Christmas lights are beautiful, but it can be very hard to get nice photos of a lit tree or decorations.  On Tuesday night I went down to partake in an Austin tradition…the Zilker Christmas tree.  Which isn’t so much a tree but lights strung from a large radio tower to make a tree of lights.  If you are not from Austin you are probably thinking…”hmmm, that’s odd”.  Hence the city’s slogan, “Keep Austin Weird”.  Actually, it is a lot of fun, people go every year to spin under the lights, get dizzy, eat some kettle corn and drink hot chocolate.  So, I was just playing around with my camera and was thinking of some interesting ways to capture the Zilker Tree and the experience of being there…plus make some cool art that later I might put on our walls.  One thing that is fairly easy to do with your DSLR camera (or any camera you can manually focus the lens with) is to take photos of the lights out of focus.  By taking them out of focus the little lights become large balls of light.  Kind of a cool abstract color study.  Another trick is camera movement.  Especially in a dark setting when your shutter speed is going to be really slow you can do a form of “light writing” or making designs with the available light.  In this case the available light is the Christmas lights and by moving the camera (spinning, zooming, panning) you can create very interesting patterns with your photo.  Here are some examples of what I came up with.  Try some of these tricks with your own Christmas tree and presto you have some new art to hang next Christmas.  Remember you can always count on us to put those art photos on canvas for you!

Here is the Zilker Tree to give you an idea of what I was talking about.

The is what a normal photo might look like of Christmas lights. Kind of dull. We need to spice it up a bit.

This is spinning and taking a photo at the same time...It's a high degree of difficulty...for me.

More spinning, this is a form of Light Writing.

 

The more out of focus the lights are, the bigger they get (depending on what lens you are using)

I like that you can still see the star at the top of the tree.

Love how the lights blend into the dots.

The lights still take on the form of a tree but it isn't so literal

Inspiration can come from almost anywhere.  Rather than choosing one particular photographer’s work to inspire you this week I want to show you hundreds of photographers’ work.  You all have heard of Flickr.  It is the dominating photo sharing site on the net.  But lately I have been drawn to 500px.com.  I have been continually amazed by the images I am seeing on there.  I keep hitting the next page just to see more.  Fair warning, there are nude photos on there, so probably not a site you want to look at with the kids (although most of them are tastefully and artistically done).  I have been a photographer for over a decade and I have always said that I would rarely hang other people’s art photography on the wall…but I have been having serious second thoughts about that after seeing some of the amazing work I have seen on 500px.  I wouldn’t mind having several of the photos on canvas.

It’s a cool website too.  The images really pop off the background and you can rate photos as well with a like or dislike.  And I think one of the most beneficial things on there…especially to photographers eager to learn…is the photographer who took the photo will often list the camera settings used to capture the image.  There is something for everyone on this site: landscapes, portraits, wildlife, abstracts you name it.  Many of the photographers who post photos to 500px are pros, but many of them aren’t…they just have a good eye and aren’t afraid of snapping a few photos.  Now that is great inspiration.

Here is what the homepage looks like.  Immediately you are struck with some beautiful images.

Here are a few sample images that caught my eye.

Again, I want to reiterate that this site is probably rated ‘M’ for Mature audiences.

Let’s change gears for just a sec.  You all know that of course you can print your photos on canvas, but have you ever thought of creating graphic or word art on a canvas?  It is a lot easier than you might think, and can be a great addition to your seasonal home decorating.  Since Christmas is upon us let’s go through the steps of making a fun canvas print based on a Christmas carol.

Here is what you will need for this jolly ‘ole…project:

1. Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  You can also do this with Powerpoint or even Microsoft Word if you are in a pinch.
2. A cool font or fonts of your choosing.
3. A line from a Christmas carol that you love.

1st off I am going to pick the perfect font (sometimes this could be fonts depending on the project you want to take on).  I am a professed font-aholic so at least I have admitted it.  My favorite place to get my font fix is definitely Dafont.com…I could (and have) spent hours on there pouring over all of their fonts.  Most computers come with the standard font choices and one of those may work so be sure to check there first before venturing to free font sites.  Here is one quick rule about mixing more than one font on a page.  Normally serif and sans-serif fonts don’t play well together, but you know what, ultimately it is up to you because this will be hanging in your house.  I found a font I really like called “Pinstripe Limo” that has a little vintage flair.

2nd step is to come up with a line from a Christmas carol that you really like.  This can be kind of tough to narrow down.  So if you have 3 or 4 that you really like then think about doing multiple canvases and place them throughout your house to tie all of your decorations together or even give one as a gift

I finally landed on a line that I really like (after listening to Christmas music for 8 hours straight).  I am going to go with “Have A Holly Jolly Christmas” in my Pinstripe Limo font.

3rd step is to consider the size of the canvas piece and the color scheme.  I am a big fan of large graphic prints.  I love how they can make a bold statement, but they can so easily tie into the rest of your decoration around the house.  So they pull double duty…centerpiece or supporting role.  I am going to make my canvas art piece 20″ wide x 30″ high at 180 dpi (by the way, 180 dpi is the perfect resolution for fine art printing onto canvas).

And for my color scheme.  My wife and I have been on this kick the last few years of using non-traditional schemes for our holiday decorating.  Not that there is anything wrong with red and green, but we like to play with color.  So for this project I am going to go with a lighter blue background and my font will be brighter red (well at least one of my colors is a traditional Christmas color).  Here is the blue I chose.

My 4th step is to go ahead and start typing and formatting my text on my 20×30 file in Photoshop.  You may have to play around a little with your formatting.  The easy way around this is putting each line of type as a separate layer in Photoshop.  That way you can move it around anywhere you want.  Again, there is no wrong way to do this.  You get to use that creativity of yours to format your text however you like.  I am a big fan of crisp and clean lines so this is what I came up with.

I finished up my Christmas canvas art by adding a few snowflakes on a layer behind the text to add a little texture and depth to the photo.  This was another font I found on dafont.com called WWFlakes (did I mention I love fonts).  Here is the finished project.  Just imagine all the possibilities you could start to explore by adding text to photos and decorating with inspirational words.  We will be giving you many more ideas on this on the upcoming weeks.  I can’t wait.

Now all you have to do is log on to Canvas Press, upload your finished file (jpg), select your canvas depth and size (20×30 for me), and I am going to select the color border option and match the color on the side to the blue on the front.  Then just add it to your cart and you are ready to go.

As we are getting closer to Christmas we, at Canvas Press, wanted to take a little time out and give a huge thank you to all of our amazing customers out there who have ordered a photo canvas or even multiple photos on canvas.  We know there are several choices out there and even if you do choose one of them some other time we hope that you will see that the quality of our product and craftsmanship really shines through.

I don’t want to get all mushy on you all, but we strive to give you all the best of ourselves and the best materials out there because…well…frankly, you deserve it.  We would gladly put our canvas prints side by side with any of our competitors out there and we know that ours will shine through because the quality of our canvas and craftsmanship is something we dedicate every single day to perfect.  We totally get that we aren’t the cheapest option out there, and we probably aren’t the most expensive either but where we shine above the rest is our continuing focus is to deliver to you…quality.  Quality canvas that you can pass on to the next generation and quality (if not fanatical) customer service that goes the extra mile for each of you.

So, again, THANK YOU everyone who has made this year and this holiday season so great…that’s you by the way.  Oh, and this isn’t the last of the Christmas sentiments.  You can totally expect more of this coming your way as we count down til the 25th.  We can’t help it…we LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Here we are in the Canvas Press workshop hard at work (not to be confused with Santa’s workshop…although there are some similarities).

canvases stretched and ready to be shipped

coming hot off the printer.

John is making those corners supa-tight.

Jen is making sure the canvas is protected during shipping.

The man with the hat, Cody hard at work hand stretching your canvases.

Canvas waiting to get stretched.

...and the frames waiting for the canvas...it's like a love story.

You know the one nice thing about back in the day when all you could take photos with was film…you actually got photos out of the deal.  Real, touchable, feel-able photos in your hands to look at.  In the digital age it is so easy to get in the habit of just leaving your photos on your camera or phone.  And so what ends up happening is that you take photos until your camera’s card is full…which inevitably ends up happening when you are out and about and want to take a bunch of photos.  But you can’t cuz your card is FULL.  Even your smartphone’s camera roll can get bogged down with waaaay too many photos.  Here is a fairly easy Workflow for getting the photos off your camera and phone and organized in a way that is easily accessible and viewable.  It also makes it easy if you do want to make prints from your photos or start a photo project (maybe a family album, photo enlargement, or canvas print).

This How To is probably an Intermediate to Advanced level.

What you will need for your photo workflow (and this is optional):

• An external / portable hard drive – You can pick one of these up for around $100 and they are a fantastic idea to create a backup of all your images and important computer documents in case something happens to your computer.
• Software to rename your photos with 4 digits. (Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, & for you Mac users…Automator are all good programs to use to rename your photos).  Again, this is completely optional.

Here are the steps to creating your workflow:

1. Create a KEEP folder on your desktop – This is a Main folder that you will initially house subfolders that you will dump your images into.
2. Under KEEP folder create a NEW FOLDER that is named in this format: year-month-day description (YY-MM-DD Description).  For example the folder I put all the images in from Christmas day would be named: 11-12-25 Christmas.  Putting the year first ensures your folders will stay in order.  For each month and day be sure to use a 2 digit place holder.  So January 1st, 2012 would look like: 12-01-01
3. In each NEW FOLDER you set up is where you can dump the appropriate photos for that particular date.  If you have a ton of photos from several different days you can download them all to the KEEP folder first then separate them into their subfolders as needed.
4. This part is completely optional and is a little more advanced.  Renaming your images.  Renaming images ensures that no images get lost…so if for some reason a photo got moved out of it’s folder you would know exactly where it goes based on the name.  So what should we name these suckers?  Name them the same as the folder they are in (without the dashes).  So it will be – YYMMDD Description – then your computer will auto name them.  So those Christmas photos I will be taking will be named:  111225 Christmas 0001.jpg.  The only thing that will change in this name will the the 4 digit number (0001, 0002, 0003, etc)…and my computer will take care of that part for me.  If you don’t know how to rename your photos no worries.  At least you have them in a folder with the a name that will keep you more organized.
5. At this point I will copy the entire main folder (11-12-25 Christmas) to my back-up portable hard drive for safe keeping.
6. Subfolders – If you like to play around with Photoshop or other photo editing software then you may want to make a few subfolders within named event folder.  I like to make 2 subfolders to help me further organize my images.  I name them: 01EDITS, & 02DISCARD.  I put the 01 and 02 in front of them to ensure that they will stay at the top of the other image files in the folder.  Now I can go through and throw out any images I don’t like, and if I play with a photo in Photoshop I can save it into my 01EDITS folder so I am not saving over the original.  ALWAYS KEEP YOUR ORIGINALS UNTOUCHED.

There you go, in 6 steps(or 5 if you don’t want to rename your photos…fine, you won’t hurt my feelings) you will have a super organized and easy to look at photo folders.  Now you can find exactly what you are looking for the next time you want to order a canvas print or make a photo collage or just reminisce about your summer vacation.

Here is an example of what the general organization order is:

-KEEP (Main Folder)

-11-12-25 Christmas (Event Folder)

-01EDITS

-02DISCARD

-11-12-31 New Years

-12-01-16 Mom’s Birthday

And Here is a screen shot of what my Keep folder looks like on my Desktop here at work.

For this blog post our very own Caroline Cohoon will take the reigns.  Caroline is not only our amazing Director of Customer Service but she is also an accomplished photographer and world traveler.  Take it away Caroline.

Thanks Eric!  You know, selling original paintings is a wonderful thing but it comes with a price. Not only meaning it comes with a large price tag, but also the fact that you no longer have the painting around. Making gicleé canvas prints is a great way to get even more out of your art.

The art market often takes a big hit when the economy takes a down turn, and be able to offer more affordable options for you art through gicleés you can help keep business thriving. Offering gicleés in no way diminishes the value or desirability of your original painting. Originals are truly one of a kind and show a depth and texture that won’t always be identical in the gicleé copy. You can also embellish each gicleé after printing so that each one becomes a new and unique piece with even more value.

Some places offer scanning services but unless you are in a big city you may not be able to find somewhere capable of scanning large paintings. You can also hire a photographer to take digital photos of your art in a studio but both these options may add a lot of expense to your reproduction budget. Here are a few tips to getting a good digital photo of your art that will make for good quality gicleé reproductions.

Make sure your camera settings are correct. You want the highest resolution available. While cameras today are often 10+ MP you can set them to a lower setting to get more photos on a memory card. For your reproductions, always make sure it is on the maximum setting. Check the compression level as well; you want a large JPG file that won’t compress the photos causing pixelation. This usually looks like stair steps or a pie piece, but it may also be described as “standard, fine or superfine.” You want “superfine” or the pie piece. If you don’t have a good quality camera you might consider renting one for a day from a local camera shop. Tell them your plans and see what equipment they recommend.

Lighting is key. You want the most even light possible. If you like to varnish your paintings to make them glossy it is best to photograph them before adding that varnish to reduce any glare. Make sure all the lighting is the same. If you have daylight from windows in the scene as well as indoor lights the colors will not reproduce correctly. You could shoot outside in shade for even light, or indoors with only one light source but try to make sure there are no shadows. Turn the flash off. It will only create shadows and glare.

Put the camera on a tripod to make sure it gets a sharp picture. Set it to be straight on the art and as close as possible. You want to fill the image as much as you can with the art to maximize resolution. Try to get the painting as level as possible. If there is a slight angle then the painting will not appear square in the finished digital file.

Take extra shots. Don’t take just one, take a few to make sure. You may also experiment shots in different lighting to make sure you like the end result.

The digital picture will likely need some touchups to make sure it is the best possible copy of your painting. Color and contrast adjustment, as well as touching up any glare spots or leveling the edges to make sure it is square. If you have some knowledge of Photoshop you can try these adjustments yourself. Never save over your original, give the edited version a new name and save it as a copy just in case you need to go back to the original. To maintain quality, if you crop the photo make sure you don’t change the resolution and make it smaller. When adjusting the image size always make sure that “resample image” is unchecked. Also save as a JPG at the maximum quality level which in Photoshop is number 12. This is the same setting as the compression level we discussed setting for the camera. You can also have Canvas Press do these tweaks and cropping for you with our basic retouching option that only costs $15.

If you aren’t satisfied with your results then you may want to choose to have it professionally done. Get in touch with some local artist groups and see if they have recommendations or perhaps have a discount setup with someone who can make digital copies for you.

Making gicleé prints on canvas helps bring your paintings alive. Since the texture matches that of an original painting on canvas it adds realism and makes an incredible copy. Again, it won’t be the same as your original but it will make a beautiful piece of art with excellent value.

Andreas Gurskey recently made big news in the fine art photography world for selling a photo for 4.3 million dollars.  Pretty insane right.  Well the photo has been object of a lot of criticism and acclaim over the last few weeks, but the one thing you can not take away from Andreas Gurskey’s work is his ability to see the whole picture.  Gurskey has a knack for seeing patterns in the environment, in crowds, and in places you wouldn’t expect (like the 99 cent store).  His work proves that you and should inspire you to look for art EVERYWHERE.  Sometimes you just to take a step back…maybe even way back to get a different perspective at what you are looking at.  Always ask yourself, “I wonder what this photo would look like if I took it from over there?” or at this angle.  The other thing Gurskey is known for is that when he displays a photo, he doesn’t hold back.  He normally prints his work to ginormous sizes.  The print that sold for 4.3 million was around 12′ wide by 7′ high and had impeccable detail and texture.  All of his work does.  Here is a look at some of his work.

The 99 cent store

Kuwait Stock Exchange II

And here is the photo that sold for 4.3 million dollars to a private collector.  Let us know what you think about that.

Are you beginning to get all nervous and breaking out into cold sweats at night because you can’t think of that perfect gift for your mom, dad, wife, husband, uncle, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa or best friend? ( I could have gone on with that for a while).  I know at some point in our life we have all been there.  Stressing about giving that PERFECT Christmas gift.  Seriously, in this day in age where it is so hard to come up with an imaginative idea to give someone where do the ideas come from?  Oh, and don’t bother asking that person you are shopping for what they want because more than likely the response will be…”Oh, just get me a gift card and I will go and get something myself.”  Wait…isn’t the whole POINT of Christmas to give a gift so the person your are giving it to doesn’t have to go and get it themselves…..insert puzzled look on my face….And how much fun can wrapping a gift card be?

Here is what I propose to you.  Give your loved one (I won’t do the list again) a canvas print from us here at Canvas Press.  You can take any of your favorite photos, upload them and we will make them into the absolute perfect Christmas gift that I guarantee they will love.  Why? You ask.  Because photos melt peoples heart, photos are memories of a specific moment that will live a long and healthy life and they can recall a happy occasion or event with a simple glance.  You can be the big hero this year at Christmas by turning one of your photos into a canvas print.  Oh, and another reason to do it is…what else are you doing with all those photos on your camera or phone?  You have had this perfect Christmas gift hiding right under your nose and you didn’t even know it.  Go ahead and make one and pretty soon you will be addicted to making more canvas photo prints for everyone!…Well we can hope.

Smith was a photographer for Life magazine and perfected the photo essay while working for them.  He could tell a complete story without any words whatsoever.  He is well known for being a bit on the bristly side and was a well known perfectionist.  When you look at his photographs and photo essays the stories he was telling through his camera still rings true today.  Do a google search for him and you will be amazed by how he is able to capture the human emotion, in war time and in peace.  Smith actually was on the Pacific front lines during WWII and was wounded by enemy fire.  His war images are some the most honest and thought provoking of that genre.

In this image think of the story he is telling.  What does the photo say to you.  Where is this man going?  Where is he coming from?  And notice the foreboding clouds in the background…lots of symbolism there.

I’m telling you, the guy was a genius at telling a complete story with one photo.  Think about Eugene Smith when you are taking photos.  What story are you trying to tell with your pictures?

We are all about giving you the tips on how to take better photos of your family, pet, vacation photos…whatever floats your boat.  But you may be doing things to mess up your photos that you didn’t even know you are doing.  Here are 5 common mistakes that we all have made that inevitably mess up that family photo.

1. THANKS MOM, NOW I’M SEEING SUN SPOTS – Everyone in the photo is squinting and you can’t see Dad’s face because he has a baseball hat on.  What happened?  Well, you took the photo during the brightest part of the day and everyone is facing the sun or the sun is directly overhead.  This causes everyone to squint and casts really dark shadow’s on everyone’s faces.  Now I know you were at Disney World and you really wanted to get the shot with the flying Dumbos in the background and that is fine.  So you have to take the good with the bad, but look around for some different options.  One option is to find a shady spot for everyone to stand under to get that photo.  Another option would be to find an angle where everyone isn’t facing into the sun and you can still see Dumbo flapping those ears in the background.  The last option would be to wait until a cloud comes over to give you that perfect even light you need…of course on a cloudless day you may be waiting a loooong time.
2. YOU CHOPPED MY FEET OFF! – You have seen this one.  You see everyone’s entire body…except for their feet in the photo.  The photo “rules” for composing a group or individual portrait is to crop either A. Just above the knees B. Mid-Thigh or C. At the hips.  Anything below the knee can look a little strange.
3. THE PHOTO IS VERTI-ZONTAL – It’s not quite vertical and it’s not quite horizontal.  Somewhere in the middle makes it a crooked photo.  Now some wedding photographers try to pull this off, but it rarely works out as a good photo.  Try your best to keep your camera level while taking the photo.  Find a horizon line somewhere in the background as a guide to help find that perfect level photo.
4. I ONLY SEE THE TOP OF GRANDPA’S HEAD! – Taking a large group photo can be kind of stressful.  Take your time, even though most of the family wants to get back to eating, drinking, or whatever it was they were doing.  Something that can easily ruin a great family shot is people hiding behind other people in the back.  And all you end up seeing of them is the top of their head or half of their face.  It’s not enough to tell everyone, “If you can’t see the camera then you won’t be in the picture.” Because you will have the smart aleck uncle who is barely peeking his eyes over someone’s shoulder.  Look through your camera and check to see that you can see everyone’s face through the camera…again, take your time, it’s worth moving people around a little to make sure everyone is in the photo.  Sitting some people in the front in chairs helps with the tiered effect when you don’t have steps to stagger people on.
5. PUT THE DRINKS AND FOOD…DOWN – During the Christmas season you are likely to be at several parties or family gatherings and these are all fantastic photo-ops because you are visiting with people you haven’t seen in a while and enjoying good food and maybe a little eggnog.  But nothing will ruin a photo faster than someone holding a plastic plate of half eaten food.  Take a quick second to have everyone put their plates and drinks down before taking their photo.

We hope you take these tips to heart and try to remember the mistakes that so many of us have made in the past.  This is a festive and happy season and we would hate for a ruined family photo to bring down anyone’s spirits.  As always, you can count on Canvas Press to give it to you straight.