CoffeeShop 4 Corners Storyboard Template!

♥ Read more!

Fun little blog tip, Link Within Widget!

We went to Galveston last week and had a great time. It is just amazing how much the island has recovered after Hurricane Ike. I will post more images of our trip later, but I had to post this one of the track hoe with the impact hammer, seemingly out in the middle of the ocean. We woke up one morning and looked out the window and saw this amazing view. My boys love construction vehicles, so this was absolutely thrilling to them. Luckily they get up early (yeah right, I would love to sleep in one morning, at least until 7:30...) so I was able to photograph it. It is on the end of a cement/granite pier which they are rebuilding after the hurricane. Notice the people watching on the lower left of the image; we weren't the only ones impressed. Nature and machines; strange mix for beauty but it sometimes works.

You probably have noticed that I have these new five little thumbnails below each post that link similar posts within my blog. I have seen these around lately and wanted to do the same, but hadn't really investigated it. Then I was looking at a blog design I had done months ago and she had added those little photo links and I decided to click on the credit link and find out how to install my own.

It is so easy! Just go visit LinkWithin and set up your own linking thumbnails on your website or blog. It is free and takes only a minute or two. LinkWithin says it can take hours for it to crawl your site and show reasonable links, but mine were working great within 10 minutes or so.

This is such a nifty feature for blogs like mine. I have so much information and it can be really hard to find what you are looking for without cool little widgets like this. I have added the label cloud and I hope that helps, but this is a fun little way to find similar posts that you might not have realized you wanted to read!

I am posting a new storyboard template (.psd, not action) and my newest action, CoffeeShop Vintage Honey, in the next day or two. I am also putting together a tutorial on how to make your own templates with clipping masks and a few more fun Editing 101 posts. I am trying to post more often, so check back regularly!!!

Hope you are all having a great weekend. It is a bit cooler here, but so dry. The Smith Brothers came and cut our hay fields yesterday, but we aren't going to get many bales. But the fields do look really nice and they are going to bale tomorrow, so the boys are completely excited!

On a sad note, we lost one of our 18 chickens while I was in Galveston. Poor little Henny Penny 1 or 2 (we had two black and white hens, Henny Penny 1 and 2, and I could not tell them apart) got out of the chicken coop and unfortunately is now gone. I will spare you the details, but her demise had a lot to do with tiny chicken brains and nature. The boys were not as sad as I would imagine they would have been, and when I mentioned it to Ike that Henny Penny 1 or 2 was dead, he said "Daddy killed her". What in the world??? I wondered where he learned the word "kill", and then I realized it was from me. As in "step on that fire ant and kill it", or "stand still, I have to kill that mosquito on your arm". Oops, I need to watch my words in the future! And no, Daddy did not kill Henny Penny 1 or 2, but if he had we might have had BBQ chicken when we got back! ;-)

Talking about tiny chicken brains, the other day my grandmother told me this story about this chicken that had its head chopped off by a farmer and it lived for over a year and toured the country as a side-show. The owner feed it through its neck using an eyedropper. I scoffed at my grandmother (in my head of course, never disrespect your elders, especially when they are tiny but incredibly tough) and told my husband about it that night, making a bit of fun of my grandmother. I then told my mom who decided to do a bit of Internet searching and found THIS. Well, needless to say, my grandmother got the last laugh, because Mike the headless chicken was a real headless chicken and lived 18 months with just a brain stem. The interesting part of this story was he did everything a normal chicken did, except he did not have a head or most of his brain. So that puts a chicken's intelligence in perspective. ;-)

But anyway, with tragedy comes new life, and now we have a little black hen (Blackie) sitting on 10 eggs, so we might have a few new chicks in three weeks. They are not all her eggs. She is sitting in prime real estate (according to the other hens) and I keep on finding other hens on top of her, laying their eggs! We have plenty of boxes (11 ones filled with hay and only 15 hens), but the grass is always greener on the other side and everyone wants her box. I finally went out there this morning and used a sharpie to mark the eggs under her so I can remove fresh ones. Otherwise that poor hen might be sitting on a 100 eggs in a few weeks... Haven't you seen those Loony Tunes cartoons where the chicken is balanced on a mountain of eggs? You thought that was funny, right, never realizing that the person who thought of that apparently had a broody hen sitting in a prime location. The chicken snakes also love that location, so I will keep you posted if any of the eggs make it to little chickens.

♥ Read more!

CoffeeShop Editing 101 - Quick Lighten, Darken, Pop

This is the first in a series of CoffeeShop Photo Enhancements 101 Tutorials. I know many of you that visit my blog are new to this whole photo-editing business. You bought Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and/or LightRoom and you are scared to open it, let alone start messing with your images! I think it is is important to start at the beginning and give you some quick tips/tricks to help you get over your fears so you can enjoy editing. And some of this stuff might be new to those of you who have been editing for some time!

Most images are not perfect SOOC (straight-out-of-camera) and could use a few tweaks. I am going to give you a few quick tips to lighten, darken, and/or "pop" your images easily and quickly in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

Lighten:


You took a lovely photo but it is too dark and you want a quick fix.



Ctrl-J your background (this makes a copy; you can also use Layer, Duplicate Layer). Then put this copied layer into Screen Blending mode and adjust the opacity to taste. This is a great method to brighten skin.

Darken:


Maybe you want to darken your image slightly.


Ctrl-J your background (or Layer, Duplicate Layer). Then put this copied layer into Multiply Blending mode and adjust the opacity to taste. This is a great way to burn in backgrounds.

Pop:


One really popular photo-enhancement is making your image "pop", which basically means you are adding more contrast. Here is a quick "pop" technique.


Ctrl-J your background (or Layer, Duplicate Layer). Then put this copied layer into Soft Light or Overlay blending mode and adjust the opacity to taste. Use Hard, Vivid, Linear, or Pin light if you are really adventurous. This is such a simple adjustment but the results can be quite stunning.

All of these adjustments can be used on color or B&W images. Easy isn't it! You can also combine the different effects (screen on one layer, soft light on a second), or use two of the same effects (if your image is really dark, make 2 copies, put each in screen, and adjust top layer's opacity to taste). Use layer masks to mask out the enhancements where needed (if you have PSE, download my PSE layer mask action). You can use a screen layer to brighten skin (mask out the rest of the image) and then a soft light layer on everything BUT the skin (mask out the skin). Play around with it! I used all three blending modes with layer masks on the after image below.



My next Editing 101 Tutorial will explain why you would want to use a S-curve adjustment layer, and include a free action for you PSE users who can't access Photoshop curves. Then I am going to have a tutorial covering Layer Masks and why you should love them! If there is a basic tutorial you would like to see me post here, please just comment below and I will try to add it to my list. :-)

I forgot to mention the Mozy sale this month! Click on the banner below, enter the text "AUGUST" when you check out and get 10% off your Mozy plan!!!

♥ Read more!

CoffeeShop Blogger UnWrapped: Removing Blogger Navbar

I have been posting my CoffeeShop Actions UnWrapped series for a while (I explain step-by-step what my actions are doing), I am adding CoffeeShop Editing 101 (basic photo-editing tutorials) and now I am starting a second new series, CoffeeShop Blogger UnWrapped. Blogger UnWrapped is going to share secrets to tweaking Blogger templates and making them your own. It has taken me months to figure out all of this stuff, and I am going to teach you all of the best Blogger tweaks!

A few of the things I have planned for the next months are making your 2-column blog wider, making a photoblog or 3 column blog, adding a horizontal menubar, making blog buttons, changing your background, adding post dividers, making slideshow headers, and removing those annoying wrenches by your columns. If there is anything in particular you are looking to do on Blogger, leave a comment and I will try to add it to my list.

On to my tutorial... Today we are going to remove that pesky blue Blogger Navbar on top of your blog.

♥ Read more!

Need Help With Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or LightRoom2?

First, I have put up a little poll asking about your favorite editing program on the left side of this post. Please comment in it if you get a chance. I am really interested to see which editing program the majority of my readers use to edit their images.

Second, I receive emails all of the time asking how I learned how to use Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and LightRoom and for book suggestions. Well, I am a huge fan of Scott Kelby's books. Sure, he has a corny sense of humor, but so does my husband and I love him anyway (he has kept me laughing since 1987). But humor aside, Scott Kelby's books are great if you want to dive right into your photo-editing programs. They are the only photo-editing books I have ever purchased and I keep them around for reference. Check them out below, they will help you get over your fear of editing!

I also have many people ask me if they need to buy Photoshop CS4, or can they live with just Photoshop Elements (PSE6 or PSE7). YES! Elements does everything you need to do in photo-editing. And the best part is it is very similar to Photoshop, so if you want to move up to CS4 in the future (you have extra money burning a hole in your pocket or you are a professional photographer editing massive amounts of images) then you will already know how t0 use much of the program. I also love LightRoom, but you can't do textures or layers. But if you don't plan on doing that LightRoom is amazing! I use it all of the time because the majority of my images just need basic adjustments and not fancy spancy enhancements.

Basically, if you can buy one program, I would buy PSE7 so you can use textures. If you have any of the newer versions of PSE, please download my free layer mask action, this will make your program much more like CS4. If you can afford two programs, I would get PSE7 and LightRoom 2. That will allow you to do just about everything you would ever want. If you have tons of money, buy Photoshop CS4 and throw in LR2.




And for my Mac readers, here is your version of PSE and CS4 (LightRoom works in both Macs and Windows):




There are also student versions of these programs for considerable discount. I have seen that even homeschooling parents can buy these academic versions. The only flaw with them is I think you can't buy an upgrade later, but if you have young ones in school you have many years of buying academic versions, so don't let that stop you. :-)

And if you have any photo-editing question or question about CoffeeShop, please post them in my CoffeeShop Flickr Group.

I am starting two new tutorial series. One is called Blogger UnWrapped and I will post all that I know about tweaking Blogger templates and making them your own. The other tutorial series will be called CoffeeShop Editing 101. I have realized that many of my readers are just starting out using Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and/or LightRoom so I have decided to post some basic tutorials on some of my favorite tips and tricks for beginners (some of them might even benefit "old" users like me). I will continue my series of CoffeeShop Actions UnWrapped (where I describe what steps I use in my actions). And I have more actions and storyboards coming out next month.

Thanks so much for stopping by my little blog, supporting my ads, and making such generous donations. You make it possible for me to continue enjoying blogging at CoffeeShop and keeping everything here free.

♥ Read more!

CoffeeShop Web Triptych PS/PSE Action and Template!

♥ Read more!

CoffeeShop Blog Diptych PS/PSE Action!

♥ Read more!

CoffeeShop Blogger UnWrapped: Fooling Blogger and Loading Large Images!

Note: This tutorial works great, but check out my new easier tutorial here!

So you want to display large images on your Blogger blog. You make your image 1000px wide, load it up on your post selecting "Image Size, Large", and suddenly your large image looks small on your post. What happened? Why is Blogger shrinking your image? If you click on your image within you post it opens a new page with the full-sized version, but why is it not showing up full-sized in your post?

♥ Read more!

CoffeeShop Web Rounded Corners PS/PSE Action!

NOTE: August 24th Update! I have made a new version of this action that smooths the corners of your image BEFORE cropping, so the corners are nice and smooth, not jagged as they can be in the original action. It is a bit more work for you (you have to enter the smoothing amount because it will differ for each original image size), but I have suggested amounts in the new instructions. Your corners will be wonderfully smooth! The links below are to the new version of this action. Hope you enjoy the improved version. :-)

Wouldn't you love to be able to have an action that would automatically crop/sharpen/round corners of your image so you could post it on your blog? Well, you asked and I wrote and now you can download the CoffeeShop Web Rounded Corners PS/PSE Action.
This is the first in a series of new blog-based actions I will be posting here. I am working on a similar one that adds a drop-shadow and also one that adds a white frame around your image. I am also going to be designing more blog storyboard actions so you can quickly make up beautiful storyboards to post on your website or blog. Finally, I will also be starting a tutorial series on making your Blogger blog beautiful, including tweaking your blog template, adding backgrounds, and other goodies.

Note, this action does not automatically apply your watermark (as seen in the sample image). Unfortunately that has to be custom written for each individual watermark. This zipped download includes both a Photoshop and Photoshop Elements action, plus full instructions.

Download the free CoffeeShop Web Rounded Corners PS/PSE Action HERE or HERE!

♥ Read more!

How about another CoffeeShop Giveaway!

I have been stuck at home since last Friday with a 2 year old who has a nasty virus (not the flu, we had it checked out) and I have not had any time to play on the computer or work on something for my blog. Not to mention we are all dealing with lack of sleep (when your son wakes up at 2 AM with 105 degrees F fever, you can't sleep, believe me) and general grumpiness. My 4 year old is healthy so far (fingers crossed), but he is stuck inside with us, poor kid. And my 2 year old has decided if he feels bad then his brother has to feel twice as bad, so that includes destroying any games/toys his older brother is playing with and hitting his older brother with his hand or any hard object he can grab and successful swing... Thank goodness for Little Bear on Noggin and my trusty DVR or I would probably not be typing this right now...

So what is a poor Mom to do when she is too tired to even think about something interesting to put on her blog? Well, she offers a giveaway of course!!! I have been having so much fun learning all about Blogger blog design lately that I decided to put together a little something for one of my readers.

Make a comment about something you would like to see me post on my CoffeeShop blog (make sure you leave your name) and I will randomly select one person to win the blog design seen below (click on the image to see the blog "in action"). It will only install on a Blogger blog, and it includes installation of a 1 column photoblog with a horizontal menubar (fully customizable) and search button, 3 gadgets lined up on the bottom, the background and post dividers seen on the blog, and a custom animated header with up to 4 "flashes" designed for you! If you like the look of this blog design, please inspire me with some great new ideas for actions, templates, storyboards, tutorials, or anything you want! But please, only one comment per person, I hate having to delete doubles. ;-) I will keep this open until Friday night at 9PM central time.

NOTE: I can change the background and post-divider color if orange does not agree with you. We have many Aggies in our family so the orange would NOT work for them!

I have another vintage action coming out this week, so please come and hang out at the CoffeeShop. :-)

♥ Read more!