Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.
This weeks winner is commenter number Sabine of MyCriticalEye! Congratulations Sabine!!
You have won a free copy of the Color Drenched Metal tutorial from Shannon LeVart's studio!
Please forward an email to Shannon with your email address so she can send your ebook to you!
Please forward an email to Shannon with your email address so she can send your ebook to you!
This weeks Studio Saturday is with Jewelry Designer, Lorelei Eurto.
Actually, instead of hanging out in the mess of my studio today, let's head down to the office, and chill at the computer, shall we? I want to talk today about creating your own photo collages. Photo collages are easy to make and they are so fun to put together, I know you'll all be doing it non-stop once you learn the steps.
There are a few reasons why photo collages are cool:
1. They act as a really awesome marketing tool- for either bead makers or jewelry designers!
2. Showing off your beads or jewelry in groupings with other pictures helps create a power of suggestion.
3. Outfits are my favorite choice for creating collages, but other things like color/ texture photos also help
make an attractive collage!
Step one:
Download Picasa- it's free photo editing software, and I love using it to edit all of my jewelry pictures. So it has a dual purpose here- editing, and fun collages. You can't beat that!
Step two:
Find images you want to use with your bead or jewelry pictures. Choose pictures that are eye catching, and I recommend not stealing peoples photos- so make sure they are copyright free.
To snag photos, create screen shots:
PC users: Press the Print Scrn button on the keyboard- image will be saved into the screenshots folder in
Picasa.
Mac users: Press command + shift+4 then select an area. Takes a screen shot of an area and save it as a
file on your desktop.
If you use a PC, you'll have to crop your screen shots so that all you see is the picture of your article of clothing or photo.
Mac users- your image should already be cropped.
Step four:
PC: after all shots are cropped, save the pics to a folder, then move your bead or jewelry pictures to that same folder. It's easier to create your collages if all your pics are in one place.
Same goes for Mac.
Click the folder within the Picasa program, so you are viewing all of your collage images. Holding down the Ctrl / Command(mac) key, click the photos you want to use in your collage.Click the COLLAGE button at the bottom of your screen.
Step five:
You must pick which kind of collage you want, chose the type at the top left, drop down menu. I like to use Mosaic. You can also choose the monitor/display size and create thicker grid lines here.
Click Create Collage button. the collage will be saved in the Collages folder within Picasa.
Attach your new collage to a blog post and Voila! You've got insteant Power of Suggestion!
I am showing 2 examples, one with an outfit, and one with different types of images- so you can see they are both quite attractive and show off my jewelry designs.
This week, I am giving one lucky randomly drawn winner, one of Kelley's new Lampworked glass buttons!
To qualify to win this Mustard and Clear glass button, you must leave a comment with your answer to the following question:
What other cool marketing tools do you know of? Care to share?
26 comments:
Thank you for a really great post. I am a member of a local marketing group for beaders and I forwarded this link to them.
I have been wanting to figure out Picassa's collage program. I have used Big Huge Lab in conjunction with my Flickr account. And have recently started to use Smilebox from Hallmark for larger prints. I'm trying it all to see what streamlines it all for me. And yes, use your own pictures or copyright free stock photos (love them thrown in there for color & texture - great idea to be inspired by!)
Oh that is a very good tool. I have so far used Photoshop to put together collages of close-ups of my own jewellery. That free program you mention seems very smooth and quick to use if you already have a group of pictures ready to use. By the way I really really like your collages with clothes and accessories. Think I will have a go my self.
So what marketing tool do I have to share with you? Hm, I don't know, the only thing I can come to think of is that I really like to make jewellery for people I know. I mean to make something especially with that person on my mind. That is very inspiring, firstly coz I make design choises I wouldn't make otherwise. And secondly There is a marketing benefit from that person wearing my jewellery, and it gets to be seen by more people. My friend would speak very positively about me if anyone asks about the jewellery.
Right now I have a post on my blog with a necklace with three bats for my friend Kata. I would never have done that piece if it wasn't for her.
I had no clue Picasa did that. How cool!! I use Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker. Just go http://www.bighugelabs.com and pick the mosaic function. the cool thing is it connects with your flickr account and you can choose your images and layouts as well. Very easy!! Of course Twitter and my blog are other great tools to use.
This is going to be a great discussion topic. Thank you so much for the turorial! I have been slowly learning my new Adobe Elements and all it can do which is often overwhelming. I love your photo collages and the way you pair clothing with your jewelry.
I have a simple little tip that has worked well so far. I ordered mini cards at Moo.com and use them for tags on my items. You can upload pictures from Flickr and have as many different pictures of your work on the cards as you would like. This way I don't have to push a business card at a purchaser and they walk away with the item and all my info for future purchases. I simply use an awl to make a whole and thread ribbon through it and attach it to the item.
Thanks for the tips.. I will try my hand at it. Cool marketing tip... the ladies that work with me wearing my jewelry, they have brought some nice business.
This is a wonderful help Lorelei and a great help for many people. I have been playing with photoshop recently, but thats about it. Thank you for sharing!
That was such a helpful post! I use picasa and I had no idea!!
As someone who produces marketing material for other people's products on a regular basis, you'd think I would be full of ideas to market myself, but no. I totally suck at promoting myself. I would rather be in my studio creating, so I rarely even think about it. I know...
Erin S
Thank you for this wonderful new way to use my pc.I never knew we could do so many of the cool things that you show us.I don't have a marketing tool to add.Mainly I'm collecting great beads,or making someting for friends and family.Keep giving us knowledge that you have,it's great to learn new methods.
Great tips Lorelei! I use Picasa for the same reasons you do. I am addicted to making collages. I like to take many images of one set or piece and use the collage to show off all the parts. And I have had them printed up to 8x10 at Walgreens or someplace and they become a great portfolio builder.
I used the same collage process to make my own postcards at Vistaprint for my Gallery Q exhibit. People have been asking me what professional I had make them. Me! I like knowing that I can control what I get.
Thanks for sharing such an awesome tutorial!
Enjoy the day!
Erin
This is great info! Thanks for sharing. So far I haven't ventured into the world of photo collages, but feel like I could now. So really have nothing new to share with you, besides I think you are way out in front on this subject!
Betty
Thank you for the great idea! I use picasa, but never thought to use a collage for my jewelry as a marketing tool!
The firm where my husband works has an online 'shop' where employees post things they want to sell or buy, or dates of charity functions etc. It's a great marketing tool since the firm has hundreds of employees across several states.
Thanks for a great post!
First a question: When you "snag a photo" (as you put it), are you breaking any copyright rules? I copied some clothing pics from Sundance that went well with some of my jewelry, but then I chickened out and never posted it on my blog, because I didn't want to break copyright laws. Could you answer this question, please?
I'm in the middle of a free earring give-away on my blog right now, and I am finding it to be an excellent marketing tool, (of course I'd love that free glass button of yours, too. See how well it works?)
I also like Picasa.
A friend at work told me about it. It does neat things and I had no idea it did this. thanks for the info.
Kathy
You motivated me to make collages long ago...I think there was one based on caterpillars and frogs or something like that. I use picnik.com to work with photos, but will definitely try picasa.
As for sharing tips, I adore vistaprint for printed cards, postcards and whatnot. There are frequently deals on specific products or for free shipping, so I just get what I want on sale. Using a great collage for a postcard would be an idea...I have coordinated thank you notes, business cards and hang tags (made from business cards) that I love. Plus, I love making up funky pics and using them for blank note cards...just watch for the deals.
Thanks for the motivation to go get some cropping & collaging done!
I also use Picassa and I enjoy making collages, but it has never occurred to use the collages as a marketing tool That is an awesome idea!
Erin talked about using the images for building a portfolio and postcards. More great ideas!
Thank you for the tut and the marketing ideas!
I added picasa years ago to get pictures from a friend. I never did anything w/ it, but all my pictures I downloaded went there automatically. Since I read this post I have made 2 collages!This is so timely because I had just this week wondered how to do one for a group of photos I wanted to use for a post. Thanks
I've been wanting to do this for ages - Thanks so much !!! I have fallen for the color generator. You up load a photo and it will generate a full color pallette pulled from the photo. It's great for inspiration !!!
http://bighugelabs.com/colors.php
Thanks Lori, I have used photoshop before. I am definitively going to try picasa now!
Thanks for this tutorial! I used it to make my own collage and posted it on my blog today!
I don't have any marketing tips as I haven't gotten a shop set up yet. But I wanted to thank you for the tutorial. I just love the idea of collages.
I really love Picasa. Hard to believe it is free and does so much. I used the collage feature to make a brochure for our business. It was the middle of a 3 page flyer. It looks great! Shows off our various kinds of pieces available.
Thanks for reminding me to try the collage feature again.
http://ringbyringdesigns.com
Bev
I'm new to the collaging but found your tutorial quite helpful, not to mention this gorgeous blog. Love the energy here. No real marketing tools except to be your best promoter :)
I just love creating collages in Picasa and use them on my blog all the time. Once you get the hang of it you may want to venture into creating your own on-line catalog. I use Issuu which is free. You must first create your newsletter, catalog, flyer or whatever you wish and save it as a .pdf file then upload it to Issuu and it will create a wonderful booklet style version on-line that you can embed in your website or blog, e-mail to people or even send to a printer for fancy printing.
I also use Mail Chimp to create a newsletter that I can e-mail out to my past customers and other subscribers.
This is wonderful. I created my first collage using my dog Honey, but I can see how this will be very useful on my SoftFlexGirl blog for various beading items. Thanks for sharing Lorelei!
http://saralovesjosh.blogspot.com/
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