Category Archives: Artist20Q

Arty Topics

Yuri time again – Learn from the best

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Yuri Arcurs is the master when it comes to Micro Stock photography and therefore when I saww that Crestock were producing the videos in which they get Yuri to tell us wannabees how to do things in MicrostocK I was more than happy to watch the videos and learn form the best.

I posted here the previous video and it was learning how to shoot and direct a model and the latest video is the part two. How to get the right smiles from the model and  getting the model to freeze the action and eliminate the possibility of blur. Using a second shooter on expensive shoots to get more capital from the shoot. More pictures, with the second shooter getting in and taking shots when you are having some down time with the camera, checking shots or changing lenses or whatever.

Here is the video.

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Sold some photos this week with Fotolia, mostly subscriptions but it all helps

Closing open paths in Illustrator

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Now this is a really important task. closing the open paths in Illustrator, because if you leave any open paths in your art work you will have it being rejected. The problem is first of all finding the open paths and then closing them quickly and easily. I first found this to be time consuming but with the help of some plug ins for Illustrator I can now close open paths really quickly.

Couple little things you need to know about when creating a vector
image, especially if you are going to sell it on stock websites

Here are some tips and tricks for making the best out of your work.
Mostly time savers.

OPEN PATHS: If you are dealing with open paths, you are in trouble, so
try this plug-in from Graffix to FIND THEM FIRST without hassle.

PLUG IN ONE

To install this plugin, just drop the plugin in your Adobe Illustrator
Plug-ins folder. It works with Adobe Illustrator CS – CS2 and CS3….

What does this plugin do… It actually finds all guides, paths, open
paths, closed paths, filled paths, unfilled paths, stroked paths,
unstroked paths, dashed paths, undashed paths, compound paths, groups,
live object groups, gradient meshes, envelopes, symbols, embedded raster
art, and placed art.

It will appear under Select / Object menu.

So after clicking on select open paths, your open paths are selected,
now how are we going to close all these paths, here another plug-in to
CLOSE THESE PATHS.

PLUG IN TWO

This time just drop the plug in in Illustrator scripts folder, it will
appear in File/ Scripts menu, and click. All your paths are closed in 2
steps. What a time saver.

Well if you have only couple paths to close just click on the open path
and press CTRL + J to join them, personally I never use this.

So there you go some vital information for you if you are going to sell your art on the microstock sites.

Bubblin in Dublin

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Girl on way home from party at Portobello Dublin

Just got back home from a visit to Dublin. Much of the time seemed to be used up traveling from part of Dublin to another. Did a bit of chillin’ and took in a movie, I saw ‘Taken’ with Liam Neeson in it. Thoroughly enjoyable and I may even see it again in Spanish at the local cinema.

I did get taking some photos while there but there were also a couple of the days where the weather was no conducive to photography. On Tuesday morning the heavens opened and only the ducks were enjoying themselves. On the first morning I was there I got taking some photos early in the morning by the canal at Portobello. I was taking the photos and a couple who were on their way back home from a party from the night before, asked me how come I was taking pictures of the grunge and gunk in the canal rather then the lovely swans on the other side of the lock.

I do like to go for the interesting arty shot and not so much the shots that the amateur point and shoot camera wielder would go for. I did snap a couple of the swans late through, why not? Again I was without a tripod due to the bags and weight restrictions of the airline company. I was on the look out for a bean bag though, a bean bag would be great in situations where you can’t use a tripod and is easy and light to carry around. I did see one specially made for photography when I visited Newcastle but it was too small. The upshot of my searching so far is a big fat zero, no bean bags and I have not even seen the beans or beads that I could use to make my own either. Maybe I will get lucky when I go to Birmingham next month.

Anyone like to contact me about taking pictures in Dublin or if you know anywhere I might get a bean bag for resting a camera on top of let me know in the contact form or leave a comment.

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Spondicious video

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Since I got the Cintiq I have used it a fair bit but mostly in the first week. I love it for drawing with but it has been useful as an extra screen too. Would be great to have another 24 inch screen as extra space though, or even the extra of the larger Cintiq.

After the first week I had to spend a good deal of time doing podcasting work due to the Podcamp Barcelona which I attended and gave a talk about podcasting for beginners. Since then I have been doing more blogging and podcasting and not had much time for the drawing. Shame really because I has a 90 trial running of Corel Painter X, so there are days wasting there.

What I should be doing is working on a few christmas images although when I do get back to doing more drawing with the Cintiq I will have to first get the London bus design finished first.

Today I have made a decision about what camcorder to get for the video podcasting and although I was interested in getting one of the prosumer models, I was looking at the Sony FX1E which is a super looking camera, I am going with a higher quality comsumer camera for a few reasons. The price is important for a start, with all the financial turmoil I thought prudence with spending might be a good idea. So I will have to forego the delights of looking more professional by having a big pro camera and instead go for the more practical considerations of lightness to carry and being able to record direct to SD cards. It will still be Hi Def HD recording but on to solid state media.

Going for the solid state is good too because I think that these Prosumer cameras I have been lusting after only record to MiniDV tape in the HDV format. There are benefits with using tapes in terms of storage but the camera compaines are heading towards non tape based Prosumer cameras anyway, or at the very least heading to hybrid cameras that will do both.

So how is this interesting to Spondicious Photography and Illustration then ?? well on iStockPhoto they sell video clips. I have had a look at what they have on offer and I reckon I could do it too. So the plan will be to be while I am out doing some shooting of photos I can also take some video clips too. Sometimes I expect the situation will favour the video rather than the still shots and sometimes the opposite. No problem.

So I now have a plan made to expand myself in terms of what I can offer the microstock sites.

I have to tell you still what camera I have decided to go with. It is the Canon HF100 or the HF10 the only difference being that one has built in memory. I will probably get the one with out as it is cheaper to buy the memory afterwards. I will be able to stick in 8GB cards and maybe even 16GB cards.

Spondicious Podcast 04

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.6MB)

In this podcast I talk about how good micro stock is for earnings when you stop adding new images. When you want to or need to take some time off from uploading. Feeding the beast is the phrase coined on Lee Torrens Blog – Microstock Diaries.

I talk about HDR photography and I have included some small tips and tricks to help you along with the stock photography business.

Lastly I have put in a request for funny stories that you might have regards being a photographer or whatever. I will post funny stories in a Podcast and in return I will put a link to your website and of course you can include a plug in the audio too.

Enjoy the Spondicious Podcast number four

Please leave me a comment on what you think of the podcast – I am looking forward to hearing your views. Or use the contact form below

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Cintiq 12WX First Impressions

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I bought the Cintiq 12WX and I have to say using it is great but it took me some time to get it set up to work right.

When connected to my new iMac I have to set the position in relation to the main screen and the position of the Mac title bar just right. For me it works best with the extra display of the Cintiq to be above the main screen and with the title bar set in the Cintiq. That leaves the dock in the main screen. This is good because the dock gets in the way of the drawing on the smaller screen if set into the Cintiq.

The other set up to be done was the calibration, which involves pointing to 2 hairline crosses, top left and bottom right of the screen. That took a while to get the point positioned right relative to the pointer. You don’t want it under the pointer so that you can’t see it when you are drawing. It is better slightly up and slightly to the left (if you are right handed)

Drawing with the CIntiq is pure joy, which is just as well considering the price of the item. It isn’t exactly the same as drawing on paper but pretty close. Maybe the tiniest of lags from pointer to paint movement.

Screen size it something that bothered me at first. I bought an iMac with the big 24in screen and now I am working on a 12in with a smaller resolution ?? It’s Ok when you get used to it though. I did try mirroring the displays but that left me with the lower resolution on the iMAc and that was terrible. I wonder what is the resolution on the 21in Cintiq, if it matches the resolution on the iMac I will consider the 21in next year, for a while I considered sending back the 12 n and getting the 21in now but, was wise enough to give the 12 in some time for me to get used to.

Unfortunately I only had the Cintiq a few hours before having to go away for a few days but as soon as I got back I got playing with it. I spent a day working with ArtRage doing some drawing on the tablet and was pleased with the results and then the next day I worked in Illustrator to make a repeating pattern design to upload to my microstock sites. You can see which Micro Stock Sites I use at Spondicious Photography and Illustration Web site.

I will post up a couple of drawings when I get around to it….

I am planning to make a new design each day to build up the portfolios in the Microstock sites because I have been doing well selling the illustrations, better than with the photo sales. Dreamstime has been a good one for the illustrations but not as successful as Fotolia

Just seen that the repeating tile pattern I uploaded to BigStockPhoto has been added to my portfolio there and the wait for the image to get on to Dreamstime is around 120 hours.

Users group for CIntiq owners and wannabees on Bebo

Stumble It! Please just hit this link and give a review.

Get the web to come to you Get the Internet to come to you use this Spondicious Photography RSS Feed in your favourite Feed reader. I like Netvibes

Spondicious Podcast 03

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.1MB)

Click to listen Spondicious Podcast 03In Spondcious Podcast 03 I talk about Using various programs to make digital art. ArtRage, PainterX and Photoshop gets a mention.

I talk about the Cintiq 12WX which I expect to have in my hands tomorrow, it only has to get here from Barcelona and the supplier has been quick to deliver in the past.

My son’s art gets a mention as he is posting his work on DeviantArt. I have set up an account for him on Fotolia also. So he can earn some money from his art while at art college.

I continue to rant about iStockPhoto and Fotolia and the problems with rejection of images on one site while accepted on others and the appliction to be an illustrator on iStock.

For keywording your photos try using Picniche

I used GarageBand to record the podcast and then used Levelator to get it sounding better, the music was coming in too loud compared to the voice at first. I am very impressed with Levelator right now. Then I moved it to AmadeusPro to do a bit of low level tweaking  – another good program and not expensive so I will probably buy it. Back in GarageBand I turned it into an enhanced podcast with all of the links and pictures you see when you get the podcast in iTunes.

Here is the Spondicious Podcast 03 as an Mp3 file if you don’t want the enhanced version in the link above

Life is a bowl of cherries

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Learn how to illustrate cherries using the Mesh feature in Illustrator. Have a look at VectorTuts. Useful site with other tutorials on illustration techniques in vector based programs.

I am always looking to learn more about the programs that I use. Be it Artrage, Photoshop, Illustrator or Inkscape. Fortunately there are lots of sites out there now that show you how to do things and the easiest way to lear is by being shown  how rather than being told how to.

Try it for yourself and see what I mean

Photography bits and pieces

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Last night I was out to lunch with the family and my wife’s uncle had a new toy to play with – a Nikon D80 and it had a very nice lens on it 18mm to 135mm. I was quite impressed with this more expensive than my own Canon 450D camera. I wanted to keep it, it was heavier so I can assume it has a better build quality aimed more towards the professional photographer or big enthusiast. It is so wasted on the uncle, who hasn’t a clue about photography let alone how to use the camera. The sales person in the shop saw him coming, he would have been better off with a Canon G9. More a point and shoot but still is expensive enough for it to be desirable. What I mean by that is I suspect he got that one because he likes expensive toys rather than what would suit him better,

I think I will have to start saving the cash for a new lens for my camera. I want 2 new lenses right now. I like the zoom which goes from wide to about 200 or 250 that I think Tamron have on offer. Would be great to have such a lens that would be great when going travelling. Save having to carry other lenses when going places. Although again the G9 would be good for that too. Maybe I should get one and be more specific with what I want for the SLR. I could get a really good ultra wide angle prime for instance and a long zoom of about 300mm.

Less than two more days before I can resume my art and photography, I have been stuck working in a camp site all summer  and I am looking forward to having some time for myself.At least I have improved my Spanish somewhat during the six months I have been working.

If you are near Barcelona at the end of next month I will be at the Podcamp at El Masnou and even speaking  there about set up for podcasting, microphones and mixers etc. Why not come and see yourself and meet me there.

Giving it away – Huh?

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I have on a couple of the sites where I sell my photos and illustrations, free images. Is this a good thing to do or is it crazy?.

Supermarkets have what are called loss leaders. They have something they might sell for cost price or even less than cost price, they put a big sign outside the shop and some adverts in the newspaper to say what good prices they have. The idea is to get the punters in and usually people once inside the shop will spend more by buying more things in the shop. Same sort of thing on the Micro stock sites you offer an image for free and downloaders of this file will get to see other images of yours and possibly buy so you end up with more sales.

There you go FREE is GOOD for your overall sale figures.

From VectorStock – here is an explanation why they think giving away images is a good idea and why they are introducing an optional Free Image

Why would you want to do this you might ask? Good question; with our totally new back-end architecture and search engine optimization code combined with a small selection of ‘free downloads’; VS2.0 will begin to route large amounts of NEW traffic directly in from all the major search engines. End result, more image views = more downloads. As the free vector section will be very limited, this will IN NO WAY negatively effect current downloads. It will infact increase your sales, even on your free vectors

Patience please when building the portfolio

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I am quite impatient but with the business of Micro stock, patience is more than a virtue, it is necessary because it takes time to build the portfolio and time to get your photos or images selling. The images will be found better if you have good keywording for the images. But the more images you have then the more likely when one of your images is found that you will get a link through to your other work.

Someone looking at one of you images is likely to want to see what other work you have done and so the sales of your work will increase by a larger percentage due to having more work.

Here isa useful resourse you whether you are selling illustrations or photos for finding keywords. It is called PicNiche and seems quite responsive, I saw a report that said it was working off the Fotolia API. There were other tool like this available but I can´t find them online at the moment. PicNiche does the job though.

When you are keywording I reccomend using one of the photo management tools like Aperture or Lightroom. Both are good and I prefer Aperture after trying both. Version two of Aperture is very good and much faster also. With either you can add keywords very quickly and remember time is money. The faster you can build you portfolio the better.

Getting help with Illustrating and using the apps

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I found this site along with afew others and I have to say it is a marvellous resource. If you want to build your skill level then you should be looking for new tutorials each week or day depending on your present skil level. There is always something else to learn. Often I look at a tutorial and I know how to do what is being shown but then at one point there is that single gem of information that makes viewing of the tutorial worthwhile.

This Illustration class site is particularly good and full of good things to learn. I recommend it highly. There are various titles and downloads on each of the blog posts. I just downloaded on called continuous line which is on a blog post about a certain type of drawing. Just looked in the zip file and it is full of jpegs and some notes in English and Spanish too. Looks interesting.

Follow me on FriendFeed or Twitter

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Follow all postings from various placesThere are a few ways you can follow what I am doing online and one place is FriendFeed it aggregates mini blogging posts from various places, like Twitter and Stumble upon and my blog postings.

I like the mini blogging for quick and dirty postings on the fly as it were and then use the Blogs I do to put in the larger chunks of content. I avoid the life blogging types of post that I see some people doing, you know the ones – I just had bacon and eggs for breakfast and then finished it off with a cup of tea – I mean who wants to know about that. And besides I am a vegetarian anyway, so no bacon for me…..

The mini blogging posts relate to finds on the internet such as the details I found recently on how to make Ubuntu look a bit like MacOSX or something I have seen on someone elses beting blog that I think is worthy of noting and letting people know about. I might tell you what I am about to bet on or what I just did with a trade.

I also have Bebo, Facebook, tumblr, identica and a few other social sites that I post on so that I can spread it out a bit, getting the word out there. FriendFeed is a good one thought to get an overview though. If you do this sort of thing you might get a client program like Twhirl to have the mini posts come in as you are doing other things online. Perhaps you will post a few things yourself. Get Twittering……

A tip of the week from iStockPhoto

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iStock SportsSeeing as the Olympics is about to get started in China here are some tips related to sports photography. I think the best one of the tips is  – Get in Close – And I think that is good for any type of photography. The amateurs stand back and try to get everything in the shot and end up with no interest in the shot and a poor composition.

In the spirit of anticipation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China starting this Friday August 8 until 24, iStock wants to share some tips for shooting fantastic sports stock, even if you’re not a pro photographer. You never know where a few tips and a little practice might take you.

  1. Capture speed — Most sports happen quickly, so set yourself up to capture the action. Make sure your shutter speed (length of time a shutter is open) is the same or higher than your lens’ focal length (e.g. if you’re using a 50 mm lens, make sure to shoot at 125 or faster)
  2. Stabilize your lens — If you don’t already use a tripod or a monopod, now’s the time to get one. With a monopod, you have more flexibility to move than a tripod and you can lock your focus, check your focus, on where the action might be in a few minutes or seconds with ease. Some lenses also have a feature called image stabilization which will partially correct minimal camera shake.
  3. Tell the story — Don’t be afraid to get in close to an athlete. The sweat on a brow, the guttural growl of aggression, the arms-raised cry of victory, the pain of exertion — each of these moments help to tell the story behind the story of sport.
  4. Juxtapose — Mix an expected athlete with an unexpected environment just for added effect (e.g. football player tackling a manager on a business boardroom table)
  5. No logos — iStock wants the raw rush of adrenaline, not ads for athletic wear.

Whether you’re looking for a winning image, shooting stock or just snapping some great shots of your kid’s soccer game, you’re well on your way.

View My Portfolio

Wanted to create a CorelDraw file

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I tried a few different ways to convert a file I have as various EPS, AI, and PDF formats so that I could import it into CorelDraw in order to save as a CDR file, after getting a request for that type of file from a customer in Dreamstime.

No luck whatsoever. I tried moving it via my Ubuntu machine even in case the problem was to do with Mac – Windows incompatabilities. I suppose if I kept trying I might eventually do it but I won’t need to that every day of the week so ….  But then you never know when the might be the need again to have a file that will have the CDR extension.

I think in the past I have got Illustrator files into CorelDraw and I know I have imported EPS files in. Trouble is, that there are so many variations of the EPS format.