Working From Home News

International Women’s Day 2010

Zo Nicholas — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:36:15 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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International Women’s Day 2010

Celebrating International Women’s Day 2010 on March 8th.

To all Women around the world:

Happy Women’s Day!

Raising a glass to all the women out there, whoever you are, wherever you are…..where would the world be without us?

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Creative Book Covers for stories

Zo Nicholas — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:47:03 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Creative Book Covers for stories

There are many stories written, and yet many of these stories lie unprinted.

Today, the internet has opened up so many wonderful possibilities for authors, who’s books would otherwise lie unpublished. With the many easy to use programs that abound, like Microsoft Word, it’s much easier to get a book written, then published as an ebook and finally have a book cover made.

Stories Never Told

I remember way back as a child, my mother would tell us a story at bedtime. Each story would be different, capturing our imaginations and leaving us spellbound as we drifted of to sleep. These stories were never told on paper, lost forever to outsiders but still vivid and alive in our memories.

Book Covers for Stories

Once you have your story and created the book as a pdf then you really need a book cover. ‘Don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ but then isn’t that the thing that attracts the eye and inspires you to look further, well I would say so! And then of course its the title and subtitle, and the editorial that helps to make up the readers mind to whether he will or will not purchase the book.

Book covers come at affordable prices if you don’t have the know how or patience to create your own. You can check the prices at the Small Business Shop. Covers are custom made to order at prices you can afford.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Curling Pages

Zo Nicholas — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:39:11 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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1 Curling Pages

Curling Pages

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Unique Personalised Gifts

Its never easy trying to find a special gift for a loved one. Shops are full of so many choices to be made, and yet finding a truly unique personalised gift takes time to find, especially if you want to be a little different from the norm.

Personalised gift idea

Giving a gift that comes truly just from you makes a gift really special. Remember when your child or friend gave you that first picture or gift created especially for you, you remember that forever. Here in our Small Business Shop we have some very unique gift ideas, custom made for that someone very special in your life.

Personalised DVD or CD Covers

Most of us these days have a digital camera, or use our mobile to capture those special moments in our lives, of family, friends and get-togethers. We often end up collecting and storeing these captured moments and so often that is the end of that. Why not use these photos to create a special gift for that special occassion?

Collect and assemble some of those special photos on a CVD or DVD and we will create a unique personalised cover for you to give as gift to that special person in your life.

Just tell us what you would like to see on the cover and we will send you the printer ready cover to print and use. A very special gift that will be treasured forever.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Best Small Business Product Shop

Zo Nicholas — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:38:46 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

Best Small Business Product Shop

Best Small Business Product Shop is the latest development, and still very much in the construction stage. The Product Shop is the next step that follows up on the IT Consulting site created in 2009.

The Small Business Product Shop is a based on the WP Best eShop, a WordPress based Semiomantics Script, installed and configured during this weekends Ycademy Business Building Seminar.

Personalised Business Products

Based on years of experience, the Small Business Product Shop will offer everything that is needed to build a top ranking online presence.

We offer the very best up to date web solutions whatever your need: complete hosting solutions ~ custom website development ~ web applications ~ e-commerce ~ business development ~ system management and maintenance services. All services are based on top performing Semiomantics scripts.

Check back for more to come from the Best Small Business Product Shop.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Astir Beach Framed in Photoshop

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:24:14 +0000

By Yorgo Nestoridis

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Astir Beach Framed in Photoshop

My by now famous Astir Beach Image which can also be found on Google Top 10 was the sample for last night’s Ycademy session where we were experimenting with frames and borders. Here some more results after yesterdays Session Preview:

Astir Beach – Vouliagmeni with Frames and Borders

astir16Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Glass Frame

astir5-backlightMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Backlight

astir5-blackglassMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Smokedglass

astir5-whiteglow2Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Whiteglow

astir5-whiteglowMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Whiteglow 2

astir5-steelripplesMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Steel ripples

astir5-steelframeMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Steel frame

astir5-pitsMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Pits

astir5-orangejuiceMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Yellow

astir5-goldbevelMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Gold

astir5-dalimeltdripMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Dali Melt and Drip

astir5-chromeMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Chrome

astir5-blackglassMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Astir Beach, Black Glass

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Home Business online: Hosting

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:44:24 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Branding your Business online

The next step to Branding your Business online after purchasing and registering your domain is purchasing a hosting package to suit your business needs. Hosting is the step between your business and publishing it to the worldwide web. Offline a business takes its marketing materials to a publisher to be published and then distributed, online its to a hosting provider where your marketing material is made public online.

Hosting

There are any companies online that offer hosting packages, with varying features and prices. Most anyone can afford to buy basic hosting pack as prices have fallen over the past few years. However, one should not only be dictated by the price alone but also by the services that the hosting company provides.

Best Affordable Hosting

Identifying your business needs goes a long way to selecting the hosting package that will suit your budget and your specifications. At Small Business Consulting we can help you assess your hosting needs and suggest the best possible solution, however simple or complex it may be. If you are an internet marketer your needs will go way beyond a simple fun site that often you can get for free.

Hosting Features

Here are some hosting features in order of priority that I consider to be of paramount importance when considering and selecting a web hosting provider. As a user of various hosting companies I realise these to be important:

Customer Support

I remember when I first started how important this service was: good, reliable customer support, providing technical assistance and solutions as and when needed. Even today when something goes amiss it is important to have assistance from customer support.

Backups

It is important to know that the hosting provider can provide backup and has a regular backup routine in place. This however should not stop you from setting up your own backup and maintenance routine.

Web Space

Your account will require a certain amount of web space, and as you grow you need reassurance that you can also expand according to your needs.

Reliability and Access

No hosting company can really guarantee 100% uptime, those really unforeseen downtime’s do happen as well occasional short downtime for major maintenance. A good hosting company will deal with emergencies immediately and there should be very little disruption to the running of your online business. Speedy access to a website is also an important feature to considered in order that visitors are not lost by slow working websites.

At ChiHosters we provide an excellent service with hosting plans starting at:

* No Limit Shared Hosting: U$35 per year.

*Semiomantics Pro Hosting for Advanced Semiomantics Publishing: U$ 29.95 per month

* Hosting Reseller Plan (WHM): U$99.99 per month

* VSM 20GB Allocated Virtual Managed Server: U$150.00 per month
Sell WHM Reseller Packs

•Increased configuration and flexibility
•Increased uptime and security
•Full Root access
•100% Management and Monitoring – This means we worry about your server, and you worry about your sales!
•The ability to sell reseller accounts
•Based on a Dual AMD Opteron 275, 8GB ram and 20GB HD space dedicated to you.

Other options are also available on demand. Discussing your specific needs with a Consultant or hosting providing can result in a unique and satisfactory hosting solution designed especially for you.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Fun with Action Scripts

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:19:07 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Photoshop Action Scripts fun

Part of the learning experience when learning a new skill is the playing, having fun and testing out possiblilities. Its all part of the creative process that we often miss out on when working at a daily job. When learning about Photoshop there’s a lot of fun to be had testing out the Photoshop Action Scripts.

Learning Photoshop

Once you have mastered a few basics, then its more fun to be able to see some final products. Here are a few examples of some very easy to use Action Scripts that produce good looking results with a few simple clicks.

Angel Glass Action Script

Very easy to use Angel Glass to produce some great looking pictures.

Membership Card

Another Action Script that creates a professional looking membership card.

Babyshop CD

A fun way to wrap up and sell products online. Very easy to use with a few simple mouse clicks and just adding your own text and colours etc.

Photoshop Tutorials by Ycademy

For more Photoshop Live trainings and tutorials you can join the next session at Ycademy. For more information about trainings feel free to contact me here.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

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Branding your business online

Zo Nicholas — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:13:33 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Branding your business online.

There are many businesses out there online these days, each business promoting its own specific product/s. To be noticed each business has its own image of the product it sells in the market. Branding your business online is one of the most important elements of advertising.
One of the first steps to branding your business is the name you choose for that business.

Brand Name

The name you choose becomes your “brand name” a type of trademark, used to identify you on any marketing material you use, from letterheads to T-shirts and identifies you as the brand owner of the products or services you provide.

Domain Registration

Register the Brand Name

Online we register the brand name by registering a domain name. Offline the owner of a business can do this through trademark registration, protecting his rights to the brand. Whether you run a small home business or any project online registering your domain on the internet is a must , and the first investment into your business online.

Domain Registration

Domain registration is a very simple process of selecting a name, filling out a form and making a payment.

At Cashbizzhost we sell internet domain name registrations with a premium service. You will find our domain names to be one of the best values around.

Domain Registration Prices

Top Level Domain name (TLD) a .com is offered at:

* U$12.95 per domain for 1 year
* U$25.00 per domain for 2 years

Other domains such as country-code top-level domains and generic top level domains are offered at varying prices.

Cashbizzhost also offers many FREE SERVICES with domain registration:

* 100 personalized email addresses -
Create up to 100 personalized email addresses and forward them to other email addresses.

* Web/URL forwarding -
Forward/redirect/frame your domain name to any other URL/website on the web.

* Name-my-phone -
Give your phone a memorable, meaningful, identity.

* Name-my-map -
Ever want to give someone directions to your home or business, with an easy to remember name?

With every registered user we offer full customer support.

For more information feel free to contact me to discuss your requirements.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Discovering Photoshop

Zo Nicholas — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:28:27 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

Discovering Photoshop

Following up on previous live training on the various Photoshop features given in an Ycademy session here are some fun examples of testing some of the features.

My sweetheart using the Ellipse Border.

Using a simple graphic and playing around with the Kaleidescope feature this new fun graphic was achieved:

Kaleidescope Fun

Photoshop Tutorials by Ycademy

There will be many more Photoshop tutorials following up on the basics that have already being learnt. As you go further into Photoshop you begin to realise that there are endless possibilities and you are only limited by your own imagination.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Small Business Shop

Zo Nicholas — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:15:23 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Small Business Shop

The Small Business Shop is a new WP Best eShop and will be offering tried and tested products and Web Services suitable for anyone running a small business online. The site is still very much in its infacy however there is much construction work going on in the background and the final result will be available soon.

Small-Business-Product-Shop

Small Business Shop Products

Products on offer will include:

* Personal blogs that are fully personalized and search engine optimised which include web graphics of your choice to build your authority online. Don’t forget, children love to blog too, we don’t leave them out here. Kids blogs too just for fun.

* Newscast Theme – build your own newspaper and publish your articles to the web, marketing your products, allowing your customers to easily access your product information.

* Photo Gallery – for your designs or displaying photos of family, friends and colleagues. Create your own unique gallery! We leave it to your imagination.

* Business Blog – have a business? Let the world know about it. Includes a contact form to keep your audience informed. Social networking module can be included upon request.

* City or Town Theme - WP Best City or Town Theme bringing your town and activity to the internet. How about adding a Classified Ads Module as an added income stream to boost your ROI.

E-Commerce eShop

* e-Shop – A WP Best eShop displaying YOUR products with a fully functional shopping cart, a ‘buy now’ button option that is easy to use, providing a great online user experience.

Website Traffic.

Need more traffic? Then you need automation.

* Targeted Ads delivery – speedily delivered to your targeted audience.

* Highly Targeted Keyword Traffic – for keyword domination, blasting your way to the top.

Web Graphics

* Logo & Banner design – unique and captivating to improve brand awareness, created especially for you.

Website Services

* Domains – domain research and domain name registrations, registered in your totally in your name.

* Hosting Services – complete hosting packages at affordable prices. The best hosting solutions to suit your business needs.

* Maintenance Services and Support – leave the problems to us. Full monthly plans at affordable prices.

More products will be added soon, as and when they are available.

Our International team of web developers, web designers and graphic artists will create a unique and captivating website to promote you or your business online.

For more information feel free to contact me here to discuss your needs.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

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Discovering Photoshop – Action Scripts

Zo Nicholas — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:02:21 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Discovering Photoshop – Action Scripts

There is so much more to Photoshop than first meets the eye. I am sure that once you start to understand some basic functions you will soon discover the Photoshop action scripts.

Photoshop Action Scripts

The Photoshop Action Scripts take the work out of creating more complex designs. The action script once activated automatically performs the detailed tasks that it would take to create the final result. There are many of these action scripts to be found online. The example I have chosen is the ‘photobox’ which you can download from here and then follow the installation proceedure.

Photoshop Action Photobox

How to use Photoshop Action Photobox

As you see from the image above this action script creates a very cool effect. Click on the image above to see it full size.

Once you have installed your script open your Photoshop and then the image that you wish to use. Go to WINDOW on the toolbar and select Actions. In the actions menu select ‘photobox’. When the dialogue opens select photobox then click on the arrow button below to play. Just sit and watch as the script takes over and performs the actions to create the box image.You may then need to resize the final product to the desired size you require. Cool eh?

It took me a few tries to get the image centered on the cube, but this comes with a bit of practice. Practice makes perfect they say.

Photoshop Tutorials by Ycademy

For more Photoshop Live trainings and tutorials you can join the next session at Ycademy. For more information about trainings feel free to contact me here.

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Vouliagmeni

Yorgo Nestoridis — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:55:42 +0000

By Yorgo Nestoridis

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Vouliagmeni

The new Vouliagmeni site is built on the WP Best Destination Theme by Semiomantics. The purpose of the site is to Guide visitors through Vouliagmeni and to allow an attractive surf through categories such as Real Estate, Accommodation or Restaurants and Tavernas. The Who is Who section will feature people from Vouliagmeni and an Events section will report about the hot stuff happening in our town.

The Style of the Vouliagmeni Site

Vouliagmeni is a town where tradition and posh lifestyle meet. I have opted to use one of my preferred color schemes, the black – white – beige scheme.

Vouliagmeni Home Page Top

vouliagmeniscreen2Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Home Top

Vouliagmeni Home Bottom

vouliagmeniscreenMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Home Bottom

I like the see-through glass barrier.

Vouliagmeni Home Bottom Hover

vouliagmeniscreen4Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Home Bottom Hover

Vouliagmeni Home Bottom Hover Easter-egg

vouliagmeniscreen3Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Vouliagmeni Home Bottom Easter-egg

Enjoy and have a look at the real thing here.

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Learn Web Design

Bianca Gubalke — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:48:36 +0000

Learn Web Design

by Bianca Gubalke

Elegance in Web Design

Elegance in Web Design – and Graphic Design in particular – is another important attribute we really want to pay attention to, meaning to not only consider elegance as a sort of decoration but rather integrate it as an essential part of our online communication. We need websites and blogs that ‘talk’ , that ‘attract’ and ‘captivate’ – especially when it comes to images, ads and web graphics. So let’s look into how we can achieve exactly this.

Living that close to Nature and considering it my most graceful teacher, I am often stunned by the aesthetic beauty of apparently simple things. Actually, I have come to the conclusion that Elegance has a lot to do with Balance and Harmony.

I thought of this today when watching these beautiful, extremely long-tailed sunbirds – considering their tiny size – hovering in perfect balance over sumptuous red flowering gums in my garden – high up in the wind! What a perfect example – and luckily I had my Coolpix P90 for some great digital photos. These pictures inspired me to write an article on “Elegance” which I had foreseen for my Web Design Consulting Publication.

Elegance in Web Design

When thinking of Elegance in Web Design, we want to first define what it actually means – so we get a clear understanding.

Wiki describes it as “… the attribute of being unusually effective and simple. It is frequently used as a standard of tastefulness, particularly in the areas of visual design and decoration. Elegant things exhibit refined grace and dignified propriety.

Some westerners associate elegance with simplicity and consistency of design, focusing on the main or basic features of an object, its dignified gracefulness, or restrained beauty of style.

Others understand the word in an opulent light as in tasteful richness of design or ornamentation “the sumptuous elegance of the furnishings.”

The proof of a mathematical theorem is considered to have mathematical elegance if it is surprisingly simple yet effective and constructive; similarly, a computer program or algorithm is elegant if it uses a small amount of intuitive code to great effect^.

In engineering, a solution may be considered elegant if it uses a non-obvious method to produce a solution which is highly effective and simple. An elegant solution may solve multiple problems at once, especially problems not thought to be inter-related.

In chemistry, chemists always look for elegance in formulations as well as effectiveness in dosage form design.

Visual stimuli are frequently considered elegant if a small number of colors and stimuli are used, emphasizing the remainder.”

Now here we have some significant keywords pertaining to Elegance that all point us into a clearly defined direction when approaching our Web Design or Graphic Design:

Simplicity
Effectiveness
Tastefulness
Grace
Restrained beauty of style.

And coming back to our little feathery friend – it’s all there… and this is where Nature surprises and astonishes us all the time, it’s what makes it serene and what resonates with us as deep inside where we know that all is ONE.

If we manage to express these feelings with our Artwork, we touch, we communicate and we captivate; then our goal as graphic designers is attained.

Learn Adobe Photoshop at Weekly Ycademy Trainings

If you wish to learn Adobe Photoshop join our weekly Ycademy Trainings where we teach basic principles and techniques and where we also show you how to integrate important elements into your Web Design – like Elegance.

Ycademy Trainings are hands-on with step-by-step guidance to allow all participants to advance and produce web graphics they can be proud of. The results after just a few sessions were astonishing! There’s nothing like getting a grip on something that seemed so far away – if not impossible – and then producing one’s “own stuff”! Yes! You can!

The next Ycademy Training is on Thursday at 7 pm London time.

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics.If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Photoshop Borders Ycademy

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:35:26 +0000

By Yorgo Nestoridis

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Photoshop Borders Ycademy

Tonight’s Ycademy call will deal with creating Borders in Photoshop. After the session about round corners, we will today look at some other types of borders which can be created with just a click of the mouse or two.

We will create elliptic borders, ripples, sunken and raised borders, capsules, buttons and so on. Be there at 7 pm London.

Photoshop Borders

astir2Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 1

astir2aMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 2

astir2bMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 3

astir2cMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 4

astir2dMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 5

astir2eMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 6

astir2fMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 7

astir2gMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 8

astir2hMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Astir Beach 9

… and of course you can mix the border filters :-).

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Adobe Photoshop Tutorials

Bianca Gubalke — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:49:27 +0000

by Bianca Gubalke

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Adobe Photoshop Tutorials

Creating your own Web Graphics is great fun if you have:

a Digital Camera,
Adobe Photoshop,
good step-by-step Tutorials and
ideally some professional personal guidance as is regularly provided in the weekly YCADEMY Workshops and monthly YCADEMY Seminars.

Nothing is more elating and satisfying than seeing results one never thought being capable of producing!

“Improvisation Dali” by Bianca Gubalke

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials

One of our eminent Ycademy Members, Laetitia Paris from Auvergne in France, is eagerly following our Adobe Photoshop Tutorials on her CS4 and delighted by her attractive result following the step-by-step instructions and screenshots on “How to Combine Color and Black and White in an Image” just a few days ago:

CONGRATULATIONS Laetitia Paris!

Learn Adobe Photoshop at Ycademy Workshops

You are invited to learn Adobe Photoshop at today’s Ycademy Workshop at 7 pm London in our private Microsoft Conferencing Center.

Time permitting, we will continue with our Web Design Consulting Blogs and look into the WP Best eShop created at the recent Ycademy Business Building Seminar.

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics.

If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Photoshop Tutorials

Zo Nicholas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:03:36 +0000

By Zo Nicholas

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Photoshop Tutorials

Being new to Photoshop, but not entirely new to image editing, I have enjoyed following Biancas Photoshop tutorials and tips.

Photoshop Tutorials at Ycademy

Bianca is providing some superb Photoshop trainings at the Ycademy training sessions as well as tutorials on her blog that you can follow step by step.

Photoshop training ~ How to create rounded corners

Having attended the live, learning online training session provided by Bianca on ‘how to create rounded corners’ I learnt so much and much more than just that. Photoshop has so many of these little features that one can use to adjust any image and create a completely new effect. It’s fun trying out the features and becoming accustomed to how they work, and the effect that can be achieved.

Here is the result from the training session.

From this:

to this:

Learning Online at Ycademy

There are many live, learning online training sessions provided byYcademy. Throughout the year the training calls provide extremely valuable information and training courses for anyone running or learning to run a home business online.

Author:
Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.

If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

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How to Combine Color and Black and White in an Image

Bianca Gubalke — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:30:57 +0000

by Bianca Gubalke

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How to Combine Color and Black and White in an Image

I’ve always had a faible for Black and White Photography, and in my experimental filmwork – especially for the advertising industry in Europe – I then integrated an item in color. It is a good way to focus the viewers’ attention exactly where we want to have it.

However, this was very complex and costly in the old days.

Today, with the incredible advancement of modern technology and especially Graphic software, programs and tools like Adobe Photoshop CS4 – it has become so easy… if you know what you do!

In this Web Graphics Tutorial I will show you, step-by-step, how to combine Color and Black and White in an Image – one image. I will do this using the same picture with the honey bee on a flowering gum that served to introduce you to one of several ways of creating rounded corners – which we need for our brand-new Semiomantics eSHOP. Yeah… I better get my act together and create them for myself too… it will happen :)

How to Combine Color and Black and White in an Image

Here’s how to combine Color and Black and White in an Image using Adobe Photoshop CS4 – just follow the steps, ideally with a picture that has a clearly defined focus – like perhaps your face – and a background that’s not just plain but has some Laura Ashley movement in it… meaning some sort of floral or other design … not just a simple plain background:

Open your Photoshop and pull in your designated jpg for instance.

You see it on the LAYERS menu to the right, a nice colorful picture. If you don’t see that menu, open it from Windows at the top. Fine!

At the top under IMAGES > ADJUSTMENTS open the drop-down menu and click on DESATURATE.

As a result, you get a black and white picture – all colors are gone now. Check it on your Layers menu – it’s the same. As you see on my example, even the legend at the bottom is in black now.

Open your HISTORY menu now – also to the right – and you see your original in color and, underneath, the ‘desaturate’ command you just implemented. Fine!

On the bottom of the History menu you see a SNAPSHOT button – click it to take a snapshot of the current black & white image. You see it showing immediately underneath your original in color.

What we want to do now is restore the color in the bee… (… or your face…) and as I did in a second stage, in the main flower – so the background basically remains monochrome.

Right – let’s go!

First, make sure the original picture on top of the History menu shows the History ICON to the left – it means we will work on the colors.

Alternatively, if we want to say restore some of the black and white background as we messed it up, then we need to tick the Snapshot picture… so the idea is to move between these two to get the desired result.

Don’t stress about it if it’s not yet clear to you, just follow the steps and you will see it all falls into place!

[yorgooads]

We will now use the HISTORY BRUSH on the left tool menu and – with the mouse tip or, better, a graphic pen – paint on the picture.

If you followed the above advice, you will see that the moment your pen tip touches your image, it restores the original color of the picture! Just do it and observe how this works… there’s no other way of learning this.

If you color in too much – say you create some color spots on the background that you want to keep grey, then go back to the History Menu on the right side of your screen and tick the Snapshot. Now get to work again and you see that you can take away color this way.

So you understand that you can add of the original color or eliminate it as you wish.

For the delicate areas use the zoom at the top or on the navigator to increase the size so you can work more precisely.

You can also change the diameter of the History Brush on the little dropdown menu at the top depending on the size of the area you are working on – and you can adapt the opacity as well if you do some refined work in transitional areas, say between hair and the background – you see it on the light fluff on the back of the honey bee. Of course, one can spend lots of time refining this – and in real Artwork etc you would. Here my main purpose is to demonstrate how it works and to get a pleasing result myself.

Once you have colored an item while leaving the monochrome background untouched and you are satisfied with your result, SAVE the image for the web and upload to your server.

of course, nothing stops you from going to Layer > Duplicate Layer… and play with filters and adjustments now – that’s how I achieved the blue background. Have Fun!

Adobe Photoshop CS4 at YCADEMY Workshops

We will look into this as well as yesterday’s ’rounded corner’ exercise and also how smart Plugins can make our life much easier … at today’s home business Ycademy Workshop starting at 7 pm London time in our YCADEMY Conference Room.

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing.Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics.

If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Small Business Online

Zo Nicholas — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:00:52 +0000

Today any business that ignores the potential of marketing online is missing out on the enormous pool of potential customers and profit that the internet has to offer. The internet has opened up a global playing field for any business to take advantage of it and be an active player.

Developing an Online Presence

Developing an Online Presence can be a relatively simple affair if you know which steps to take first, otherwise it can result in being a total nightmare when searching for the right solution for your business. You can get totally lost in the minefield of information that there is. Discussing your business needs with a Small Business Consultant can save you both a lot of time and money in the long run.

Building a Small Business Online

As with operating any other business, starting a small business online is a matter of developing good practices, building confidence and relationships with customers and offering products and services at a fair price.

Small Business Marketing plan

In order to market your product/s online you must have a marketing plan in place, a roadmap that drives to your ultimate goal. Drawing up such a plan is not to be a rushed process, it is worth taking the time and doing some research in order to achieve the desired result. Here are some basic questions that need to be considered when creating your marketing plan:

* Do you have the right product to attract potential customers?
* Is your product/s priced competitively?
* Which customers are you targeting? where is your target market?
* Which effective marketing techniques will you employ to reach your target?

By really spending time researching, testing, tracking and evaluating strategies, your plan will generate not only high volumes of traffic but interest, brand recognition, customers and sales that boost your business profits. Marketing plans also need to undergo periodic reviews; markets change, trends change, all of these to be considered when you evaluate the success your plan.

Small Business Marketing Budget

One of the first essential steps for any business, on or offline, is to decide upon and allocate a marketing budget, both yearly and the monthly that includes the running cost. Without advertising your business it is more likely not to succeed these days due to the enormous aggressive competition that there is around. Marketing your small business does cost money if you wish to succeeed! One of the main advantages of marketing your business online is that you do have low start up costs however as your business develops online you may need to expand and also take into consideration new marketing techniques that could further generate business growth.

A marketing budget has to based on a solid business plan. The budget must be realistic; even if you go so far as to learn how to do it yourself there is still a cost. Not everyone has the time nor the patience to go through the learning curve that is required to run a profitable small business online.

If you are busy running a business time is always at a premium. Working together with a qualified online business developer or consultant, discussing and brainstorning ideas means that he/she will find the best solution for your particular business needs and time and money is not wasted. Spending money on the right solution is an investment towards your business’s future.

IT Consulting

At Small Business Consulting we are part of a small international team of highly trained web developers, designers, project managers and consultants who will work with you on a one to one basis, discussing your plan and the best possible solution in order to assure long term customer satisfaction and performance.

Best WP Solution for Business

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:30:03 +0000

By Yorgo Nestoridis

[ hide ]

Best WP Solution

What is the best WP Solution for Business and Individuals? WordPress is flexible enough to satisfy most any individual need, provided you are hiring a professional website developer. Semiomantics has been working on WP Custom Solutions since 2007 and acquired huge knowledge namely in the fields of optimization and development of feature rich custom solutions.

Best WP Solution for Small Business and Individuals

Home Business, Freelancers, Consultants, Individuals selling services or goods online need an efficient, captivating and highly visible online presence. Quality Web Design, a solid back-bone allowing for content management (CMS) and built in optimization hooks and features are a must in today’s highly competitive market.

WordPress provides a platform which has developed over time to an ideal base for web site development for most any purpose.

The Best WP custom websites are built when customers meet with professional developers and designers to realize custom tailored projects.

wp_best_1Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Best WP Solution

How to build the best WP Website?

I will show in a few posts, how a custom website project can be realized, taking into account the typical needs of a small business.

The case study is based on the assumption that an individual would like to sell services and or products online.

The purpose of this series of posts is to allow you to become aware of the choices you have, the problems to consider and to enable you to have a more efficient discussion with your designer and developer when working on the project and its implementation.

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