The New Year is fast approaching and its common for each of us to examine our life and look for areas of change.  One common thrust toward new choices is the commitment to make a better life for oneself and for their family.  Sometimes it involves learning and other times its just deciding to do what it takes to achieve a goal.  This article is about how to get on track and stay there for all of 2010, driving toward the development and application of artistic talents.

First of all, you must define what your talents are and how they can be manifested by you in a way that is rewarding and includes having fun, and often being able to monetize it.  With the shape of the economy and the ongoing need to manage finances, one can’t often just start up a hobby and not intend to make money from it.  So, for this article, fun and financial reward will be at the core.

Do you love to work with your hands?  Do you have a knack for manifesting sounds or images into 3D pieces of art?  Do you like jewelry?  If you answer yes to these three questions then you should explore the art of wire jewelry making as an artistic way to express your abilities.

Finding wire jewelry making supplies is easy too.  You can start with patterns and designs that include the materials you’ll need to create the piece.  All you will need to learn is how to twist and connect wire; learn the range of materials, and then start designing pieces.

You will pull from nature, your daughter’s piano recital, or from a squirrel darting across the top of your fence, ideas that you can translate into a beautiful piece of wire jewelry.  Be sure to jot down what comes to you as you experience various forms of inspiration so that you can draw on it when you’re ready to order supplies to create with.  Then, when received you can sit down on a quiet afternoon and start creating.

After you’ve created a range of pieces, you’ll then want to start planning how to commercialize them – where to sell them and how to hang out your shingle.  Be sure to consult some experts if you need to, so that you don’t find yourself frustrated with lack of success.

Finally, enjoy the process and stick with it for all of 2010 so that you can look back and give yourself a pat on the back for a year well done in capturing the essence of your artist talent and funneling it toward a productive outcome!

Happy New Year!

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Finding instructions of any kind on the Internet is getting pretty easy to do these days.  Printing those instructions so that you can have them in front of you when you’re carrying out the described tasks is another matter.  So, this article is to help you print instructions, both with a black and white printer or a color one.  As a wire jewelry maker you’ll need your instructions handy as you progress through your projects.

First of course, navigate to the page you want to print.  Decide if you want to have the final copy in color or in black and white.  Some people hate wasting their color ink on instructions that will be filed away in a notebook.  Yet others, need the pictures included in the instructions as a task guide and as a result, want the pictures in color.

So, after you’ve found the page, you have a couple options on printing the material if a “print page” isn’t available.  The easiest way is to simply go to the top of the browser, top left option called “File”, and click.  The drop-down menu offers a print and print preview option.  The best way to print this way is to click on “print preview” to make sure you’re going to like the outcome.  You can see if you should change the “lay-out” to be landscape (meaning wider than longer) compared to the default setting of portrait (meaning taller than wider).  If you do want to change the lay-out, you can do so by clicking on “page setup” at the top of the print preview page.

Other available options include the amount of information on a page since the default is to make whatever is on the page fit into the printed page.  You may decide you only want the information on the left and don’t care about the right column and opt to increase the size of the print.  This is available in the drop-down menu called “scale.”  Finally, when you are happy with the look you can click “print” at the top of the page.

After you click “print” then you have the option to change the properties of your print by clicking on the “properties” button next to the name of your printer.  Click on the color tab at the top to find the color or grayscale buttons.  Select the one you want.  Click “OK” and then click “OK” again on the print screen and your printer will start printing.

Another option for printing which I prefer is to copy and paste the material I find on a webpage to a word document so that I have more control over the look and feel.  I can also cut out material I don’t want on the page by just “selecting” the portions I want, copying, and then pasting.

To copy and paste you simply use your cursor to “highlight” the section you want to copy, holding the left button on your mouse down while dragging the cursor over the section; releasing the mouse button when you’ve “captured” the content you want to print.  Once highlighted, then put your cursor over the area and “right-click” your mouse.  You will see the options available; select “copy.”  Once you do that the content you selected will be saved to the “clipboard.”  Open Microsoft Word or any other word processing program and place your cursor on the page.  Right-click your mouse one more time and you’ll see the option to “paste.”  Select it and you’ll notice that the content from the webpage now resides in your Word document.  Name and save your document and then print it.

Cutting and pasting is easy but also may require some adjustment to the layout since “formatting” doesn’t often transfer from a webpage to a Word document.  Also, these instructions are for a PC only since a MAC does not have the “right-click” button.

If you have any trouble printing after using these instructions feel free to submit questions to us at http://www.wire-sculpture.com

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It is the season for gift-buying and coming up with something unique for the “creatives” in your family can sometimes be a challenge.  Well, here’s a great new idea for gift giving that will fulfill any artist’s dream – give instructional DVD’s about creating wire jewelry!

Learning is fun for artists especially when he/she can practice hands on.  So, this holiday season, give a learning series of DVD’s filmed in high definition with jewelry expert Dale “Cougar” Armstrong teaching her techniques.  The DVDs, along with the widest range of wire jewelry making supplies and tools, can be found at http://www.wire-sculpture.com.  There are many to choose from including buying an entire series for beginners or for creating many different styles of rings.  Each DVD introduces the artist to materials, patterns, and complete instructions to create various jewelry pieces.

As a stocking stuffer you might also add some wire jewelry supplies or tools that your creative friend or family member will want to get started creating wire jewelry.  You might also call Wire-Sculpture to inquire about recommended products or tools that would complement the learning DVDs.

Magazine subscriptions are always a nice way to introduce a new hobby to someone – consider signing up him or her for one.  Books with pictures and instructions are also a good way to go.

Whether your gift buying is to help someone find a new outlet for their artistic talent or add to an existing collection of wire jewelry supplies, be sure to check out the specials available on the website.  Wire-sculpture.com provides a 100% product satisfaction guarantee or your money back.

Finally, there are pre-packaged kits to buy as well including the materials for making wire wrapped pendants, earrings and/or necklaces.  All the materials and instructions are provided.  Be sure to check to see what tools are also required.  These make great stocking stuffers too!

Happy Holidays!

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Editing a Picture in PhotoShop

By Mike Ault

So, you have used a light box and lights, set the camera for the proper exposure, white balance and such, used a tripod and your picture still comes out like figure 1.

Figure 1: Raw Picture from Camera

What can you do? Well, I use PhotoShop 5.5. other editors are gimp on Linux and PhotoShop Elements (and many others) which all allow adjustment of the photo in the areas of color balance, sharpness and levels.

So I load the image into PS5.5 and end up with what you see in Figure 2. Immediately do a “Save As” and save the photo under a different name, this prevents you editing the original.

Figure 2: Photo Loaded in PhotoShop 5.5

First things to look at are:

1. Do you need to crop?
2. Do you need to cleanup stray lines, dust artifacts or other items?

In the above photo, I do not need to crop and at least for now there are no dust, scratches or other artifacts to cleanup. So now what do I do about the non-white background? I assure you, this was taken against a white background so how do I get it back? The answer is levels. Look at figure 3, it shows navigating the menus (Image, adjust, Levels) to get to the levels adjustment window. The Levels adjustment window is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3: Menu Path to Adjust Levels

(Note: For Quick and Dirty try the “Auto Levels” item, it may do just great or it may not)

Figure 4: Levels Adjustment Window

Notice the histogram, under it there are three tiny arrows, one on the left, one center and one on the right. These arrows are used to adjust the “levels” in the image. You can manually shift them back and forth by using the cursor to select one, hold down the mouse left click and sliding it where you want to go. First, let’s adjust the “white” setting.

In our picture white will be easy, examine the non-necklace area, all of it is white, find the area that looks lightest. Now, using the mouse cursor, select the left hand arrow and slide it all the way to the right. Next, use the cursor to select the right hand eye-dropper. Move the eye-dropper to the area you decided was most “white” and then click the left hand mouse button. Just before I clicked on the left hand mouse button I captured Figure 5.

Figure 5: Left slider all the way right, eye-dropper is in mid lower-left quadrant

Once you click the image should reappear with the background reset to be white. See Figure 6.

Figure 6: White Balance has been reset

Now, if there are some colors still off, you can try setting “Black” as well a “White”. To set black first determine where the best “black” is in the picture. I usually move the Levels window so a corner points to it before the next step as in figure 7.

Figure 7: Upper Left Corner on Best Black

Next, select the right most slider and move it all the way left. Then select the leftmost dropper and place it on the black selection and click. Figure 8 shows the image just before clicking on the dropper.

Figure 8: Just before selecting “Black”

Figure 9 shows the affect of setting Black on our image. Note that at anytime should the results not be what you want, you can use a CTRL-Z to eliminate previous steps.

Figure 9: Image after selecting “Black”

Once you are satisfied, click on “OK”.

Now, is the image as sharp and clear as you would like? Or is it a bit soft? I usually like to use an unsharp mask to clean up the image a bit and really bring out the details. The Unsharp Mask is on the Filters, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask menu trail as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Unsharp Mask menu Path

Click on the Unsharp Mask menu item and the Unsharp Mask Adjustment Window will appear. Note that all changes to settings will be shown live on your image as they occur. Figure 11 shows the Unsharp Mask controls.

Figure 11: Unsharp Mask Controls

Notice we are currently set at Amount 32%, Radius 5.0 pixels and Threshold 9 levels. Usually radius doesn’t have to be set more than 10 and threshold more than 12. I usually use 5 and 9 for jewelry. The one control that you will probably want to adjust is the Amount control. In the Image above it is set to 32, look at the difference in Figure 12 with it set to 132.

Figure 12: Amount set to 132%

See how the lines look crisper and the silver, well, looks more silver! However, beware! Over sharpening can result in curved lines getting jaggy and the halo effect against colored background. Tweaking the settings gives me an optimal sharpness with minimal jaggies and halos at about 114% as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 14: Nominal setting at 114%

Once you get the image as sharp as you want, click on OK to return to the normal screen.

Ok, we have adjusted white and black (levels) and sharpness. However, the image still seems a bit dull, let’s look at brightness. Figure 15 shows how to get to the Brightness/Contrast controls.

Figure 15: Brightness/Contrast menu path

The Brightness and Contrast ion PhotoShop consist of two sliders, one for brightness and one for contrast. Simply use the mouse and left click to select the control and move it back and forth to get the desired change. I want to increase brightness slightly then adjust contrast to keep details sharp. In this case I increased brightness by +29 and upped contrast to +8, see Figure 16.

Figure 16: Brightness and Contrast Adjusted.

Now, with the brightness adjusted, notice that we are getting vignette effect (slight darkening) in the corners. If you like that effect, leave it, if you want to eliminate it, or any other defect such as a dust mark, scratch or unwanted background line, use the clone/stamp tool (it looks like an old rubber stamp on the tool bar. See Figure 17.

Figure 17: Stamp/Clone tool selection

First, make sure your “brush” selection is the proper size to clone just the area you want, too small and you can get artifacts, too large and it can be hard to get just what you want. You do this with a right mouse click. Next, place the stamp brush indicator (usually a circle) over the area you want to clone from and push the ALT-click combination to tell the tool to take pixels from the target and use them overlay where you tell it. Then move the brush indicator to the target area and simply click to paint over the target. The source area will move with the target area once you start clicking so be careful not to accidently clone something in the general source area as you move around. In Figure 18 I have cloned out the upper right hand corner to make it uniformly white.

Figure 18: Upper Right Hand Corner Fixed (not clone brush)

Figure 19 shows the final picture with the corners corrected.

Figure 19: Corners corrected, final image

Now, using a white background you won’t get much reflection and sometimes you want that. If you want reflections then use a colored sheet behind the glass stage area. Figure 20 shows the before and after image.

Figure 20: Image Before and After Adjustments

Hopefully with a bit of experimentation you can get your photos to where you are proud to put them on your web site!

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by Mike Ault

Virtually everyone has heard of Ebay. Many have made successful purchases there and unscrupulous dealers may have ripped others off. I once thought that I had gotten a great deal on a Persian rug only to find the shipping to be outrageous. But more to the point, how can you make sure that your Ebay experience is optimal? Let’s look at five rules to consider when using Ebay:

First, always check out comments on a seller before you buy, and be wary of one with all great comments from only a few users. One or two negative comments may actually be a good sign (depending on what they say) as no one can please everyone.

Second, know the value of what you are bidding on. Do an Internet search on the item and establish a range of prices, and don’t forget shipping and handling costs!

Third, use a bidding engine. (I use www.esnipe.com) A bidding engine will usually do a few things for you:
1. Verify the amount you want to pay as being valid, before the end of the auction
2. Bid on the item just seconds before the close of the auction
3. Prevent you from getting into a bidding war, probably with a bidding engine!

Fourth, use PayPal or a credit card that will go to bat for you if there is an issue. Being able to reclaim funds is a great way to prevent unscrupulous dealers from selling you a ‘bill of goods’.

Fifth, be sure to leave accurate feedback after you have received your purchase, which helps in building your own positive profile.

If you follow these five rules, you will find that you win more auctions and are generally happier with the purchases you have made.

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