbooks, which go over their 100-page limit. You may not know how many pages your book will be at the start, but you don’t want to be surprised when you go to print and find there is a page limit.
Don’t forget the simple moments: It’s sometimes the everyday pictures and moments that will mean the most, so make a point to capture those too!
Stick to your style: I admit that I forget this sometimes myself. There is a lot of GREAT inspiration shared on blogs and galleries, especially our Shabby Shoppe gallery. And you should use that to inspire you. But you should not feel that your layouts need to look like everyone else’s. Make them your own! Create layouts that will make you proud because they come from your creativity. And related to this, I would encourage you if you are new to scrapbooking not to become discouraged if you can’t do everything you’d like to from the very beginning. Trust me, if you could see my first digital scrapbook, you would see how simple I started out! But you know what? It still records that year of my family’s life and I am glad I have it. So feel good about what you create!!
And last but not least… Have FUN!! That’s what it’s about, right??
I hope there’s something I’ve shared today that helps as you get started with your next scrap project. I know many of you are getting ready for Project Scrap 2012, which SP will kick off here on the blog this Thursday! It really is a great way to know that you are not alone in scrapping your year. There will be beautiful (FREE!) templates given away each month and lots of inspiration along the way. I can’t wait!!
But before then, stop by tomorrow for another fantastic post by the very talented Beckie. I always look forward to those! Have a great day!!
KimInspiration, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized
Monday, January 23, 2012
Hello and Happy New Year! Beckie here :) I know, I’m a bit late with my greeting – but this is my very first post of the year and I just couldn’t begin today’s post without saying that first! I had a wonderful holiday break – I got to spend lots of time with the family and I even had time to read and play with my camera quite a bit! One of the joys of the kids getting older, I suppose – a little time for ME every now and then, since the kids entertain themselves a bit more! Anyhow, I’m happy to be back and eager to bring this week’s little slice of inspiration…the Layout of the Week! You won’t be disappointed by this one – it’s a totally gorgeous layout created by whites19 called “Kairos“.
There were so many WONDERFUL layouts in the gallery this week and, as usual, I had a very hard time making my selection! But after I read the text I knew this was the layout for me :) My scrapbook is filled with pages of bright, happy, smiling faces…but our lives are so much more than that. I have been thinking that this year I want to journal more and document REAL life (something I’ll cover soon in an Inspiration post!) – and this layout by whites19 perfectly nails the theme of what I hope to create for myself this year. A lot of the good-amazing-incredible moments and maybe even a few of the bad ones…but a whole lot of the reality that is our lives <3 Read the text to see what I mean (there’s a link in her layout credits!). Whether you’re a parent or not, there’s an interesting perspective there to be gained.
And, of course, in true whites19 fashion…the layout itself is a stunner :) All that delicious text…and the cute little hearts thrown in there to break it up. The stitching around the edges and the perfectly delicate flowers and elements around the border. And the title in the center with the photos in the letters – perfection.
Congratulations whites19! Check your e-mail for your $10 Shabby Shoppe gift card!
I’ll see you back on Wednesday, but be sure to stop by tomorrow when Kim brings you a little New Year’s organization inspiration!
BeckieLayout of the Week, Uncategorized
NEWSLETTER
INSPIRATION
DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING
