Photo Management—Upgrades and Tips

Heritage Makers is excited to announce new and improved tools—designed to help you more easily navigate within your photo manager, organize your photos, and be aware of your file usage.

The photo manager update was introduced on July 24, 2012. If you want to get the nitty-gritty about ALL the photo manager updates and changes, follow this link which will direct you to a more detailed article and tutorial within the new HM Support website.

My favorite new photo management feature is the “photo details” box that opens when you double click on a photo. Here, you can easily scroll through photos in an album and see a detailed view of each one. You can add and change photo filenames and captions, see photo dimensions, file sizes, when a photo was uploaded, and best of all, photo usage!



If you click on the “show projects” button, you will see a list of any Studio projects the photo is used in. The “view” link even opens a Studio preview of the project!






Three Keys to Managing Your Photos

 

Your photo manager is a place where you upload, store and manage the photos you use to make wonderful custom keepsakes in Studio! To streamline, simplify and optimize your creative Studio experience, we suggest you:

1. Be selective. 2. Be prepared. 3.Stay organized.

Be selective with the photos you upload. Wonderfully, digital cameras allow us to take dozens and dozens of pictures of a single event or subject. However, you’ll want to use only your very best photos in the projects you create and publish—so select and upload the best—leave the rest. Then, when you’re working on your Studio projects, you’ll know the images in your photo manager albums are your most excellent. You won’t have to wade and search through images that you wouldn’t want to publish anyway.

Prepare photos before you upload. Your photo manager has amazing tools that allow you to categorize and organize photos and albums. However, it is not a photo editing program. So before uploading your images, we suggest using an outside photo editing software to prepare them—rotate into the proper orientation, fix red-eye, adjust lighting, exposure and color. This will ensure that your photos look their best and print beautifully in your treasured keepsake projects.

Organize the photos you upload. We all have our own ways of labeling pictures and categorizing our photo folders and albums—and often, we find we want to adapt and improve our methods. Fortunately, your photo manager tools make it easy to browse images, and arrange, rearrange and rename your folders and albums! The manager also helps you clean up and slim down your albums by showing which images are used in projects, and which are not. At a glance you can see (and resize) thumbnail images of all the photos in specific albums. With the click of a button you can view the Studio projects your photos are in. You can organize to your heart’s content—and know that the better organized your photos, the better your creative Studio experience will be!

Click here to start a project now. http://studio.heritagemakers.com/getStarted/

Go to my web site at http://HeritageMakers.com/Rebecca or contact me via email at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers.

Business Cards--Design Guidelines

Bleed, Safe Area and Crop Marks explained. . .

Safe Area. Make sure any text or sensitive information is contained in the box, otherwise it could get cut off. PLEASE NOTE: Currently there is no safe area designation (with dotted lines) in the Studio Editor. Consider the safe area to be about 1/8-inch to the inside of the bleed area.

Crop Marks/Trim. This is where we aim to cut your cards.

Bleed Area. We cut the bleed area off your cards to avoid white strips on the edge. Make sure any images or colors fill this area.


TIP #1 Make sure your text and important details is inside the safe area, otherwise it may get cut off.

TIP #2 Make sure your images/colors/background art extends through the FULL bleed. Otherwise, your cards might have ugly white areas.

TIP #3 Sadly, the use of borders can result in lopsided cards, and we wouldn’t want that—so avoid them where possible.


Just remember these handy tips and you’ll be HAPPY with all the business cards you publish with Heritage Makers.

Click here to start a project now. http://studio.heritagemakers.com/getStarted/ 

Go to my web site at http://www.HeritageMakers.com/Rebecca or contact me via email at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers products.

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The Importance of Scale

Digital story and scrapbooking is fast and easy, enables multiple copies, carves far less “creative space” from your home and is typically much less expensive than traditional memory keeping. But there is one small downside, with “small” being the important word. While you’re working digitally, you don’t usually see your project at 100%. Constrained to your laptop’s screen size, it’s not always easy to judge the actual scale of your finished project. To assist you in making the most of every page inch, let’s look at some tips, tricks and screenshots that will help get size and scale into perspective.



How Big is Big?
To illustrate our discussion, let’s look at the screenshot above. It’s a page from a 12 x 12 storybook that looks fairly well laid out, right? Well check out the page below. It’s the same 12 x 12 storybook, but now you can see that the enlarged design is really an “import a page” from a 5 x 5 storybook (Michelle Wolfley’s “Daddy's Little Girl,” template 133363) that actually could fit on a 12 x 12 page four times with room to spare in the middle.



Tools for Judging
Here are several suggestions for using the space on your page well, while keeping it size appropriate.



1. Go to the size slider bar at the top of your project, just under the Heritage Maker’s logo and examine your project at close to 100% several times during your design session.



2. In the “toolbox,” go to the “layout” tab and check the size of unlocked photos against other photos you’ve published or have around the house. In this picture, the photo highlighted is about 2 ½ by 1 ½ inches. That’s about half the size of a playing card. Such comparisons can help you judge the designs you are creating.

3. Download Lynda Angelastro’s “Title & Text Cheat Sheets” to your “my templates” folder and choose “start my own.” This 5 x 5 storybook, template 17444, contains page after page of Studio fonts at the appropriate size for body text and headings on small to average pages. No need to print it, just use it to check and see which fonts work best at which sizes.

Scaling it Just Right
Ever got a book back and thought, “Wow, why did I try to pack so much on the page?” If the size and scale is off at either end, big or small, the overall design is not pleasing. Think of it like a home. If you’ve got a very small living room, you don’t try to crowd it with many pieces of large furniture. You choose fewer pieces in smaller sizes. Your page designs will benefit from the same attention to size. Use these suggestions and see if they don’t help you get the page scale just right.

Click here to start a project now. http://studio.heritagemakers.com/getStarted/

Go to my web site at http://www.OurPhotoStories.com or contact me via email at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers products.

A Trio of Tips

Awesome Studio Time Savers



1. Use Trash to Save Searching
Swap something out and the replaced item goes into the trash. Click on the trashcan to open the window and you’ll see all papers, photos and elements trashed in this Studio session, including the template’s original photos. To use a new photo in one spot and the original in another without having to go back and search your photo albums, simply open the trash window and find the replaced photo. Drag it into any “drop here to swap” target. Use the same technique for papers, alphabets or embellishments.




2. COPY and PASTE Simplifies Design
Want to add a photo to the layout? Sure, you could drag up your photo from the “my photos” tab and then resize, rotate and apply all the appropriate effects to it. Or you could simply copy and paste one of the photos from the layout, position it, then lock it and swap in your photo from albums. It saves time and simplifies your efforts.



Try “Copy” and “Paste in Place” to create several interesting effects. Make the new photo in front slightly smaller, then blur the back one to make a fuzzy outer edge. On text, “Copy” and “Paste in Place” to create a thicker “bold” effect, which is handy if you’re using a font that doesn’t have a built-in “bold.” Just be sure you are completely done editing before you do this, otherwise it will get confusing with two layers of the same text box!

“Copy” and “Paste Format” is another serious time-saver in the “Paste Special” menu. Once you have the effects you want on a photo, embellishment, alphabet or text box, simply select it, click “Copy.” Then select another item that you want to have the same effects on it. Click on the “Edit” menu, “Paste Special,” and “Paste Format” to have those same effects applied instantly. You can even SHIFT-select multiple items on the page to apply desired effects automatically.




3. The “C” Page is a Free Page
Other than the back cover, the last inside page of any storybook is labeled in the Page Manager as the “C” page. That “C” stands for COPYRIGHT. We overprint a ¾-inch white stripe with the HM logo, your consultant’s website and a unique code that allows us to identify your project. Design whatever else you want to fill the other 99% of the page! And if, by chance, you find a template in the gallery that leaves it blank, fill it however you see fit. It’s yours to use.

Click here to start a project now. http://studio.heritagemakers.com/getStarted/

Go to my web site at http://www.OurPhotoStories.com or contact me via email at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers products.

Photography Tips

Face-free PhotographyPhotographing the graduation, wedding or Mother’s Day gathering? Capture a least a few photos that are face free. Relationships and settings are often more powerfully demonstrated with tight close-ups of things other than faces. Let’s look at a few shots you won’t want to miss.








HandsSnap grandma holding hands with grandpa or the newest member of the family. Grab a photo of the bride and groom hand-in-hand as husband and wife or capture the diploma in your young graduate’s grasp. Show Mom helping her daughter prepare for the prom or graduation. And too, if the event has associated traditions like a tea ceremony or signing a wedding certificate, those moments also deserve the power that a close up, face-free photo brings.







The DetailsGet in close and capture the décor, the jewelry, the shoes and socks, or lack of them, which make your family’s special occasion unique. If it’s a graduation, document the program, the flowers, and the school emblems that are displayed along with the Hawaiian print shorts your son will wear underneath his graduation gown. And if it’s a wedding, remember most wedding décor is chosen to be a reflection of the young couple. Will the bride be sporting jeweled flip-flops under her wedding dress? Are the paper lanterns a nod to her Chinese ancestry? Will one of the groomsmen be wearing purple socks? Let the personal touches they choose for their celebration live on forever in photos, and the memories made will be remembered long after the event is over.





The LocationTrying to get everyone in the photo and still see the scene behind is often just not practical. Always include at least a few face-free shots to help define the location. Whether it’s the celebration table, the high school sign, the outside of the church or a photo of the road sign; such scene-setting photos add context to your pages and projects.

Adding Context and DetailWhile faces are the mainstay of photographed moments, you can add rich detail and important context with your no faces photos. Never let them replace those smiling faces. Just think of them as the icing on the cake!

Click here to start a project now. http://studio.heritagemakers.com/getStarted/

Go to my web site at http://www.OurPhotoStories.com or contact me via email at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers products.

Tips and Tricks - Type Handling

If you’ve ever looked at a beautifully designed page and thought how professional it appeared, chances are that good type handling was a big part of the layout’s success. Here are three type tricks to help improve the look of your pages and projects.

Justified Type and Period Spacing

One of the easiest ways to improve the look of your type is to use justified type very sparingly. Reserve it for wide columns of text. White space holes will appear in your type if you use full justification for narrow columns. And if you DO use justified type, be sure to put only one space at the end of each sentence. Two spaces will make the white space holes or rivers even more noticeable.

Line Spacing

Another easy improvement to your journaling or storybook text is to give your lines extra space between them. We may comment that it is “cramped” or “crowded,” and we know it is less attractive than text with “room to breathe” even though we may have no formal design training.

Room around the Edges

While you’re giving your lines room to breathe, think about your block of type as a shape and add some room around the edges. Just as a picture looks better in a matted frame, type looks better if it is matted appropriately as well.

More Resources

To see what good type looks like, check out the text in high end magazines and see how it has been handled. You can also download the recorded class video for April 22, 2010 “Type Tips & Tricks” hosted by Lynda Angelastro. And remember, if the type is not happy and comfortable, your readers won’t be either!

Download class video here.

Click here to start a project now. http://studio.heritagemakers.com/getStarted/

Go to my web site at http://www.OurPhotoStories.com or contact me via email at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers products.

How to Be a Fabulous Photographer and a Studio Speed Diva

Ever wondered why some Heritage Makers finish their Studio projects so quickly or receive constant compliments about their photography? The fact is the fastest, most efficient and celebrated users of Studio are the ones who take their tips from professional photographers. Let’s look at the work flow of these professionals and see what tricks we can use for making our photos look fabulous while speeding up our Studio process.

Take MORE Photos

Professional photographers have always taken many more shots than the average home photographer, even when they were still using expensive film. The medium does not matter. And what professionals do with the shots AFTERWARDS is radically different and very informative. Let’s start by looking at each group’s typical picture-taking process.

Amateur: Takes a few shots of each event, waits several weeks, downloads photos from many different events to same dated file on computer, then uploads all to Studio.

Professional: Takes many more photos of a single event, downloads to computer so that event or topic is in one dated file, edits photos down to best handful and then finishes by uploading and publishing only the very best photos.

What Are the Lessons Here?

The professional takes more photos but downloads them right away so each subject ends up in its own dated file. That already sounds more efficient. And, because the professional takes so many more photos, they have plenty to choose from and can delete anything blurry, too dark, poorly focused, or that does not show an individual at his or her best. Because a professional takes more photos to start with, they don't have to hang on to the blurry one of great grandma because “It’s the only one I’ve got of her” or go searching a hard drive to find three less-than-impressive photos of an event that are all junk.

Good Photographers Are Ruthless

And we do mean ruthless. Anything that reflects poorly on the photography studio goes in the Recycle Bin immediately. “Maybes” are considered carefully and pared down, until a few “stars” remain. Star photos are the only ones used to make finished products.

Bottom Line

To be a fabulous photographer and speed up your creative processes, TAKE lots more photos, but KEEP far fewer, just like the professionals do, uploading only your very best, print-worthy images to Studio. The benefits of the “Take More/Throw More Away” approach are amazing. You will have the important photos you need. You will find your photos faster. The photos you do find will be exceptional ones. And you’ll be so much happier with your finished projects. So commit to this photography method today. You won’t just like this approach, you’ll LOVE it.

Go to my web site at http://www.OurPhotoStories.com or contact me via e-mail at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Studio and other Heritage Makers products.

Import Page Tutorial Video

Check this out!!! How to use "Import Page" in Heritage Makers Studio to convert a project to a different project type (for example, convert a canvas to a poster or convert a canvas to a scrapbook page).

The BEST Studio Enhancement of all is the IMPORT PAGES function that will allow you to convert projects into a new project type. For example, you can take a set of 12x12 scrap pages and convert them into an 8x8 storybook quickly and easily!

Import a Page Feature

Amy Dickerson shows how to import a page from an existing project into a new project. Click here to view the video tutorial.

Go to my web site at http://www.OurPhotoStories.com or contact me via e-mail at Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com to learn more about Heritage Makers.

Tips and Tricks

Making the Perfect Circle
If making a photo into a perfect circle has always seemed a bit mysterious, follow our easy steps for creating a circle that’s not only perfect, it’s resizable!



1. To make a photo into a perfect circle, start with a perfect square. Easiest way? Pull up a paper from the paper bucket, lock it and then swap your photo in.



2. Turn your photo into a circle by going to the EFFECTS tab of the TOOLBOX and sliding the bar next to the ROUND CORNERS box all the way to the right. This works but only for this size!


3. If you’d like your circle to be resizable, or your circle ever looks slightly flat on one side, enter 1000 in the ROUND CORNERS numeric entry box and your circle will round perfectly.



4. With 1000 entered in the ROUND CORNERS numeric entry box, your circle will stay round as you increase or decrease the size.

5. Squares become circles. If you need an oval, start with a rectangular photo and use the 1000 technique. With 1000 entered you can also resize your oval over and over and it will stay the same shape.



6. The 1000 trick works with papers as well as photos.

You’ll love how easy it is to design with circles now you know the 1000 trick.

Rebecca Brooks
Heritage Makers
Personal Publishing Consultant

Rebecca@OurPhotoStories.com
http://www.OurPhotoStories.com