ascendtraining.com Creative Training for the Creative Professional

Today’s tip is for all of you Mac users! Especially those that use Facebook and Flickr. What I am going to go over today is a simple way to upload pictures or even entire photo albums directly to Facebook and/or Flickr from iPhoto. If you are not currently using iPhoto to manage your artwork and photos, I highly recommend doing so. iPhoto is a great application to use to keep your pictures organized and is also very easy to use. Let’s get started. Here I have a picture I want to upload to Facebook

In the bottom right you can see a few buttons with upload options. Here we have Facebook, Flickr and MobileMe. You should also see an option to email. (Pretty nice.) I’m going to go ahead and click on Facebook. If you have never attempted to upload via iPhoto, you will get a popup like this.

Click on “set up” to get a screen that is likely familiar.

Now log in and voila, your picture is uploaded to Facebook. As long as the picture is in iPhoto, whether it is a logo you produced in Adobe Illustrator or a photo you have edited in Photoshop, just drag and drop your jpegs, gifs, etc. into iPhoto and follow these simple steps. The same steps can be taken for Flickr and the other options.

There are a few things to keep in mind when you share from iPhoto. First, this can be done either to entire albums or individual photos. Make sure you know exactly whats going up before you go through with the upload. Also, you can set your iPhone to sync its photos to iPhoto. You should also know that uploading photos from a digital camera to iPhoto is as easy as plugging the camera in, starting iPhoto, and making a few simple mouse clicks.

Happy social networking!
-Jerome-

To save some time while working in applications like Photoshop or Fireworks, why not have your files default to open in specific programs? This is easily accomplished.

To start, we will go mac side.
Say we want our .jpg images to open in Photoshop on the double click. Find any .jpg file on your Mac computer, right click (or ctrl+click for one click mice/trackpads) and select get info, like so:

From there, you will want to click your disclose triangle for the ‘Open With’ tab on the info screen. You should then see something like this:

Now open the Drop Down menu to pick an application, or choose Other to browse your applications. After selecting the desired program, be sure to hit the ‘Change All…’ button so that it takes effect for all your files of that type.

If you double click a .jpg file now, it should open in PS rather than Preview.

As for Windows things are a bit more complicated, surprise there. Start by going into your Control Panel, which should be located in your start menu. Choose Programs > Default Programs to be you to this screen:

Choose ‘Associate file type or protocol with a program’ and you will get a screen listing the different file types on your computer. Select the file type that you’d like to change and hit the ‘Change Program…’ button to get a screen like this:

Choose the program you want or browse for the specific program, then you are done.

That’s all for today,

-Jerome

If you are looking to make some money off your visual works, but not sure where to start then I’ve got a useful bit of information for you. Recently, Flickr paired with Getty Images have come up with an easy solution. If you are not familiar with the sites, Flickr is a website where you can post your photos and images for free, and Getty Images is a site that sells stock art. Once you start a Flickr account and upload some of your original images, they have recently added the option to ‘Request a License’. This will then allow people to find your image on Getty Images and purchase a license to the image. This way, you can take all your photos and art you have edited or created in Photoshop or any of the applications in the Creative Suite post it online for all to see and, hopefully, make some extra cash doing so.

For more information
Go Here

-Jerome

Adobe Photoshop CS5 features fabulous new tools…and here is an illustrated guide to the new Photoshop Tool Panel!

The Photoshop CS5 ruler tool has been around for a long, long time with minimal value. Now Adobe has added the Straighten feature that was previously only available in the Lens Correction window. Simply draw along the line that needs to be straightened (for example, the side of a building that is crooked) and on the Control Panel, click on the “Straighten” button. In addition, it uses Content Aware Fill to fill in the edges.

Join us for a free event showcasing the new Digital Painting tools in Adobe Photoshop CS5! The Fort Dearborn Photo Forum and Ascend Training are hosting this free event at our downtown Chicago training facility June 25th at 6pm.

Register for this free event.

See our Adobe Photoshop Class Offerings.