Episode 54: Digi Twins

 

Chelle of Chelle’s Creations joins us today to discuss techniques we love to use: from photo size all the way through to specific effects we go back to again and again.

Joining the Discussion:

Chelle’s Creations from Scrap Orchard
Peppermint Granberg
Katie Nelson
Steph

From the Mail:

From the Show:

  •  Yin templates
  • Heddy’s post on Sketch technique 
  • Katie’s post on not cropping out too much from the background
  • Katie’s post on deciding her favorite layouts from 2009 
  • Katie’s post on deciding her favorite layouts from 2010

 

Picks:

Chelle: Zoku Quick Pop Maker (Zoku Blog)
Peppermint: Songza
Katie: Visual Supply Co (from Heddy’s post on photo management in Lightroom)
Steph: Tokina Wide Angle Lens

 

Sponsor:

image

For the best deal in digital scrapbooking, become a member at TheDailyDigi.com.

 

 

This entry was posted in Chelle from Chelle's Creations, Katie, Peppermint, Show Post, Steph. Bookmark the permalink.

22 Responses to Episode 54: Digi Twins

  1. Nina F says:

    I just wanted to let Peppermint know that I hoard pretty things too. I’m not a digi scrapper (oh no!) but I subscribed to the digi files for several months, and download all the digi supplies from online (BPC) classes I take. I *could* digiscrap, it just hasn’t happened very much LOL All that to lead up to…I bought your Scenes from Real Life kit because it is Sooo pretty :) I saw it as an entry for Echo Park, and I checked it out later, and it was just too nice to pass up. One of these days I’ll use it to make a page or two, until then, I know I have it. Thanks to all for fun and informative shows!

  2. AmberMcB says:

    I can totally relate to the comments about ‘a place of scarcity’. I love digi because I can use the pretty things but they aren’t consumed & ‘gone’ once used. I keep intending to donate that huge hoard of paper supplies that I’ve only used once in the last year — but everytime go in there to purge some I think, “I still love this pattern, I might find something to do with it…” Also, I too, have purchased digi kits just to ‘look at’ because they are so beautiful – but I have 3 boys & know I’ll never in a million years use all of those flowers ;) I do go in & ‘visit’ them once in a while as my eye candy stash. Using them for ‘about me’ pages is a great idea! I have some scanned pictures of me as a girl — they might be useful for those!

    Lastly, I want to comment that as soon as Peppermint mentioned songza I was looking it up. I chose some ‘relaxing instrumental jazz’ & it played as background music through the end of your podcast and is still playing. I like songza!! Thanks!! Much better than the 3 arguing children as my other background ‘music’ option :)

  3. Chelle says:

    I think when I made the switch to digi I still had my entire SEI “spice” paper pack. I LOVED those rich colors so much I couldn’t bring myself to use them. LOL!

  4. L Squared says:

    I’ve been digi scrapping since January (was all paper before that) and this show pushed me to take the plunge and print some layouts!! I had been debating – will I want photo books or single layouts, will I want 8×8 or 12×12, will I want to do paper layouts and put them in the same albums, will my albums be chronological or more theme style… THEN I JUST PUSHED PRINT! and I’m so happy I did. A long time ago someone on this podcast said that a starting scrapper should go ahead and print some layouts so they can see what the colors and shadows look like printed. I’m so glad I finally printed the layouts I made. I went with 8×8 from Persnickety and was pleasantly surprised how all my photos seemed plenty big even if I had 12 on a page. A major extra benefit was that my husband could finally “see” what I was doing and enjoyed the memories I had captured.

    Now the question – I’m happy with the 8×8 format and bought a doodle bug album, but I’m disappointed in how much larger the page protectors are then the individual pages. I’m sure they were designed for the 3-D space needs of paper layouts but I feel like my pages are swimming around a bit within the page protectors. Any tips or other manufacturers that seem to have protectors that are a bit slimmer?

    • Peppermint says:

      I’ve only used Colorbok and Martha Stewart albums, neither of which had any extra space. Although the page protectors from one don’t work in the other. I found that out by accident when I had leftovers from one!

    • steph says:

      I don’t have one brand that I buy yet. I love the post bound albums and not many companies are making them anymore. :(

  5. Tammy says:

    I wonder if “hoarding beautiful stuff” is a condition all scrappers suffer from! When I paper scrapped, I remember my kids digging through my stash & wanting to use certain things…it made me cringe ;} I had to distract their attention onto the stuff that I didn’t have some “special purpose” for (you know…the stuff that never got used!!) I am SO thankful for digital! I can use my beautiful stuff over & over in totally different ways :)

  6. linda says:

    Since there was mentioned of pattern mode in CS6 I wanted to share a class I’m taking here: http://www.reneepearson.com/classes/autopatterns.php It gives you templates and teaches you to make your own for automatically updated patterns in CS4 and CS5. I totally love how it’s setup!

  7. kelly says:

    Hey ladies, Thanks for the great discussion today! I giggled along with the twin references between Katie and Chelle…..I adore big photos as well!
    I was thinking about your discussion on storing digi supplies in Aperture and not being able to see the .png files…..this is why i use Picassa. All .png .tif, .jpg, and .psd files can be seen easily. The background in Picassa is white, so maybe some whitish elements and overlays are hard to see.
    When using Picassa for the first time……..and you first upload your digi stash it takes AGES before everything is ready to tag. (just a warning)
    Thanks for the links for your pics…..i tried out Songza but it’s US and Canada only….oh well, hopefully someone down under will make something like this that we can play with too.
    Thanks for a great show…..I was stalking itunes for the show this week…..and then it came out – yippee!
    It’s great to listen too while i exercise….but i need to keep my note’s open on my iphone so i can jot down stuff to re-check after the show :)
    xx kel

  8. RitaQ says:

    Peppermint… LOVE the Songza pick. Rockin blues :)

  9. Ann says:

    I am pausing the show to comment on the comment about TIFF/PNG and CM Storybook files. I justly recently stumbled across how to take a PSD file and create each layer into a png file and then upload it into Storybook. If you put the layers in order they will go on the page exact. Yes this is a pain but in the long run it is worth it. Previously I was creating the pages in PSE, saving them as jpegs and then uploading just the photos from the template. Unfortunately CM does not offer other files and it takes experts to figure out how to make it happen. Storybook is very user friendly and they have great quality books when printed. I am just starting out in digital and would templates to be user friendly in all programs out there.

  10. Shantell V. says:

    Enjoyed another great show! But Steph’s pick this week brought to mind a question I’ve been wanting to ask. What lenses do you recommend? I know that is a loaded question but I’m in the market for my first ever DSLR and I’m wondering what lens or lenses I should get. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

  11. Allie says:

    What a great show!

    Piggy backing off of Peppermint’s story about Nicolas being the shortest in his class- that was always me–and my brother (5 years younger) has ALWAYS been taller than me. He was helping me move into college my freshman year, and the people checking (me) in looked past me and asked him his name, dorm room, etc. He quickly corrected them, but then they looked at me and didn’t believe that I was in college!

    Even now, I get carded for rated R movies. And I’m 24. #facepalm

  12. Becky says:

    Can anyone remember which episode talked about a bunch of apps for your phone?

  13. Melissa says:

    I use PNG files with PSE to organize my supplies and using the PSEDB tool by John R Ellis, used it to write metadata to my PNG files. See his comments:
    ______
    The tags and other metadata are being written in industry-standard EXIF and XMP formats to the PNGs themselves.

    There are at least a couple of tools that will view those PNG EXIF/XMP tags: Exiftool (perhaps the most authoritative metadata tool available), ImageMagick, and likely some others.

    The core problem with PNGs is that there is no industry standard for general metadata, so any approach psedbtool takes won’t be accepted by most programs.

    Its current approach of writing the metadata into the PNGs relies on an apparently non-standard extension that only a few programs recognize.

    The alternative approach of writing the metadata to .xmp sidecars wouldn’t be recognized by any programs, as far as I know. The few programs that do recognize sidecars (e.g. Adobe programs) only use them for raw files, not for non-raw files like JPEGs or PNGs.

    By the way, since PSE 6, I have seen only one verified instance of a PSE catalog file getting corrupted. The bigger concern is not corruption of the catalog, but rather Adobe’s lack of ongoing investment and support for PSE and the strong possibility that Adobe will kill the Organizer in the next couple of years.
    _________
    I think this is interesting and would love to see the PNG metadata issue address by Adobe and the operating systems.

    It would save us a lot of work!

    I verified with the Library of Congress Metadata information and sure enough PNG does have metadata capabilities that could be implemented.

    Melissa
    PS I did a little research and linked up about the PNG metadata issue yesterday and posted but maybe the site did not like my leaving links in the comments?

  14. Melissa says:

    I just recently bought an iphone so I’m now able to enjoy the Daily Digi app, and just wanted to say how much fun it is. I spend lots of time in my car driving kids to and from school, errands, etc. and I’m loving being able to catch up on all the Digi Show episodes while I drive. Thanks for a great show!

  15. PattiP says:

    Listening to this episode and the discussion about PNG files & Aperture brought to mind something that some Mac users may not be aware of or have thought of. If you go to the Finder, then to your folder with your digi supplies, you can change the view to Cover Flow. If you do this, the PNG files will be visible. The black tends to blend at the top due to the shading of the background, but usually you can see enough to know what PNG file it is. This is such an easy way to scroll trough files and actually see what’s in the folder, but it took me a long time to realize that I was missing this trick since I don’t normally view my hard drive in this view.