Ugamoungous Undertaking Underway
I wish I could think of a REAL word for large that starts with a “U”. I love alliteration. I couldn’t think of anything so I just made one up. It sounds pretty big doesn’t it?
Now I’m also thinking this may be a bit redundant. With the alliteration the words undertaking and underway seem to be the same thing. Whatever! I’m sticking with it.
So are you wondering what this very large project is?
To answer that question I will tell you a story…
Once upon a time there a mom who was obsessed with her oldest son turning 5 (sound familiar?). She was puttering around in Photoshop one day trying to create a little medley of photos to add to her daily countdown to his birthday. She took four photos of cute and silly faces, sharpened them and cropped them all to the same size of 5″x7″. Then opened a new document to put them all on to make a little collage. This new document was huge; 100″ x100″ because she didn’t know when she created the new document what she was going to do so she randomly chose a really large number so there would be lots of room to move things around.
She put all her photos on the new document and played with them a bit. When it was all to her liking, she decided to crop it and then insert it into a frame that she found on Flickr.
As the cropping was about to begin she got an error message that said her scratch disk was full. Instead of panicing like she is oft apt to do, she decided to spend a few minutes doing a little Googling. The results of said search indicated that she’s just got way too much stuff on her computer so she decided that she needs to go through her 2008 photos and delete all of the ones that she didn’t really want. As she was going through them, she realized that what really needs to occur is a gigantic scrapbooking and/or photo album creation.
What I, ahem, I mean She needs to do is go through all the photos from last year and put them into a printable format and then actually print them out and put them in binders.
I’m not fooling anyone. She is actually me. I have filled up my little MacBook to capacity and it is time for some major spring cleaning. I’m not overly upset about this since it was one of my photographic new year resolutions anyway. That day has just come a little sooner than I anticipated. I am excited to put together some of these images and actually get them OUT of my computer. I think I am gong to be working on this for the next few evening as there are quite a few photos. I’m obsessed or haven’t you heard?
I was eventually able to get the result I was after by deleting a few not so great shots of grass and fences or something. It’s a start and I’m excited to continue on the project.
Have you made any progress on your New Year resolutions? Have you made any progress on actually getting your photos out of your computer? Any suggestions or tips for me that might make the process a little easier? You know I would really appreciate any tips.
Or help.
Anyone want to come over and help me? I make a mean peanut butter and home made jelly sandwich!
January 29th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Have you tried Mypublisher.com? It is free to download their software (of course it costs a little bit of money to order the books). Anyway, you download your photos, pick what size book you want, whether or not you want text or not, and how many photos you want on each page of your book. It sounds complicated but it couldn’t be any easier to use and the photo books turn out beautifully!
January 29th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Thanks Jessica for dropping by my blog and jumping on the Family Yearbook Challenge! I’m so excited about it….
So i luv your post….i think we can help each other…I can help you get teh stories organized and written with the FYB Challenge. FYI: you can publish your book through Cherish Bound if you want to put anything into hardbound books. I can tell you how to do that. And I’m going to come over here and visit for some PSE help….I suck at it! cant’ figure it out for hte life of me….such a rookie. i have PSE 6 and it just sits there as i abuse the heck out of it! BTW: i love pb & j so make extra for me! ♥
January 30th, 2009 at 12:16 am
You can move this to an actual TIP post if you’d like
You will all be very excited for the tip next week! IT WILL BE AWESOME!!!
Did you know (*hint* TIP OF THE DAY! & it works with Photoshop & Elements!)
You can go into your EDIT > PREFERENCES > PERFORMANCE dialogue box and increase or decrease the MEMORY USAGE.
ALSO, in this same dialogue box you can designate a separate “SCRATCH DISK”. This means that you can buy a tiny little 2GB thumb drive and designate ALL of it to “SCRATCH DISK” usage!
ALSO, while in this SAME window, you can designate how many “HISTORY STATES” (this roughly means how many UNDOS you get… yes there is more to it than that, but that is the easiest way to think of it)….
January 30th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Hi Jess!
That’s a WONDERFUL idea! I’ve been going through a lot of those same issues myself and have a couple ideas for you that sure helped me!
1. Get an external hard drive. I went to costco and spent $75 bucks on a HUGE (space-wise) external and now my computer and programs work so fast! You can keep it plugged in all day and access it like a normal folder on your desktop.
2. Make a blurb.com book with your pics. I think I already sent you images of the book I made for Justin’s family, but it’s a GREAT way to preserve photos and the glue will never peel, the pics will never fall out, it fits neatly on a shelf or coffee table, and you don’t have to waste a bunch of ink and paper in the process. Plus, it gives you a chance to sharpen your photoshop and layout skills! You can download the free software and it comes with tons of templates. I make all my pages from scratch, but it’s easy to do a blend if you like!
I decided a few months ago that when we have our first baby, I want to make a digital yearbook that I’ll have printed on blurb. It would be maybe just a two page spread for every month- just SOMETHING to document the events, pictures, etc. By the time he or she is 20, we’d have a whole Encyclopedia Brittanica style shelf of yearbooks! Then I decided, why wait for the baby? So I’ve started compiling all of the photos, notes, events, ticket stubs, postcards etc from 2008 and began organizing them for my 2008 yearbook. It’s fun because you can just scan random items in: handwriting, notes, drawings and more, which you can size down, overlap, etc however you’d like. I’ve also set up a system for 2009 to keep things organized! Here are a couple links to the two books I’ve made so far- each has a selection of pages from the real book.
The first is a book for Justin’s parents 30th Anniversary. Almost all the items in it were scanned in, photographed, and drawn or painted by Justin and me and I scanned in family members’ handwriting, talking about the happy couple:
http://satchel-studio.com/images/book1.jpg
This second book I compiled more simply of photos I took over the summer and thanksgiving of Justin’s family- no frills, simple portraits in a template I made:
http://satchel-studio.com/images/book2.jpg
Hope that helps inspire! Love you!
February 1st, 2009 at 9:28 am
Well, instead of going through my photos and purging them, I went to Staples and bought an external hard drive. I moved all my photos onto it and am wondering if I need another now.
I really do need to purge, however. There are so many shots that I really don’t need at all.
February 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am
I downloaded that frame from the flickr page but have no idea as to how to use it!