Friday, June 12, 2009

Photo Q&A

Dear Melody,
I have been looking around your blog looking for info on how you go about photographing your work, your colors seem so very true, you've made them "float" and they're always beautiful.  If you have suggestions I'm all ears.

I am happy to help. First of all I take my photos with a Canon 700

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and download my photos into Picasa3. When they are close-ups I use my macro feature on this camera, but may still crop them to get in really close for the blog.

3/4 of the time I am using Windows Live Writer to post the blog. It works interactively with Blogger, so I can compose in WLW and edit later in Blogger after the blog is posted.

WLW is also a free program and it is the one that lets me have drop shadows and fun effects like this:

image image image  image image

Windows Live Writer also allows me to move my copy where I want it and drag a photo larger if I think it could fit the space. Can’t always do that well in Blogger, since it doesn’t resize it perfectly like WLW does.

Both Picasa3 and WLW have some fun capabilities of adding fill light, pumping up the contrast, changing pictures to B&W, embossing, adjusting the temperature, or popping the colors. You can guess that I don’t use those features much.

image image image image

One of the things I like best about WLW is that I can copy and paste any photo into the compose page without having to save it in Picasa3 first. That saves a lot of time.

PS. The layout makes a big difference too. I use Blogger’s layout called Tekka.

5 comments:

  1. WLW sounds so much more convenient that the Google blogger posting mechanism. Blogger wants to put all the photos at the top, and it's not easy to get the text to float around the pic. I usually have to go into the HTML tab and cut and paste the code to put the pic where I want it. Your day lily photos with the rain drops is exquisite!

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  2. So when photographing a quilt, do you hang it on the wall or put it on the floor? Do you set up special lights or take it outside? When you are photographing a larger piece, how do you get the whole thing in the frame without distortion? With my camera, the colors I have on the screen don't match the colors of my quilt until I tweak them, and even then sometimes I just can't seem to get a good representation of the actual colors in the photo to match the work. It's a frustration, and I have an excellent camera and good software, so that means it's me! LOL! =)

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  3. I just love using Picasa3 for orgainizing, emailing and posting photos.
    Thanks for the information about WLW. I will check it out.

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  4. Ok ...so ....am I blind or does your Camera say Canon 750 on the front of it ?

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  5. just downloaded windows live writer and I can't believe how easy it is to use. I even tried links which was a snap. Thanks for the info

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Hello,
So nice of you to drop by. I love your comments, and if you would really like a reply, please email me at fibermania at g mail dot com