From Marianne: At our last meeting, I highly recommended using WordPress for a blog. I’d like to revise my recommendation! Someone pointed out that I might be taking for granted how easy WordPress is and they are absolutely right. Of course it’s easy for me. I’ve been using it for years!
So…if you have no experience with html or with css OR if you want something VERY easy with minimal work, then forget about WordPress. Try one of the following instead. They are free which means you don’t have to purchase web hosting and they are popular with the masses because they require minimal experience. With both, you can choose to make it a hosted blog at any time. Blogger: I mention it first because it’s by far the most popular blogging tool available. No doubt because it’s so easy. You can choose to turn it into a hosted blog at any time.
SmugMug: Very popular with photographers. I have no experience with SmugMug but I have several friends who do and they only have good things to say. With SmugMug, you can eventually choose to have your website through them along with your blog. There will be a monthly charge for that, of course.
For Mac users: Mac operating system has a built in blogging utility. Also free. Many photographers use it and say it’s very easy.
Don Foerster gave a very entertaining and extremely useful demonstration showing how to use Advanced Blending options to quickly combine two layers (not in Elements). Here are 2 links to tutorials regarding this topic. The first is a video from Creative Sweet TV. Although there’s a little too much banter at the beginning and end, it’s very useful.
The second link is to a written tutorial which demonstrates the use of blending options for masking. USING BLEND IF SLIDERS FOR MASKING (more advanced)
Chick Gerston showed how to replace a sky and get more realistic results. His presentation was from Mark Galer’s CS3 tutorial from a few years ago. The use of Clipping Masks was key to the best results. Great job, Chick!
Finally, Marianne Jensen continued her quest to extol the virtues of having a blog. Besides being a way to share your work with others, she pointed out the use of a blog as a marketing tool. Here’s a link that sums up many of the advantages.
The Digital Imaging Group has made a move to WordPress. As a result, there may be a few hiccups for a month or two and you might not be able to find an archived presentation during that time but our hope is that this format will be more informative and fun for us all.
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