Light, Camera, Actions

I sat outside today on the doorstep, and just let myself feel the sun on my face. I marveled at the incredibly fine weather, and just enjoyed it. The light, the light, the light. Of course, on such a remarkably fine day, I had my camera with me ad took a couple of shots that I will post later. For now, I want to show you a photo that I tried a texture on. Click here to read my post about textures and to get some for yourself.

I love it!
Now, I want to talk about Photoshop actions. I've been hearing about these, but they always cost money!!! That's what I thought until I found some FREE ACTIONS at The Pioneer Woman. Yes, FREE!
CLICK HERE. She even has tutorials on how to use them!!! It is AWESOME. Thus, all the caps. :D Here are some proofs of my work with her actions, some which Doug from Totally Rad Actions made. I got the free sample of some of his actions- they are rad! 
OK, now for the photos, which I forgot, for the billionth time, to signatureize. New word ;)

Oh, one more action one...


The last one is from my  most recent engagement session...
The first one of actions from this day...
The second one...


The first texture one...

Thanks for checkin this out!!!

Textures-thank you Flickr!

Flickr is awesome. I had some time to kill tonight, and I remembered reading and using this article, "How to Use Textures to Enhance Your Photograph's". So I looked through my bookmarks, found the article, and then searched on Flickr for textures. Of course I found some awesome ones, though I only searched for a short time-there were way too many. :) So here are three photos, photo credit, and I used the article above to guide my procedures.



(photo texture above) Credit here




(photo texture above) Credit here

(texture in photo above) Credit here

I'm sure you'll find this all helpful if you're interested in using textures!

Making your own Blog button

Okay, I am going to make this super simple as I can, because when I was searching for a tutorial, I could not find one that told me what to do in a 1-2-3 step way. I gathered my information from several different resources and tried many things. Until I found this site! Thanks to her, I was able to make my buttons easily. Now, it is not exactly the easiest thing to do, but it's not to difficult. So here is an easy tutorial. I hope!

For those with a Flickr or Picasa account and For those without a photo editing software.

• If you have an editing software(I have adobe Photoshop Elements), create your button, and then upload it to the image holding site. You can use another software or just a picture that is not copyrighted, and add your text in one of the following image holding sites.
  
• If you do not have a FLickr, Picasa or other image site account, you will need to make an account. I chose Flickr, and I personally like it best, and it is the easiest. It also has a good (but limited) editing software available when you have an account
  

• Upload the photo or your created button to your Flickr or Picasa or other image holding site.
• Edit the photo as you wish. Editing may be.....
  

Add any effects, text or anything else you want.Take your time because you want your button to be just how you want it.
Re size the image until it's the size you want it. You can start with 200 and then you can move upward . My blog button is 202/203 and it is a good size, I think. You will have to fiddle around a bit. 180 by 180 is the average size.
Remember, it cannot be bigger than the space of your sidebar. My button fits my sidebar perfectly for me.

• Once you have the image edited, with all your text and what not, get the URL. In Flickr, and maybe other sites, right click on the image, choose properties, and copy the URL that is under Location. Nonetheless, you need a URL. If you do not know how to access it on the site, just post it on your blog, then right click, view image, and copy that URL.
  
• Go to this site and copy this code and paste it onto Notepad or Wordpad.Fill it in with the info- the words in color are what you need to change. Blog URL (your blog), and the URL of the photo( the URL you copied).
• Now copy the code from Notepad or wherever you created your code.
• Go to your blog and choose "Add a Gadget"
• Select HTML gadget. Paste your code.

And here you go!!!! I hope this is simple and easy to understand. Please leave a comment and tell me if it is or isn't, and if you have any questions. THANKS!!!