I’d like to encourage you to look at things you love on the internet and to play with the inspirations to create your own works of art. On the photographs below I used the new skills I learned from Neil Tasker regarding lettering and the skills I learned from Kim Thomas regarding product photography during two classes that I took on Skillshare.

To remember the new skills I will outline the two important things I learned from each course here:

a) LETTERING

– Start with guide lines. These are horizontal lines to draw your letters on. Also add a slant line for the slant of the letters. The letter spacing is spontaneous (use your gut feeing for that).

– Sketch with pencils.

– Scan your drawing and trace using Illustrator.

– In Illustrator first draw a point. The the second point needs to be dragged to form a curve before letting go of the mouse. When you’re happy with the result let go of the mouse.

– To convert lines to shapes with a fill, select the objects and use the command: Object>Path>Convert (make sure that both outline and fill are selected).

– Then use the pathfinder tools to combine the shapes.

– Work on details until you’re happy with the finished lettering.

b) PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY

– Start with a custom white balance.

– Set up a stage near a window with a backdrop. I used two moveable wallpapers one as a table top and the other as a back wall. Beside the object I placed a white folder to reflect the light back on the object.

– Put your camera on a tripod and use a remote control.

– Set ISO to 100, use a high f-stop if you want the depth of the object to be sharp.

– Then select the shutter speed. Select the shutter speed so the product is over exposed. This is better for product photography. cheap nike air max

– Once you have the photo on the screen save it on your computer. nike air max cheap

– Correct the brightness and curves before you start to work on the backdrop colour. nike air max 90 sale

– If you want the background totally white use a gradient tool (white to transparent gradient) and masks in Photoshop and paint the background behind the image to make all corners totally white.

That’s it.

I hope you have fun with your experiments. Let me know what you did! cheap isabel marant shoes

Lots of love

Hello dear readers,
I was following an online course about lettering on Skillshare by Neil Tasker.

I found it very interesting to learn how letters are composed by hand. This is going to be very useful for me for this blog. Of the many lessons by Neil Tasker I found the one about vectorizing the pencil drawings the most interesting.
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Here is another video to start drawing your own handwritten fonts.

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There is also a really cool website I found todays via Simply Shers. She wrote about an interesting video portrait project which I find really inspiring. One of the videos was about a lettering artist based in San Francisco called Jessica Hische. Have a look at this portrait
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Above you see a video from one of my favourite blogs called DESIGNLOVEFEST. Apparently this video was made using an iPhone and edited using Photoshop. On DESIGNLOVEFEST you can book about Photoshop for bloggers. At the moment my baby is too small to be able to take part in one of these courses, even though they seem so interesting. In the meanwhile I have already met a blogger fom Australia, who recently joined a Blogshop course. It seems that even Holly Becker (famous blogger, founder of decor8blog) wanted to ask Bri (founder of DESIGNLOVEFEST) to teach her to make videos.
For this post I would like to create a pro-memoria of how I edit videos at the moment (using free software for PC). It took me about a year to learn to make them. You can find all my videos on and .
This is my work process for video shooting and editing.
a) Develop ideas, create storyboard and making lists, finding and preparing location, etc.
b) Shooting of film material isabel marant boots sale
c) To directly capture material from the computer screen I use the following software: Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 and Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture
d) I record my own voice using an iPhone or the iPad via the following programme Reclouder auf. I then send myself the file via email.
e) When I want a professional English voice (male mothertongue speaker), I let someone do a professional voiceover. This costs about 5 USD per minute of speech. Visit the following website Fiverr to see more services for 5 USD. Just simply have a look.
f) Importing of data via cable or via email. nike cortez sale
g) Opening the film material in Windows Live Movie Maker Version 2011 (free software available for download), cutting of video, then adding the sound and possibly image files.
h) It is important to find the correct settings to be able to make the video adapt for full screen viewing. If I insert image data I set the image size to 640×360 Pixel. Using the menu “Project” in Windows Live movie Maker I set the value to widescreen (16:9).
i) I added the following custom settings for saving the correct settings for Vimeo when saving the finished movie file:

j) Uploading and creating the right settings for Youtube is automatic on Windows Live Movie Maker version 2011, just click the Youtube button on the top menu.
k) Yesterday I tried editing a video using Photoshop CS4 Extended. A video made with Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 cannot be directly opened in Photoshop CS4 Extended, because the file extension .wmv cannot be opened. Therefore choose Layer>Video Layer>New video layer from file…. A good article about video editing using Photoshop CS4 Extended can be found here.
l) In Photoshop you can edit the video like you would a normal photo. You can also open the timeline and insert images or writing in your video. Inserting frames or cutting the whole video is easy in Photoshop. I don’t know how you can make the video run faster than the speed at which it was recorded, but I gues it’s possible too. When you’re done go to File>Render video.
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To convert the file extensions I use two programmes:
1. Adobe Media Encoder CS4
2. Media Converter
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While working on understanding Photoshop CS4 Extended for video editing purposes I saw that Adobe will give up selling packaged software from now on and will pass to a subscitpion base for using the software. this system is called “Creative Cloud”. Until 7th April there are good prices for subscription. I am just thinking about subscribing to this new service or to buy my upgrade for the packaged Adobe Creative Suite. What do you think? nike heels