Creating beautiful art is a challenging endeavor. You want your piece to be original, compelling, and cohesive and that the message you are trying to express comes across clearly. Before creating, however, it is important to have a plan for what your final product is going to look like.

Why create patterns?

Some people have a talent of drawing. I am not one of those people. Drawing patterns from scratch would be a flex for me, but the truth is, that is not where I am at right now. There is always the option to teach myself but there just isn’t enough hours in the day. So, instead, I use several tools that I have at my disposal to create my patterns digitally.

Tools of the Trade

My tools of choice are my iPad and Procreate. There are other tools, such as Canva and Cricut Design Space, that I use to supplement my workflow for things such as lettering. Procreate for iPad, however, is what I use primarily for patterns. According to their website, it is “the complete art studio you can take anywhere.” Some of the advantages of Procreate:

1. No subscriptions. You pay for once and it is yours.
2. It comes with many standard brushes that you can use to get started working with at no additional cost
3. There are plenty of basic lessons on their website to learn how to use it.

Beyond the standard brushes, you can also download and import your own. There are hundreds of brushes in my arsenal some of which I paid for, some of which I have been found free. Websites such as Etsy, Creative Fabrica, Design Bundles, Gumroad, and Procreate Folio are great for finding specific brushes to fit your needs. There is also the option to create your own brushes.

We’ve all heard the old adage: “Work smarter, not harder”. Rather than attempt to take on the daunting task of drawing a pattern from scratch, knowing that drawing is not my strong suit, I play to my strengths. I uses brushes, stamps, and SVGs in Procreate to create completely unique digital patterns that I can transfer and burn into wood.

My Pattern Process

If you want to know how I choose patterns/wood look back at last week’s blog post or listen to this episode of PyroToasty Talks my podcast with Renee and David from Its David And Renee.

1. I take a picture of the wood, from above. If you have an iPhone use the crosshairs to align your wood as best as possible. This is important when you are creating the pattern so you have an accurate rendition of the canvas. I save it in my photos.
   
   I do this so I can edit the picture before I export it. Next, I will crop the picture removing all things around the wood leaving just a picture of the wood (as much as possible). I have used Canva to remove backgrounds and edit pictures also as this is less cumbersome than trying to crop the picture down in Procreate.
   
2. Once I am satisfied with the picture of the canvas I export it into Procreate. I create a canvas the exact size of the wood.
   In this example, the above canvas is 12.5” x 12.5”.
   
3. Once I create the canvas, I will stack the imported picture with the created canvas. This keeps all the elements in one place, on the stack. It also keeps the original handy in case I need to copy it over again. It also helps if I completely destroy the picture; I can simply re-copy it to a new layer.
   
4. Now I create and rename the layer on the canvas. Renaming the layer helps when navigating them so they don’t all have similar names like “layer 1, layer 2”. This particular wood canvas came from It’s David and Renee so I name it IDnR. I also label the layer name with the dimensions. Here the inner canvas is 9×9 and the frame is 12.5 x 12.5. Now I can tell, at a glance, key information about the canvas in case I forget where I got it from.
   
5. I then create a grid to help me with sizing. To create the grid: actions > canvas > drawing guide (turn it on if you do not already have it on) > edit drawing guide > Grid Size > Inches 1 > done. You should now have a preview of a grid on the canvas. I then make sure that the grid is where I want on the picture. I arrange the grid so that it is in the exact center of your canvas. This helps laterin knowing sizes.
   
   
   
6. Now that I have my canvas ready, I will add svgs, templates, pictures, stamps or whatever I plan to use for the pattern in the stack. I will put each picture, svg, and stamp element in its own layer. This is so that I can keep an original in the layers and duplicate them as needed. Protip: Get in the habit of duplicating layers before using them. This will save you frustration when you inadvertently draw/erase on the layer you didn’t mean to.
7. I rename layers as I add elements to them. I put the name of the brush set and the number of the stamp. I have over 100 stamp sets and brushes. Some stamps are part of sets that are in the hundreds. It’s very time-consuming to search through all of them for a stamp I used. Naming the layer tells me exactly which stamp it is. (In the picture I also put the size of the element which makes it easier when I am printing out patterns).
   
8. Lowering the opacity of the layer with the wood makes it easier to place the elements and create the pattern with the canvas in mind.
   
9. I add layers and elements as I go. I never delete layers until I am closer to finishing the pattern.

Once the pattern is completed, I will save it to my cloud. It’s frustrating to lose all the work you’ve done because the program crashed, or you accidentally deleted it.

That is how I create my patterns digitally. Next week we’ll take a look at how I heat transfer my patterns so that I can start burning. What are your tools of choice for patterning? Share them with us and tag us @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post Planning the Art – Part 3 appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

Creating a piece of pyrography does not start with burning a design into a piece of wood. For me, at least, it starts long before that. It starts when I lay out the design for the piece I am planning to create. That is when I have to start making the preliminary decisions on my upcoming creation. Like the old carpenter adage, measure twice, cut once, it is important that you make careful considerations before burning your piece because, once you start, it can become difficult, if not impossible, to recover from a mistake.

Estimating

When I was in grade school I absolutely hated when my teacher told me that I needed to create an outline for my paper. It seemed like an extra step and a waste of time. What I didn’t realize then was that, creating an outline, allows you to think about structure, to understand the scope, and to make sure you know what you need to gather in order to complete your task successfully.

The same applies in art. Before starting on your piece you should know:

• The size and scale of your piece: this will help you know what materials you are going to need.
• The time it is going to take to work on the piece: whether it is for a commission, an art show, or just to get ready for a market you should know how much time to dedicate to your work so that you don’t take on more work and set expectations accordingly. Knowing the size of the piece also helps calculate the time you will need to complete the project.
• The appropriate canvas: as pyrographers we have a wide variety of canvases to work on. Is this going to look better on a lighter or darker piece of wood? A slab or a cookie? Live edge or clean edges?

Finding the Canvas

Now that you know what your piece is going to look like you should start gathering materials: namely your wood. If you are like me, you likely have a decent sized inventory of wood on hand in your studio. Start by looking through what you already have and determine if that is going to work.

If you don’t have a suitable piece available you’re going to need to find something to work with. There are a few options:

• Local lumber mills: most cities are going to have a great selection of lumber mills that have locally sourced raw wood and semi-milled wood available. The only disadvantage to this wood is it will need to be milled to a workable canvas. Keep in mind when choosing woods, whether they have been dried (whether via kiln or air dried), dry wood is a must. “Green” or newly cut trees that still have sap and are wet do not make for good canvases. It can be virtually impossible to burn onto, and will release more smoke.
• Specialty vendors: companies like “It’s David and Renee” specialize in wood canvases for pyrographers. They are a great option if you want a piece that is ready to go: no fuss, no muss. They do al the work for you: all you have to do is create.
• Hobby stores: hobby stores often have a selection of wood that is designed for crafters. Some woods may be acceptable for pyrography. This can be suitable for some projects but you will be limited in the types of wood, sizes, and quality. Make sure that the ‘wood’ is actually wood, not mdf with a wood veneer top. Take note of what wood it is – as a general rule of thumb you shouldn’t buen on wood that you don’t know, or materials you don’t know. It may look like real wood but be a toxic material if burned into. The wood in the wood crafters section is usually unsealed. But hobby stores may carry other wood canvases like spoons, spoon rests, bowls, etc that you may want to burn on. Take note if it is sealed or bare. If it is sealed you will want to remove the sealant by sanding it before burning into it.

Make sure when you are selecting the wood you think about other things like the weight of the piece. Heavier pieces of wood are going to be difficult to transport and more likely to get damaged en route. Consider how you plan to mount the piece. This is going to dictate how large you want your piece. Look for knots, cracks, wood rot, bowing, bending and quality of the wood.

Think about what do you want the end result to look like. Use lighter wood if you want lighter, translucent colors to pop and you want fine details to be seen. If you are using translucent colors avoid dark woods like walnut or ebony and instead use a lighter color wood like clear poplar.

Prepping the Wood

Now that you have your wood, it is time to prep it. If you got your wood from a specialty store there is a good chance you don’t need to do any of this (it’ll have been taken care of for you). If you purchased your wood from a lumber mill or, to a lesser extent, from a hobby store you are going to have to clean the wood up before burning

If you have your own tools, that is ideal, because you can work on the product right in your studio. If, however, you don’t have a full wood shop in your studio then talk to neighbors. Often time they are happy to share their workshops with you. Many cities also have MakerSpaces that you can join which allow you to use professional grade tools to mill your wood.

• Leveling: Planers and jointers are ideal for this type of work. They will allow you to cut excess off your wood and get a level, even canvases
• Cutting: Table saws and jigsaws are your best friends when cutting your wood down to size. Jigs are create for precise cuts and corners. Saws are best if you for large cuts.
• Sanding: You are going to want to finish your piece by sanding it. Raw lumber often has cut marks and is very rough. You want a nice smooth canvas to avoid blobby burns. Orbital sanders and drum sanders are both great for smoothing out your canvas once you have planed it down.
• Laser Engravers: Blasphemy, I know. But laser engravers can be a major asset when prepping your wood, and creating your art. If you use them to cut out the basic shapes they can become an integral part of your toolset.
• Edges: Routers are amazing a making beautiful edges to your canvases. This can give your wood canvas an elegant, finished, professional look.

Once you have your plan in place, you have selected your wood, and it is prepped it is time to move on to patterns. Next week we’ll talk about adding patters to your pieces and burning. Until then, if you have any tips on how you plan the art, let us know. Tag us @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post Planning the Art – Part 2 appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh

As a pyrographer rarely, if ever, do I sit down and start burning a piece without a fair bit of planning. Save the occasional cork trivet or incense holder I will generally follow a pretty meticulous process in order to create. This helps ensure I am working with the right materials to create my vision, reduces the risk of mistakes, keep a clear head while I am working, prevents wasting precious, potentially one of kind, materials and results in the best possible end product I can deliver. 

Why Plan the Art

As an artist you are going to often have deadlines you are going to need to meet. This may be for an upcoming art show, for a commission you took for a customer, or to simply get pieces ready for an upcoming market. Whatever the reason you will often find yourself worrying if you have enough time to finish the piece. Or, you may leave yourself enough time, but you spend too much time working on one component and don’t leave yourself ample time for the remainder. Then, in the worst case scenario, you end up missing the deadline for your show or not delivering to your customer on an agreed upon date.

So, like most things in life, it helps to start planning every project in advance. This series is going to serve as an outline of what you need to do to create a refined piece of pyrography. I’ll explain, in detail, everything from selecting the wood to hanging it on the wall. Then you can work your way backwards from the date you have set for when you project needs to be complete, and figure out how much time you can alot to each of these steps and ensure that you give yourself ample time to create.

Trust the Process

I am very particular when it comes to my process for creating. I need to have all my ducks in a row before I start burning. In this series I am going to go through an outline of how I plan my art:

1. Sourcing and prepping the wood: If you are going to create a beautiful piece of art you have to start with a beautiful canvas. In this section we’ll be looking at places to source wood from. We’ll talk about the advantages of sourcing raw lumber versus finished wood. Finally, we’ll go through the process of prepping the wood if you decide to go with something that is unfinished.
2. Patterning: Before starting my burns I always like to have my pattern ready beforehand so that I don’t risk mistakes free handing the design. This means creating the pattern and then transferring it onto the wood. In this part we’ll go through several approaches to this.
3. Burning & finishing touches: Here we’ll talk about some of the techniques for burning, giving texture, and fixing mistakes along  the way. We’ll also take a look at things you can do to take your art one step further using paints as well as other unique adornments
4. Sealing and framing: Finally, in this last part, we’ll take a look at how to seal your work. We’ll discuss what factors should go into selecting the appropriate sealant. We’ll also go over hardware to hang your pieces and methods for framing your piece.

The First Step

Next week we are going to take the first step into creating our art: Sourcing and prepping the wood. I am currently working on a fairly substantial piece for a show and it requires a good deal of planning because of all the moving parts. This will be my inspiration for this series. If you have steps to how you create that you would like to share be sure to do so and tag @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post Planning the Art – Part 1 appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

Casting the Net

Much like a fisherman trying to maximize the surface area when they cast their net into the sea you need to make sure the surface area of your marketing is sufficiently wide. You should be focusing your attention on key platforms that your customers may find you on.

Google: Google has several tools to ensure that you get traffic to your webpage. Google Search Console, Google Merchant Center, and Google Business Profile are all tools at your disposal to make sure you are reaching a wide audience. Check these often if you run your own website as these will give you keen insight into your website’s performance and click-through rates. Also, keep an eye out for validation errors as they may be preventing your site from reaching the maximum number of users. There are usually instructions on how to fix these errors and get your account back in good standing.

Meta Business Suite: Two of the largest Social Media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, are both owned by the same parent company: Meta. Meta has a product that they offer specifically for business to manage their social media called Meta Business Suite. This tool let’s you create posts, schedule them, respond to customers, manage ads, and set target goals. It is a little clunky in some places, especially in the way it handles reels and stories, but it is great for planning out your social media in advance so you don’t have to constantly remember to post every day.

Etsy: A lot of artists use Etsy as their main source of income. For some artists, this works out exceptionally well. The rest of us, who get burned by Etsy’s algorithms and fees, may venture off to create our own websites. That doesn’t mean to write Etsy off completely. Use it as a supplement to your main website. Make sure that your website is optimized so that the Google search results for your business return your personal website above your Etsy, but keep some of your inventory there so that you don’t miss out on that audience altogether. Just make sure to price your products on Etsy such that you cover the cost of the fees.

Of course, there are plenty of other options online for promoting your business. Other search engines, social media platforms, collectives, storefronts, and aggregator sites. The ones above are the largest and the ones you should focus on initially but don’t write off those smaller ones. Again, the wider you cast your net, the more people your product gets in front of, the better your chance of making those sales.

Do you have any tips for getting sales? Tag us with your ideas @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post Expanding Your Business Reach Online: Effective Strategies for Growth appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

The Markets

Ah yes, the grind of doing markets. This is, by far, one of the most grueling tasks of being an artist. The good news is you probably don’t need to be doing two markets a day every weekend and every day from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Here are a few helpful hints to find the right markets:

1. Look for markets that are going to align with your price point. If you lower your price to match the market price you will end up undervaluing your product and, as a result, working harder to make more art to keep up with the demand
2. Scope out markets before signing up. Look at pictures online of past events, talk to other vendors about markets they participated in, and attend the market yourself as a customer to see if it is a good fit.
3. If you have done a market several times and it isn’t working out, don’t double down and sign up again. There are plenty of others that can be a potentially better fit

The Art Shows

Art shows are usually the next step after markets. If you want to be taken seriously as an artist you need to have a presence in the art community. This can be having your work in a gallery, entering it in juried shows, participating in local art walks, or entering your art in competitions. The challenge here is that the curators of these shows are looking for very specific things, and it isn’t always immediately obvious what those are. A few things to consider:

1. Talk to other artists. Join a local art guild or society to meet other artists and see how they socialize their work. Even if they are artists who specialize in different mediums than your own they will have valuable information.
2. The pictures of your pieces, as well as the pictures of your booth, should look professional. This means staging your pieces for your pictures. Look at other artworks and how they are being presented by those artists. If you can mimic their presentation that will only help you in applying for these events. Look into guilds and organizations that offer professional shoots to their members at lower costs.
3. When you are part of a show: talk to the judges, talk to the organizers, and talk to the patrons. Understand what it is that they want. Remember, they are the ones who are judging and buying your work, so it is important that you understand their wants and needs.

Local Venues

More often than not local shops, restaurants, and bars are going to want to adorn their walls with artwork to give themselves a more cultured look and feel. Talk to the proprietors of these establishments. Ask them if they work with local artists. Maybe they will let you put a few pieces up. They may even rotate artwork from different artists from month to month giving you an opportunity to showcase multiple pieces for a limited time. These are fantastic ways to engrain yourself in the community and make a name for yourself.

Whatever you do, don’t limit yourself. Explore as many options as possible while trying to find the locations that best meet the demographic you are trying to reach. Do you have your own success stories for how you were able to establish yourself in your community? Tag us @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post Integrating your Business in the Community appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

• Episode 1 – The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How – In this episode we introduce ourselves, tell you a bit about the podcast, what to expect, and give you an idea if this is a podcast for you.
• Episode 2a and Episode 2b – It’s David and Renee and BZ Furfur – In these two episodes we talk about our respective businesses. How did we get started, what did we love, what were we looking forward to, and what were some of the challenges of starting a business?
• Episode 3 – Our Favorite Pyro Things – Much like the great Frank Sinatra we like to discuss a few of our favorite things. In this episode, we talk about the things that we love about pyrography and wood-burning.
• Episode 4 – Our Least Favorite Pyro Things – In this episode, we spill the tea and talk about things that we dislike about everything pyrography. Everyone loves a little drama.
• Episode 5a and Episode 5b – All About Doing Shows – Another two-parter. In these two episodes, David and Renee and BZ FurFur discuss, respectively, about how we do shows. Tips and tricks, what you need for your first market, and all the things we learned along the way.
• Episode 6 – Custom Orders: Dos, Don’ts, and Definitely Don’ts – Should you or should you not do customer orders? We discuss the pros and cons of doing custom orders, our process, and how we set prices.
• Episode 7 – What Sells and What Doesn’t… Choosing Items – One of the most difficult parts of running a business is finding your customer. In this episode, we talk about who our customers are, what sells for us, and how you can find your “people”.
• Episode 8 – Transporting and Protecting – Transporting products to and from shows and markets can be a challenge. When you are traveling with thousands of dollars worth of product it is imperative you protect your assets. In this episode, we discuss our tips and tricks on how to make sure everything is delivered safely and securely.
• Episode 9 – The Toolkit – We often talk about our toolkits. The necessary items that we travel to and from every show with so that we can MacGuyver our way through any situation. We both discuss what we travel with and what we can’t live without.
• Episode 10 – Pricing Your Work – If you are new to selling your art this is the episode you MUST listen to. We talk about how we set our prices, what things to consider when pricing your work, and how to pay yourself for your time. Also, you learn about the illusive “Spreadsheet”.
• Episode 11 – Fireside Chat – In this episode, we take a break from specific topics and just talk about art, business, and life.
• Episode 12 – How to Stay in Love with Art – It is so easy to become jaded when you are working every day on your art that you can forget why you fell in love with making it in the first place. We discuss what we love about our art and ways to keep that spirit alive.
• Episode 13 – Year in Review – This episode was our retrospective on 2024, what worked for us, what didn’t, who inspired us, and what we are looking forward to in the coming year.

Overall our first season of Pyro Toasty Talks was a huge success. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback and discussion in our Discord Channel, lots of fans following us on our Instagram, and a steady stream of subscribers on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So, catch up on what you may have missed last year, get yourself a T-Shirt, and make sure you subscribe in your podcatcher of choice so that you don’t miss when the new episode drops on March 5th and, as always, stay unique (and toasty).

The post Fueling the Fire for a Second Season appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

Starting out

When we started out we had to get the “lay of the land”. Having never been part of a market we had to first understand what was out there. The best way to do this was to go to some local events, talk to the vendors, see what they are selling, and ask them questions. We started by going to some markets at local breweries and getting a feel for the events; Where do people tend to congregate, do we see an overabundance of products similar to ours, are we seeing no vendors similar to us, and, if so, why. Once we had an idea of what was out there we started to dip our toes in and tried a few local markets.  The results were not always favorable with our booth typically breaking even at best. So we had to start casting a wider net.

Spreading out

In year two we decided to start applying for everything and anything we came across. Pop-ups, Farmers Markets, local events, anyone who would take an application. Pretty soon we were booking up two or three weekends out of the month with shows all over the region, sometimes up to two hours away. The exposure was great but, unfortunately, we learned very quickly that quantity does not always equal quality. There were a lot of shows that just weren’t worth the cost because we weren’t making back our booth fees. There were others that were cheap, and easy to make back our money, but it just isn’t worth the time. Not to mention; the less expensive markets require you to lower your costs such that you are barely able to pay yourself for your work.

Tightening up

In year three we started to narrow our focus. We picked fewer markets with a focus on those that we did well at in previous years and sidelined the ones that didn’t prove profitable or worth our time. For new shows we would be very selective, looking at social media for pictures of previous years to get an idea if the turnout is good and if it passes the “smell test” for our target market.  This worked out well in that we greatly reduced our overall time at markets and, for the ones that we did attend, we made a decent profit. 

From craft to art

This year we started out the year by thinking judiciously about the shows that we would take on, further paring down the list of vendors from previous years, and reaching out early to make sure that we are on the list for the shows that we do want to attend, and putting more focus into getting into art shows and juried shows that bring us closer to the target demographics that we want to reach. The goal now is to move from craft vendor to art vendor. This is a tough transition but, with a solid stable of markets, we can ensure that we can still sell products and pick up commissions while we focus on meeting those long-term goals.

Have you started your planning for 2025? What are some of your suggestions for finding the right market? Tag us @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post How to Find the Perfect Market for Selling Your Art appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

OK, so I am going to admit, before last week I had never used Premier Pro. Most of my video editing experience is using iMovie and various web-based video editors. So, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. My observations may appear very basic to anyone who has used Premier Pro
2. The steps I take to do things are undoubtedly suboptimal

With that out of the way let’s see if we can get Premier Pro to help us with one of our biggest pain points: Creating videos for social media.

The Interface

Oh God! When I first loaded up Premier Pro I didn’t know what I was in for. The process to create a new project and import a video is pretty seamless. When I opened it up to start editing, however, my eyes started to bleed. This must be how people who have never used Photoshop feel the first time they open it up. There are so many widgets on the screen I didn’t know where to start. Fortunately, I looked for things that I was familiar with.

Under the video, you have some controls for playing, pausing, etc so I could watch the video. Under the video, also, I could see there was a timeline that had two layers. One for video and one for audio. There were additional empty layers for each as well so I could presume that there was some option to add additional audio, video, and possibly other layers. Clicking on either of these layers I could access a properties pane to the right which allowed me to adjust volume, color saturation, and other properties of the video. So far so good.

Editing

This is where I got stuck and I needed to seek out help online. I wanted to cut certain parts of the video out and splice them together. It wasn’t immediately obvious how I could do this. Turns out the razor blade in the toolbar is for cutting your video. Pausing the video at the point I wanted to cut and clicking the razor blade tool on the timeline (it’ll snap to where the video is paused) splits the video. Then I could do the same for the point where I want the segment to end. I could then select the segment and delete it by hitting the delete key. Simple enough.

Once you cut the video it is going to leave gaps. You can select a segment and move them left or right to line them up again so that they transition from one to the other. The transitions are abrupt, though. So if you are just cutting out some uhs and ums this might be fine, but if you want a seamless transition from two different locales you might want to add some effects.

Effects

Once again, stumped, I had to search for how to add transition effects to my video. In the upper right-hand of the interface, we have a window with library, templates, and effects. There are a bunch of different effects available here but the one I was most interested in was video transitions. I played around with a few of them by dragging and dropping them from this window to the timeline where I wanted the transition to take place. Viola. Personally, I liked the Additive Dissolve.

I played around with a few other effects. I do like that you can do picture-in-picture if you want to do a tutorial where you are showing yourself performing the technique while showing yourself to talk about it. There is a lot to experiment with here.

Adding Text

There is a Text Layer you can add to your timeline as well. If you want to caption your videos, add commentary, or just label transitions you can add text using this tool. When it is added to your layers you can set the duration it will show on your video. Honestly, since we are doing a lot of these videos for social media, the tools provided by most of the social media tools do a pretty good job of letting you add text to your videos so I prefer to just use those. As I get more comfortable with the tools, however, my options may change.

Exporting your video

That’s it. once your video is done you can export it and it’ll be saved in a format that can be uploaded to any of the social media platforms. Fair warning: This processing portion is a system hog. I have a fairly old laptop but it handles most tasks pretty well. My computer was all but unusable for the 5-10 minutes it took to export a video. Unless you have a super powerful machine plan something to so while the video processes.

That’s pretty much it for now for Adobe Premier Pro. I may do a follow up post at some point as I learn more about it but I think it has a place in our toolkit for editing videos and creating content for our socials. If you have tips or tricks for Premier Pro let us know @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.

The post Creative Cloud Week 2 – Premier Pro appeared first on Burning with Purpose.

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Tutorials

If you don’t really know where to start with PhotoShop it can be really daunting. It is nice that it comes with some built-in tutorials that familiarize you with some of the finer details. I will say that, having worked with Photoshop previously, and with Gimp, which both rely heavily on layers it was pretty easy to follow along with the lessons. If you are less familiar I don’t know how comfortable you are going to feel with navigating the interface. It does come with sample images so you can follow along with exactly what the teacher is doing, even if you are just clicking exactly where she is clicking, it will help to start developing some of the core muscle memory you are going to need if you are using it every day.

The Tools

All of the typical tools I expected to be a part of Photoshop were present and accounted for. Having switched to Gimp, however, some tools have been added since the last time I used Photoshop that has some quality-of-life improvements. The Frame tool for adding placeholder images, variations on the lasso tool, and history brushes, but the one that I found the most useful was the Object Selection Tool. I am not sure how long this has been a part of Photoshop but, honestly, this tool alone is worth the switch from trusty ole Gimp. What this basically does is, if you select an object in your picture, it highlights the object’s edges and lets you copy them to another layer. What I found so useful, however, was how accurate it was. For every image I worked with it was able to properly identify the edges of the object so I could move them to different layers and change the background.

Layer Effects

A majority of the time I spent exploring Photoshop was spent working with various layer effects. Adding drop shadow to pieces, saturating/desaturating foreground objects to match the background, and adding hue/saturation layers. Now this is not something I worked extensively with in the past so I relied heavily on the tutorials to show me how to use these features, but I was able to get some excellent results after just editing a handful of pictures. By moving the foreground objects to another layer I was able to increase the vibrancy of certain colors while desaturating the background on that same image creating a picture that highlights Zona’s pieces without having to completely remove them from the natural environment that we took the pictures in.

Generative AI

This was a part that I was really interested in because, it’s a big selling point of the latest version of Photoshop, and it is unique to their product. The idea is you can add a layer to your image by describing what you want the layer to be and it will create that for you, giving you a couple of variations to select from. Personally, I found it to be a little hit or miss depending on what I asked for. Granted, some of this might be because I am not an expert at writing prompts. A prompt such as “Modern office with natural lighting” yielded some pretty good results whereas “mancave with rustic look and blank wall” looked more like the hull of a Viking ship than a family’s basement. That being said, I was able to get some nice background to contrast Zona’s pieces and was overall happy with the results.

In Conclusion

Photoshop’s pros outweigh it’s cons. I didn’t run into a lot of the bugs that people warned me about, performance was good, even on my clunky old Macbook Pro, and most of the features worked as expected. I think the generative AI will get better with time and as I spend more time familiarizing myself with the tools and tutorials I’ll surely feel as confident with it as I did with my previous tools. At this point I am confident this will become a part of our workflow. Stay tuned as I am going to start practicing with Illustrator next and I’ll have another update for you next week. Until then stay unique.

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