Finishing a Project

In my last post I talked about how good it felt to think of an idea for a project, do it and see the finished result. Now I find myself back working on a project that I have been working on for nearly two years.

Why have I taken so long? Firstly it is a big project. This is the storybook of our overseas holiday back in 2007. It was a big event for our family and I wanted to make it special. We packed a lot into the trip and I want to record it all.

Secondly I keep seeing and learning new techniques to use in the software and I find myself constantly changing pages.

So why the sudden urge to finish it off and move on. It just needs to be finished before the trip becomes a distant memory and from a very practical view it's going to cost me money if I don't finish it. The vouchers I bought to pay for the project will expire at the end of next month - money is a very powerful motivator.

I've reached the final stages have been searching for a suitable idea for the first page. Here's what I came up with. A simple technique applied eight times over to each letter of the title. I thought is was a good overview of the whole trip. In order I have managed to include on the first page:- my home town of Aberdeen and it's characteristic granite buildings; pipers; salmon fishing; the thistle; the still in a whiskey distillery, ruined castles, drum major in full highland dress and finally Edinburgh Castle. Not a bad summary of Scotland. What do you think?

I've also been working on the cover and used the heather clad hillsides of the highlands.

There is still a bit of work to do but the end is in sight. Whether it is a short and swift project or something ling term there is lots of satisfaction just to finish a project. Even more satisfaction from seeing the completed project in print.
Keep printing your memories.

Finding Time

You know what it's like. Something you really want to do but you just can't get around to it. That's been the case for the last few year with some of my photos. I've had lots of projects that I want to do but just haven't got around to them or worse still started but not finished. All too often that is the case with some of my projects.

Well that just changed. The weekend before last it was dull and drizzling rain off and on. So on Sunday morning I thought cloudy day, means even light, no harsh shadows, perfect for photography. Let's take some photos just for the fun of it.

I recently jumped into the ebay/paypal world and purchased some photographic gear from overseas. Actually purchased from China, posted in HongKong (I guess that's China nowadays), and arrived with a Singapore stamp on the packet. Seemed a bit strange but it was cheap and arrived within a few days and it did what the description said it would do. But ... until last Sunday I hadn't had time to try it out.

So what did I buy? For less than $40 I got an adapter to connect my old lenses from my Minolta SLR to my current Sony DSLR. SO WHAT? you say. Well for $40 I can connect my lenses purchased in the late 70's to my fully automatic digital camera. The auto focus doesn't work, the auto exposure doesn't work (well not fully) and lots of other things don't work. But they never did! Cameras of that era didn't have auto this, that and the other thing, we did everything manually.

So what make this so good is that some of these old lenses have features that I just can't afford today. One lens has macro settings for extreme close up - check out the price of macro lenses today and you will see that it was $40 well spent.

So what did I do? I went round the garden with my 30 something year old lens and $40 adapter shooting all the interesting and unusual close ups of plants and flowers in the garden. Oh how quickly we forget! Aperture, shutter speed,ISO .....

But it all worked, and the beauty of digital is that if you stuff it up you take another at no cost. I spent a few hours with the perpetual calendar template and StoryBook Creator Plus software, added the images and a few personal touches and its done. Who says I never finish anything?

It arrived in the mail today and I have to say that I'm very pleased with it. The camera/lens combination worked well, I'm pleased with the images I captured and as always the finished product produced using SBC3+ is outstanding. The finished 18 x 12inch pages look great.

If you are keen on photography don't put it off. Go out and use your camera and print your images. Nothing beats seeing the images you took in print.

Something New

I have spent most of this past weekend working on SBC3. It is such a powerful yet easy to use software tool. There are so many creative effects available within the software and yet people always seem the find new ways to combine these and produce something completely different.

One of the best ways to find out about these new techniques is to mix with other users and enthusiasts to share ideas. There is alway somthing new to learn. No one is an expert some have just been using the software for longer than the rest of us.

Just this weekend I was revising a set of instructions for a particular technique when I found that I could actually reduce the steps by taking advantage of other features already built in to SBS3. I had seen the effect produced by someone else and worked out what I thought was a logical way to produce the same effect. After using my method to produce a number of pages, posters and calendars I found I could simplify things considerably by checking one box in the software options. Sometimes it pays to read the instructions and sometimes it's best to experiment. Do both and who knows what you can discover.

Getting Started

If you are new to StoryBook Creator Software (or maybe even a complete computer novice) then one of the biggest steps is the first one. Getting started. You perhaps saw a presentation, became enthusiastic about the potential and full of ideas for books or pages you wanted to create and share and went a head and purchased the software.

Now you are faced with the reality - where to start? You are not alone. I know many people that own the software but have not even opened the packet and installed the software on the computer. I have been using computers since the late 1970's and teaching people to use them for most of that time. My message to first-time users has always been "You can not damage a computer by using it. Unless you type with a hammer you won't break it" The only way to become a proficient user is to first become a user of your computer and software. Make a decision and get started. Don't expect it to be prefect first time.

One of the joys of working with digital media and Storybook Creator is discovering the undo key. If you try something and it didn't work as you expected then pressing the undo key will do as it suggests and undo what you just did. Then again, sometimes these mistakes lead to incredible creative moments worh keeping and repeating and sharing with others.

The hints and tips that I will hopefully share on this blog were discovered in exactly that way. Trying things to see what happens and adapting ideas that others have shared. If you have been reluctant to start then make a decision to 'have a go' and share the results with us.

Remember that help is always available. Share your difficulties in an email and I will be able to help.

If you would like to be able to create the globe on the featured page at the start of this post, come along to Memoranza on the 15th May. Details on my website