NoBs Digital Dogbowl
The NoBs Digital Dogbowl Newsletter:
Keeping you up to date and informed on the latest, coolest, and outrageous happenings inside the world of NoBS Photo Success.
Loaded with Free photography tips, Photoshop tutorials, photo reviews,
and other totally relevant essentials. Be sure to check out the whole thing!
January 2008 Digital Dogbowl
When You Know What You Want, You Get What You Want
It's that time of the year! Time to hunker down and get your goals for 2008 ready. I don't know why, but I love that about this time of the year. Maybe it's because I've had so much success with setting goals and experiencing so many gifts and good things come into my life as a result of it.
I can honestly say that there is a connection between creating a goal in your mind and heart, committing it to paper, and taking whatever action steps you can and seeing it become reality. Things have happened to me that went beyond coincidence, and I firmly believe that if you create a vision, an idea, that the wheels begin to turn in your favour. There are a couple caveats and guidelines, however, and, in the best way I know how, I will share them with you.
Photo of the Month
Thanks to Kelly Scaccia aka bonjovigirl for creating this month's photo. "While photographing this mom, her husband and two daughters, I remembered a shot that really got my attention when I first saw it - 'Miles to go,' by Vicki Tauffer. Although it had been a while since I first saw the image and the details were shady, I found this opportunity too good to pass up. Mom was comfortable and up for something different as well. In truth, I was worried about the daughters; one minus emotion, the other unbendable. One of those worked to my advantage, and the other became caught-in-the-moment with her mom, giving me a split section to capture what you see.
Specs for this image are hazy - main light to camera left around 30 degrees, kicker camera right, background light and hair light. A small softbox for both the kicker and main light about 24x36 in size.
Defog, image sharpening, warmed image and increased saturation. Craig's softener wrapped up the image along with burning.
One last thing...I love my job and thank God everyday for it!"
The Proof Is In The Pudding
If you haven't become a full-fledged NoBS forum member yet, what's holding you back? Are you completely new to photography and afraid to be ridiculed by "hardened professional photographers"? Are you scared you won't get constructive criticism? If you answered yes to one or all of these questions, then we're here to tell you that you don't have to be afraid. NoBS members will give you honest and informative feedback. You do the rest. Pushing yourself, posting your trial and error images, and asking questions will change your outlook forever, not to mention the quality of your work. Never was this more true than for the many members here on NoBS who went from being casual amateurs to world class photographers as a result of the infinite resources provided on NoBS. Proof of this is in a recent post from newbie member tiny crane. She has been a member for a very short time, but her progress is quite evident in a recent thread where she showed her before and after images.
Does this sound like a good place to be?
NoBS Scuba Photography Tutorial
Have you ever wondered how to photograph underwater marine life? Well, wonder no more! Here's a quick and dirty tutorial from Rob and James, which was filmed recently during their trip to the British Virgin Islands.
Happy Fishing!
A Bridge Not Too Far For Workflow
An overlooked feature of Photoshop CS 2 and CS 3 is Bridge. For many they view this as just an image viewer program, but it is so much more. I will be the first to say that the first (and even the second) version of Bridge were a bit clunky. However, most of the problems were corrected in CS 3 and it was vastly improved upon.
But, let’s see just how much more Bridge can do for photographers with just workflow. Once Bridge is installed, when you hook up your camera to the computer or just put your camera card in a card reader Bridge should pop up asking if you would like some help downloading the files. I say yes and when the viewer comes up with the images, I go a bit further with what I want Bridge to do. First, I download the files into their own folder with a name and date. If this was a client, then I use the last name and month/year (Smith0608) . I also rename the incoming files to the same name along with numbering (Smith0608_0001.CRW) with the original camera file name embedded in the Metadata. I will put my copyright and general keywords to these files too as they are being downloaded. When all of this is done I make a backup of the files on a CD and place it in a safe place.
The Old Assignment/Challenge Thread Roars Back...
Recently, NoBS members got to participate in a good old-fashioned photo competition here on NoBS. Thanks to lisamphoto, whose idea it was to revive the Assignment/Challenge thread, several members threw their hats in the ring to see who could take an image which best represented who they are and where they live. The top prize was a $25 Starbucks gift card and five retouched images courtesy of Times Two Studio.
To see the entries and the winner of the challenge, click here.
Securing Your Wall Portraits
For those of us who display wall portraits, securely hanging them to prevent injury and theft is of great concern. Rob recently received a note from a NoBS member, which addresses how to successfully handle this.
"Hi Rob,
Can I share a solution to Jim Coventry's question concerning how to hang portraits. Since I display in a very large pediatric office safety was a must ! What if one of the parents or even a child were to hit or knock off a picture and an injury occurred. -- lawsuit !!
Picture Hang Solutions. For the secure hangers go here.
Here is a company (the same that hotels use for their art work displays in the rooms) . These are safe and actually lock the frames on the attachment that is on the wall with no chance of it being stolen or removed. Most importantly - can't fall on someone. There is a key that unlocks the frame from the wall. We keep the key.
I have to give credit to my husband for being my "hangman". Once he figured out how they were attached to the wall and the frame he had all my images up in no time.
Just a thought.
Louise Franklin"
Link Building Action Plan
Is your website working as well as it should for your business? Search engine optimization is the industry buzzword as of late with many of us trying to find the holy grail of page one placement on search engines such as Google. Check out this article recently published in after capture. If you haven't been around the forum lately, Rob O. has also been offering tons of advice on how to rev up your website so that search engines like Google will see it, crawl through it, and bump your page's rank ahead of your competitors. Thanks to Joshua for compiling and condensing the threads here . Thanks also to Riff who created a page to help members generate code for submission to Rob O.'s new NoBS Directory. If you are interested in inclusion click that link above.
Give Your Vacation Photos Some Impact
This month James and Rob spent a couple weeks in the British Virgin Islands and, as expected, have returned with some awesome images. When creating a photo, James often knows what the final image will look like after processing it in Photoshop. And that's the key: pre-visualization. Here's an article to read more about that.
In this first video, James shows us how to create a dramatic photo in full sunlight. Then in the next two, he uses simple Photoshop techniques to give his images impact. There's a lot more of these workflow tutorials available in the Dangerous Downloads section of the forum!
Who Signs the Wedding Contract?
We've all seen the TV shows and the YouTube videos of the crazy bridezillas. We've heard the stories, and a few of us have even had the displeasure of dealing with one of them. One way to help protect ourselves is with our wedding contracts. Creating one with the perfect wording is an art unto itself, and even then it needs to be looked over by an attorney. Riff recently posted a situation that he's facing where the Mother of the Bride (MOB) wants to sign the contract instead of the bride. In true NoBS fashion, our Resident Curmudgeon Tom pulled no punches and gave us an amazing, eye-opening response.
Furi News
NoBS vendor Furi Fine Art Books had recently made an announcement that it would no longer be accepting new orders for its books. Founder and NoBS member Jaco and his wife Daleen wanted to focus on their expanding family and weren't sure they could also continue to produce their quality books for other photographers and take care of their own photography business. However, NoBS members who were committed to Jaco's Furi Books begged him to reconsider and offered suggestions so that he wouldn't have to give up production of the books. Thankfully, Jaco was able to come up with a new partnership at Furi, which will allow him to not only continue producing Furi Fine Art Books but also increase turnaround time. To read more about this dramatic turn of events click here.
Member of the Month: AussieGirl
I have always grown up around photos. My father was a good amateur photographer and took some great photos of us kids growing up. Each year, Mum would dress us up in our Sunday finest and we’d traipse down to the local shopping centre to have our family portrait taken against the standard blue mottled canvas background. It wasn’t until I left home that I even realised there were other photographers in the market. I met my (now) husband whilst studying engineering at university. He was a keen photographer with a photo journalism background and reignited my love of photography. I convinced my dad to lend me his 35mm Canon A1 and so began my photography obsession.
Here's a complimentary download from Rob Provencher, which deals with goal setting, selling, etc. Enjoy!
This past holiday season, NoBS members raised over $7000 for the charity Sleeping Children Around the World. Recently, the check was presented to SCAW and the camera was rolling. Here's a behind the scenes look into the SCAW offices. Watch the video.
WPPI is hosting it's annual convention and tradeshow in Las Vegas from March 13 to the 20th. NoBS founders Rob Provencher and James Hodgins will be attending as will several other members. Imaginphoto (Alison) is organizing an informal NoBS get together during that period. Here's the link to the thread on NoBS. If you are interested in joining the gang, drop her a line.
I would like to thank everyone who participated to our January Chat Room meeting. My special guest was Ricky from Venezuela. It was a pleasure to get to know him a bit better. We talked about how he got involved in photography, his studio, his workflow and his future plans. There is a transcript of this meeting in the Digital Shop Talk. Click here to read the transcript of the chat. Thanks to Josh and Riff for making those available!
The next meeting will take place in March and I will be announcing my guest and the exact date in the very near future.
Dan Morency aka The NoBs Stalker
Free Photoshop Brushes
NoBS member Ricky is always on the prowl for cool new techniques and Photoshop tricks. In his internet travels recently, he came across this website, which provides free photoshop brushes. Thanks, Ricky!
Craig Minielly (aka Gruffer) has a cool tutorial in his tips n trix section on his website . It's called Surfer Girl Post Production and was done during a lighting location workshop in the Dominican Republic. To see this tutorial click here.
Weight, that is...
At the beginning of the year, NoBS members presented their resolutions for 2008 and the perfunctory weight loss resolution reared it's head. Now, we know what you're thinking. 'There's no way anyone will stick to it.' Well, that's where you're wrong. from that was born the NoBS weight loss group. In an effort to lose weight, look good, feel good, and have boundless energy to make 2008 a successful year, members have formed an informal support group to cheer on each victory in the battle of the bulge. Many members are reporting their struggles and their successes. If you feel like you need to make this change in your life, then look no further than here.
The only thing better than hanging out on the forum is hanging out in person with your NoBS neighbors. All over the country, even Hawaii, NoBS members are getting together to share techniques, secrets, and good times. These events are like big ol' family reunions where everyone shares your passion for photography. Such get together's include Detroit/Michigan, California, Portland just to name a few. Check out the new forum here.
NoBS is proud to call Craig Minielly (aka Gruffer) a member here on the forum. Recently Craig was honored with a Hot One Award for his popular Photoshop actions, Camera Capture/Processing
Craig’s Actions Production Assistants—Creative Suite. It was selected as a winner for 2008. We recently caught up with Craig and asked him how he got started in the business of creating Photoshop actions.
NoBS welcomes new vendor, animoto. Thanks to NoBS members Steve and Shelley Harrington for sharing their discovery of animoto here on the forum. Animoto software produces videos from photographers' images and somehow intuitively groups the images and incorporates your music to create a funky show which can be placed into your website and blog. To learn more go to animoto.
By now, many people have heard of internet browser Firefox. Among it's features are built in phishing protection, enhanced search capabilities, tabbed browsing, and a session restore feature which reloads pages you last viewed when you were online. Another very nice feature is that it is entirely customizable. NoBS member Peter Pauer recently posted some tips and tricks for Firefox users to customize window functions, among other things.
Firefox is also a powerful tool that may just help you in your quest to get your own web page noticed. We recently ran across an article listing some powerful (and free) tools to add on to Firefox to help with search engine optimization. Click here to get your hands on these beauties.
Something new from the DIY trenches here on NoBS. Member SarahM ran across a tutorial to make a $1 image stabilizer for your camera. Here is the link. It has not yet been tested, but if you are able to successfully make it, please let us know here at NoBS and we'll post your review.
February 10th, 2008 to be exact. The NoBs Membership fee's will be increasing this month. Those that are current members will be "grandfathered". What does this mean you ask? Well, we (At NoBs) will NEVER increase your monthly fee's. You will be locked in at your current billing.
For those of you who are not current members, now is the time to get in on the inside. After Feb 10th, it's sealed, no "if's", "and's" or "butts". Don't call us on the 11th, don't email us on the 12th, there is plenty of notice and you had plenty of time.
If you want to sign up now and secure your price click HERE