Photo Nuts and Post-launching today!

We all love it when we capture that perfect shot.

Even though your photo looks perfect, you may still want to edit it a bit. Add some color. Take some away. I love to edit as much as I love to capture. How about you? No?

For those who might need a bit help for where to begin when you are to this step, dPS has a new ebook!

Photo Nuts and Post is the third installation in the Photo Nuts series and it just launched today!

Written by professional photographer, Neil Creek, it gives you the tools you need to make processing work for you. Even if you have experience in editing, you can always learn new tricks.

To celebrate, they are offering 33% off if you buy today -Click here to read more!

Photography Concentrate-Giveaway!

{UPDATE: WINNER IS Mercedes!}

I love it when I come across such friendly businesses. I started this site so we (photographers) could help each other with anything photography-also because I love anything to do with photography!

I often ask businesses if they would like to share their products/knowledge with my readers. I do get the occassional snub, but most are kind. When I heard back from Laura and Rob Lim of Photography Concentrate, I could actually feel the love through their email. ;)

They have been very generous in letting me test out all three of their products-AND they want one lucky winner to win their choice of the following...

Now, I want to let you know about each of these fabulous photography tools, but I would like to start out and let you know a little bit about the fabulous photographers behind it all.

I stumbled upon an article about WHY they teach other photographers. I wanted to share with you a couple of paragraphs in their words as to why they teach.

"What we found, after years of self-teaching, was that the number of high quality and affordable resources out there for photographers was a lot smaller than we would have imagined. Sure, there are countless forums, blogs, and articles that you can find for free. But many of them offer differing opinions and ideas (though all too often they don’t see them as opinions, but rather as fact! That makes it even more difficult for a new photographer to understand what to do!). They also take a lot of time to go through, compile information, and try to process it in a way that works for the individual. It’s not easy or fun, and often it’s just downright overwhelming! I fear that a lot of people likely give up, simply because the task of finding and digesting high quality information is just too difficult.

Furthermore, many resources are currently being offered for very high price tags. Often upwards of hundreds of dollars (thousands if we’re talking about workshops). While there’s no way for us to decide whether those are worth it, we do know that they are far outside the reach of many photographers. Photographers on average aren’t rich people. They often have budgets just like anyone else, and many are left unable to purchase the tutorial they’d like, or going into credit card debt to attend the workshop they think will solve their problems. We were deeply unhappy with that approach. We strongly believe that teaching should be to help others, not yourself. With that in mind, we made a commitment to offer our education at prices that anyone could afford, including students."

I was happy to find out that they have the same mind set as I do when it comes to what "educators" charge. I don't agree that books and workshops should be so expensive. Your average new photographer doesn't have 1000's to spend. Thanks, guys!!

Now, with that, I want to get on to their products. The first product I want to let you know about is one I'm excited about!

Extremely Essential Camera Skills



Learning about your camera and how it works-in just 3 hours!

I'm not sure about you, but when I first got my camera, I skimmed through the manual briefly, just to find out how to turn it on. lol. I really wished I had this tutorial when I was first starting out. Even if you've had your camera for awhile, you might want to take the time and actually learn about your camera and how to take better photos.

I'm not one to just sit down and read a how-to book. I love how Rob and Lauren split up your learning experience with videos and exercises to keep things interesting. This is a great idea for those who like hands on.

Super Photo Editing Skills



For anyone wanting to learn how to edit faster in Lightroom 3, this is a great product to get. This has tons of awesome stuff included:
Quickstart Videos- 3 hrs!
Advanced Videos
Bonus Videos
Photo Editing Field Guide
Editing Style Field Guide
Super Color Presets-23
Super B& W Presets-27
Essential Lightroom Shortcuts Cheatsheet
Example Files

Awesome Album Design Skills



If you want to learn how to design a great album in Adobe InDesign CS5, these video tutorials are for you!

Do you wish any/all of the following?

More profits from an easy-to-create custom product?
More free time to spend away from the computer and with real people?
Clients that fall in love with your albums, and absolutely, positively have to have one?
The skills to create your own album templates for any size you’d like?
Mega fun designing, and confidence in your skills?

Don't we all??

I love designing albums, but I would still love to be able to get done faster. I welcome any help-I can't afford to hire someone, nor do I want to cut into profits. I would love to be able to design my own templates to create beautiful pages. If you offer albums, then you need to check this out!

Okay, so now that you heard about how terrific the creators of these products are and just how awesome these products are, you know you want to try to win one!

Win it.

Required:
Just leave a comment stating which product you want.

If you love this community (and for extra entry):

Follow me and leave another comment.

Tweet about it and leave another comment.

Post about it, leave link and another 2 comments.

Giveaway ends 2/6/12

If you don't want to wait, you can order through this link (and help keep this site running!).

Out of commission

I woke up yesterday to a gurgling tummy. Not the hungry gurgle. The I-feel-like-puking-gurgle. By mid morning, I could barely move. Every inch of my body ached. My stomach felt like it was being punched from the inside out and I was freezing even though I had on two pairs of sweats , a sweatshirt, mittens and two blankets.

I hate it when I get the flu.

Luckily, I was alone during the day to be miserable. Well, me and the animals. I laid on one of our couches and Sam, our cat, laid on the other. He usually has to lay on my lap, but I think he didn't know what was going on.

Bella, our dog, laid faithfully on the floor next to the couch I was on. Dogs are like that. I think I would trust Bella to have my back over the cat.

It killed me not to be able to do much needed work on the computer. I wanted to email some vendors about networking and return client's emails. All I could do was suck on peppermints and sip water. Oh, and think about how I hadn't got around to making out my will-feeling like your dying makes you think about things like that.

When the hubby got home, he brought in the mail and I noticed a package with all the letters. I remembered that I had ordered some press printed cards from WHCC (I love them!) the day before. I just can't get used to how fast their shipping time is! I got the idea from Sarah Petty of Joy of Marketing and it made sense. Clients will take you more serious if your price list looks more professional. I was just printing out my contract which included prices.

I wanted to jump off the couch and see how they turned out, but I couldn't. They would have to wait.

After awhile (and two Advils), I finally felt well enough to get up. Of course, the first thing I did was open my package. When I saw the cards, I squealed-LOOOOVE IT!

Obviously, these are for my wedding clients. My next ones will be the senior cards. These are 5x5 folded cards. I was worried that they would be too small, but I like the size. I got the 5x7 envelopes-learning my lesson that the postage is too expensive to use the 5x5 envelopes.

I'm back to work today- after putting the house back together. I can't believe how fast a house can get messy when there isn't a mom keeping things together!