MinorScraps

In case you are wondering, here is the final draft of my canvas art piece.

I really like how the font turned out. The color of the font is a sample of the fall leaf color. I changed the effects on the layers to emboss and satin to give it the shiny gold look.

The bottom layer is a brown-black sampled from the tree bark in the spring photo, then I used a photo of a forest and played with the blending modes and opacity to find the effect that looked best.

Using drop shadows, I was able to make the photos look matted.

While singing at church one Sunday I was inspired to make a piece of wall art based on the hymn Immortal Invisible, God Only Wise by Walter C. Smith.

This summer Groupon had a Canvas on Demand coupon. Now the coupon is expiring on October 22, and I still am not quite happy with how my art is looking.

Here is my original concept:

It really wasn’t working for me, so I got some feedback, scrapped the original idea and came up with these:

Horizontal:

Vertical:

Now, which do you like better, horizontal or vertical? Should I keep all the text in golden yellow? Should I change the capitalization in the verses? Leave some comments and help me out! (Thanks to everyone who has commented so far in this process. Hope you aren’t getting tired of it)

I am having problems with metadata that I enter into Adobe Lightroom’s catalog not consistently saving to JPEG files that were downloaded from my camera. My goal is to have the metadata saved directly to the JPEGs without extra steps such as exporting files from the catalog or resaving images as JPEGs in Photoshop.

I am experiencing the same issues with Mac OS v 10.6.8 and 10.7.1. My photos are captured with a Nikon D50 as JPEG (setting: FINE). I am running Lightroom 3.4.1.

I set catalog settings to automatically write changes into XMP, set Lightroom to back up each time I exit, and set camera RAW cache to 50 GB. All other settings I left as default. Pictures were copied into the catalog as JPEG from my camera card. I tagged and added captions or titles to numerous pictures.

Today when I opened Lightroom, some pictures had the exclamation point badge (sidecar file has conflict) and some didn’t. When I tried to resolve the mismatching sidecars by clicking “retry metadata export” or “save metadata to files” manually within Lightroom, the program would go through the motions of exporting the metadata (progress bar, etc), yet when I checked the actual file that the catalog is linked to, the metadata was not included in the information for the actual image. The exclamation badge still showed in the catalog also.

All the metadata I entered into the catalog remains there and is correct.

Photos captured on the same day, downloaded from the same camera on the same day they were taken can behave differently. Some photos will have the metadata saved properly, others will not.

In comparing the info for files where the metadata wrote and those which didn’t, I noticed that the permissions are different. I changed the permissions of the non-written files to match the written files and tried to resynchronize with no luck. I can export a photo from Lightroom and the metadata will be included in the newly created file. I can also download the files from my camera, open and resave them as JPEGs in Photoshop, import them into Lightroom, and the metadata writes to the files with no problem.

Is anyone else having this problem? I can’t find anything in the forums or searching the web.

UPDATE: Adobe has released version 3.5 for testing. The problem I was experiencing seems to have been fixed.

This week’s assignment was to learn about the auto settings on the camera. Each setting optimizes the camera settings for various situations. I was a bit lazy (mostly because I’m so pregnant I can’t move very well) so I didn’t get all the settings.

Macro:

Portrait:

Sports Mode:

We also learned how to take a self-portrait. Make sure you hold the camera off to the side to get the best angle (and some other creative shots).

Week two focused on composition. Look for lines and architectural props that frame your subject. Zoom in, then zoom in some more. Create visual triangles by how you pose your subject. Employ the rule of thirds in your work. Use props- anything can be a prop, even buttons on a shirt. Take photos from different angles: above, below, behind.

Zoom in

Visual Triangle

Rule of Thirds

Vary the Angle

Use Props

Week one was the study of light. How does natural light affect your subject? Certain times of day have different hues of light, the quality of light changes, and the shadows change.

We had to take photos of the same subject at different times of day. Here are some examples:

9 AM

12:45 PM

5 PM

I also took photos that illustrate front light, side light, and back light:

Front Light

Back Light

Side Light

I have been digital scrapbooking for almost 2 years now. We have so many digital photos, that it is nice to do pages directly on the computer instead of printing or waiting for them to be developed. Our photos are decent, but I want to be able to have some great photos.

Although we have a great camera, I have barely scratched the surface of its potential. I have never learned basic composition, lighting, or other photo techniques.  I use the auto modes on the camera and have no idea how to use ISO settings, aperture, or white balance.

I found a basic 4 week photography class at Big Picture Classes with Elisha Snow that will introduce me to these concepts and hopefully improve my photography skills. We have a short assignment every week and are encouraged to take as many photos as possible to practice the concepts taught in class that week.