Social Networking Archives - Page 4 of 6

May 23, 2011May 22, 2011

Add Images from Lightroom to your WordPress Blog Automatically

Although I really like WordPress as a blogging engine, I find the process of uploading and adding images to a post to be a bit archaic. You can style your blog just about any way you want using CSS. You can add video pretty easily from a variety of different sources. However, when it comes to adding images the process is still pretty painful and the one thing I dislike the most when it comes to writing a post. While you can upload multiple images at once using the built-in Flash based uploader, laying the images out one-by-one is tedious. You have to bring up the Import dialog each time. I found the Faster Image Insert WordPress Plugin and that has been a great productivity booster, but alas the process still requires that you prep the images first manually before you even bring up the uploader in the first place. That's where the LR/Blog plugin comes in.

LR/Blog is a Lightroom Plugin for Bloggers

With the LR/Blog Plug-in I can EASILY upload multiple images from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to my blog so that they are ready to insert into my post, directly from Lightroom. Once you install the (Lightroom) plug-in and configure it for your blog (including image dimensions, quality settings, etc.) you can then upload any images from any catalog directly to your blog. If the original images are in RAW/DNG, which most of mine are, the plug-in will do the temporary export to JPG first and upload the JPGs. This is MUCH FASTER than exporting out the JPGs first, then going to the browser and choosing them to upload. Of course it can also use your custom watermarks to watermark the images. Since it's an full fledged Export plug-in you can create one or more Export presets so that you can have a variety of different image export options at a click. Perhaps you like to upload both a thumbnail size and a larger size for people to click on. The plug-in even gives you the option of creating a post at the same time you do the export. With this option the images are not only uploaded, but they are also laid out via your custom HTML template into your post at the same time. Another option in this mode is the ability to insert captions under (or above) your photos from your metadata that you inserted while in Lightroom.

While I don't always have the images that are going into my post in Lightroom, when I do I always use this plug-in to get them to my blog.

You can check out the LR/Blog plug-in here. It's donationware, which I happily donated to the developer!

March 29, 2011

Live at Photoshop World: Setup

It’s that time of year again and I’m happy once again to be teaching and presenting at Photoshop World Orlando this week. As a result my blogging schedule will be all out of whack and therefore I’ll be blogging on the go and from different devices.

Looking forward to seeing you if you’re here. Let’s have fun!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad 2

Location:Convention Way,Orlando,United States

February 14, 2011February 14, 2011

Is Facebook the New “.com”?

photo compliments of iStockphoto.com

Facebook has been growing by leaps and bounds and with over 500 Million Users it's no longer just for kids nor can it be ignored. I've noticed that more and more companies are not only staking out a presence on Facebook, but they are even using their Facebook Pages in lieu of their corporate sites when they advertise on TV and in print. All of these screen grabs (Pepsi, Gerber, Carnival, etc.) were from the last frame of their respective TV commercials…

People don't wake up to go your site every day

One thing I came to the realization of last year was that while we may flatter ourselves in thinking that our customers love to come to our sites on a regular basis, chances are the vast majority don't visit your corporate site each day. Think about it. You probably go to most corporate sites when you either have a problem or you're ready to buy something new. It's probably not your daily hangout. You probably don't think to go there to "connect" with the company. On the other hand people go to Facebook EVERY DAY with the sole purpose of connectingt with others. While I definitely appreciate those of you who come here and read my posts, I know that there are millions of people out there that will NEVER come here. In 2010 I had the goal of "being everywhere." What that meant to me was expanding beyond my own .com and placing my content in more places. I was very happy with the results. I now have over 8,000 Twitter followers and over 3,000 Facebook Fans (Likes). I also have over 3 Million views of my YouTube content as well as millions of downloads of my content on iTunes. In most cases many of these users would never see my content on the other/opposite sites.

Why are more companies using Facebook?

Besides the obvious reason of there being a potential audience of 500 million users, Facebook makes it easy for companies to have DIRECT contact with customers without resorting to spam, opt-in policies, building microsites, etc. Also existing Facebook users are more likely to check out their favorite brands on Facebook.com than they are to visit those same corporate sites on a regular/daily basis.

The other benefit is that while many of these companies have their own "forums" for direct communication, users don't have to setup logins for multiple sites. Just log in once to Facebook and visit any company you want and post on their wall. I think that another reason why companies are putting themselves on Facebook is that it's much easier and faster updating a Facebook Page than it is going through the usual red tape, legal, political fronts getting the main corporate site updated. Usually the larger the corporation, the harder it is to get something on the official company website. Sometimes I think the US Congress moves faster! Companies tend to be a little more lax and "casual" when it comes to their social media presence and that's actually a good thing! It feels more "friendly".

You have to be prepared to take the bad with the good

Continue reading “Is Facebook the New “.com”?”

February 1, 2011January 30, 2011

Ask Google

As you might imagine I get lots of questions every day. I get them via the comments section of my blogs, I get them via email, I get them on Twitter, I get them on Facebook and I get them on YouTube. As you might also imagine, while I don't mind answering people's questions, I simply don't have the bandwidth to get to them all.

How do I decide which questions to answer and which ones not to?

It's not really a conscious decision. Like anything in life the easier something is to do the more often we'll do it. To that point if I see a question that I can answer off the top of my head and it's a short answer, chances are I'll answer it right there on the spot. If I know the answer, but the answer is long and drawn out (more than 3 steps), chances are I won't have time to answer it (even though I may want to). Also I tend to answer questions based on how they are asked. If a person is asking a question of clarification on something I wrote or said, then I'm more apt to want to respond immediately. If the person is asking for a 1:1 class via email (show me how to do ______), then chances are I'm not going to respond. It's nothing personal, I just don't have the time. My job here is not tech support or to train you via Q&A. If the question is Adobe related I'm also more likely to respond since I do work for Adobe. However, if I feel that you're just being lazy (see Can you do it for me? below), then I'll probably be less inclined to respond.

What if I don't know the answer?

If I don't know the answer I'll probably just say "I don't know." However, if I don't know the answer and I want to know the answer then chances are I'll look it up because the question you've asked has me curious too. This is what brings me to today's topic! How do I find the answer?

I ask Google

Sometimes I feel like I'm on an episode of Star Trek. However, instead of saying "Computer" and asking my question verbally (wouldn't that be coo?), I pop up a browser window and key in my exact question. Long gone are the days of having to use specific keywords and operators between them to get the information you want from a search engine. Sure it still helps to do so today, but more often than not you can just pose your question in simple English. Just the other night I wanted to know if there was a way to convert the OLD Facebook Groups to the NEW Facebook Group format. While I could have searched through the Facebook Help Section, I always think Google first. I do this because 99.9% of the time someone else has already posed the same question online and someone has already answered it OR the very help system that I would have had to search has been indexed by Google and those tech documents show up in the Google results too. I fired up a browser window and keyed in "Can I convert an existing Facebook Group to the New Facebook Group format?" The answer was in the top 10 results that came back and sadly the answer was NO. However, that's just how easy it was to get the answer to my question. I do this multiple times a day and very rarely am I ever disappointed. Not only do I usually get the answer I was looking for IMMEDIATELY, but a lot of times even if the answer is NO, someone has developed some cool work around, setting, workflow or App to solve the issue.

Did you try it?

The other thing that kinda bugs me is when someone asks a simple question about something that would be easy enough for them to just try for themselves. This is what I meant above about being lazy. We're so used to relying on people to spoon feed us the answers that we would rather post a question, wait for a response (sometimes days) than just trying it ourselves. This is especially true when it comes to software. Much of the good software out there today is available in fully functional trial form. This means that you can download it, install it and bang on it all you want. Instead of asking is ________ feature better in the new version, why not see for yourself? That's what trials are for. For example, you can download a fully functional trial of Adobe Creative Suite 5. You can test each Application to see if it does what you need it to do and if it does it the way you want it done. If not, then you haven't lost anything other than the time to download and try it. However, at least you know with your own eyes whether or not it works. I love it when someone asks "how will that perform on my computer?" I have no idea. It depends on so many factors not to mention all the other stuff you're running on "your computer." The best way to be sure is to install it on YOUR computer and see for yourself.

Can you do it for me?

My favorite (the ones that make me laugh) questions come from YouTube and I swear sometimes that YouTube needs to implement an IQ test before allowing people to post comments or send questions. Granted I know that YouTube is full of kids and you have no way of really knowing if you're dealing with an adult or an 8 year old. However, on more than one occasion I've had someone ask me "I'm having a problem doing ___________ to this photo. Can I send it to you and have you do it?" I literally laugh out loud when I get one of those. I guess it would be pretty sweet if we could all just send our work to someone else and have them do it for us 🙂 I would have had slightly more respect if the person would have said "Hey, I'm having a problem with this photo can I send it to you and perhaps you could use it as an example in one of your upcoming tutorials?" At least then the person would be showing that they want help and to LEARN how to do it themselves and with such a file It could be used to help others. There's no guarantee that I would take anyone up on that kind of offer, but at least I would respect it more. Another favorite is "How much does _____ cost?" In the same amount of energy that it took you to type that in an email you could have typed it in Google and gotten your answer!

Someone has probably recorded a video

In this day and age if there is something that you want to learn how to do, chances are there is a YouTube video on the subject. For example, one of the most common questions that I get from new Photoshop users is "how do I remove a background in Photoshop?" When I searched YouTube for this topic 922 videos showed up. I could be wrong, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you'll probably find some good techniques in at least one or two of those videos and if nothing else you'll see lots of different ways to do it. Also you'll notice the titles of the videos are in plain English ie: "How to remove a background in Photoshop".

Speaking of YouTube, check out my YouTube Channel Here. With close to 3 Million Views I'm blown away with the response!

Oh yeah and YouTubers please stop sending me this one: "Where can I get a free download of CS5?" Really?

The Bottom Line

Google is AMAZING and a resource that I would not want to be without. I get so much more done each day because I can easily look stuff up without having to rely on my friends and wait for responses. Give it a shot the next time you're thinking about posting a question somewhere else. You may be surprised at just how much easier it is.

November 5, 2010November 5, 2010

The Adobe CS5 Pharaohs Tour in Cairo – Photo Trip Report

I'm headed back from Cairo as I write this quick post to thank everyone who showed up and supported the CS5 Pharaohs Tour in Egypt! It was an amazing turnout with standing room only. I had a blast, took lots of pictures, met some great new friends and was photographed more in one day than I have been in 10 years 🙂 I'm totally wiped out and therefore I decided to wrap this trip up with more photos than words. Enjoy…

click the images to enlarge

Yes I managed to work in a Fashion Shoot 🙂 – ok back to work!

The turn out was absolutely incredible with some traveling as far as South Africa to see this event!

They treated us like Rock Stars! I was floored by the number of fans that were on hand to have the photos taken with us and to take photos of us. I'm truly humbled by the response!

Yes we made it to Historic Old Islamic Cairo. This is a "must visit "if you're in the area.

Special thanks goes out to the Adobe User Group Managers in Cairo! You guys are awesome. Thanks for making me feel so welcomed.

That's all I have time for now, I'm about to board my next flight. See more of my photos here and once again THANK YOU CAIRO! I shall return 🙂

August 30, 2010August 29, 2010

It’s Time For Photoshop World!

It's that time of year again and I'm looking forward to heading out to Adobe Photoshop World this week in Las Vegas! I'll be teaching my usual two InDesign classes, but this year I'm also teaching a Lightroom class and even a Social Network – Facebook class.

In addition to the conference track classes I've got something up my sleeve for the keynote as well as a couple of lighting demos (Bogen – 2:15 on Wednesday and Westcott 1:30 on Thursday) on the tradeshow floor. Lastly I'll be doing a quick demo of the Wacom Intuos 4 in the Wacom booth (4:00 on Thursday) too. Yep, it's going to be a busy week and I'm excited to go and see many of you there!

Don't forget to download the Photoshop World App

It's FREE! Learn more about it and get it here.

See you in class!

August 20, 2010August 20, 2010

Facebook Adds Places: Time to Update Your Privacy Settings Again!

You might remember my recent post "Are you sharing too much on Facebook?" in that post I gave you some tips on how to control your privacy settings so that only the people that you want to see your status updates and photos are the ones that actually see them. It's time to revisit this again now that Facebook has added "Places".

What's Places?

Places is a new feature on Facebook that allows mobile users to "check in" to the different places they may visit. This is not a new concept as sites like Gowalla and Foursquare have been doing this for a while. It's a social networking thing amongst "close friends" and "family" and of course Facebook wants in on it (I'm sure there's money in knowing the establishments that your customers frequent the most). The concept is pretty simple. You visit a location, business, park, etc. and with a mobile device like a smartphone you either use the Facebook app or the Facebook mobile site to check in. That "check in" is then posted to your wall/news feed for all of your "friends" to see. If you don't want your friends to know where you are every minute of the day then don't use it. It's pretty simple to not tap or click on it. Problem solved. 🙂 However, there's a little more to it than that with Facebook at least for now. The problem is that your "friends" can tag YOU when they check in to a location. This is a plus from a convenience standpoint when a group of friends are hanging out and a big minus for those that don't want to play! Your friends don't need your consent to check you in! I can already hear the privacy groups screaming about this and luckily although it's ENABLED BY DEFAULT, you can turn it off (see below).

Here's another Privacy gotcha according to Macworld.com:

Another problem is that, while new places users create are private by default, they can become public if enough users check into them. Even if such a place is your house or apartment, Facebook will automatically promote the place to being public after an unspecified number of check-ins. For now, there is no way to prevent your home address from becoming a public location on Facebook aside from asking your friends to not check in at your next party. If a sensitive location becomes public, the only way to attempt to remove it is to flag it for Facebook to review, and ask others to do the same.

So the obvious thing not to do here is DON'T use Places to check in to your private residence. I never saw the need to do this on Gowalla, will definitely NOT be doing it on Facebook Places.

Changing your privacy settings – NOW!

Whether you plan to use Places or not, you should adjust your Privacy settings NOW! I already use Gowalla, but unlike Facebook I only have less than 10 Gowalla friends! These are the few people that are close to me that I would want to know my current location at any given time. So the same goes for Facebook! If I do use the Places feature, I don't want my 1,500+ "Friends" to necessarily know where I am. I want those "Close Friends", "Family" and "People I actually know" to know where I am. Again, this is where the Facebook Lists Feature pays off again. You can designate a List of the people that you would want to see your Places' Check Ins.

The default for Places is set to "Friends".

Also don't forget to DISABLE the ability for Friends to check you in to Places if you don't want that:

If you don't want ANYONE to see where you are even if you're tagged, change the setting to "Only Me" and you should be OK for now.

July 19, 2010July 19, 2010

Are You Sharing Too Much on Facebook?

My buddy A. J. Wood alerted us all to the fact that Walmart now has a Facebook Application that allows people to print their photos directly from Facebook to Walmart. Nothing wrong with that right? While on the surface that seems pretty harmless, it does open up photographers who post their images online, perhaps in hopes of drumming up more business to having their images printed by the people that they tag in the photo without their knowledge or consent. There has always been a lot of controversy surrounding Facebook's Terms of Service and Privacy. However, the way I see it is that if you're really that concerned about someone ripping your photo off, then you probably shouldn't put it online in the first place. Nonetheless, A. J. offers a simple way to fix this one issue on his blog.

Control Your Content On Facebook

I actually like Facebook. Although I'm on Flickr, Twitter, and other sites, Facebook seems to be the popular choice of my friends, family co-workers, clients, fans, and just about everyone else I know and that's both a good thing and a bad thing all at the same time. Like I said above, if there is a photo that you don't want someone to steal, then you probably shouldn't put it out there. However, the same kinda thing goes for just about everything else. There's a fine line between what you might feel totally comfortable with sharing with your friends vs. if your employer (or potential employer) were to see it. We joke around, we post funny pictures, we might even make off the cuff comments, and it's all good until it's seen by the wrong person.

I'm actually teaching a class this September at Photoshop World in Vegas, on…. "Why you should be on Facebook." The class is really aimed at Facebook from a business use scenario and how being there can help bring in more new clients. However, one of the things I'll be addressing in that class is how to control who sees what.

So without giving away the whole class here, I will share one tip with you for now:

Use Lists!

I LOVE the Facebook "Lists" feature. When you choose Edit Friends from your Account Settings, you have the ability to create lists and add your friends to those lists. You can create as many Lists as you need to. For example, perhaps you have a list called "Close Friends and Family", or "Co-workers" or "People I actually know" or "Immediate Family", "Classmates", etc. Once you have these lists setup, you can use them to control just about ever aspect of your Facebook page AND YOUR PHOTOS. For example, perhaps you only want your "Close Friends and Family" to see personal pictures taken at your home and of your children. Perhaps you only want the "People you actually know" to see your Wall Posts. Maybe there was a company picnic and you only want your "co-workers" to see those shots. Get the idea? Although you have a mixture of "friends" on Facebook, you can still control who sees what.

Here's how to do it for a photo album: First create the album (or you can use an existing one). Then choose Account->Privacy Settings. The click Customize Settings and from there click Edit album privacy. Now you can go to the Album that you want to change and set the privacy for that particular Album to a specific or multiple lists and only those people will be able to see those photos.

Happy List Creating and I'll see you in Vegas!