Hey Girl, Nice Shot

Texturing Photos

After watching Phaunt Actions's tutorial on adding texture to pictures I knew I wanted to try this hot trend in photography.  I waited for the right opportunity to come along and sure enough, it did.  A couple of weeks ago I did a shoot for this lovely little girl.  This picture was certainly not one of the best from the shoot  - especially since I ended up reflecting a little too much light into her face, and had a little flare around the bottom edge.  But her sinister express and dark clothing made it a perfect candidate for the Halloween card and I told the mom as much.

So I wasn't surprised when she contacted me the other day to ask me to mock up a Halloween card using the picture.  I knew this was the perfect opportunity to try out texturing.   I definitely had some ideas for what I wanted too.

My first step was to desaturate the picture because I wanted the final to be black and white.  I knew I wanted to start out with a brocade style fabric.  The tutorial recommended Texture King as a place to go for free textures and sure enough, under their fabrics category they had something I thought would work perfectly.

You can see I had a lot of layers for this image.  The first texture layer was the brocade which I also desaturated and put in the overlay blend mode.  Using a layer mask I removed most of the texture from her face and arms leaving it heavily in the rest of the picture.  I definitely wanted it to be the dominate texture.  I positioned the layer so that the center swirly area would be over her clothes where it would really come through.

The second layer was from the grunge category on Texture King.  It looks like stained cement.  Again, in overlay mode and using a mask to back it off on the face and arm.    I made a copy of the merged version of the image and burned the edges some.  Then I decided I still wanted to add a little more texture.  So I made a copy of the brocade layer to deepen it.  I brought in a final texture that was like a bubbling/pealing paint texture. 

I wanted to warm up the picture a little bit so I ran the Antique Tone action from my Totally Rad Action Mix (Boutwell Studio).  It gave it the perfect amount of warmth and even helped to highlight some of the texture in the picture.    Here's the final result.  The mom loved it.

So...Very...Tired

Seriously, it is 11:40pm.  My lovely children are tucked into their beds but at least the baby will likely wake up in 7 hours.  I just finished preparing 60 images for a slideshow review session tomorrow morning with a client.  I had another review session earlier this evening that also involved preparing a bunch of photos.  I have two albums to design, several orders to process, and lots of exciting new coming soon things to noodle.  So yeah, I'm tired.  But I have nothing on Jodie Otte.  Check out her post which shows her client board.  It looks like a pretty good way to organize client activity in a very low-tech way.  I'm currently trying to keep everything in my head.  I know, that can't be good.   Maybe a whiteboard and some post-it notes are in my future?!

How do you keep track of your client activites (where they stand in the process from shoot to delivery)?

September 8th - Link-O-Rama

I don't know what is going on in the blogging world, but I haven't had as many posts to share as usual.  It has been 3 weeks and I've hardly marked any posts to share.  But, for those reading via RSS, here are the few posts I did mark to share on the sidebar of my blog!

• DIYPhotography.net had a three party series: Back to Basics covering the following topics:
  • Aperture
  • Shutter Speed
  • Exposure
• Digital Photography School posted about how to Bypass Portrait Mode in Your Camera and Still Get a Great Portrait.  They have lots of great tips.  I personally shoot almost completely in Manual mode with custom white balance and since I've made that switch I feel like my images are SOOOO much better straight out of the camera (SOOC).

In the same vein, I've also started Understanding Exposure which I see constantly referenced anytime anyone is having trouble with their exposure.  While my exposure, and understanding of it, has improved greatly this year, I'm hoping this book will take me that extra mile!

Addicted to Blogging

92%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I'm addicted to blogging.  That should be no surprise since I keep 4 different blogs updated at least a few times a week.  But, now there are numbers to back it up - well, in that silly online survey kind of way.

I came across this little survey from photographer [b]ecker's blog.

Holiday Card Templates

If you are a portrait photographer, you are knee deep in holiday planning right now.  While most folks start thinking about Christmas around, oh, Thanksgiving - photographers need to start planning WELL in advance. 

There are only so many hours in the day so if you can't get your customers to start thinking about holiday family sessions and gift orders early, you'll be working into the wee hours the week before Christmas trying to get those prints ready.

To help make your holiday season more profitable and more efficient, you might want to consider purchasing some holiday card templates.  There are lots of folks selling them and typically they are layered PSD files to allow you to customize them for your customer.  I already have several customers who have expressed interest in getting their holiday cards from recent portrait sessions and I'm happy to have a bunch of templates to show them.

Of course, I've not been shy about noting that one of my favorite template designers is Jamie Schultz.  Her templates are always fresh and clean and they are VERY easy to work with.   These samples are from her holiday line - I have all three sets!  Check out her holiday card designs here ready for purchase.

Another designer that I've purchased from in the past is Heather McBride.  She has both classic styles and well as fun modern styles including some with animal print.  So check out her holiday card templates too (scroll down on her blog to find the posts about holiday cards).

Haven't found what you want yet.  Don't worry, there's more.  You can check out Diana Hall's fresh modern holiday cards here.  Not ready to invest in a set of cards or just need one or two templates for yourself?  Check out Pink Ink Studio's Holiday Cards.  Super cute!  I also liked Beyond Red and Green's cards, and they have some trifold which would be a great marketing piece for your studio too.  They sell individual templates or get a discount when you buy more! 

Need more?  There are more!!!  Check out Heidi Kruger Creations holiday cards.  And check out Design Aglow for something different!  Okay, that should keep you busy for a little while.  If you've found some great holiday card templates from another source, please leave a comment!

Edited to Add: Thanks Scott for the tip about Swiss Miss Cards.

Edited to Add: Image Garden Design has great vintage styled card templates available too!  Thanks to the Pay it Forward blog for the find.

Edited to Add: Elentari Designs is bound to be a new favorite of mine.  I love the textured look of their templates and know they would print great on the watercolor paper that I prefer to work with.   I think I found the template I want for my Christmas cards. Found via the Pay It Forward website.

Edited to Add: Lisa Reichman Design found on the I Love Photography forum!  And Savvy Designs too.

Portland Head Lighthouse Watercolor

A little while back I noticed a picture that Scott Kelby posted on his blog of the Portland Head Lighthouse in Maine.  I noticed it because I had created a digital watercolor of almost the same exact shot for my online store.

To create the watercolor, I started with a purchased stock photo (shown) which was cheaper than traveling to Maine even with reproduction rights.  Then, I more or less followed Photoshop Mama's Watercolor Tutorial to get my canvas ready for "painting".  I have saved the setup steps as an action so I don't actually have run the steps every time I want to do a watercolor in photoshop.   

Essentially what it does is create a pencil style drawing of the photograph and create a pattern brush for me to use for painting the color back into the picture.  It took me a lot of trial and error to get the look I wanted.  I like the very blocky color style of watercolor so that is what I was going for in my art prints.    I print them using my Epson 9800 on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching paper and they look very much like regular hand-painted watercolors.  The paper has a great texture and weight which I really like for these prints.

I've also done come custom watercolors of houses for customers - typically a "our first home" gift that one spouse gives to the other.  Warning, they are somewhat time consuming....especially when you are first starting out.

If you try this out, come back and give us the link in the comments so we can see your work!

Labor Day, Holiday?

First, the spider's body was the size of my thumb.  It had built an impressive web next to one of the trails at the Mercer Botanical Gardens.  There are lots of them around the gardens and guess what, they don't get a day off.

Yesterday was Labor Day, and lots of people had the day off.  But, if you are a small business owner, it is likely it wasn't a holiday for you.  As I continue to build and grow my photography business, it is clear that many of the traditional holidays just don't apply.  Luckily my husband is also starting his own business so he knows what it is like.  Yes, I'll take Thanksgiving off because I need to cook, and yes I'll take Christmas off to play with the kids but just about every other day of the year is fair game.  I had a mini-session in the morning yesterday, processed two orders, did a first pass at photos from one shoot and started proofing another shoot.  So, it was a pretty full day. 

I'm to the point where I can manage 3-4 shoots a week and bust through the proofing.  But with face-to-face client proofing, and being completely on location, I probably can't do more than that without something else changing at home.  With two children under three, it is nearly impossible for me to do much work when home with them by myself.  So I have to get most of my work done when I have my part-time nanny and so I feel like I'm running at capacity.    I figure I'm currently spending about 7 hours per session between prep, doing the session, proofing, and client review.

So, how many sessions do you do in a week?  What is the average total time you spend per session including prep and proofing?