Used 

1264 creative works found

• 

  Seldom used road
  by signore

  Fine Art photography. / Photo manipulation. / By Gina Signore / Dahlia House Studios. / Michigan Autumn Road.

• 

  Homestead
  by Naomi Frost

  ISO200 / f/8 / 5.0sec exposure / R72 Filter / Shutter Release / Broken Tripod / / Processed in The Lightroom and Photoshop Elements 0.4 / Location: Tumut, NSW, Australia. / My Husband’s Great Grandparents Homestead / / I wanted this one to have an “old’ feel to it, considering the home was built in the 1920’s.

• 

  Sunny 16 Rule - White
  by Alessandro Arcidiacono

  The useful Sunny 16 rule always with you! Version printed in black:

• 

  Id
  by Shawn Coss

  As a once psychology major, I was intrigued by Freud’s theory on the id and ego of the human psyche. It has been many years since those classes so my words may be somewhat off. But this piece is a self representation (aren’t they all?) of myself and how the “id” and “ego” play in our life decisions. We all seek pleasure and that constant feeling of euphoria, and our “id”’s only goal is to achieve those feelings without worry or care about the consequences of such actions. It is our “ego” that keeps the “id” in line, allowing us to think before we act, and to be able to foresee what may come of this pleasure seeking. It is a constant battle that wages on beneath our skin and sometimes the “id” overcomes. Some choose to live only by the “id”s bidding and never realize the destruction they leave behind when seeking their pleasures. I have been through that lifestyle once, and as much as I enjoyed such pleasures in bountiful amounts….the aftershock of those actions can still be felt today.

• 

  No more stupid shirts
  by mrsize

  No time ? no problem ! this shirt is for you

• 

  She Used To Believe In Romance...
  by myoriginalsin

  I know this is a little different for me but flowers were my first love… ..::Stock Photo Credit::.. / Flower – my own / Butteflies If you like this, please check out: / / /

• The Easy Guide to Creating the Orton Effect using Photoshop - UPDATED
  by Peter Hill

  The aim of this Guide is to provide easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions to achieving the Orton Effect without the necessity of bei…

  The aim of this Guide is to provide easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions to achieving the Orton Effect without the necessity of being a Photoshop guru. I still call myself “new to Photoshop” and I have found a lot of tutorials on this topic assume a much higher level of knowledge than I have and are not very intuitive. I have revised the Tutorial to show a shortcut to the 2 Blending Option steps, which I only found myself after posting the original tutorial (doh), but I have left the long way as well, as you may wish to play around with the default settings applied by the short way. To achieve the Orton Effect you will be creating Layers, but don’t worry if you haven’t done this before. I hadn’t. The method I am about to describe is the simplest I have found. It’s not my method, but the description is all mine. When I have more time (yeh, right) I will revise this tutorial to include screenshots of the various steps. But for now, you might like to print this Guide and have it next to you while you create your first Orton Effect. I use Photoshop CS2 v9. The method described below originally came from someone using Photoshop Elements, so you can see this is not advanced stuff. The steps described below assume almost zero knowledge of Layering, and ignore other adjustments you might be making to the image, for example Sharpening the image before you start work on it (recommended). Step 1 Choose your image. Any image will do, you are just learning at this stage, but if you have that favourite flower shot or portrait – cool. Step 2 Open Photoshop. Open the image you have selected to be your first amazing Orton Effect image. Feel the excitement. This is your Background Layer. Step 3 Look for the Layer toolbox on the right hand side of the Photoshop work area. There should be a rectangular box with a small eye icon, a tiny thumbnail version of your image, and the word Background in italics. Right-click the word Background and select Duplicate Layer. A small box should immediately appear in the middle of your screen. It is asking you to Name the Duplicate Layer. Name this Layer Focus and click Enter. (Note: It doesn’t really matter what you name it, but Focus will do for our current purpose.) Step 4 There should now be a new rectangular box immediately above the original, and called Focus. (If there isn’t, stop, curse quietly, then try Step 3 again.) Pause now and look at the tiny eye icon. You will see that it is now the Focus layer on your screen, so this is the “copy” you are working on. OK, moving on ….. Right-click the Focus rectangular box and select Duplicate Layer again. This time when the naming box appears just click Enter because we will use the default name for this Layer, being Focus copy. Step 5 OK, now we are going to blend the Focus copy. There are 2 ways to do this – the long way and the short way. I will show you the long way first, just in case you want to go back and play with it after you get familiar with the process. Long way – Right-click the Focus copy rectangular box and select Blending Options. This will open a new box with lots of options. Ignore them for now. In the top part of this box you will find a window showing the Blending Mode and the default setting of Normal with a pull-down menu (A downwards arrow). Open the menu (left-click) and select Screen. Click Enter to close the box. OR Short way – look at the window which shows your layers. See the drop down menu at the top left, showing Normal as the default? Scroll down the menu and select Screen. The Focus copy layer should now have a bit of a washed-out look to it as a result of selecting Screen as the Blending Mode. (I have found that if the Screen effect still leaves a fairly good image, the Orton Effect will be enhanced. Too washed out and the Effect is diminished.) Step 6 Right-click the Focus copy rectangular box again, only this time select Merge Down (it’s near the bottom of the menu). This will collapse the Focus copy layer onto the Focus layer. Step 7 Right-click the Focus rectangular box again and select Duplicate Layer again. Name this copy Blur. Click Enter to close the box. Step 8 Now, find and open the Filter menu on the Tool bar running across the top of your screen. Select Blur. Another menu should open. Select Gaussian Blur (don’t ask). A new window should open. You will see a Preview of the image with a default blur Radius setting of 15.9. You can play around with the radius later. For now, just click OK to close the window as we will accept the 15.9 (I have found 15.9 to be right for most images anyway). The blur you are to achieve with this step should be enough to discern the shapes without the detail. Step 9 – The Magic Happens! This is the fun part. We now make one more blending option. Again, here’s the long way and the short way. Long way – Right-click the Blur rectangular box and select Blending Options. As described in Step 5, this will open a new box with lots of options. Again, ignore them for now. In the top part of this box you will find a window showing the Blending Mode and the default setting of Normal with a pull-down menu (A downwards arrow). Open the menu (left-click) again and this time select Multiply. Click Enter to close the box. OR Short way – Click on the same drop down menu you used to create the Screen effect, only this time select Multiply. You should now be able to see the Orton Effect! Step 10 If you want to accept the result, right-click the Blur rectangular box one more time and this time select Flatten Image (it’s the last option on the menu). This basically collapses all the layers into one final image and is the last thing you do in Layering. You can now save the image as normal. Does it look something like this? If it looks too dark though, you can adjust the Opacity level with the sliding bar before flattening the image. Look for the tiny Opacity tool in the top right of the Layering toolbox. But if you find you need to go below 90% the Effect is significantly lost and maybe it wasn’t the right image. Another option is to adjust the Fill and leave the Opacity at 100%. Have fun! I am. Peter

• TUTORIAL:Add a Slide show to your Redbubble Profile/Bubblesite
  by D R Moore

  Adding a slide show to redbubble Ok not really a slide show but it is very close, It’s an animated gif image. / You can see one ”...

  Adding a slide show to redbubble Ok not really a slide show but it is very close, It’s an animated gif image. / You can see one My Bubblesite These images can also be linked / Doing this will require you to have software that can make an animated gif image. / And of coarse I know of a free software program that can be used and this tutorial will explain how to do this using this free software. The free software is called / unfreeze and you can Get it here / Once downloaded and installed on your / computer we are ready to go. The first step is to get the images you want to include in your slide show, I am going to use my redbubble images set in frames for my bubblesite homepage. Sign-in to your redbubble account Click “My Bubble” then “Art” find the image you want to include and click the “show public view” Now click the “buy/preview” button / Select the product format you want to use Card, Laminated print, etc.. Then save the image to your computer. Internet Explorer users “Right Click” the image and select “Save Picture As” / Firefox users “Right Click” and select “Save image as” / And choose a location on your PC where you can find it easily. / You can use as many images as you want, but remember you want them to visit your gallery so keep the number of images to a minimum. / I’m going to use 8 images for now. / You can re size your images if you like the Unfreeze software will resize your images to fit in a 375 pixels(high) X 360 pixels(wide) box but the software will not center the image. For those that want their images centered in the box, Use your photo software to edit the images / The software program (unfreeze) that I recommended above requires the images to be in gif format. Doing this in your photo software may be different than mine. But I will open the image in my photo software “Paint.net” and then click the “Save as” option and change the format (type) to gif ( Graphics Interchange Format).They will be saved in the same folder that I put the ones I downloaded from the bubble. Once the images are in the gif format. We are ready to create the animated gif (slideshow) Open the folder where your gif images are located Start “unfreeze” a small window will appear / Drag your images into the white window Then set the delay on the right, I used 60, Make sure the “Loop animation” box is checked Now click the “Make Animated Gif” button Give it a name and Click “Save” To make the images change slower add more than one of the same file The image that I created here was made using three copies of the same image,delay set to 90 / Example: drag and drop “image1.gif”,then do it again drag and drop “image1.gif “ This one has four of the same images and delay set to 60 Now the image can be uploaded to a web site, since Redbubble does not support this file type. You can use “Dropbox” / which is a free file store, share, sync software Get it Here it allows you to have 2 gig of file storage for free. Plus when I change the slide show gif I just created dropbox will take care of the rest. / So changing my slide show is as easy as making a new one and saving it using the same location and name on my pc as the one I’m using now. / Now Insert the new image on your bubblesite or profile / Use the image location (web address,web url) with a ! before and after the image location / For more on Linking images etc. see this post How to Customize Redbubble / And your done. / You can also include these in your description boxes these have been reduced in size A great way to promote your calendars on your bubblesite remember these images can be linked to the buy page. / Happy Bubbling / Dan / Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More © D R Moore This written work cannot be reproduced or posted on the web without my written permission

• TUTORIALS:Bling Bling for bubbling
  by D R Moore

  Here is the Table of Contents for my How-to’s on Customizing your redbubble profile and bubblesite. / redbubble does not allow you to post…

  Here is the Table of Contents for my How-to’s on Customizing your redbubble profile and bubblesite. / redbubble does not allow you to post “HTML” (webcode) but here are ways to add things and get the custom look to make your profile stand out from the rest… Working with text [Formatting] / The basics of formatting text More…... redbubble Formatting [Text wrapping images] / Learn how to use tables to text wrap your images, align text / and more… Creating Links Etc…on redbubble / The basics of creating clickable text and images post them on your profile, in forums or on your bubblesite Adding Calendars to your bubblesite / Here is a way to add a calendar to your bubblesite with a link to the buy page Using Small Product Previews Quick (Redbubble) Search Bookmarklet Repeat post Time Saver Framed image on Bubblesite home page feedjit Live Traffic Feed Edit your Slideshow widget. Edit your Sales Widget… Using promotional image Banner Using tags on Redbubble Using a Paypal button on redbubble Add a Slide show to your Redbubble Profile/Bubblesite Visitor counter on your bubblesite or profile page Mapco visitor counter on your profile/bubblesite Redbubble toolbar / Host or Co-Host Tutorials Featuring the easy way Need more Help? / Chat with me on Skype User Name / envelope150 Happy Bubbling (with Bling Bling) / Dan

• TUTORIAL:Creating Links Etc...on redbubble
  by D R Moore

  Creating Text Links / To make your text clickable or link to a web address / Put quotation symbols ” ” on each side of the word/sentence …

  Creating Text Links / To make your text clickable or link to a web address / Put quotation symbols ” ” on each side of the word/sentence you want to make Clickable and then a Colon : (no spaces), Now put the url (web address) of where you want the clicker to go. / EXAMPLE: "View My Gallery":http//example.redbubble.com / Will give you this View My Gallery / You can also make a Text box appear when hovering over the link by adding text in brackets / Like this "View My Gallery(Go to My Gallery)":http//example.redbubble.com / The text above in ( ) will appear in a box if someone hovers over the link / Like this ( put your mouse over the link but do not click it ) / View My Gallery / To use formatting with your text link. Add a space between the formatting symbols and the “ / EXAMPLE: "Space*View My Gallery*space":http//example.redbubble.com / will give you this / View My Gallery Using images in your descriptions ,profile page,etc / First you must know where the image is located (web address) / Example: http://www.mypicture is here.jpg / To use a framed, laminated print, card etc.. image from redbubble click the “show public view” in your “Art” section / / then click the “Buy/Preview” Button / / Set the image as you wish to use it, Card, Framed print etc…once you are done follow the instructions below to get the web address If using firefox simply right click the image and select “copy image location” Using Internet explorer right click the image then select “Properties” A Properties box will appear copy the Address(URL) High lighted in blue / “right click” the Highlighted text then choose “copy” / or once it is highlighted hold the “control(CTRL)” key and press “C” You can now paste the image location in the location where you want to use it (right click and select “paste” or hold the Control key and press “V” on your key board) Now put a ! before an after the image location like this !http://www.mypicture is here.jpg! / To make it clickable or linked add the colon : and web address after the ! / like this :http://www.your going here.com / The final entry Will look like below / !http://www.mypicture is here.jpg!:http://www.your going here.com / The text box mentioned above can be used here as well by adding your text in ( ) / Like This !http://www.mypicture is here.jpg(Have a Look)!:http://www.your going here.com / Will give you this ( Put your mouse over image but do not click to see ) / Using Just the Image / To use only the image go to you art section by clicking “My Bubble” then “art” / on you art page find the image you want to use and get the image address or URL as described above / EXAMPLE http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/cropped/size:xsmall/view:main/2903258-2-magnolia.jpg = !http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/cropped/size:xsmall/view:main/2903258-2-magnolia.jpg! To change the size of the image replace the size:xsmall to one of the values shown on the right. / (Click the links for a preview of the size cropped version ) / xsmall = 60px × 60px / small = 135px × 135px / xmedium = 200px × 200px / medium = 300px × 300px / large = 550px × 550px / xlarge = 663px × 663px watermarked to use this one you need to remove the /cropped from the image URL Cropped Version / / Not Cropped / You can also remove cropped/ from the image address to maintain the shape of your image. / Note the sizes may vary depending on your image shape. / Here is a good example why you may want to remove the cropped/ from the image / Notice the cropped version cuts off the cards in his hands but doing this has changed the thumbnail size. To create a Larger preview link use some text or an image and link it to the xlarge view. / Here is an Image Example be sure to remove the /cropped from the xlarge view How it works The text I used !http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/cropped/size:xsmall/view:main/2412521-3-pink-rose.jpg(View Larger image)!:http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/size:xlarge/view:main/2412521-3-pink-rose.jpg To create a large product preview add /pixelsize:875×440 as shown below / Click here to see BEFORE and AFTER EXAMPLE (laminated print) URL: http://images-3.redbubble.net/img/art/backgroundcolor:d1d1d1/border:whitewithdetail/pixelsize:875×440/product:laminated-print/size:large/view:preview/2099882-6-resting.jpg / Click Here to preview larger size / Use youtube video on your profile just use the simple code below / youtube:video url or web address of the video Create a contact link or e-mail me link / Example: "contact me":mailto:myname@myemailaddress.com / Your bubblesite has a contact option, to turn it on / Go to your profile edit page Click here / then scroll down to the e-mail section / and click the box next to / Allow people to contact me via email / Allows visitors to contact you with a form on your BubbleSite. Your email address will not be displayed After you click it you can go to your bubblesite and on the top where the links are you will see these links / Home Gallery About Contact / Clicking the Contact link will open a new window with the Contact form / If you want to use it on redbubble then use the code below. / but change the username to yours / "Contact me by E-Mail":http://username.redbubble.com/contact / Contact me by E-Mail Leave me a comment if you still need some Help or Chat with me on Skype My User Name / envelope150 To use a Skype live status link copy and paste this text and change the username in bold / Leave two blank lines before and after the code |Chat with me on Skype| / |!http://mystatus.skype.com/balloon/username.png!|My User Name / username| Once you get the hang of creating links and posting images give my other tutorial a try. More…… redbubble Formatting [Text wrapping images] Beware this one will frustrate you Happy Bubbling / Dan Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more Toolbar info See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More © D R Moore This written work cannot be reproduced or posted on the web without my written permission

• Widgets, Toolz & Web'y Goodies You CAN Use IN Redbubble!
  by webgrrl

  As we have already noticed, Redbubble dont speak the same lingo, as in, it doesnt use HTML or CSS etc, which means; we cannot use a lot…

  As we have already noticed, Redbubble dont speak the same lingo, as in, it doesnt use HTML or CSS etc, which means; we cannot use a lot of the widgets, scripts and all dem goodies out there in here. Which is ok, but sometimes i found that i wanted to promote about my other sites/projects here in my profile.. but couldnt.. till now :) / (well, I figured it out now..prob been able to for ages already..hehe) As you that may have read my previous post, i discovered more of Feedburner goodies recently. In that discovery i found a Widget that can animate your RSS feed – that doesnt use html or scripts, which means we can use it in here! I utilized the RSS Animated widget in two ways : First, i’ve been wanting to bring my journal post entry titles further UP in my profile, but cuz ive got a pretty jam packed profile on the left hand side..it forces the Journal Entries way down to the bottom end, and i dont know if people scroll that far down! LOL! So with animated rss widget from Feedburner (i chose the Email option/display) I can now place (like below for example) in the higher end of my profile, where it will ‘flash’ the most recent post (utilizing my rb journal rss feed), Hopefully giving it more attention.. the second way i used it.. / is to take the half banner size option on white background of the same Animated Widget – with feeds from my two sites, Artdictive and Webgrrl’shop – flashing the most recent posts there.. / WANT TO MAKE A QUICK ANIMATION OF YOUR ART * / for display purposes like the moving images below ? / Go to PICASION where you can Create Animated GIF online for free! Upload your pictures or grab them from Flickr or Picasa Web, make avatars or funny animations and post it to MySpace, LiveJournal, Facebook or Redubble. No need for Flash FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO SEE STATS / At the bottom of my profile you should be able to see LIVE STATS, free service by FEEDJIT . Make sure you get the Run-Anywhere Widget (link takes you directly there) Usually they all are scripts, but this one is not and i’ve been quite happy using Feedjit services on most of my blogs for free interesting stats. See how it all looks at my profile (clickty click) Have you found tools and toys you can use in Redbubble?*

• TUTORIAL: More...... redbubble Formatting [Text wrapping images]
  by D R Moore

  This how-to will briefly explain a method of using tables on redbubble to Create sets, Text aligning, Text wrapping in Descriptions,Journ…

  This how-to will briefly explain a method of using tables on redbubble to Create sets, Text aligning, Text wrapping in Descriptions,Journals and profiles. There must be 2 blank lines between the table and other text (Press Enter two times before and after the table) To make a table insert a “|” (vertical bar) between the items to be contained in the cells. / The Examples provided below in BOLD can be copied and pasted. Then just replace the text with your links, images, text or whatever you wish. / For the basic text wrapped image use. / |text|image| / To put the title above the image use below / In order to keep a blank cell I will use   Text wrap an image | |Title w/ link| / |Description|Image w/ link| Preview Click Image to Preview it on my Bubblesite The Cattle Egrets is a popular bird with cattle ranchers for its perceived role as a bio control of cattle parasites such as ticks and flies. A study in Australia found that Cattle Egrets reduced the number of flies that bothered cattle by pecking them directly off the skin. It was the benefit to stock that prompted ranchers and the Hawaiian Board of Agriculture and Forestry to release the species in Hawaii Profile set w/ title or tag link / This also can be used in a Journal entry / For titles above the image use the table below / Note I used 6 size:xsmall images/ use size:small to match the ones already on your profile |”View my Set title or tag link”| |Title1 w/link|Title2 w/link|Title3 w/link|Title4 w/link|Title5 w/link|Title6 w/link| / |image1 w/link|image2 w/link|image3 w/link|image4 w/link|image5 w/link|image6 w/link| It will look like below or you can change the two lines and have the titles on the bottom. |image1 w/link|image2 w/link|image3 w/link|image4 w/link|image5 w/link|image6 w/link| / |Title1 w/link|Title2 w/link|Title3 w/link|Title4 w/link|Title5 w/link|Title6 w/link| View all images in My Bird Collection Screech Owl Missed a Spot Osprey II White Pelican My Girl Preening Flamingo Notice that several of my images have long titles that extend past the Xsmall image / One fix for this would be to press enter after the first word Example: |Title1 w/link|Preening / Flamingo| / |image1 w/link|image2 w/link| Preview My Girl Preening / Flamingo or Put the second word at the bottom / In order to keep a blank cell I will use   Example: \ |Title1 w/link|Preening| / |image1 w/link|image2 w/link| / | |Flamingo| Preview My Girl Preening Flamingo Looks great on your profile |image1 w/link|image2 w/link|image3 w/link| / |Title1 w/link|Title2 w/link|Title3 w/link| / Preview Jupiter Lighthouse Free Poker Lessons Missed a Spot No go forth and create that great description that really stands out more than the rest See this description on my Profile , Bubblesite This is a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird / Which is in the bird family Trochilidae, and are endemic to the Americas. They can fly backwards, and are the only group of birds able to do so. Their English name derives from the characteristic hum made by their wings.Which they can do up to 53 times a second. The extremely short legs of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird prevent it from walking or hopping. The best it can do is shuffle along a perch. To scratch its head and neck it raises its foot up and over its wing. Happy Bubbling / Dan See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info Chat with me on Skype User Name / envelope150 © D R Moore This written work cannot be reproduced or posted on the web without my written permission /

• 

  she used to dream in bleu prussien...
  by mimi yoon

  she used to dream in bleu prussien / the color of spanish sky at night he used to dream in ombre / honey and maple syrup / they are the colors of her eyes / where he’s once drowned she knows this / because she’s held him once that is… / in her eyes . o2.18.2oo9 / colored pencil (prismacolor) / in/on moleskine® / digital (leaf and shadows) .

• 

  The future's a concept we use to avoid being alive today
  by onetonshadow

  Eurostar, Brussels Central Station, Belgium Untouched Medium Format scan Part 3 in a series

• (Host Tutorial) Featuring the easy way
  by D R Moore

  If you are tired of rummaging through countless pages trying to feature a group member or an image that won a challenge and have so many …

  If you are tired of rummaging through countless pages trying to feature a group member or an image that won a challenge and have so many more pages to go and your mouse hand is cramped. Try this method. NOTE: This only works for groups that you Host / Co-Host / Also be careful in doing this as it will have the reverse effect on a featured image. / It will remove it from the featured section if it is already featured. / Be sure to visit the groups “overview” page to make sure your handy work has included all the images you wanted to feature. To feature Challenge Images / 1.On your groups “overview” page there is a link to your “featured work” section right click the link and select (with Firefox)”copy link location” (with internet explorer “copy shortcut”) / Now you are ready to feature some images the easy way / 2.Go to the challenge page that shows the awesome challenge winners that are about to be featured and while holding the control (CTRL) key left click the lucky images doing this will open them in new tabs in your web browser / 3.Now the fun part Clicking one of the new tabs that were opened will take you to the image page drop a comment if you like while you are there. To feature it in the address bar highlight the web address all the way to the word “art” then press and hold the control (CTRL) key press “V” to paste the address you copied in step 1 / or you can right click the Highlighted text and select ‘paste’ from the pop up menu. / Here is an example / Original address (the part in bold will be replaced) / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/art/2934496-2-egret-dock / Now the new address to feature this image would be / http://www.redbubble.com/groups/groupnamehere/featured_works/2934496-2-egret-dock / 4. Now just press enter (or click GO). / 5. Click the “feature” button on the confirmation page and your done. / You can close the tab and move on to the next one. / This also works for T-shirts / Example address (the part in bold will be replaced) / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/t-shirts/2478267-4-original-mobil-phone Feature a Group Member / To feature a group member go to their public profile page and click the “send bubblemail” link and in the address bar there is a number that you will need to feature the group member. / Example: The number below in bold is my number / http://www.redbubble.com/mybubble/conversations/new?recipient_id=14964058&return_to=%2Fpeople%2FEnvelope150 / Highlight and copy the members number / Go to the featured members link on the groups page / EXAMPLE: http://www.redbubble.com/groups/groupname/featured_users / and add the copied number at the end of the address in the address bar / Like this / http://www.redbubble.com/groups/groupname/featured_users/14964058 / Press enter and presto a featured member. Featuring Writings and Journals / also works by going to the members writing or journal page and clicking the work to feature and pasting the address like we did above. / Examples:replace the part in bold / Writing / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/writing/3092254-feature-me / Journal / http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/3092254-feature-me Happy Bubbling (Happy Featuring) / Dan Need More Help? / Chat with me on Skype User Name / envelope150 Get the Firefox and Internet Explorer Tool bar for Redbubble Here / See more info See all my How-to’s Here Includes “Framed image on Bubblesite home page”, “Adding Calendars to your bubblesite”, “feedjit Live Traffic Feed”, “Using tags on Redbubble”, “Add a visitor counter to your bubblesite or profile page” and More Please don’t Copy and paste this written work as that would really hurt my feelings :) / you can copy the code below and paste it if you would like to share with others on Redbubble "Featuring the easy way(Host Tutorial)":http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/2948588-host-tutorial-featuring-the-easy-way / or to share on the web / <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/envelope150/journal/2948588-host-tutorial-featuring-the-easy-way" title="Host Tutorial">Featuring the easy way</a> / or / /

• Sixteen Ways to Increase Your Sales
  by Stephen Mitchell

  I’ve seen so many people still asking why they’ve still not sold any artwork on Redbubble! So I’ve compiled all my enterprising, marketin…

  I’ve seen so many people still asking why they’ve still not sold any artwork on Redbubble! So I’ve compiled all my enterprising, marketing, sales and money-based articles written over the last two years. I really REALLY hope you enjoy reading and applying them into your sales-campaign. First, let’s take a look at you, the artist within. Wait, that sounds like the first article… 01. Defining the Artist Within / 02. I Have a Special Condition! / 03. Keep that Entrepreneurial Spirit Alive / 04. Two Crafty Ways to Become a High Profile Photographer / 05. Playing the Popularity Game Without Caring if You Win or Lose / 06. What Makes You Think Your Art is Good Enough? Here is the guts of this article, the really in-depth stuff that should help understand how to better use Redbubble in your venture to either make money or make a name for yourself: 07. Are You Selling More Artwork ? / 08. Helping YOU Make a Profit on Redbubble ! / 09. Pleasure from Profit from Pleasure / 10. Quality Marketing Equals Sales / 11. Selling Your Art Successfully / 12. Sell, Give, Donate and Use Your Skills / 13. My Marketing Strategy / 14. How to Sell Anything / 15. Selling My Artwork At Amended Prices / 16. Twelve Months on Redbubble The trick is to read each article, and then ask yourself: ‘How does this apply to my situation?’. I’m very sure you’ll find a way to incorporate the ideas I’ve used here to improve your situation and increase your sales! I look forward to hearing how much more sales you make over the next few months!! EDIT [11:32 PM 15/05/2009] / Some of you will now want to run an exhibition, gallery or stall of your artwork. For that I have compiled another list of links that should help you! / ... Running Sheet for Exhibitions Since this is my article, I have to get a few shameless-plugs in here somewhere. I have T-shirts for sale that will get you noticed! / ... Your Name on a PHOTOGRAPHER Shirt / ... Photographer Shirts / ... Redbubble Shirts for Artists, Writers and Photographers Postscript / I started writing simple tips that any Redbubble Artist could use. I don’t write them so much any more, but I keep them here for my own reminder. I hope you enjoy these two that relate to this post enormously: / ... Tip #001 / ... Tip #004

• 

  Still Useful
  by Lois Bryan

  Winner of the “Cottage Bicycles” challenge in Cottage Style Group October 15, 2009. / Featured in The Keystone State September 16, 2009. / Third Place in the “Your Best Shot” challenge in The Keystone State – Pennsylvania group September 14, 2009. / Featured in Old Things – 2 Per Day September 15, 2009. / Featured in Cottage Style September 9, 2009. / Top Ten in the “Bicycles” challenge in Happy Haven August 28, 2009. / Featured in Cottage Style July 29, 2009. / Featured in Nikon D40 (x) Users June 22, 2009. / Featured in Nostalgic Art and Photography May 19, 2009. / Featured in First Things May 16, 2009. / Featured in A Beautiful Blur May 15, 2009. Best Viewed Full Size I discovered this wonderful antique bike at the Juniata Crossing Mercantile on Route 30, near Breezewood PA on May 10, 2009, and couldn’t resist the image. Used the Nikon D40x and the 18-200mm vr Nikon lens, cp filter was probably still on. Post processing included a trip to Photoshop for removal of distractions, then to Photomatix for hdr (hand held camera, single image +/-2), then back to Photoshop for a light Orton and other final tweaking.

• Using Twitter to Sell Your Art and Your Story
  by selling

  Twitter.com is mainstream due to exposure from Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, and a number of other high-profile…

  Twitter.com is mainstream due to exposure from Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, and a number of other high-profile players. The now debunked rumor (in the U.S.) was that a Twitter television show (that box people watched before the Internet) was in the works. A quick, boring background: Twitter is a self-described “service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” (in 140 characters or less) The full story is on Wikipedia (where everything is true). While there are no rules for using Twitter effectively, there are strategies and tactics that work better for selling art online. To see Rule #1 for using Twitter for purely marketing and PR (public relations) purposes, click here now. Despite the above guidance, there are no shortage of opinions about how to use Twitter for marketing and PR … 629,000 at last count. So, if Twitter isn’t a marketing and PR tool, “What is it good for aside from announcing that awesome breakfast?” At its core, Twitter is a messaging system and relationship building tool. In aggregate, your Tweets should give people more information about you, your artwork, and your creative process. You can use Twitter to engage followers in a discussion about [your] art. Here is my shortlist of tips for using Twitter to further your artistic bone fides. Please feel free to add your tips and tricks in the comments area below. If you want to be effective using Twitter to promote and sell your art: DO / - Use search.twitter.com (also see Twitter Advanced Search) to find and follow people interested in art, t-shirts, design, interior design, office management (these folks buy office art), etc. Essentially anyone with an interest in creativity. - Use Twitter to alert followers about: + Your progress about a current project or series. Use a RedBubble Journal article, Twitpic.com or another service to post works in progress; people love to see work in a fluid state. You can engage and pre-sell people on the design, solicit feedback, etc. + Tell people the beginnings of “the story behind a work.” Continue the story on your RedBubble Profile Page or on the ‘Show Work’ or ‘Configure Page.’ Note: The one thing that most Twitterers are lacking is great content; content is the most expensive tool in a Twitter toolbox. The good news is that you already have this content in your RedBubble Profile and/or Bubblesite. + Link to relevant content such as a RedBubble Journal Post or an article by an industry thought leader. Use TinyURL.com, Bit.ly or another free service to shorten your links. + Announce the addition of new work to your RedBubble profile. + Announce a promotion, e.g., a short-term reduction of your royalty, or a RedBubble-sponsored promotion. Always announce the promotion with a deadline. You can send one reminder when you’re 24-36 hours away from the end. That’s all though; no Tweet spamming. + Live ‘tweet’ an event. For example, every gallery in my hometown opens its doors on the Second Saturday of each month. Restaurants, musicians and street vendors also use the event to gain exposure. Twitpic, post to a RedBubble journal article, or simply tweet the goings-on – show your work, other work, action, etc. Give context to your work and your story. DON’T, if you want to use Twitter effectively for selling art … - Don’t use Twitter to announce what you had for breakfast. - A lot of people are voyeurs, but you’re looking for action, so create a call to action. E.g., use verbs like “see, click, view, read, try …” - Be ultra-efficient with your words. Get the point across and add a link if needed. A preamble isn’t needed for a Tweet. - Don’t use Twitter as your soapbox for negativity. On Twitter, no one can see you; they just hear you. If your language is ugly, well … EXTRAS You can customize your Twitter background to include pictures of your art and design, as well as your RedBubble URLs, a personal website address, phone number, or some context about you and your work. Remember to keep it simple. Note that I didn’t tell you that it’s imperative to use Twitter. Twitter isn’t for everyone. It’s an exercise in dedication, efficient use of words, and restraint; verbal diarrhea is not recommended nor effective. Please add your commentary, ideas, etc. below. Regards, / Jason, aka Jersey2J and 50Champ

• Using Art Subjects to Target Shoppers
  by selling

  Let’s look at the subjects that people favor when purchasing art. By extension and personal experience, these are big buckets that are se…

  Let’s look at the subjects that people favor when purchasing art. By extension and personal experience, these are big buckets that are searched for often, but are hard to win through search engine optimization and expensive to buy through pay-per-click advertising. In a survey of 2,000-plus art buyers ages 18 to 65 (selected based on their previous purchase of art), shoppers aged 45 and above favored landscapes, flowers and gardens, and country traditional themes more than those who are younger. Shoppers aged 35 years of age or younger favored photography, abstract/surrealism, European subjects, and movies or celebrities (pop culture) more than the older [in age, perhaps not in spirit] consumers. Here are the art themes that had the strongest appeal to shoppers (in ascending rank). One caveat: keywords that are a direct hit, e.g., Star Wars, Barack Obama, etc. don’t apply below; it’s a given that brand names are targeted by their very nature. 1. Landscape / 2. Photography / 3. Flowers, Gardens / 4. Wildlife, Animals / 5. Abstract, Surrealism / 6. Impressionism / 7. Tuscany, Paris, Cafes (scenes of Europe) / 8. Still Life / 9. Country Traditional / 10. Pets (dogs, cats) / 11. Sports (baseball, cricket, football, futbol, soccer …) / 12. Religious / 13. Pop Culture / 14. African-American / 15. Brand Icons / 16. Hispanic Art / 17. Other What can we do with this information? We can use the above keywords for tagging, artwork/group descriptions, and Bubblesite text, as well as integrate them into titles, description copy, and hyperlinks in from external blogs, personal websites, and other credible referral sources (e.g., press, social shopping websites such as StyleHive, Kaboodle, etc.) when linking back to your RedBubble pages. In no way should these tags be applied to unrelated work; you’ll drive page views, but not sales. Plus, it’s poor form. There are many excellent categories missing above, e.g., nude art, self-portrait, dance, etc. The recommendation is to think about how you search online. Use common terms and keep it simple. If this article bores you to tears, we suggest that you take a bit from the above and then go with your gut. You know your artwork best, and by thinking like a regular art shopper you might find that fewer tags in a simplified structure will help categorize your work – both in your own mind and for the shopper and buyer. Bringing it all back home. All this sales talk is great; thanks for listening. However, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that the outcome is to provide an amazingly great work of art and design to someone that appreciates it… that we artists made something that someone loves or gave to someone they care about. In many cases, the shopper will come to think of you as a contact or friend; or at the very least, someone that they feel they know a bit about. Regards, / Jason

• Using the Group Sales Widget to Attract Art Buyers
  by selling

  We previously talked about how RedBubble Groups bond artists by subject matter, and how they are also powerful search silos....

  We previously talked about how RedBubble Groups bond artists by subject matter, and how they are also powerful search silos (marketers call them verticals) that can direct shoppers to targeted subjects on RedBubble. Say you’re shopping for abstract art. RedBubble has a beautiful collection of abstract art in Groups. The abstract art group is flush with relevant text, fresh with a diverse art collection, and gets lots of Google love because of third-parties (you and me) link into the Group page. Here’s a free and easy way to help the last point – for any group. Group Hosts can enable a widget that shows Featured Work in a small and attractive slideshow. This widget can be added to personal websites, and as Denis Leary says, “bliggity blogs, facey spaceys and tweetie pages.” This Groups widget features the same format as the personal artwork widget that many members already use; found in the promote area of MyBubble. The opportunity for search engines to home in on a Group page is bettered when there are many links into that page from content rich websites, blogs, social media pages, etc. Why? Google’s magical black box of calculations factors links into a page as part of a website’s Quality Score, i.e., how well the search term matches the page content. If every member posted a link to their Group(s) on their blog using the Group subject as the link, e.g., Abstract art prints, calendars and greeting cards, along with the widget, there would likely be a measurable effect on Group page visitors via natural (organic and unpaid) search results – which is good for everyone in the group. The result is compounded when those links come from sites that already have a good PageRank on Google. Are you still asking why you should promote your Group in addition to your own work? The simple answer is that the collective power of Group referrals helps direct visitors (shoppers) that might otherwise never see your art. Simply put, a better Google Quality Score equals more search engine exposure, and more exposure is good. All of us are pursuing art for different reasons, but most of us want exposure, validation, mind-share, and sales. And in a collective, creative space like RedBubble, good karma, back scratching, collaboration, and referrals go a long way. To allow Group members to use the widget, Hosts need to go to the “Settings” area of their Group and tick the box next to the “Show promote tab?” text. Here are images of the Promote widget and the tick box. / Promote widget / Activate the Promote widget Final note: Hosts control the widget at this time; there is a simple on/off function. In the far future we’ll look to give members control of whether or not to have their work included in the widget. We researched this option after receiving feedback, but it’s a bridge too far at the moment. Thanks! Regards, / Jason

• Using Email Marketing to Sell Your Art
  by selling

  Email marketing is a powerful tool that should leverage your existing relationships with family, friends, previous customers, clients, an…

  Email marketing is a powerful tool that should leverage your existing relationships with family, friends, previous customers, clients, and acquaintances to create awareness and sales. You can also purchase email lists that are targeted to people that are apt to buy art or apparel (corporate art buyers, retail shop owners), however, the fastest way to lose credibility is to send a bulk email to strangers without providing context, purpose, and pointing out an immediate benefit to the recipient. Always ask yourself what job the email is doing for the recipient. What’s the benefit? OK, you’ve decided to send a mass (aka bulk) email. Now what? 1. Identify your mailing list / Your list can be your webmail contact list, an export of your computer’s address book, Apple or Outlook Address Book, Palm Contacts, etc. Members interested in buying lists should ping me via Bubblemail. Don’t be dissuaded by a small list of just a few people; email marketing works based on list quality and not the total size of the list. Email marketing can be as simple as sending an email to previous customers from your Gmail account. 2. Segment your list / Divide your list in order to test several groups. You can segment the list by sales potential, e.g., purchased from you in the past six months, inactive for six-plus months, new prospects (new to your list and never purchased art from you), etc. You could add a second qualifier if you have the patience, e.g., purchased a t-shirt from you in the past six months… or you could just go the full monty. 3. How will you mail? / This is the juncture at which you will decide if you’re going to send the email from your webmail, personal mail, or if you’ll send email using a bulk email tool. There are many free and pay-per-use bulk email tools online. A few names include Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Campaign Master, SubscriberMail, ExactTarget, etc. Look for a service that does not charge an up-front fee, little or no monthly fee, and that charges less than a cent/penny/pence per email sent. Why use a third-party email tool? a. You preserve your personal email address’ white label status (favorable view) with Internet Service Providers – making it unlikely that your address will be blocked due to an email blast. b. These tools provide templates that make email creation very easy. Some tools make adding content to an email as simple as “drag-and-drop.” c. The third-party will manage your unsubscribe and spam lists, so you won’t need to remember who wanted off the distribution list. Similarly, some services allow you and interested parties to add subscribers using a form; you won’t need to manually add subscribers. d. Third-party tools often include reports that will show you how many people opened your email, how many clicked through (and on which links), as well as unsubscribe and “spam” rates. 4. What to write? / Perhaps you dislike the “hard sell” and choose to send an editorial email that targets everyone in your list. The content of this newsletter could focus on: a. New work / b. Artwork in process – a behind the scenes peek at upcoming work / c. News about you and your work, e.g., recent shows, groups, charity work / d. Photos of you and your studio – or other personal images / e. A short, witty anecdote, etc. lead-in If you’re interested in creating a merchandised (sales-y) email, consider: a. Keeping the copy short and the calls to action obvious. Don’t make clicking through to your RedBubble page hard for the reader. / b. Capitalize on seasonal trends or life cycle events. Holidays are a great reason to talk about your work. / c. Readers love of collections, e.g., art for shared spaces, pop culture t-shirts, landscapes, etc. / d. Show lots of pictures, but keep the file sizes small. If you use Photoshop, use the “Save for Web” function and tweak the JPG quality so that images are small yet attractive. / e. Make any incentives obvious and put them in both the Subject line and at the top of the email newsletter. E.g., if you’re having a sale, offering a free item with purchase (free digital downloads are nice; e.g., wallpaper, printout), etc. 5. Subject line time / Subject lines make or break the number of people opening your email. You can get crazy and send the same email content – using different subject lines – to similar audiences and then measure the different open rates (the number of people that opened each email). My best advice is to include an offer in the subject line (if an offer exists). Otherwise, keep the subject line short and to the point. Humor and personality helps if it’s not obscure. Want to know if your email subject line is too obscure? Send a test to a few friends in the target audience and ask for their opinion. 6. Prepare and test / You’ve got your list, created your email message, and chose a distribution method. Next, paste your message into your email client. If you’re using a third-party tool, load your content into the template you’ve chosen. The only other note I have here is to send a test email to multiple email clients. For example, open a Gmail account, employ Apple Mail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, etc. if possible. Send your test email to make sure that you like the way it looks in each email client. Some third-party tools will show you a preview of your email in multiple email clients (for a small fee). Here are the email clients used by RedBubble members: 25.0% use Yahoo! Mail / 15.0% use Outlook 2000, 2003, Express / 13.0% use Apple Mail 3 / 10.9% use Hotmail / 9.6% use Gmail / 5.8% use iPhone 2.0 / 3.1% use Apple Mail 2 / 17.5% use All others combined 7. Time to send / Good luck. Spell check, recheck, and check your copy again. Then push that send button and be sure to record the results. Basic stats include: / a. Emails sent / b. Emails opened / c. Clicks from the email to your artwork / d. Number of sales – both transactions and total dollars A next step would be to monitor the lifetime value of the customer, e.g., how many sales, dollars, etc. started with that one email. I’ve probably rambled on far too much, but I hope that this article got you started and provided a few new thoughts, tips, and tricks that you’ll test in the near future. If you use email marketing to sell your art, please Bubblemail me or add your anecdotes or pointers below. Oh, one last thing. If you have blog, you might want to look at FeedBurner.com as way to automatically email people each time you post a new blog entry. Feedburner provides the opt-in (sign up) form and automatically distributes the email for you. I can see that many members also use Feedburner through Blogger.com, and feature a link to these feeds and newsletters on their RedBubble Profile Pages and personal blogs, e.g., Jordan Clarke / thickblackoutline / and Stephen Mitchell among others. If you already create articles about selling art, please point us to them below. More information about selling your art can be found under the Selling member name. Regards, / Jason

• Using Facebook to Sell Your Art
  by selling

  For all of their pluses, there are plenty of confusing aspects of Facebook and Twitter. The biggest positive…

  For all of their pluses, there are plenty of confusing aspects of Facebook and Twitter. The biggest positive is that Facebook and Twitter leverage your relationships with contacts. And we all know that relationships help sell art. Additionally, Twitter allows you to “follow” people that broadcast information and links that can broaden your understanding of topics, industries, etc. For example, I follow 100+ t-shirt designers via my Twitter account, and have found that the their tweets keep me “in the know” about seasonal and pop-culture merchandising trends. RedBubble has both a Facebook page and Twitter account. Back to Facebook. As an artist and designer, Facebook can be a great awareness builder and sales driver. Here are three easy ways to promote your art and design on Facebook. 1. Friends, and friends of friends, buy art / You may already have a growing list of contacts that Facebook defines as friends. Tell friends about your art and design via: Link to your RedBubble profile page or Bubblesite from your Facebook profile. Post new artwork in your Facebook status. This broadcasts an image, a link, and associated text to your friends. Create a collection (or collections) of artwork as a photo album. Be sure to note the artwork URL in the image description. Note: You might want to watermark your images or overlay your RedBubble URL on the image. While Facebook down-samples files to 72 dpi, expressing copyright is never a bad idea in digital public spaces… though one would hope that your Facebook friends would give credit where it’s due. Use Facebook Notes to tell the story behind the creation of your artwork. If you’re a writer, you can tease your work in the Notes section and link to your writing portfolio on RedBubble. You can also install the RedBubble Facebook slideshow found in the Promote area of MyBubble. Status update of an artwork and link. / Addition of a photograph / B. Groups contain focused, interested buyers / Join Facebook Groups where members share common interests related to your artwork content. By being active in Facebook Groups, you can subtlety migrate interested parties to your RedBubble profile and/or Bubblesite. It’s helpful if you can use your art and design to educate others and gather feedback, e.g., post “New images of Yosemite National Park. I’m interested in feedback about which images I should place on RedBubble.” You can obviously use this same technique on RedBubble. / / C. Use Pages to create fan clubs / Facebook Pages are separate from your personal Facebook profile and are also free to create. Think of your Facebook Page as a business page where you can give people a view of your studio, news of a recent exhibition, show work in development, etc. It’s also good to use RedBubble journal posts to do the same for those watching your RB profile. The distribution power of Facebook Pages comes from their ability to update “fans” whenever you post something new to your Page (like your status update, but for your business). However, note that your friends need to become a “fan” of your Facebook Page in order to receive updates. The Pages updates won’t duplicate nor conflict with your personal Facebook profile. You can also announce promotions on your Page. Here is a contest example created by Diesel Laws. Contest created by Diesel Laws / Advertising is easy, but demands attention / Facebook advertising is easy to set up, but not a “set it and forget it” exercise. You’re dedicating funds to this exercise, so consider the following when creating your ads: What images will capture the viewer’s eye best amongst all of the other Facebook page clutter? What designs sold best for you previously? What art or design is at a price point that will attract a first time buyer? What outcome would you consider a success – exposure and sales, simply sales, etc.? FB ads work on a pay-per-click basis, which means that you’re only paying for the clicks that you receive. You can cap the cost per day, so if you want to test ads at $5 per day it’s simple to do so. FB ads also feature demographic (age, location …) targeting, as well as psychographic targeting (interests, hobbies, career …). This allows you to show ads to people you know or estimate to be very good targets. You were once only allowed to create ads for businesses with websites outside of Facebook, but now you can create ads for Pages and Events too. Start simple / My advice is to try the free options first – especially if you already have a large Facebook friends list. Personal referrals will often convert (create a sale) better than a paid ad. That’s not to say that a targeted ad can’t work well if you present the right image, copy and URL. Let’s close / If you’ve found success with Facebook personal, business pages, events or paid ads, please add your comments below. We’re always looking for success stories or warnings about sales and marketing programs as they relate to selling your art and design. And finally, if you want to help other members sell, you can join our “You Can Sell Art and T-shirts” Group (by invitation). Bubblemail me with the topics you feel confident sharing. Thank you. Regards, / Jason BTW, click here for our Twitter tips and tricks. It’s also worth noting that Twitter integrates with Facebook; your tweets can be broadcast as your Facebook status. Janis also pointed out a great Twitter guide on Mashable.

• 

  Hand Me Downs
  by Naomi Frost

• Photography Campus tutorial: How to use layer blend modes in Photoshop
  by Melinda Kerr

  Hi Guys. / Some of you may know I’ve recently started writing for DESKTOP magazine about all things photography and photography post produ…

  Hi Guys. / Some of you may know I’ve recently started writing for DESKTOP magazine about all things photography and photography post production. I am ‘soon’ going to launch an on line learning portal (subscription based) called the Photography Campus which will have video tutorials about photography & videography by real live working professionals. Anyway, I promised a few people that I’d put the articles up here once they’d gone to print. So here’s the November issues article: How to use layer blend modes in Photoshop. As creative folk, we have a wonderful knack of ignoring things when they get too technical. / For most of us, our left brain left years ago, tired of the lack of love and relentless mocking from its hyperactive sibling, the right brain. / It’s little wonder then, so many software functions are overlooked due to their, eeky – geeky – speakiness. / Take the layer blending modes in Photoshop. They promise so much with fancy names like multiply, hard light, dissolve and luminosity. Yet a quick look in many Photoshop help files reveal evil words like algorithms, percentages and the arch rival of all creatives..Maths. Urgh. / In fact the layer blend modes are little rippers when it comes to fixing images and creating interesting effects. They’re non destructive, versatile and quite frankly everywhere. (Seriously they breed like rabbits in Photoshop). / And here’s the thing. You don’t actually have to understand all of them to use them. / By in large understanding the theory of only a handful will have you speaking fluent blending modes and impressing your arty-farty-party friends in no time. Now for some maths you’ll really like. Sure there’s 25 layer blend modes listed in the drop down menu of PS CS4, but in reality they fit into 6 sections and truth be told there’s only 3 you really need to understand. Check out this diagram. The three sections you’ll use the most are the darken section, lighten section and the contrast section. In these groups if you understand one mode, you pretty much understand them all. Here’s how do they work. In short blending modes effect the way the top layer blends with the layer below it. Depending on which blend mode you choose, you can make images look lighter, darker, more contrasty, a different colour or a handful of other styles. / The first group in our layer blends diagram we’ve called ‘whatever’ because it’s not really all that interesting. / Normal is well, normal – as in default, as in 100% opaque, as in nothing exciting to see here…move on. / Dissolve is kind of like the annoying guy at the party. He has one trick (reproduces pixels randomly so things look a little pointilized) and pretty much that’s it. It’s probably not something you’ll use much if ever unless you are that annoying guy, in which case, go away. / The ‘dark’ section modes you will use a lot. They ignore white but blend the dark and black pixels, thereby making an image look darker. The Lighten modes ignore black but blend the lighter colours thus the making an image lighter. The contrast modes ignore mid grey but still blend the light and dark pixels and as such / create contrast. / To see it work in practice, here’s an experiment you can do yourself. 1. Create a Photoshop file. / Make sure it has 2 layers. The top layer has a 100% black object, a 50% grey object and a 100% white object. / The bottom layer is green. Your layers should look like this: 2. Choose the top layer and go to the layer blend mode. Choose Multiply…but wait before you do, ask yourself…if multiply comes from the ‘dark’ layer group what will the result be? Yup you guessed it, it will ignore white pixels, so as you see the white object disappears, the 100% black remains the same because you can’t get darker than that and the 50% grey object makes / the pixels below it darker. Therefore the entire image becomes darker. It will look like this: 3. Now choose Lighten. It ignores black so the 100% black disappears, the 100% white remains because you can’t get lighter than that and the everything below the 50% grey goes lighter. As such the entire image gets lighter. The image should look like this: 4. Finally, choose overlay. It ignores 50% grey, so the grey object disappears and the white and black objects remain. Thus the image will show greater contrast. See: By understanding these three modes you effectively have a good idea of how others in their sections work (give or take a few discrepancies…) If you include normal and annoying dissolve that’s 19 out of 25 sorted before you’ve even ordered your second chai latte. / As for the other blends, rather than us explain them, here’s a way to see their effect with a nifty little keyboard shortcut. / Choose your move tool (V). Make sure the top layer is chosen in the layers box. Hold down the shift key and press the – and + tools. This will scroll through every layer blend style and give you an instant preview of what happens with each one. / So now you know the theory how can you use it in practice? / The most obvious use is to fix exposure. / Here we have Jessie the wonder dog posing in an overexposed shot. Because she’s black and white she provides a good test case. / Firstly we create a new layer above our background layer. We can either just press cmd or ctrl j to duplicate the original layer, or if you wish to keep file size down, you can just choose a Levels adjustment layer and leave it untouched. It will ‘inherit’ the information on the bottom layer and allow you to work the blend modes just as effectively. / We want to blend the darker pixels whilst leaving the whites alone. So we activate the top layer and choose multiply. Shazam instant gratification. You can also try out the other modes in the Darken section to see the variations you can achieve. Here’s the before and after: Jess before multiply: Jess after multiply: Ok let’s try an underexposed shot. And this time we’ll use the Linear Dodge mode form out ‘Lighten’ section. Jess before Linear Dodge: After: Finally in the following shot Jess is exposed OK but looks awfully flat. She needs contrast and that means a mode from the contrast section. Try Overlay. Much better. Before Overlay: After Overlay: Once you’ve used a blend mode you can use it immediately again to ‘multiply’ the effect of it. You can also use the most well known blend mode of all – the opacity slider. Say I wanted to lighten the underexposed shot even more, I could go blend > lighten. Then create duplicate layer of that new layer and choose blend > lighten again. If two blends were too much, I could simply dull down the second blend my decreasing its opacity, effectively creating a ‘blend and a half’. / As an example of using multiple blend modes in the same file check out the following shot. The shot on the left (of a hot rock pool at Yellowstone National Park) is the original shot straight out of the camera. The shot on the right was achieved by combining a mix of layer blends just from the 3 main sections we’ve talked / about; darken, lighten and contrast along with the opacity slider. Some blends were used more than once. / In fifteen minutes we had the shot on the right. It could do with more work but it does show you what’s possible in a short period of time. BEFORE (straight out of the camera): AFTER: I did use a couple of quick layer masks in there as well to determine which part of the image the blend mode affected. What are layer masks you ask? Well, that’s for the December issue of DESKTOP. / In the meantime happy shooting and remember, with any program fear not the names of the processes, just experiment with them until you find what works for you. Then gloat. Some keyboard shortcuts relevant to this article: Use the corresponding number on your keyboard to set the opacity level, eg want 80% opacity? Press 8. / 50% press 5 etc. You get the picture (and yes you can have that pun for free). / To duplicate a layer press CTRL + J (WIN) CMD + J (Mac) / To cycle through blend modes: Press the move tool (V). Holding down the shift key and pressing the plus or minus key lets you toggle through the blend modes. If you’ve made it this far congrats! They key is just muck around and have fun :) / Follow my photo tips & news on Twitter @photocampus