CROP it like it's HOT~, Poteau, Oklahoma Eastern Oklahoma, Fort Smith and Western Arkansas Photographer ~ Alisha

WELL this is a interesting Post header isn't it? So here are a few things to talk about concerning Cropping images.

First is the rule of thumb I have been taught but as you will see in the images below, I don't 100% follow... ALWAYS, ALWAYS get your "Shot" in your viewfinder, then take two steps back. There are a number of reasons for it but the main one is in the end, when the family sits with you at your ordering session and they order their images. If you have taken two steps back, in most cases, the final product will only slightly, or not at all be effected. IF you have done what I did in my examples below and taken "the shot" and not stepped back, you will face losing parts of your images if they order anything other than 4x6, 16x24 and 20x30 sized prints because due to their sizing and shapes, do not crop. Remember, as you will see in the examples below, they aren't just different sizes, they are also different shapes! DOUBLE whammy !

The one other thing to consider when manipulating images in PS/PSE is using the constrain proportions, it keeps the image in balance and will keep it from looking distorted.

So we have our finished images~~ If you have not done the take two steps back method, when your clients order their prints, and they order a print not listed above, instead of cropping an already cropped image, it is advised to go back to your original image, edit and upload that to your print companies specifications. Then you aren't double cropping an image and more of it, if not all, can be salvaged. SCORE!

Here we sit with two images that didn't follow the advised two steps back rule, the clients have inevitably ordered every size that is involved in Cropping! UGH! Now what? How do I show them what the finished image will look like? Well I Googled, hahha, and I found a Crop template, I did manipulate it to fit my style (it is not against the TOS of this product), but credit goes where credit is due. It is reasonable and customizable and WORTH the money! Rachael Myers at Rachael Myers Photography is the creator of the base template you will see below. It can be found here... get it, seriously! You can show your clients exactly what those images will look like, it could also have the potential in showing them that an upsize is ideal for a particular image.


I hope this helps show you how to better prepare for the end results of our images, the print! I hope this encourages you to get this and work with your clients and educate them. I think most of us would be pleasantly surprised at what a little client education can not only do for our ordering but also for building client trust. A little of that can go a long way in ensuring we have lasting relationships with our clients. Isn't that really what we all want?

P.S. These are 2 of my favorite shots from my Shoot with my most recent Senior and is she not the most gorgeous?  I Mean really!!

Until we click again,

~Alisha

David, Julie and Ms S Vineyard

David, Julie and Ms. S were a treat for me today for several reasons. One is that David is my 2nd cousin, he was raised by his grandmother who is my mom's sister. David's mom passed when he was a little guy so my Aunt Dodie raised him as her own. So needless to say we spent our childhood years together, he is a few years younger than I am, right David?

Another reason as these two have been together and married for quite some time and their friends and relatives their ages have been having kids, growing their families and Julie and David just weren't able to. They did start a home for wayward weiner dogs, hope to catch them in another blog! But as fate would have it 11 and a half months ago, they got pregnant. 2 1/2 months ago, Ms S came to be part of their, our family. They have an obvious love and admiration for little Ms. S, who wouldn't? Look at the little Stunner!! David, you better get to watching for those boys that will be calling in a few years!

David, I know Sandy, Aunt Dodie and Charlie Baby are smiling down and loving this baby girl from a far!

Without further adieu, my lovely cousin David and his wife Julie and Ms. S to the Blog!

Thank you for letting me capture your family!!! I enjoyed it and I look forward to watching your family, and little Ms S grow and taking pictures for years to come.

~Until we click again, 

Alisha

DROPBOX Tutorial

Dropbox is all the rage right now and I can honestly say that it is a fantastic app/program. I have been using it myself, not for clients, for several months on projects I am working on and the ease of transfer is phenomenal!

Like anything else it takes a bit of getting used to but once you do it a few times it is SUPER fast and you will see 1000 applications, including getting digitals to clients!

So NOW you have Dropbox either using it online, on your mobile (YES, you can have access to them even on your iPhone or Android), or installed on your computer.

SCREEN ONE will look like this when you open it

Above the Blue Bar you will see 4 Icons  First is UPLOAD

Second is + New Folder

Third is Share Folder

FOR The Sake of The Gold Hope Documents, let's look at the Photographers one

CLICK ON THE PHOTOGRAPHERS Folder

Notice ABOVE the blue bar the same 5 icons appear!!!!

The Bar itself has 3 words  Name Kind and Modified

When it populates you see all the documents we have at this point for you to access and use. 

There is one major thing to remember before we proceed. 

Whatever you do outside of downloading to this Shared Folder, it happens to the folder itself. That means if you delete the Postcard back, it is gone for everyone! So just remember for the sake of these Shared items you only need to do the next step and that is download. 

CLICK once on the item you want to download until it is blue

NOTICE when you highlighted the item you wanted, the Blue Bar now has the words

The name of the item highlighted, Share link, Download, Delete (EEP), Rename, Move, More

Please only click Download from here! 

NOW if you want to learn a bit more about Dropbox continue reading, if not, THANK YOU for taking a moment to read how to access this wonderful information!

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OK so You want to share a Folder, Create a Folder, and Upload to your Created Folder!

Let's Create a Folder

Click on + New Folder, second icon above the blue bar

You will see that it Automatically opens a white box to name your Folder

I named mine My Stuff

Let's add some items in our folder so double click over the folder you want to add information to.

This is empty so we need to add some stuff

Click on the First button above the Blue Bar that has a blue arrow pointing up UPLOAD

This new box above opens and you locate files the way that you normally would on an upload.

____________________________________________________________________________

So you have these folders and now you need to share one with someone!!  

Over here to this side see Sharing and a rainbow? CLICK IT

NOW YOURS above will be blank, but because I share Folders with you all you can see mine.

What do you do if you don't have any to share yet? See that BLUE box upper right hand and it has a little smiley in it. New Shared Folder - CLICK that and then this pops up!

You have 2 options here one is the top and it is I'd like to create and share a new folder

Under is a white box to name your folder

I named mine, I want to share this folder - Click Next

Here you type in the email address of the person you want to share it with, OR if you had already shared with people, your preferred list of names will pop up by name and by email address.

Then Click Share Folder - 

NOW because you created a new Folder there is NO information in it. You will have to go back into the Dropbox folder and add information as we showed previously.

OPTION Two - I'd like to share an existing folder. Click Next

Here you have all your folders as an option for sharing. 

Click it once to highlight it and Click Next.

And here we are adding the address of the person we would like to share with!

NOW REMEMBER anything you put in a shared folder is able to be seen, removed, and downloaded with the person/people you share it with! 

________________________________________________________________________________

NOW you want to share one image and not an entire folder... 

SO go to one of your items in a folder and highlight it.

You have 4 options here for sharing

Email

Facebook

Twitter

Or Copy Link 

First let's type in the Email Address of the one you want to share the image with

Second - Let's Copy Link to this Page 

this automatically performs (Control C on a PC or Command C on a Mac) to your clipboard.

All you have to do is go to the area you want to paste the link to someone, I will choose Facebook

OH LOOK! It's our Founder Morgan!! HEY MORGAN!

Just hit Control V on a PC or Command and V on a MAC

As you can see the link is in the Text box to Morgan and I can see the image I am trying to send as a preview

Let's go back and see Facebook and Twitter as options to share

WELL that about wraps it up for now.... We will be happy to help you in any way that we can and we hope that this TUT helps you feel more comfortable with DropBox

THANK YOU TGHP - Admins

Create a Form For Blogger Using Google Docs

Hey Gang,

Sometimes it is said that the more you pay for something the more you get. While sometimes that is true, however, in the world of websites and blogging you have to find ways around and makes things work. There are some really exciting technologies out there for forms, but for those who are starting out and need to work on a tighter budget, or even for those who want to keep funneling more of their business funds into other areas of their business, this is a great option, in this blogger/photographers opinion. So here we go!

So it was asked in one of my Photography groups, "Is it possible for clients to email/contact you straight through your website if you use blogger but have a domain name?" Thank you Jessica Burns :D

The Answer is yes, and you don't even HAVE to have a domain name, how great is that? A quick note here, in doing this I will also show you how you can create other types of forms and questionnaires (like Family Questionnaire's, Senior Questionnaire's) and use them right on your Bloggity Blog, Blogger Style!

Go to http://docs.google.com


Log in with your Blogger Username and Password

Left Side of Page Drop down box Click on Create Then... CREATE FORM

NAME YOUR FORM

TYPE IN QUESTION ONE 

ON THE QUESTION TYPE DROP DOWN BOX NOTICE YOUR OPTIONS (you can use text, paragraph text, multiple choice, check boxes, choose from a list, scale, or grid. These will come in handy when creating forms like Questionnaires for Pre-Consultation, Seniors, even Weddings.)

MAKE SURE THAT WHEN YOU TYPE IN YOUR QUESTION YOU ALSO CHECK THE MAKE THIS A REQUIRED QUESTION BOX BEFORE HITTING DONE

Repeat this process with Sample Question 2 (hover over it and to the right you will see a pencil to EDIT) 

Once you repeat this process with Sample Question 2, you will notice there are no other obvious options for more questions.....

In the Upper Left Hand Corner under the +Add Item Drop down box you will see your options for Question Types (here I chose Paragraph Text)

Here you can add text like (If you would like to book a session or have any questions please respond here ) in the Question Title 

MAKE SURE THAT WHEN YOU TYPE IN YOUR QUESTION YOU ALSO CHECK THE MAKE THIS A REQUIRED QUESTION BOX BEFORE HITTING DONE

Here is what it will look like at this point

In the Picture just above this and all the others, you will notice at the bottom of your page a BLACK bar with a "You can view this published form here and a link" If you click that link a new tab opens (don't worry you won't lose your work) and you will see what it will appear like on your Blogger page! COOL HUH?

Go back to the Other tab where your work space is.... Do you see Next to the +Add Items button is button that says Theme: Plain if you click that you will see the below images

If you click on any of these images (CLICK ON the image itself not the name under the image)

 It will take you from plain like above to this

ok SORRY for side-tracked  just don't want you to miss any steps and have to start over if you want it "pretty or funky"

Now we are here again...

On the Right is a Button that says See Responses (click this to reveal Dropdown box) Click SPREADSHEET                             A new Tab opens up!!! 

Click on TOOLS -----> Notification RULES

Check boxes for A USER SUBMITS A FORM and EMAIL - RIGHT AWAY (Or once a daily if you prefer) Check Save and then Done

CLOSE that Spreadsheet tab and go back to your Form tab. In the Upper Right hand corner you will see a button More Actions - Dropdown box to Embed

COPY this EMBED link (this is what links your form to your Email)

Go to Your Blogger  and Go to Add new Blank Page

NOW KEY PART Make SURE you are on HTML and NOT COMPOSE

COMPOSE

HTML - SEE HOW DIFFERENT THE INFORMATION BAR IS?
PASTE your EMBED information into your HTML page

To check it Click on Compose and you will see your Contact Form or Whatever form you created
Now Name your Page - Save and Publish

You will see your New Page appear wherever your pages are listed, mine happen to be under my header

Let's Test it

OK Let's go to email and see what we have

Click the link provided in the email (if you choose to be notified every time you will get a notification PER instance but if you click on the most recent email and go to that link you will see all the previous contacts)

IF you click the View Full Spreadsheet next to Highlighted, there are tons of things like email the spreadsheet, adjust it...all kinds of things to do!!!



So that's it for this part of the tutorial, there are a pretty endless amount of things you can do with these contact sheets. I will prep a new Step by Step on Questionnaires and Online Forms.




Thank you and I hope this helps

Until We Click Again,
~Alisha