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Anna Aspnes from Oscraps joins us today to discuss a designers process from coming up with ideas through the marketing of products.
Joining the Discussion:
Anna Aspnes
Peppermint Granberg
Katie Nelson
Steph
From the Show:
- Steph’s post Do You Believe in Evolution?
Katie’s post on Picasa
Picks:
Anna: Digital Design Essentials Photobooth Kit with add-on (Additional freebies from her newsletter) and ex-Press-O: A Little Bit of Everything
Peppermint: Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk
Sponsor:
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Regarding Picasa and the so-called “pre-nup”: the tags that you apply in Picasa are automatically written to the metadata. (Of course you still can’t tag PNGs, but this is true of all programs.)
I use Picasa every day and I love it. I don’t do a lot of tagging (only the previews), but Picasa is also great for searching for things by file name. However, what I really use it for most is for viewing my scrapbook pages while I’m making them. If I’m working on a page and I want to see it full-screen with nothing distracting around it, I just pop over to Picasa and view the page in slideshow mode.
Sarah DG
Print, Anna, print!
Digital is too new and too unstable to be reliable for your really important, long-term things. I used to be a totally digital girl until one day I took my oldest book from the shelf (printed in the 1850s) and realized that the technology for a book is time-tested and completely accessible to everyone.
Can you even recall how many iterations of file formats, storage devices, etc., you have used in your digital lifetime (to date)? Print can be enjoyed anywhere — you don’t even need electricity during the day! Print can be accessed by anyone of any technological skill level. People who can’t even turn on a computer can turn the page of a book.
How could your mother have completed her amazing research if the records were not printed but were only in some 18th century alternate storage method (I don’t know what that would be — if it existed it hasn’t survived)?
This topic really gets me going but I’m going to try to calm down now — I really want you (and everyone) to continue to print. Store digitally, too, but bring your important work into the real world! Sermon will stop here . . .
I agree!
Hey Joyce! You are so right. I have been spending all my time pontificaticating on what might be coming in the future without even considering what we know to be time-tested and true. Print I will continue to do! I appreciate you taking the time to share your two cents. I best get to it
Wow, Joyce…Great advice! There’s a statistic that a huge number of digital pictures will never be seen and eventually lost because they aren’t printed. Thank you for that reminder!
I’m so glad you all (or all y’all — I’m in Texas!) will continue to print along with saving digitally. This is one of the beauties of Project Life: It’s in the real world from the very beginning. Print on!
Hi Ladies,
My comment is about the previous episode. As I relistened to it I got thinking about something. I think I know what people will say (and I’m sure I’m opening up a can of worms). When you were discussing getting rid of kits that don’t inspire you, it was mentioned that with paper products we would all set them aside to give away. Is it wrong to “give away” digi kits that I own that I have never used? Technically when I purchase the digi files I have purchased each kit. Many kits I know I’ll never use, so I just don’t download them, but in essence I have paid for them. Could I give them away to someone who may use them? Just curious what everyone has to say.
When you purchase digital products, you are actually purchasing a license and agreeing to that license. This is true for any digital, downloadable product purchased anywhere. In digital kits, this comes in the form of the terms of use or TOU. Digital kits or any digital product are usually not tranferrable. So comparing digital scrapbook products and paper is apples and oranges. Just like if you bought a paper book versus a digital movie. Even though you paid forthe movie doesnt mean its okay or legal to give it away. Does that make sense?
Yes, I guess it does make sense. After so many years of digi-scrapping, I’ll admit I’ve stopped looking at the TOU in kits. Thanks
The one exception I’ve made personally as a designer is when a customer has purchased something twice and written and asked me if she could give the “extra” copy away vs. store credit. I have allowed a transfer of the license in those types of cases.
I was wondering if you would be interested in doing a show about templates. What is the process, how do you decide how to match up your papers, Do you always alter them, what are some fun ways you can use them, if a designer adds a circle for example, do you use the circle or use an embelishment.
Just an idea….
A great idea Angie! In the meantime, the hilarious and knowledgeable Pattie Knox has a couple of *Scrapbooking with Template* classes over at CreativePassionClasses.com if you are interested.
Tiffany Tillman is also a great template instructor. Her Summer Templates class (at Renee Pearson) is amazing! I believe it’s a self-paced class now.
PS Katie I went over to the Photoshop darkside. They had it on sale for 300 dollars.
I’m curious to know what you think about it. That’s a great price!
Thank you for another great podcast. Each time a new show is released it’s my cue to plug in the iphone and go for a power walk. Today I walked 5.75 mi listening to you and enjoyed every minute.
NICE.
This is a great idea – I need to be more active while listening. What good motivation to move! Thanks for sharing your success.
See, this is exactly why I don’t exercise. I can’t stand listening to myself!
LOL, Peppermint!! I can’t stop laughing!
Another great show ladies!
I loved the discussion of accessing where you personally want to spend your time and effort regarding organizing, taging, metadata, and scrapping. So many choices. Noell over at Paperclipping has had some interesting thoughts about recording your journaling/story right into the metadata so even if you decide not to scrap a page the story is still there, and if you later decide to go back and scrap you can have journaling from the moment recorded.
/tag/metadata/
Ok…so I have another question. I’ve always saved my layouts as PSDs. After listening to the latest show with Kayla I’m wanting to save them as TIFFs. I’m using PSE. What settings do you choose for your layouts? I didn’t realize there would be options until I tried it and then I freaked. I don’t want to goof anything up (you know, save it too small, or in the wrong format, etc).
Thanks!
Under Image Compression, you want LZW. (LZW is a lossless compression meaning you don’t lose any quality when you use it, unlike JPG compressions which is lossy and you lose quality every time you save or resave). Pixel Order doesn’t really matter. I use the default of Interleaved. Byte Order also doesn’t matter unless you have a very old machine, but just for hahas, choose your operating system. (I’m mac, but I save PC for customer files since there are more of them.) Finally, here’s the critical part for smaller file sizes. Choose ZIP (slower saves, smaller files).
That’s it! In general, just remember LZW and Zip.
Thanks, Wendy! I am on a mac. I’m making the assumption that saving mac or pc doesn’t make a difference then– is that right? I just tried it on an old layout, and the file size is almost 1/2 what the old one was. YAY! One thing I noticed though, was that when I found the “info” for each file the tiff doesn’t show the individual layers like it does for the psd (only in the info screen–does that make sense?). Does that make a difference with anything? I’m so excited to start saving space now!
I am not following you on this one. Can you email me a scren shot?
If I’m in finder and right click on both files, then select “get info” the psd file’s info lists each layer, while the tif file doesn’t. I know when I open them up I still have everything the same (including anything I added to the metadata), I just that it was an interesting difference.
You learn something new every day! I never knew you could see that. It makes sense that TIFs would not show up because every other program thinks of the TIF as a flattened file. Only Photoshop can see the layers.
Gotcha. That makes sense. Thanks for sticking with me
I appreciate your help with the file settings. I can already hear my off-site backup and hard drives thanking me. If you lived next door I’d bring you cookies.
Yum! Just thinking about it gives me warm fuzzies.
Wow, I keep learning, but do get more indecisive all the time. I have to just write my “path” and stick with it!
I have a question unrelated to the topic above, but perhaps someone can point me to a post – I am putting together a small 6×6 booklet with mostly journaling and minimal pics. I am on a Mac and could do it in PSE or Pages (which I find easier to insert pics into than a word document.) Just thinking that if I made a template in pages, I could possibly print it two-sided on a presentation paper rather than photo paper. Would this make sense? Or am I just making more work out of something than I have to?
Thanks .
I say.. whatever works for you! If it’s not graphic heavy, there are definitely other programs that work well for that kind of thing. Before I discovered digital scrapbooking, I used Quark Xpress and InDesign to do a simple book. It’s not about using a certain software, but think of your software as a tool in your toolbox. You want a certain result. What’s the easiest tool you can use to get you there. The only caveat I would give is to consider the output method. If it’s only printing at home you need, anything will work, right? But, if you want a digital copy or want to send it off to be printed, you need to consider the program’s export or saving options so you don’t do a lot of work and then cannot get the end result you need.
Thanks Wendy, the caveat is exactly what I need to decide
I know that Dropbox has been mentioned before…I have a question about it. I am wondering if I can tag my photos using Dropbox and have that information saved in it’s metadata?
Amazing show, as usual. Thank you for the weekly fix that feels like going out and hanging out with a good group of friends. I always laugh and enjoy listening to you all, and it makes easier for me to do housework and errands when I’m enjoying the show. Thanks!
I also love the picks of the week and the shortcuts for different programs and apps.
I’d like to share with you a couple of things that I’ve been enjoying a lot.
For a short cut, that maybe you all know already: when being in a website where you want to click on a link and have it opened in another tab, we know that that can be done with ctrl+click of course, but it can also be done by clicking on the link with the little “roll button” in the middle of the mouse buttons. This will open the link in a new tab without taking you out of the tab you’re in. And also, if you click on any open tab with the same “roll button” it would close it, whether you are in that tab at the moment or not; so you don’t lose an extra click in going to the tab and then clicking on the little “x” to close it.
And as for “pick of the week”… Before Pinterest times, I used to save photos I liked from websites and blogs for inspiration or just because I thought they were pretty… and you know the drill. Some of them I tagged and named carefully so I know where the picture came from, but there are others that now are just an image that I have no idea what the original source was. SO, I recently discovered that you can drag any photo from your hard drive, or other website (lets say Pinterest when the pin doesn’t take you to the source), directly into the google image search box and have google search from it like that. I’ve found the original sources of a lot of those early days pictures that I had saved in my computer. Don’t know if this has been always possible, but I just found out and wanted to share with you. I hope my description makes sense.
Keep going with the amazing shows! thanks again!
Shanti.
I alphabetize my spices too
What else do you do with spices, look through ever single one? I alphabetise mine too!
I can answer that! You unload every one from the cupboard onto the stove until you find the one you need. (Of course it’s usually one of 3 things… the last one you find, one of several you didn’t know you had… or you’re all out!)
Well, of course you alphabetize spices if you can.
I had the coolest pantry in our old house. The 2 swing out doors had shallow shelves and I had the spices all organized and it was wonderful. Our current house doesn’t have anything like that so I threw them all into a tub in the pantry and pull it out to look through when cooking.
Yea, mine aren’t alphabetized either. I have a little 3-drawer plastic storage bin in the cupboard under my cooktop and I just open the drawers and spin each jar around until I find the one I need. It’s not an efficient system. I have all these different sizes and shapes of spice bottles so I just shove them wherever they’ll fit. I don’t have a ton of spices, though. My husband goes through and tosses them on a regular basis if they’ve expired – which is alarmingly quickly.