Monthly Archives: February 2011

Hello and welcome to our “Beautiful Mats” tutorial. Your templates can be customized in any way imaginable.  You can change nearly everything about them including the fonts, colors, image placement, borders, and so on.  Here’s a little info on how to customize a few key things:

ADDING IMAGES

Adding images is quite simple.  The easiest way is to use clipping masks.  Simply follow these steps:

1. Open the template (.psd file) you would like to insert your images into with Photoshop.

2. Select the layer you would like to place your image into in your LAYERS palette, it will be called “IMAGE LAYER”.

3. Open the image you would like to place here into Photoshop. FILE ->OPEN from the top menu in Photoshop.

4. Select the MOVE tool (Keyboard shortcut “V”) from your TOOLS palette.

5. Drag the image onto the collage template. It should now appear directly above “IMAGE LAYER″ in your LAYERS palette.

6. Now, choose LAYER -> MAKE CLIPPING MASK from the top menu in Photoshop. This will insure that your image will only appear in the frame which you intended. You can also select the “create clipping mask” option from the top right arrow of your layers palette. (Keyboard shortcut “COMMAND+OPTION+G”.)

7. If your image does not completely fill the frame, or is too large in the frame, you will need to resize it. To do this, choose EDIT->FREE TRANSFORM->SCALE from the top menu in Photoshop (Keyboard shortcut “Control+T” or “Apple+T” on a Mac).

8. Hold down the Shift key while dragging out (or in) the handles that appear on the edges of your photograph.

9. When you are happy with your photo’s position, press “Enter”.

Repeat this step for any subsequent image layers.

CHANGING COLORS

These designs are in the form of shapes, which are vector layers. Not only does this enable you to print the designs at any size with quality loss, this also makes it very easy to change the color on the fly.  Here’s how:

1.  Choose the graphic that you would like to change in the Layers palette.

2.  Now, double-click the small box of color next to the name of the layer.

3.  Choose the new color when the dialog box appears.

4.  Click “OK”.

FONTS

We cannot include fonts in our downloads, as fonts are protected under copyright.  In order to keep the look of your materials the same as the original template, you will have to have the fonts we used installed on your computer.  If you do not have the fonts we have used, a quick Google search should turn up a resource in no time.

The font used for this set is:
Arial
Times
akaDora

To change the wording on your templates do the following:
1.  Select the Text Tool from your tools palette (keyboard shortcut “T”)
2.  Click on the line of text that you would like to change.
3.  Highlight the text by dragging the tool across it.
4.  Type to your heart’s content.

*NOTE – For your convenience we have included a bonus folder called “DESIGN_AGLOW_UNGROUP_LAYERS_ACTION_PSE”.  This folder contains actions to ungroup the layers and make them editable if you are using Photoshop Elements 6 or newer.  Click here to learn how to add and run actions in PSE.

With a fabulously clean new color palette, we are excited to announce the re-release of the Some Like It Haute – Marketing Set! Now every studio can dazzle with this complete marketing set which pairs couture with class for a fresh flair. Our fully customizable templates appoint your studio with everything you’ll ever need: business cards, gift certificates, accordion brochures, price lists, letterheads, envelopes and even packaging stickers. With so many delectable options to choose from, your most difficult decision may just be which to try first.

PRODUCT DETAILS:
This elegant set includes:
• Two-sided 4×5.5, 8 panel accordion brochure to market studios
• Two-sided business card
• Two-sided 5×7 gift certificate
• Letterhead and envelope
• Packaging sticker for client DVDs or anything else
• Price list for offerings
• This set is fully customizable, consisting of fully layered Photoshop PSD files to easily change the look
• Compatible with Photoshop CS or newer, Windows and Mac.

And of course, we are also re-releasing it’s coordinating companion product, the Some Like It Haute – 8 Page Brochure!

Sometimes studios require more than just a postcard to share information about services to prospective clients. This 8-page brochure beautifully lends to successful marketing efforts with this easy-to-design template. Created specifically with wedding photographers in mind (perfect to leave with caterers, florists, hotels, and planners), this stunning product takes the mystery and headache out of making a great first impression with a top-notch brochure.

This beautiful template includes:
• 8 professionally designed pages complete with patterned backgrounds, design elements, and space to insert own images, packages, faq, and letters from clients
• Fonts for brochure consistency
• A full tutorial

PRODUCT DETAILS:
• Fully customizable, consisting of fully layered Photoshop PSD files to easily achieve desired look
• Brochure is 8.5 x 5.5 inches
• Compatible with Photoshop CS or newer, Windows and Mac

*Special thanks to Paul Johnson Photography for the lovely images.

To check out the marketing set in the shop, click here, and for the 8 page brochure, click here!

This guide will serve as a tutorial to answer any questions you may have about using and printing your marketing set.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of these marketing sets is to give all of your customer materials a professional, clean, and consistent look.  We professional photographers have to stay on top of our game and any materials given to our clients must be stellar.  We believe these marketing sets are just the ticket.  Not only are they gorgeous, but they are easy as pie to implement right away.  Similar custom designs done by a professional graphic artist would cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars (euros, yen, pesos, loonies, or pounds – depending on where you are, of course).  With these sets, not only are you eliminating the cost, you are eliminating all of the time involved in contacting a designer, laying out an idea, revamping that idea, and of course, figuring out what to do with the designs once you have them.  Trust us – it’s not pretty.  With these templates, 90% of the work is already done for you.  All you will have to do is drop in your best stuff, customize your colors, text, and graphics, and send the set off to be printed.  The estimated time to complete a marketing and client materials package is only a few hours.

Now that the purpose is out of the way, let’s take a look at what came in your download.

In your download folder you will see all of the templates that will make up your marketing and client materials set.  These include:

An quad-fold marketing brochure

Business card

Envelope

Letterhead

Gift certificate

Sticker

Price list

Each item has a .jpg preview so that you may easily identify what you are looking for.

These templates are designed for Adobe Photoshop CS or newer.  This is not to say that they don’t work with previous versions – they very well may.  The files are un-flattened, fully editable Photoshop PSDs that offer literally limitless opportunity for customization and creativity.

In order to take full advantage of these templates, you should be relatively proficient in Photoshop.  Not an expert, mind you.  But you should have a general knowledge of layers, shapes, text and image manipulation such as using the transform tool, layer masks, etc.

If you are less familiar with Photoshop, don’t fear.  We will try to be as thorough as possible with the tutorial – and hey, you might just learn something new!

GETTING STARTED

When you downloaded your marketing set from the Design Aglow website you should have saved it in an easy-to-find location somewhere on your hard drive.  Take a moment to locate the folder.  Ready?  Great!  Let’s move on.

First thing’s first – you must unzip the folder before using any of the templates.  This is very important as Photoshop will not be able to work with the files in zipped format.  Use your favorite extraction program for this, such as WinZip (www.winzip.com) or StuffIt (www.stuffit.com).

After you have successfully unzipped your folder you should strongly consider backing up everything just in case you ever accidentally over-write one of the original templates.  This is always a good idea as re-downloading these huge files can be quite a bummer.  Use a blank DVD or portable thumb drive to save a copy, and put it in a safe place.

Printing your materials is always a tricky topic because, quite simply, there are an astronomical number of great printers out there.  And so many printers means a dizzying variety of sizes, crops, bleeds, formats, rules, and upload instructions.  You are welcome to look into any printing service and use whomever you wish.  If you choose to do this, be absolutely sure that you contact them for their own templates before printing your marketing materials.  You will need to resize everything to their specs BEFORE sending them to print.  Remember, everyone is different, so check first.

For this set we’ve chosen to use White House Custom Color’s (www.whcc.com) templates.  This is because their printing is beautiful, turnaround time is miniscule, and you can order almost everything for your set in one place.  (The letterhead and envelopes will have to be printed elsewhere.  But we’ve taken care of that too.)  But most of all, we like the fact that with WHCC you can do very small print runs (usually as little as 25).  That way, you do not have to commit to ordering thousands of something and getting stuck with them like some of the larger commercial printers require.

Ordering your materials in small batches will allow you to mix up your marketing for seasonal events and target certain customers with different looks without breaking the bank.  And of course, a photographer’s prerogative is to change his/her mind.  So you can tire of last year’s look and make a brand new look in the blink of an eye.

For the letterhead and envelopes, sorry to say, but you are on your own.  There are enough printing companies out there to create marketing materials for a small village.  We have used templates from 48 Hour Print (www.48hourprint.com) because we have worked with them in the past and haven’t been disappointed yet.  The turnaround time is – as the name very succinctly implies – 48 hours and the quality is good.  They also have some of the best prices out there.  We are in no way endorsing 48 Hour Print, so please contact them before you order just to check ‘em out.  We don’t want an army of angry photographers with pitchforks showing up at our door because of botched printing jobs.

As we said before, your templates can be customized in any way imaginable.  You can change nearly everything about them including the fonts, colors, image placement, borders, and so on.  Here’s a little info on how to customize a few key things:

Fonts:  We cannot include fonts in our downloads, as fonts are protected under copyright.  In order to keep the look of your materials the same as the original template, you will have to have the fonts we used installed on your computer.  If you do not have the fonts we have used, a quick Google search should turn up a resource in no time.

The font used for this set is:
La Jolla ES
CenturyGothic
CenturyGothic Italic
Elizabeth (included in download)

To change the wording on your templates do the following:
1.  Select the Text Tool from your tools palette (keyboard shortcut “T”)
2.  Click on the line of text that you would like to change.
3.  Highlight the text by dragging the tool across it.
4.  Type to your heart’s content.

Changing the colors of your templates could not be easier.  Here are a few tips on how to change the text, background, and stroke colors:

Text – Perform the same steps as if you were to change the text – text tool, click and highlight.

1.  Double click on the top color box in your tools menu.
2.  Choose the color for your text.
3.  Click “OK”

Background – You will see that most of the graphics are in the form of shapes.  This makes it very easy to change the color on the fly.  Here’s how:
1.  Choose the color block that you would like to change in the Layers palette.  If you cannot see the layers palette, click the “Window” dropdown menu at the top of your screen and choose “Layers”.
2.  Now, double-click the small box of color next to the name of the layer.
3.  Choose the new color when the dialog box appears.
4.  Click “OK”

Any graphics that aren’t shapes (like the “PATTERN” layer), will have a color fill clipped directly above it, (called “PATTERN COLOR”).

This is an area where any new Photoshopper could get a little confused and frustrated.  We’ll try to make it as easy on you as possible.

These templates are set up in a very simple way.  All of the text is grouped together, as is all of the graphics, and what we call “image layers”.  An image layer is basically a gray box that represents where your image will fit in.  Each image layer is numbered to make it easy to locate in the Layers palette.

Picture a framed photograph.  The gray box “IMAGE LAYER” is the matte and your image is the photograph beneath.  When you insert your image, the gray box will represent where the image will be located and what the bounds of that image are.  You will not be able to see any area outside of the matte, as in a real framed photograph.

There is no need to pre-crop your images before inserting them into the image layers.  We will tackle how to place, crop, and resize in the following tutorial.

HOW TO ADD YOUR IMAGES:

1.  Open the template that you would like to work with.
2.  Choose the location you would like your image to appear in the Layers palette.  Example: IMAGE LAYER 1.
3.  If you cannot see the image layers, try expanding the Group “Image Layers” by clicking the tiny triangle next to the group name.
4.  Open the image that you would like to insert into the template.
5.  Now, choose the “Move” tool from your tools palette. (Keyboard shortcut “V”)
6.  Drag your photo onto the marketing template.
7.  Go to the Layers palette and right-click on your image.
8.  Choose “Make clipping mask”.  This will create that bounding box we talked about above.

Notice how your image is now positioned within the frame and how you can still move it around without disrupting anything around it.  Pretty cool, huh?

You will probably also notice that your image is waaaaay too big.  That’s fine – we’ll now resize the image so that it fits perfectly into the opening.

To resize your image:

1.  Choose Edit –>  Transform –>  Scale from the top dropdown menu. (or you can just hit “Control+T” on your keyboard)
2.  Your image will now have handles.  If you can’t see the handles you will need to zoom out quite a bit.  Hit enter to cancel the transform, zoom out, and then hit Control + T again.
3.  When you mouse over a corner handle of your image you will see a double sided arrow.  Click the handle of your image, and drag in toward the center to scale down.  You may also drag out diagonally to enlarge your image, if need be. Hold down the Shift key while you are dragging to maintain your image’s perspective.
4.  When you are satisfied with the size, hit the Enter key.

You are all set!  A little practice makes perfect – the more you do these steps the faster and easier they will become.

Remember, wherever that gray box lies in the template is where your image will be positioned.  If you need to move your image, you will want to move the gray “IMAGE LAYER” box first.

Welcome and thank you for giving our 8 page studio brochure a try!  Now, instead of dozens of hours of painstaking design and computer work, you can simply slip in your images and text and have a wonderful brochure that is ready to go – which means you can get back to shooting, or better yet, lounging at the beach.

This guide will serve as a tutorial to answer any questions you may have about using and printing your brochure.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this brochure template is to give your images a clean, beautiful, professional look.  We professional photographers have to stay on top of our game and any materials given to our potential clients must be stellar.  We believe this brochure template is just the ticket.  Not only is it gorgeous, but it is easy as pie to implement right away.  Similar custom designs done by a professional graphic artist would cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars (euros, yen, pesos, loonies, or pounds – depending on where you are, of course).  With this template, not only are you eliminating the cost, you are eliminating all of the time involved in contacting a designer, laying out an idea, revamping that idea, and of course, figuring out what to do with the designs once you have them.  Trust us – it’s not pretty.  That being said, 90% of the work is already done for you.  All you will have to do is drop in your best stuff, customize your colors, text, and graphics, and send it off to be printed.  The estimated time to complete a complete brochure is under an hour.

Now that the purpose is out of the way, let’s take a look at what came in your download.

WHAT’S INCLUDED

In your download folder you will see all of the files you will need for your brochure template. These include:

1. JPEG previews (a folder contained a small preview of each page)

3. Fully Layered PSD files

4. Tutorial

5. Copyright statement

SOFTWARE YOU WILL NEED

These templates are designed for Adobe Photoshop CS or newer.  This is not to say that they don’t work with previous versions – they very well may.  The files are un-flattened, fully editable PSD files that offer literally limitless opportunity for customization and creativity.

In order to take full advantage of these templates, you should be relatively proficient in Photoshop.  Not an expert, mind you.  But you should have a general knowledge of layers, shapes, text and image manipulation such as using the transform tool, layer masks, etc.

If you are less familiar with Photoshop, don’t fear.  We will try to be as thorough as possible with the tutorial – and hey, you might just learn something new!

GETTING STARTED

When you downloaded your marketing set from the Design Aglow website you should have saved it in an easy-to-find location somewhere on your hard drive.  Take a moment to locate the folder.  Ready?  Great!  Let’s move on.

First thing’s first – you must unzip the folder before using any of the templates.  This is very important as Photoshop will not be able to work with the files in zipped format.  Use your favorite extraction program for this, such as WinZip (www.winzip.com) or StuffIt (www.stuffit.com).

After you have successfully unzipped your folder you should strongly consider backing up everything just in case you ever accidentally over-write one of the original templates.  This is always a good idea as re-downloading these huge files can be quite a bummer.  Use a blank DVD or portable thumb drive to save a copy, and put it in a safe place.

PRINTING YOUR BROCHURE

Printing your materials is always a tricky topic because, quite simply, there are an astronomical number of great printers out there.  And so many printers means a dizzying variety of sizes, crops, bleeds, formats, rules, and upload instructions.  You are welcome to look into any printing service and use whomever you wish.  If you choose to do this, be absolutely sure that you contact them for their own templates before printing your marketing materials.  You will need to resize everything to their specs BEFORE sending them to print.  Remember, everyone is different, so check first.

For this set we’ve chosen to use Copy Craft’s templates (http://designaglow.copycraft.com/) because their printing is lovely, their turnaround time is good, and an 8 page brochure is standard fare on their menu of offerings. We are in no way endorsing Copy Craft, so please contact them before you order just to check ‘em out.  We don’t want an army of angry photographers with pitchforks showing up at our door because of botched printing jobs.

CUSTOMIZING YOUR SET

As we said before, your templates can be customized in any way imaginable.  You can change nearly everything about them including the fonts, colors, image placement, borders, and so on.  Here’s a little info on how to customize a few key things:

Fonts:  We cannot include most fonts in our downloads, as fonts are protected under copyright.  In order to keep the look of your materials the same as the original template, you will have to have the fonts we used installed on your computer.  If you do not have the fonts we have used, a quick Google search should turn up a resource in no time.

The font used for this set is:
La Jolla ES
CenturyGothic
CenturyGothic Italic
Elizabeth (included in download)

To change the wording on your templates do the following:
1.  Select the Text Tool from your tools palette (keyboard shortcut “T”)
2.  Click on the line of text that you would like to change.
3.  Highlight the text by dragging the tool across it.
4.  Type to your heart’s content.

CUSTOMIZING YOUR BROCHURE – COLORS

Since our recommended vendor is Copy Craft, we’ve included the templates in a CMYK color space.  If you choose to use a lab that uses RGB, make sure you change the color space before adding your images.  (In Photoshop, click IMAGE->MODE->RGB COLOR, and don’t let it merge the layers.)

Changing the colors of your templates could not be easier.  Here are a few tips on how to change the text, background, and stroke colors:

Text – Perform the same steps as if you were to change the text – text tool, click and highlight.

1.  Double click on the top color box in your tools menu.
2.  Choose the color for your text.
3.  Click “OK”

The graphics are in the form of shapes.  This makes it very easy to change the color on the fly.  Here’s how:

1.  Choose the graphic that you would like to change in the Layers palette.  If you cannot see the layers palette, click the “Window” dropdown menu at the top of your screen and choose “Layers”.
2.  Now, double-click the small box of color next to the name of the layer.
3.  Choose the new color when the dialog box appears.
4.  Click “OK”

HOW TO INSERT YOUR IMAGES INTO THE TEMPLATE

This is an area where any new Photoshopper could get a little confused and frustrated.  We’ll try to make it as easy on you as possible.

These templates are set up in a very simple way.  All of the text is grouped together, as is all of the graphics, and what we call “image layers”.  An image layer is basically a gray box that represents where your image will fit in.  Each image layer is numbered to make it easy to locate in the Layers palette.

Picture a framed photograph.  The gray box “IMAGE LAYER” is the matte and your image is the photograph beneath.  When you insert your image, the black box will represent where the image will be located and what the bounds of that image are.  You will not be able to see any area outside of the matte, as in a real framed photograph.

There is no need to pre-crop your images before inserting them into the image layers.  We will tackle how to place, crop, and resize in the following tutorial.

LET’S GO OVER HOW TO ADD YOUR IMAGES:

1.  Open the template that you would like to work with.
2.  Choose the location you would like your image to appear in the Layers palette.  Example: IMAGE LAYER 1.
3. If you cannot see the image layers, try expanding the Group “Image Layers” by clicking the tiny triangle next to the group name.
4.  Open the image that you would like to insert into the template.
5.  Now, choose the “Move” tool from your tools palette. (Keyboard shortcut “V”)
6.  Drag your photo onto the marketing template.
7.  Go to the Layers palette and right-click on your image.
8.  Choose “Make clipping mask”.  This will create that bounding box we talked about above.

Notice how your image is now positioned within the frame and how you can still move it around without disrupting anything around it.  Pretty cool, huh?

On some of the image layers, you will see a white border.  To change the color of this border, simply double click the desired IMAGE LAYER to view the “Blending Options”, then select “stroke” at the bottom left, which will have a check in the box next to it. Double click the color box, and choose a new color.

You will probably also notice that your image is waaaaay too big.  That’s fine – we’ll now resize the image so that it fits perfectly into the opening.

To resize your image:

1.  Choose Edit –>  Transform –>  Scale from the top dropdown menu. (or you can just hit “Control+T” on your keyboard)
2.  Your image will now have handles.  If you can’t see the handles you will need to zoom out quite a bit.  Hit enter to cancel the transform, zoom out, and then hit Control + T again.
3.  When you mouse over a corner handle of your image you will see a double sided arrow.  Click the handle of your image, and drag in toward the center to scale down.  You may also drag out diagonally to enlarge your image, if need be. Hold down the Shift key while you are dragging to maintain your image’s perspective.
4.  When you are satisfied with the size, hit the Enter key.

You are all set!  A little practice makes perfect – the more you do these steps the faster and easier they will become.

TIPS AND NOTES

Remember, wherever that gray box lies in the template is where your image will be positioned.  If you need to move your image, you will want to move the gray “Image Layer” box first.

It’s an exciting new age for the professional photography studio, so we invite you forget about stale, old-fashioned marketing pieces and focus on limitless possibilities with your own custom studio magazine. Design Aglow’s new, professionally written and laid out magazine beautifully showcases your studio’s work while educating and entertaining current and potential clients about professional photography.

This product is all about you! We’ve combined our expert Design Aglow team for both writing and modern magazine design details to make the process of releasing your own 16-page studio magazine easy and enjoyable. Simply plug your favorite images and text for a marketing piece that looks just like the pages out of your own favorite magazines. All graphics and sample text are included to inspire you, allowing you to change as little or as much as you’d like to suit your brand and style.

Your very own magazine format includes:
• An editor’s page to introduce yourself and your background
• Client love letters to showcase what clients are saying about you
• Featured client session with sidebar, great for any type of shoot
• Your studio’s portrait process from shoot to print
• Favorite vendor feature to spotlight the local businesses you just love
• What to expect the day of a shoot
• Client wardrobe suggestion page for perfect portraits
• Different product options (stock photos included)
• A beautiful back cover with space for studio promotions
• And more!

Whether mailed to clients, left at your favorite venues, or handed out during initial meetings or at trade events, you’re sure to stand out from the competition and make your studio the talk of the town with this stunning magazine.

And, like Design Aglow’s own widely celebrated magazine, you can enjoy sending via your favorite digital delivery format. Your studio with Design Aglow’s industry leading team working to show you in your best possible light– What could be better?

PRODUCT DETAILS:
• 16-page format for easy printing of physical copies, as well as for your favorite digital delivery format.
• Professionally written and designed by the Design Aglow magazine team for you to use or as a template for you to come up with your own stories and sidebars.
• Magazine is fully designed and ready to use; just plug in images, change colors to fit your branding and you’ve created a beautiful marketing piece.
• Back cover has space for special studio promotions
• We’ve also included an extremely valuable and comprehensive writing guide from Design Aglow’s own editor to help you produce the best possible content for your own magazine. This guide is a mini-seminar that will walk you through all aspects of creating content for your magazine, including tips, tricks, step-by-step writing guidelines and even client questionnaires to send out.
• Our recommendations for online viewing and/or printing your magazine are included, as well as a valuable coupon for 10% off your print order with Copy Craft.
• Favorite vendor feature to spotlight the local businesses you just love (and cross-refer!)
• Compatible with Photoshop CS and newer, InDesign CS3 and newer, Windows and Mac

*We would like to extend a very special thanks to Michelle Huesgen of Untamed Heart Photography for the beautiful images in our sample magazine.

Click here to check it out in the shop!

Attention Wedding Studios: Please stay tuned for the launch of our wedding version of the Luxe Studio Magazine coming up very soon. If you are not already on our mailing list to receive notifications, please do so here:

This is one sweet sixteen party sans the awkward moments. Design Aglow presents its very own Sweet 16: Rounded Corners template, the perfect companion to those amazing photo sessions where showing off just one of many gorgeous images just won’t do. Regardless the occasion, from stunning senior shoots to save the date cards to vendor gifts, you’re going to so love this format you’ll invent reasons to use them. Order today to see how a well rounded approach creates fun, new angles for your studio’s offerings and marketing materials.

PERFECT FOR:
• Weddings
• Portraits
• Marketing and advertising
• Special events
• Save the date cards
• Album covers
• Framed collages and canvases
• Vendor gifts

PRODUCT DETAILS:
• Designed to be displayed as a 30×30, flush print collage, but is compressed to 12×12, 300 dpi for fast delivery via download.
• Action bundled with this collage makes inserting images fully automatic. Just click, play and enjoy finished products in no time.
• Fully layered Photoshop PSD file for unlimited customizations.
• Design is vector and may be printed as large as you like
• Includes bonus InDesign version of the template for a speedy drag-and-drop workflow
• Compatible with Photoshop CS and newer, InDesign CS3 and newer, Photoshop Elements 6 or newer, Windows and Mac

*Special thanks to Michelle Moore for the lovely images.

Click here to check it out in the shop!