tips for taking product shots

This is an excerpt from one of my favourite design guru's, John McWade, from Before & After | Design Talk

Clear and simple tips for artists (or anyone) who want to photograph their product for web and/or print design:

Hi Angela,For Web work and desktop output, a $200 point-and-shoot camera is just fine. Two or three megapixels are plenty. For book-quality photos, you should have an SLR camera. I can recommend the Nikon D40, which on Amazon is about $500 with its standard lens. It’s excellent.
Buy a small tripod. You can probably find one for $25 at Target.

Turn off the flash.

Shoot against a solid, not patterned, background. White or neutral is best. I suggest shooting an entire collection on the same background. This can vary. Your artistic eye will know best.

Whenever possible, shoot in soft, ambient outdoor light, the kind you’d get through a north-facing window. Avoid direct sun, which makes harsh shadows. Avoid artificial light if you can.

If you must shoot in artificial light, set your camera to “fluorescent” or “incandescent” or whatever you’re using. This will help keep the colors true.

Pose your piece against its background. Set your camera on its tripod. Make sure it’s focusing on your piece. Steady finger, then shoot. If you’re indoors at night, the no-flash exposure will be too long to hold your finger steady, so set the camera’s automatic timer, and let it take its own picture. An SLR camera will come with a remote shutter release.

Read the whole article here »

custom keyboard shortcuts

: : for mac (snow leopard) : :

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Adding a keyboard shortcut to a menu item is a simple task thanks to Apple's Keyboard preference pane. These instructions are for OS X 10.6.x (Snow Leopard), but the process is the same for earlier versions of OS X, with just a few minor differences in names.

1. Launch System Preferences by clicking the System Preferences icon in the Dock, or selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu.
2. Select the Keyboard preference pane (Leopard and Snow Leopard), or the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane (Tiger and earlier).
3. In the preference pane's window, click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
4. Click the plus (+) button near the bottom center of the window.
5. Use the dropdown menu to choose an application you want to add a keyboard shortcut to. For this example, I'll add a new keyboard shortcut to the Finder.
6. In the Menu Title field, type in the exact menu name as it appears in the application. I'm going to add a keyboard shortcut to the Finder for the New Burn Folder, so I'll type New Burn Folder.
7. Click once in the Keyboard Shortcut field to highlight it.
8. Add the keyboard shortcut you wish to use by typing it. I'm going to use control + shift + b (that's the control key, plus the shift key, plus the letter b key).
9. Click the Add button.
10. Close the preference pane.

exporting contacts from gmail/google apps

: : for google apps : :

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You can quickly export your Gmail Contacts list into a CSV file. Here's how:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Contacts along the side of any Gmail page.
3. From the More actions drop-down menu, select Export....
4. Choose whether to export all contacts or only one group.
5. Select the format in which you'd like to export your contacts' information. Please note, some of these formats can lose some contact information.
   • To transfer contacts between Google accounts, use the Google CSV format. This is the recommended way to back up your Google Contacts.
   • To transfer contacts to Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, or various other apps, use the Outlook CSV format.
   • To transfer contacts to Apple Address Book, use the vCard format.
6. Click Export.
7. Choose Save to Disk then click OK.
8. Select a location to save your file, and click OK.

These instructions taken straight from Google Help: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=24911

Interestingly, clicking on More using Google Chrome on a mac doesn't work?!! So try using Firefox instead :)

comment as you not your page on facebook

: : for facebook : :

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If I am an admin of a Facebook Page, how do I comment on a post using my own identity as opposed to the page's identity?

Facebook has finally made it possible for you to comment on your pages with your own identity. Go to Edit Page --> Your Settings --> Posting Preferences. Uncheck the box to be able to post on your page as yourself not the page.

Taken from this guide to FB Pages by Brittany Darwell:
http://brittanydarwell.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/guide-to-new-facebook-pages/

how to take a screenshot

: : for PC : :

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Here is a great article which describes a few different ways to take a screenshot using your PC:
http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows



: : for mac : :

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And here is a similar article which describes a few different ways to take a screenshot using your Mac:
http://guides.macrumors.com/Taking_Screenshots_in_Mac_OS_X

Using the free Google audio player

: : for Google audio player: :

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To embed audio files into your website and/or blog using Google's free audio player:

1. First make sure your audio files are in MP3 format
2. Then load them to your website/blog storage area
3. Then copy and paste the following code into your website/blog:
   
   <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" flashvars="audioUrl=FILENAME.mp3" width="400" height="27" quality="best"></embed></p>
   
   
4. Replace FILENAME.mp3 with the full URL of your MP3 file
5. Adjust width= and height= if required

Because the Google audio player relies on Flash technology, this player won't work on iPhone, iPad and some other mobile devices.  It is therefore recommended to include words along the lines of this:

If you don't see the player above, it's because you're using a non-Flash device (eg, iPhone or iPad).

You can download the mp3 file by clicking here [and give them a download link!]. It may take a few minutes to download, so please be patient.

load images to your wordpress gallery

: : for wordpress using NextGEN Gallery : :

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Load images to an existing gallery:

1. Login to your WordPress site
2. From the Dashboard, click on Gallery in the left sidebar
3. Click on Add Gallery/Images
4. Choose files to upload by clicking on Select Files
5. Select the relevant gallery from the drop down list
6. Click on Upload images

Load images to a new gallery:

1. Login to your WordPress site
2. From the Dashboard, click on Gallery in the left sidebar
3. Click on Add Gallery/Images
4. Click on the Add new gallery tab
5. Enter a name for the new gallery
6. Click on Add gallery - you will see a yellow highlighted message "Gallery ID NN successfully created"
7. Choose files to upload by clicking on Select Files
8. Select the relevant gallery from the drop down list
9. Click on Upload images