Studio Tips

1) Use the right size book for the right size photos. Multiple 4×6 or 5×7 photos at full size do not usually fit inside an 8×8 book.

2) When using buttons, fit to appropriate size. Coat buttons are 1 inch across. Shirt buttons are a half inch and baby buttons are a quarter of an inch. Check element size in the LAYOUT tab and a ruler.

3) Turn rulers on to check alignment, equal size borders etc. Turn them off for an overall design feel.

4) Alphabets are easier to find if you place only one number, one lower case, one upper case in your MY FAVORITES folder.

5) We see the finished book in spreads. Go to the VIEW/PRINT PREVIEW. Faster easier, more reliable.

6) A well designed page should work upside down or sideways. Flip things, and change them up to make a spread.

7) Change the size of elements that drop on the page at equal size. In nature, little is identical in size or rotation.

Overlap elements to make natural design groupings but make sure enough of each element shows to preserve its identity.

Go to MyStoryBookLady.com and have fun in your Studio today! ~ Betty

Studio Tips

Here are a couple of helpful tips from Heritage Makers Studio Product Manager Lynda Angelastro:

Tips For Creating Photo Jewelry Projects with Studio

Here are some helpful tips for getting the best results when designing jewelry using Studio at MyStoryBookLady.com. Be sure to order your necklace and bracelet credits before August 31st while they are on sale.  My design services are FREE with your purchase if you choose not to design it yourself. Email me your order and your photos...I'm happy to help :) ~ Betty

10 Tips For Taking Baby Photos

Thanks to our friends from Kodak, check out these 10 tips for taking the perfect baby photo.

1. Get down on their level. Hold your camera at the baby’s eye level to capture the power of those magnetic gazes and mesmerizing smiles.

2. Use a plain background. An uncluttered background forces attention on your baby. Place your baby against a plain background or move yourself (and the camera) a few feet.

3. Capture feelings. A smirk, a frown, a wail - capture all the emotions, not just the pretty smiles. Babies are uninhibited and uncensored, show it in your pictures.

4. Get close. Zoom in, filling the frame to emphasize what’s important, creating a more impactful photo. Capture the details, like blue eyes, a toothless smile, or tiny fingers.

5. Show scale. Take pictures of your baby with items that will show her relative size - a teddy bear or Daddy’s hands. Take a series of pictures with the same object as your baby grows.

6. Try different angles. Get down on their level, shoot from high above, shoot some sideways, some looking up at them.

7. Include other people. Capture others with the baby - Big Sister feeding the baby or Grandpa dancing with his little grandson. Make sure to include everyone who visits your baby.

8. Take some vertical pictures. Many subjects look better in a vertical picture - from the Eiffel Tower to portraits of your friends. Make a conscious effort to take some vertical pictures.

9. Use natural light. Shoot photos next to windows or outdoors, taking advantage of natural light. Cloudy, overcast days provide the best lighting for pictures of people.

10. Take lots of photos. Always keep your camera handy! Babies change so fast, capture every moment right from birth, including all firsts. Document a day in the life of your baby.

For more tips, tricks, projects and ideas on photographing babies, visit Kodak.

from blog.heritagemakers.com

Tips For Managing Your Photos

One of the best parts about My Studio is the photo storage system. And to help you make the most of your storage and use of photos, we’ve got a few tips from the home office.

Before Uploading Pictures
By Bryndi Cloward, Leadership Services
Because of the digital age and because camera memory is not an issue, we can take 100 pictures of some small-hour events. Many times we will take the same shot five to seven times just to make sure we get a good shot. But for a book, we don’t need all seven shots of Billy Joe eating his corn on the cob.

Before uploading to Heritage Makers, go through your pictures and clean them out.  Pick your one or two best sunset pictures. Don’t clutter your HM folder with 15 pictures of the same sunset. Choose the ones that are most vibrant to you. By doing this, not only will you clean up space on your hard drive, but you will make creating your book that much easier.

Manage Your Photos First
By Debbi Heaps, HR/Exec. Admin
Take the time to manage your photos before you take them off your camera. Doing so will help eliminate some of the overwhelming frustration of having to search through all your photos later. It’s that ole “take time to sharpen the saw” wisdom.

If Problems Occur
By Marshyl Cloward, Director of Client Services
When uploading your photos, if you get a 2038 error, or only a couple of images load while others don’t or get stuck loading, go to the original file on your computer and open it using an image view program. Resave the image as a JPG and re-upload the image to Heritage Makers.

Rotate Photos
By Lynda Angelastro, Project Manager
Before you upload photos to Heritage Makers, rotate images so they are set at the right angle. You can rotate inside Studio (not within your photos folder); however, when you submit a project as a template with photos that have been rotated inside Studio, new photos—if in the correct rotation before—will no longer be rotated correctly. Making sure your photos are rotated correctly before hand will help your design and other designs flow mush easier.

For Basic Account Members
By Megan Vernon, Client Services Rep.
With a Basic account, you have limited photo storage space (1 GB), compared to the unlimited space Premier members have. To help save space, only upload the photos you know you are going to use in the project.

To get started uploading your photos go to http://MyStoryBookLady.com and create a free HM account today!

From blog.heritagemakers.com

Basic Tips for All Projects

Leave 1/8” Margin Around Page – Many times, when we have a lot of content, we are tempted to put as much on the page as we can. And if we have a huge amount of text, we think getting the text as close to the edge of the page as possible will help preserve room for more pictures and such. And then we find ourselves putting our pictures as close to the edge as possible, too.

But, did you know that you need to leave a 1/8 margin between the edge of the page and anything you don’t want to get cut off? Yes, the gray box around the page shows you where your page should be cut off in production. But the page cutters can sometimes go slightly over that marked spot. To be safe, make sure you have a 1/8 inch margin around your entire page.

Use Ctrl Button for Swapping – I’m sure we have all had our amount of frustration trying to swap out a paper or photo. Just as we have been told, we keep the element locked in place, make sure it is highlighted, and drag the wanted element onto the page but that “drop art/photo here to swap” box does not appear. We drop it anyway in hope that it will magically work and… it doesn’t. We have a new element on the page with the old one still in the place we want it.

There is a solution. As you drag an element onto the page, hold down the ctrl key (or if you have a Mac hold down the Cmd. key). The element, then, should swap without any problems.

Hope these tips help you!

Betty

from blog.heritagemakers.com