Michael Sebastian, staff writer for communications website Ragan.com, published a great article yesterday entitled "10 Lessons for a Better Blog". While most of the examples deal with corporate blogs, the lessons are applicable to any and all bloggers and should be required reading for anyone serious about blogging (yeah, I know I don't have a great track record, but I'm trying!). Each lesson is accompanied by real life examples and tips to help you use those lessons.
My favorite lesson (of course): "Lesson #8: Embrace photography - Tip: Start a weekly or monthly photo contest or photo caption contest on your blog for employees or customers."
This is one of the best articles on blogging I've seen!
I admit it ... I don't have a really wide-angle lens - I use the 18-55 mm lens that came with my Nikon D60. But I still need PTLens ... why? Pretty much any lens will have some distortion when it's zoomed all the way out. Look at this photo that should toggle betweeen the before and after photos ... the only difference was correcting the distortion using PTLens:
Okay, the animated gif file doesn't work ... here's the after photo:
The effect is subtle, but noticeable. PTLens will not only automatically correct the lens distortion, but allow you to correct vertical and horizontal distortions, rotate, scale and vignette. Remember, these photos were taken with an 18-55 mm lens. If you're using a really wide-angle lens (10mm to 14mm), you need to use PTLens. You can get a free, 10-photo trial download here: http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/.
I have no financial or other interest in this company - I just think it's a really great product!
Open two photos in PSE - the photo that contains the TV (target photo) and the photo you want to show on the TV (replacement photo) - I usually use a picture of the front of the house. I have two methods of doing this - the first is quicker, but the second gives better results. Here are the photos I used:
Method One:
On the target photo, use the Polygonal Lasso tool to draw a selection around the portion of the TV that will contain the replacement photo.
Make the replacement photo active, Ctrl-A (or from the menu bar, Select, All), then Ctrl-V (or Edit, Copy).
Make the target photo active, Ctrl-Shift-V (or Edit, Paste into Selection).
You'll probably only see a small portion of the replacement photo, so you'll need to resize it. Press Ctrl-T (Image, Transform); use the resize handles until the replacement image is approximately the correct size. Don't worry that it doesn't look right; we'll fix that in the next step. Click the check button or just press Enter to accept.
From the menu bar, Image, Transform, Distort - use the corner handles to move each corner into position until it looks the way you want. Click the check button or just press Enter. Done!
Close-up:
Method Two:
Make the replacement photo active; make sure the Move tool is selected and drag it onto the target photo in the palette bin. This will create a new layer above the target photo.
If your photos are the same size, the replacement photo will entirely cover the target photo. Transform should already be active but, if it's not, use the Transform tool (Ctrl-T or Image, Transform) to resize it to approximately the right size. Don't worry that it isn't quite right - we'll fix that in the next step. Click the check button or press Enter to accept.
From the menu bar, Image, Transform, Distort - use the handles to move each corner into position. When satisfied, click the check button or press Enter to accept.
In the Layers palette, Ctrl-click the replacement photo layer to select just the replacement photo.
From the menu bar, Select, Modify, Contract. Enter the number of pixels (I use 2 pixels when working on a fairly large photo - you can experiment to see what works best); click Okay.
From the menu bar, Select, Inverse; then Select, Feather and enter the same number of pixels you entered in step 5.
Press Delete. This will delete some of the pixels around the replacement photo and make it looks as if it's recessed into the screen instead of just pasted on top of it.
I recommend reducing the opacity of the replacement photo to about 75% or 80% - this will make it look more realistic and allow any naturally-occurring reflections to come through just a bit.
I tried to make sure that each step is clear, but if you have any questions about these methods, please let me know. And post your result here!
A simple, 10-question quiz that most people (at least Realtors) will be able to pass easily. Okay, so I missed the one about the FICO score ... I didn't read the question correctly :-) But it's a good quiz to pass on to your buyers (especially first-timers) because it might encourage them to ask more questions about the home-buying process: Should You Buy a Home?
I think sometimes we assume that buyers know more than they really do about financing, title insurance, closing costs, etc. These quick, easy quizzes may open the door to questions early in the process instead of trying to stuff the information into their heads two days before closing. Check out a couple of the other quizzes on the Kiplinger site:
WellcomeMat.com, a web site that purports to connect videographers with real estate agents, unleashed a small firestorm today when they announced that they will no longer allow their users to upload slide shows even when output to a video format. Christian Sterner, one of the co-founders of the company, sent an email to all registered users stating that: "We are not downplaying the effectiveness of slide shows by eliminating our support of them on our platform. Rather, WellcomeMat is finished with slide shows because they do not represent our passion (video), and they do not represent our strengths as a company."
The comments posted so far seem to be evenly split between members applauding WellcomeMat for their decision and those who plan to cancel their memberships. My comment was that I would rather see a well-made slide show than the shaky, poorly lit, horribly narrated "videos" that are unfortunately representative of most of the real estate videos one sees.
Those members who lambasted the "cheap" Realtors who refuse to pay for "professional" videography only proved my point. I clicked on the links of several of the posters who made these inflammatory statements only to find videos that I would be embarrassed to show to my clients. The first one was over 10 minutes long (for a 2 bedroom condo), panning painfully slowly around each room, panning the view of the river, panning around the exercise room, pool ... well, you get the idea. Most of the rooms were poorly lit with blown-out windows and deep shadows. Add to that the horrible soundtrack (some kind of irritating blues number with vocals and harmonica) and you get a product that most people wouldn't want to sit through, let alone find enjoyable.
The next video was even worse ... jerky zooms and pans, a yellowish color cast on interior rooms, and it looked as if the "videographer" was holding the camera at a 20 degree angle. I'm not sure if this was meant to be artistic or if he was just drunk at the time.
There are actually some very nice videos from some quite talented people but, based on what I saw, they make up only about 10% of the videos on the web site. The rest of them range from so-so to simply awful. What would you rather have potential buyers see? A nicely done slide show with sharp, well-lit pictures and subtle pans and zooms? Or a jerky, too slow/too fast, poorly lit video (complete with an interview with the agent - ugh!)?
As I wrote on their web site, I guess I just don't see the point of having full-motion video when you're showing something that (for the most part) doesn't actually move. I think the "real" video is great for community tours where you can see some type of action like people walking/biking or cars driving by ... even a water feature splashing. But if you're trying to convey selling points of a house, where is the benefit in a video? I've yet to see a compelling reason to use video over a well-made slide show.
I realize there will be some people who disagree ... consider this your opportunity to convince me why a video is better than a slide show.
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has issued an email scam alert targeted at holiday travelers. Although this virus first surfaced back in July, US-CERT felt that it was enough of a threat to reissue the alert just a few days ago.
The email appears to come from a legitimate airline and mentions a credit card balance hoping to get unwary recipients to open the attached .zip file. Unfortunately, opening the file will trigger a Trojan downloader that installs malicious code on the user's system. For more information, check the US-CERT's web site on their Current Activity page:
Living outside Washington, DC, we often forget the beauty that is in our own back yards. A great example is the Virginia side of Great Falls, just a few minutes from my home. A few weeks ago, I got these pictures - missed the peak of color by about a week, I think - but it was beautiful, nonetheless.
This young guy has been a frequent visitor in the last few weeks. He likes to perch (on one foot) on the fence in our back yard. We don't usually see them up this close in our little corner of suburbia. He just sits there looking around for five or ten minutes, then takes off. He appears to be a young light-morph Red Tail Hawk. Gorgeous, isn't he? [Edit: I found out later he's actually a Cooper's Hawk.]
Every year in the Spring, we deal with the invasion of the sugar ants. Around this time of year, we start getting what I call the "lazy wasps" ... big waspy looking things that fly around as if they were drunk, bumping into everything. The cats think they're great fun, but I'm not real thrilled about them. Now we have something new: Stink Bugs!
I saw this odd looking bug on my kitchen counter and use a paper towel to sweep him toward the sink so I could wash him away. As soon as the towel touched him, I smelled an awful, acrid aroma. Wow, I thought, it must be a stink bug. I've never seen one in my house before. A couple of hours later, I heard a promo for the local news station talking about an upcoming story on the stink bug invasion.
Since then, I've found three more ... I've heard that if you see one, there are probably hundreds more! Apparently, Virginia is in the midst of the worst stink bug invasion in years. And there's no easy way to get rid of them - regular bug sprays are said not to work. Some people recommend vacuuming them, but I don't want my Dyson to reek!
On the bright side, I understand they're a good source of nutrition - full of protein, fat, minerals and vitamins. If the economy gets any worse ...
My recent post on the Orphan Works bill was reblogged (thank you!). This generated a comment requesting a tutorial on adding a copyright watermark to photos. This can easily be done in Photoshop Elements. (Don't let the long list below intimidate you - it's actually a very simple process.)
Open your photo in Photoshop Elements editor.
Select the Text tool - this will create a new Text layer.
Choose a somewhat heavy font; I use white for the color, but any color will work.
Type your text. To insert the copyright symbol from a standard keyboard, hold down the Alt key and type "0169" on the keypad. (Don't use the number keys along the top of the keyboard - they won't work.) When you release the Alt key, the copyright symbol should appear. (If your keyboard doesn't have a keypad, you can insert the symbol using the Windows Character Map. Let me know if you need specific instructions for this.)
Optional: If you want to rotate your text, use the Transform function to move and rotate to the desired position.
With the Text layer still active, choose Bevels from the Effects palette, select Simple Inner Bevel and click Apply.
From the Effects palette, choose Visibility, select None and click apply.
Here's an example using my favorite subject (my boy Rocky)!
Please feel free to contact me (or post a comment here) if you need additional information.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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