Tag: Tutorials

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My Day WordPress

Some amazing tutorials found!

Not that they were lost, but I’ve been working on updating my Archive Tutorials so that their links all work. It’s a bigger job than it sounds like, because I have many, many tutorial pages and the ones of which I speak are all in HTML. Soooo bleah. HTML coding, copy-pasting, over and over.

I’m within spitting distance of finishing this project, though, so I can once again be proud of this amazing body of work — my Archive Tutorials! While these are not linked directly to this blog, you can get back here from the main header menu — any of those links — and then the menu at the upper right. I’m still working on navigation.

And, in other adulting news, Jack and I went to get our flu shots and shingles: part II shots today. Woo hoo! I was so happy to get that done that I came home and had two of Jack’s chocolate chip, coconut cookies with peanut butter spread on them, and a big glass of milk. So much for adulting, then, right?

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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement Travel Tales

New Photoshop Pen Tool Tutorial

I’ve been busy, busy! Today I finally finished my all-new Pen Tools in Photoshop Tutorial! In this one, I go through some detail with how to use the Pen tools and why anyone would want to do that in the first place.

I take you through such riveting projects as creating my feather to the right and making this flourish as you see below.

I just love doing vector graphics, and should probably take another dive into Illustrator, but not today.

And Jack and I bought an RV yesterday. We had sold our 2019 View the day before. It was just too small for us. We did like the beds in back, but, once we got out of bed, it was a fail. We decided that we just need more space for all 3 of us.

We found a 2019 slightly used Pace Arrow 33D in Anthem, went to see it, and loved it. They’re doing some little projects for us: adding solar panels, installing window awnings, putting in a washer/dryer. We will be picking it up in 2 weeks. Here are some teaser pics of it:

Jodie became instantly well when we went and got her a new bag of food. We’re still feeding Pro Plan Savor, which she LOVES, but that was just a bad bag. I emailed Purina, but got no answer. We had been feeding her puppy food, and it was suggested in my Standard Poodle FB group that she should be on adult, so we switched.

We also had her groomed yesterday and, so far, knock wood, she’s doing fine. Recall that she had gotten sick the day after her grooming every time we have taken her to her first groomer. We took her to a different groomer this time. If you have a reason to want to know what groomer we are now patronizing, email me.

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My Day

Photoshop Fun: a Pause Button

Today I did some fun little Photoshop foolery — nothing worth publishing, but fun nevertheless. Ok, if you insist, here’s what I made: It’s a Pause button. I copied one I found, but all these pixels are mine. I may write a tutorial for the process. It was fun to do.

Then, this afternoon, I worked on getting my Archive tutorials set up and ready to be archived. I’m not really sure how exactly I’m going to DO that, or what it means, how accessible they will be, etc.. What I did do was to improve the navigability in those pages and got rid of some obsolete stuff. Like my Bloomington address, for example.

Because this part of my site is in HTML and not in WordPress, I have to do some coding to update and change stuff. So .. ewww. I never learned html very well, so it intimidates me.

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Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Two New Photoshop Tutorials!!

I just posted two all-new Photoshop Tutorials! I did another photo retouching tutorial, the one linked from the picture at the right. I’m calling it (oh-so-clever!) Photo Fixing 2.

Photo Fixing 2

In the other tutorial, I go through 5 ways to remove a subject from its background. It’s called Remove Any Background.

We go through removing all sorts of objects from all sorts of backgrounds. Below are some examples:

And the AC is still working!

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My Day

Pulling your hair out because you can’t take out that background?

Today I worked hard, but I don’t have much to show for it. We started the day by having the AC service guy out to fix our broken capacitor. It was 86 when we got up this morning. Ugh. But it’s nice and cool now!

I spent much of the day working on a 5-part tutorial on removing backgrounds. It seems that that’s what 90% of the questions are about on the ps groups.

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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Photos into Art

Today was fun! I finished two tutorials and did some other art along the way. I know that it’s vain to think that this is cool, but.. Ok, I’ve never been accused of being not vain. This is my Porcelain Effect which I developed back in .. well, the beginning of this millennium, anyway.

Before

And I posted this tutorial I’m calling, optimistically, Photo Fixing 1.

After

This is a bit of Photos > Art I did today. I was sort of going to try the Porcelain Effect on these Coneflowers, but came across this instead. Do click the photo to see it bigger. I used Find Edges and Divide mode on the duplicated layer. I think it looks like a colored pencil drawing. I should now try doing this in actual colored pencil and see if I can make it look like Photoshop! LOL

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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Custom Shapes Tutorial: Brand New!

Yup! We’re actually going to have tacos today!

I worked hard today for several hours and got exactly ONE tutorial rewritten. It’s far better than its predecessor and it’s here. In it, I create a butterfly shape from a photo, make it into a Vector Mask, and save it as a Custom Shape.

I am really enjoying exploring this stuff, learning more, and getting creative with my writing. I do hope that someone someday reads it.

I’ve been pondering the question of my own relevance. I’ve decided that I’m relevant as long as I’m still alive and creating. All I have to do is to pinpoint and reach my audience. I’ve done that before; I’ll do it again. But, this time, it must be different, because the communication media are so different.

In 2007, I didn’t even have a smartphone. I don’t think that e-books were even a thing. There was no such thing as “social media,” except for ICQ, IRC, and Usenet groups. I did most of my communication in those days through Usenet and my own bulletin board hosted on my site. I know that I will be handling my website communication through a Facebook group and email, of course. I hardly ever even look at email anymore, though, because it’s gotten so taken over by garbage.

I’m thinking about other concepts. I’m 63. The majority of my audience before was people at least as old as me, though I had some 30-somethings and even people in their 20’s. Would “Photoshop for Geezers” be a catchy thing? How about “Photoshop for Grown-ups?”

Or maybe age isn’t that big a deal. I just know that I’m not going to try to compete with the “look what I can do” YouTube videos. Ugh. I just can’t imagine anyone learns well from that kind of thing.

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My Day

Archived Tutorials and a New Index

I guess I’m not feeling the urgency to write new posts, since literally NOBODY is reading these. What I’ve been working on the last few days is getting a new Tutorial Index built. I have been working on deciding which of my old tutorials aren’t worth keeping active, which ones are fine as they are, which ones are good but need a complete rewrite, and which ones are good but just need some tweaking.

I’ve decided to have an Archive Vault where I’ll store the ones which I’m retiring. Twenty-one of my originals are going straight into said Vault, once I get it set up.

Today I learned how to get files from my HTML side of things into my WP side. It involved getting a plugin to handle my media files (Filebird) and then downloading the files from my c-panel to my computer and then dragging them into my new media folders. It’s not hard; it just took me a long time to figure out how to do it.

I’m categorizing my tutorials a little differently, according to what the results are. I’m using my titles from my Photoshop classes for categories. Yanno, next, after I’m all done with this, and I have my following built up a bit, I’m going to rewrite (as necessary) my class materials and get going with that. I wish I were close enough to set myself a date. I do well with deadlines.

I have found that I love writing. Well, I knew that right along, but I really have missed it. And now I’m thinking about the magazine and book gigs that I used to have. Sigh. I wonder if there even ARE magazines and books now.

All of the Photoshop groups that I’ve found that have “tutorials” are just people showcasing their showoff Photoshop videos. So they’re about “look what I can do,” rather than my approach: Look what YOU can do. One thing that really surprises me is how little the effects have changed — the artwork that people are doing now is really not that different from 2000. And the special effects that people want to know how to do are things that I wrote about in 2002.

Maybe my way is outmoded, but I just don’t think so. What I think is that these “tutorial” video people are just more adept at making videos than they are about writing or teaching, for that matter.

One thing I need to work on is my resumé for when I finally get ready to get out there for real. I feel a need to explain to this newer generation who I am and why I am relevant.

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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Dogs Leap for Joy at Watercolor Effect in Photoshop

Action! I made a Photoshop Action to reproduce my own Watercolor Effect. Woot! Not only that, but it works. I’m working on the poodle portraiture for the poodle groups, and I’m having lots of fun, learning new things, and coming out with some artwork that people are enjoying.

These are the ones I’ve done so far, and I’m going to keep on doing them, as long as it’s fun. Click to enlarge them. It’s going to help me with the drudgery part to have this watercolor action at the ready!

I got the tutorial written up, too, but haven’t advertised it yet. It’s HERE.

We got the refrigerator fixed yesterday! It did turn out to be the compressor, and, while the part was covered under warranty, the labor for it was $700. Yeah. Now we get to buy all new stuff to fill it. I’m not a huge fan of a packed fridge, so maybe it won’t have to be quite so full this time.

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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Poodles in Action

So today I chose my 14 favorites. I asked these people then for permission to use their photo, and, from these, I’m going to choose a few to do this effect and write it up. I’m tickled by this result and I am thinking about how much this reminds me of my Art Challenge. Still thinking about how to do that this time around…

I got this idea for a tutorial, and so I wanted a dog in action. I went onto 2 of my poodle groups and told them what I was doing. And got over 160 pictures from people from all over the world!

On Saturday, Jack noticed a bit of water leaking from the ice/water dispenser on our fridge. He took the ice thing out of there and it seemed to stop. On Sunday, of course, we awoke to everything warm in the fridge. Ugh. Phone calls and appointments and food into the garbage.

Thankfully, we don’t travel heavy in the refrigerated food department. We probably had just a couple hundred bucks worth of food, once you add in the mayo and ketchup. But waah! Guy’s coming out tomorrow. There’s some kind of class action going against LG for their compressors.

It’s another hot day today. We’re talking about taking a trip into the mountains, but, evidently, everyone else is doing the same thing, because all the campgrounds are full for the foreseeable future.

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My Day Photoshop Tutorial Announcement

Amazing Gradients New Tutorial!

I’m working on some fun things — Photoshop art and writing! I have posted my third tutorial re-do. I did a little remake of my Amazing Gradients ideas.

Diamond Trail

If this looks like something fun, you’d be right! The tutorial for making this is here.

I continue to learn little bits about WordPress. I have a feeling that, once I get it, I’ll be unstoppable, but for now, LOL, I’m feeling quite stoppable!

I’ve joined a WordPress group on Facebook, and they seem to have answers, as well as many, many members, so we’ll see how that goes. Ok now I’m going to set out to learn some new Photoshop technique so I can write a new tutorial. 🙂