Category Archives: Spondicious

illustration & Photography

Spondicious Podcast 03

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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.