A World Without Photoshop
Imagine a world without Photoshop. A short film by The Chopping Block.
Imagine a world without Photoshop. A short film by The Chopping Block.
Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation’s success by its productivity — instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn’t have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.
Find more of my favorite TED videos here.
With help from some surprising footage, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. (Hint: it takes two.)
Find more of my favorite TED videos here.
“There’s a flip side to everything,” the saying goes, and in 2 minutes, Derek Sivers shows this is true in a few ways you might not expect.
Find more of my favorite TED videos here.
At Photoshop World, Julianne Kost demonstrated how to make a time lapse movie from stills with Photoshop.
If you couldn’t make it, you can watch her work her wizardry here.
How could you use time lapse techniques into your creative process?
I don’t know anyone who knows more about artist’s copyright than Reznicki and Greenberg. That makes this a must read must have resource for all visual artists.
“Written by the president of the Professional Photographers of America, and a leading New York copyright attorney, this book provides photographers and visual artists with the most authoritative legal advice available. Everything is covered, from contracts, subcontracts, releases, and permissions to the copyright laws and all the steps artists should take to register and protect their work. Find out how to use copyright to protect your work from infringement, insure you are properly paid for your work, and how to proceed if your rights are infringed upon.”
Catch their seminars at Photoshop World and Kelby Training videos online.
Learn more on their blog The Copyright Zone.
Find more of the best photography business books here.
Horizontal, vertical, or square? It can be challenging to decide what orientation is ideal for your photo book.
In cases where all images share the same orientation, choose the same orientation for your book; a horizontal book for horizontal images, a vertical book for vertical images, a square book for square images. (If you’re concerned about how a book fits on shelves at book stores, use square formats cautiously and choose size accordingly.)
If the orientation of the images in a book is mixed, consider two approaches.
If a majority of the images in a book share a common orientation, choose that orientation.
Or, if you want to give all images equal opportunity for size and surrounding space, choose square for the most orientation neutral format.
When in doubt, remember that vertical books generally fit in people’s hands more easily.
Find more Bookmaking resources here.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing workshops.
Catch my Making Your Own Photo Book seminar today at 12 at Photoshop World Las Vegas.
Adobe released multiple free updates today.
Camera Raw 6.2
Lightroom 3.2
Dreamweaver CS5 11.0.3
Bridge CS5 4.0.3
Download them here.
The word amateur comes from the Latin word amator (lover). Amateurs simply do things for the love of doing them. Over time the word amateur has come to mean doing things with less education, discipline, and craft. Amateurs rarely create great works of art. Yet, we’d all be wise to reconsider the original meaning of the word amateur and do more things for the love of doing them – even if we have to learn or relearn to love the things we have to do. No great work of art was ever made without this kind of passion. Passion is a prerequisite for excellence.
One danger professionals face is losing the spark of passion and the thrill of discovery along the way to achieving proficiency. I often recommend that creative people who have developed a significant proficiency in one creative discipline become amateurs in another creative discipline. It can be extremely challenging to engage in a creative discipline you know well to be spontaneous and to give yourself license to experiment within it. But that’s exactly what you need to do to do your best work and to make break throughs.
When we experiment we tend to be less results oriented and more process oriented. When we experiment we don’t expect perfect results the first time we try something; instead we hope to find new insights that can later be perfected. When we experiment we don’t fear failure; in fact we consider it part of the process. When did we forget that learning from failures is how we make discoveries and improve? When does our fear of failure keep us from succeeding in new ways?
Working in a secondary creative discipline can give you a fresh perspective on your primary creative discipline and the creative process in general. How are the two similar? What creative strategies are most useful in both? How are the two different? Is there a way that practices in one could be applied to the other? You can find ways to hybridize the two and energize your primary creative outlet. You may even find that your enjoyment of the creative process is higher in your secondary discipline, even thought the results you achieve within it aren’t as polished. This may lead you to the most important question of all, “Why do you do what you do?”
So dare to be an amateur. Do things simply for the love of doing them. Enjoy yourself. Experiment. Become more aware of your process. Do some soul searching. Make these things you do regularly.
Learn more about the word amateur at Podictionary.
Find more inspiration in my Creativity Lessons.
Learn more in my Digital Photography Workshops.
The credits for the movie The Other Guys are brilliant.
They put recent financial crises in sharp perspective.
It’s a wonderful example of the power of images.
(Click the Go Full Screen icon to see them better.)