Contest For a Best Photo Forward Webinar Ticket

[JenFW]

Hi, Everyone.

I'm de-lurking to host a contest here.

I've been a member of Stitchin' Fingers for ages. Since Sharon started it, I think. I come here to look at photos and be inspired. Really-really. I click the "Photos" link, sit back with my chai, and let the colors, designs, and creativity fill me up. I am grateful to active members for enabling me to do this.

I don't need to tell anyone here that photographing needlework isn't easy. I've been struggling with it for years, waiting for a good weather in Alaska so I can photograph my work outside in natural light. Even then, it's rarely, if ever, perfect.

Best Photo Forward Webinar

I finally decided to ask for help, and the result is a webinar: Best Photo Forward: Refining Photos of Fine Embroidery with Photoshop Elements.

Melissa Shanhun, a leading digital scrapbook teacher in Australia (and a needleworker to boot---woo-hoo!), and I have teamed up to create and present this workshop specifically for needleworkers. We will learn the following:

• What Photoshop Elements is and why we should use it
• How to convey more accurate colors
• How to stretch and square warped or crooked images
• How to resize images for the Web
• How to frame a piece digitally

This is a live event, taking place on

March 20, 2012 at 8:00 p.m. EST (That's 8 p.m. on the east coast of the US.)

Participants receive the following:

• Access to the live workshop
• Handouts and resources used in the event
• Ongoing access to the workshop recordings
• Sample files so that you can see follow along with the demonstrations
• BONUS Photo Fixes for Real People – a jump start on using Photoshop Elements to improve your photos (Valued at $20). In this, Melissa teaches us how to digitally turn overcast skies blue, clean food from a baby's face, create a great group shot with everyone smiling, and remove red eye.
• BONUS Jen's Top 10 Ways to Use Images of Our Embroidery 

So even if you can't attend live, you can still take advantage of the workshop, watching the recordings over and over, as many times as needed to master the techniques.

You can learn more about the webinar on the Funk & Weber World blog.

How Webinars Work

A "webinar" is a seminar on the Web. It's a real-time event, like a live chat, and will be held at AnyMeeting.com. If you live on the east coast of the US, the time will be 8:00 p.m. on March 20th. If you'll be in Hawaii in the US, the time will be 3:00 p.m. on March 20th. If you're in Oslo, Norway, the time will be 1:00 a.m. on March 21.

You can use a time converter to determine your time for the live event. But, as I said, you don't have to attend live, though I hope you will.

All it takes to attend the live event is a link to the webinar site which you will receive when you register. You'll click that link just before the meeting time. Make sure the sound on your computer is turned on because we'll watch Melissa's computer screen as she works and hear her explain what she's doing.

If you watch and listen to videos on your computer, you should be fine.

We'll be able to type questions we have into a chat box, and Melissa and I will answer as many as we can. We'll follow up with written or recorded answers to any questions we can't answer in real time.

The Contest

Because I so enjoy and get such benefit from the photos on Stitchin' Fingers, I want to give someone here a ticket to this webinar, and so we're having a contest. To enter, simply reply to this discussion, and tell me what your biggest problem is with images of your embroidery. Though we're not covering photography in this webinar---just image editing---your biggest problem can be about anything.

You have until midnight, Alaska time, on March 16th to leave your reply. A winner will be chosen at random and posted here on March 17th.

If you have questions, please ask. I'll separate contest entries from general questions. Again, I'm posting more about this on my blog.

Thank you, all, for sharing your needlework, your creativity, and yourselves here.

[sharonb]

Jen Many people here will not realise that this event is online. Perhaps if you explain what an webinar is. 

[Elmsley Rose]

My biggest problem is showing the colours correctly. I've tried natural daylight inside, sunny daylight outside, cloudy light outside, my daylight lamp, and flourescent light (the worst). Often, I get this strange yellow shade to my  photos and I have no idea why.

[Rain Klepper]

My biggest issue with photographing embroidery is all about metering the light vs. dark...I shoot in camera raw so that the information is there to manipulate with photoshop, I use side lights and other tricks, but still sometimes uploading the resized image to the blog or site loses depth and appears flat.  I hope I win a free ticket!

Rain

([e-mail])

[Kate Roland]

The hardest thing is getting the colors correct. Flash or no Flash?  Daylight or inside light?

[Barbara Blankenship]

I would love to be able to take an image and remove areas that I didn't like and add content as well.

[Joyce D. Reed]

I would love to learn how to take closeups of embroidery work that are not fuzzy.  This from someone who is basically electronically challenged.  Hubby would love not to have to be called on EVERY time I'm sure.  [e-mail]  Joyce in Mobile

 

[bea verlé]

how to get my picture sharp, really sharp so that you see almost each stitch!

[Sharon Joyner Griffith]

My biggest problem is getting a sharp look.  Usually when I take a pic it looks like just one overall pic.  For example  I never seem to be able to get that sharp effect of maybe 3 individual stitches on top of one another.  It gets rather frustrating...so then I just don't take the pic unless I have too....This will be a wonderful webinar.

[Catherine Robertson]

Hi!

My problem is editing flaws like the dreaded single cat hair in the pictures.  I`d also like to learn more about using contrast and enhancing the richness of the  fabric and embroidery threads.

Thank you,

Catherine       [e-mail]

[JenFW]

Thanks, Sharon. Will do!

sharonb said:

Jen Many people here will not realise that this event is online. Perhaps if you explain what an webinar is. 

[Mo]

My problem is capturing the details of my work.  I recently entered a crazy quilt that was rich with stitches.   It was all very subtle and I could not capture the stitches with clarity.  Thanks

[Mosaic Magpie]

My biggest problem is lighting.  I either try to add light and end up with shadows or the light is too gray/cold and I doin't get a nice color.....the images almost have a blue look to them.

Deb