Flickr and Photoshop Tip

Posted by Pixelhead

So here is my First Graphics/photo Thursday post. Flickr and Photoshop seem to be a good topic, at least they are two photo programs that I use for my pics. Painting Painters Logo

Flickr as you know is where I have all my photos. I might be adding some photos onto one of those photo sites where people pay you to use your photos, and when I do, I’ll certainly be writing a post about it.

Yesterday, Lizzie started painting a new picture, which I called “Three Stix” because Lizzie always paints Fat Ladies, and these were by far from being fat. Having left my Kodak at my kids, the only camera I currently have is the web cam, and the stills taken with that are really pretty pitiful.

The logo to the left was a picture I took with the Phillips SPC 700NC PC Camera, and then used Photo shop to cut and paste and add some color to make the Bob Ross brush into the Logo for the “Painting Painters” group on Viddler.com. I started the group yesterday,and added five videos I made of Lizzie painting her latest master piece. Other painters are also encouraged to add similar videos. Who knows, maybe the next Bob Ross will be discovered in the group.

My Photoshop tip of the day.

I took a pic of Lizzie’s Masterpiece, which was to become her famous Stink Eye, and it was a bit crooked, so she made me straighten it using photoshop. Here is one process you can use to make a picture look less skewed. Three Stix

CTR + A
Go to edit
Then transform
Then rotate
Grab a corner of your pic by hovering your mouse over a corner and clicking.
Pull or push the pic to make the pic squared.

Realize that I am a beginner, and have never had any classes with Photoshop, my only instruction comes from Lizzie, who does have a degree in Graphic Design as well as training in the fine arts. However, she really does not like graphic design, so she does not have intrinsic motivation to seek out a career in design.

Yesterday I created a the Painting group, uploaded the 5 videos, made the logo, and cropped and poorly edited several pics.

Flickr Posting Tip

A couple days ago I read Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection post the Top 10 Tips for Getting Attention on Flickr. Ok, I did not do the majority of things he suggest to do. I took a crappy pic using a video cam. I did do number two, which is to put the best pic up last. Your last picture uploaded is what your contacts will see when they open up their screen so he says, make it your best or most interesting pic.

Next I need to get the conversation going on my pics, that way they will eventually get picked up and placed in the explore stream on Flickr. To do this he recommends not only placing your best and most interesting pic last, but post your pics early in the morning, because Flickr starts selecting the pics to be in the Explore stream early in the AM. Hence my 1230am posting.

Got any Tips for Me?

Well there are my two tips for today, sorry if they are not helpful, but I do aspire to learn. So if you have any tips or resources I should check out, let me know.

Written by Pixelhead on October 4th, 2007 with 25 comments.
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25 comments

Read the comments left by other users below, or:

Jim
#1. October 5th, 2007, at 7:12 PM.

Take very, very interesting pics and there is no need to worry.

Mitesh
#2. October 6th, 2007, at 7:05 AM.

i agree with what Jim said - first and best step is to chose an amazing and a catchy picture.. and then try it for more better effects.

Dee
#3. October 6th, 2007, at 10:57 AM.

I love your tips with photo shop you make it much easier to understand that adobe help. I will look for more posts in the future on paintshop. Lizzies painting is wonderful. I think she has a gift.

Pixelhead
#4. October 6th, 2007, at 8:10 PM.

I guess I need to keep working on my photography skills. I’ll have to work on getting those interesting shots as well.

Dee- I will do my best to write some good Photoshop tips. Oh, Lizzie says thank you.

Buy Website
#5. October 7th, 2007, at 10:18 PM.

Great tips, they are definitely a lot of help and work perfectly. Thanks for the explanation.

web design blog
#6. October 8th, 2007, at 6:37 AM.

The Flickr Posting Tip advice is great. We always tend to put our best pics first. one word : LIFO - Last In First Out

Meister
#7. October 8th, 2007, at 10:57 AM.

I have to try those 10 tips but I also especially like your explantions about photoshop. I think the next thing I have to do is to get a better camera since photoshop is only limited to the imput. I think there is a saying crap in crap out.

Pixelhead
#8. October 8th, 2007, at 4:35 PM.

Meister, it’s a very helpful post, I highly recommend reading it.

Fitness by Liz
#9. October 9th, 2007, at 7:13 PM.

I’m excited to read more of your tips! I design my own sites, and so I’m stoked that I found your blog! It will be really helpful.. thanks!

Pixelhead
#10. October 9th, 2007, at 10:15 PM.

Liz, I will try and do my best to give you some valuable tips…let me know if there is anything I can help you with…Lizzie, my wife has and endless supply of knowledge that I am continuously harvesting and will gladly pic her brain for you.

T. O Donnell
#11. October 10th, 2007, at 11:57 AM.

If you want to get noticed on Flickr, you need to be a young emo girl in the habit of taking a-bit-too-revealing pictures of yourself. That works!

Pixelhead
#12. October 10th, 2007, at 12:18 PM.

T.O Donnell, they do say sex sells, but I would rather not delve into that area of photography. If I were to become a serious photographer, I would more than likely start with nature pics. I am really envious of shots of breath taking landscapes taken in exotic places where traveling by car is impossible. Pictures like those of Tom Dempsey.

T. O Donnell
#13. October 10th, 2007, at 2:12 PM.

The remark was made tongue-in-cheek. It’s just a trend I’d noticed in the new, glorious world of Web 2.0. And you don’t have to be a nudist, just a pretty girl with ‘problems’ [grin].

Just be true to your muse, and keep the quality sky-high. When browsing Flickr, set the search function to ‘most interesting’ . That’s a good way to see the best, so you know what the standard is.

e.g.: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=landscape&s=int

Pixelhead
#14. October 10th, 2007, at 2:50 PM.

Sounds like good advice, thanks.

Dennis.S
#15. October 11th, 2007, at 10:04 AM.

If you, lets say, have a photo thats slightly crooked, like say a wall that seems of or the horizon isn’t straight, you can use the measure tool (click and hold on the eyedropper button, its the last option) Click and hold where you want your eventually rotated line to start then release at the end. So for example if you want to straighten a door frame just make a line from the top of the door frame to the bottom. Go to image, rotate canvas, arbitrary and press ok. Instant alignment!

Pixelhead
#16. October 11th, 2007, at 2:14 PM.

Thats a lot easier method of straightening, thanks Dennis. I’ll include this in my post today.

Mike C
#17. October 13th, 2007, at 11:28 PM.

Haha well you know a lot more than I do about photoshop. Do you use flickr for personal reasons or do you use it as hosting for a website?

Pixelhead
#18. October 14th, 2007, at 1:51 PM.

Mike, I started out using Flickr for hosting of my personal photos but now use it for hosting of pics for blogging. I also use it for its network capabilities. Currently I have well over 1650 pics on Flickr and well over 126 cached pages.

Mike C
#19. October 17th, 2007, at 5:10 AM.

What type of networking do you do with Flickr? Just curious as I am interested in using Flickr for my benefit if possible.

Pixelhead
#20. October 17th, 2007, at 2:34 PM.

I have met lots of cool people that have become part of my larger network. Thomas Hawk’s post has a lot of great info about developing a network on Flickr. I just started joining groups, which gets your different types of photos infront of eyeballs that might be able to appreciate them more.

DLWarner
#21. August 6th, 2008, at 6:10 PM.

I’m kinda new to Photoshop (it’s really confuzing for a newbee) but tips are always welcome

amart design
#22. September 29th, 2008, at 6:39 AM.

Spend a lot of fun with this post, thanks for the photoshop tip But is it possible to link Flickr pictures like this ? Isn’t it against their terms ?

Pixelhead
#23. September 29th, 2008, at 12:38 PM.

Not that I am aware of amart design.

flash templates
#24. October 29th, 2008, at 11:39 AM.

I am new to photoshope and have only little knowledge about it. trying to learn so thanks for the tips.

Photo taking tutorials
#25. April 18th, 2009, at 11:37 PM.

Thier are alot of free tutorials and sites with brushes and much more. You can find out almost anything you need online for editing and using photoshop now.

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