{ tiny twist creative } |

digital files with photography.

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 29, 2010

There are several different file types: jpg, tif, png, raw, bmp & gif.

Each has a specific purpose and use.

JPG: Probably the most common and versatile used in digital photography. It is a file that can be used easily on the web and although it is a “lossy” format (meaning it loses some information and quality of the original photography whenever it is saved), the quality of the photo is still very strong. The size of the images for the quality is really good. Its great for the most photo sharing.

TIFF: This file is a “lossless” file, meaning all the original information from when you took your photo is still in there. This is great for photos that are underexposed or need more work within the colors. This is the best quality digital photograph that you can have. However, the file sizes are very large & the are not accepted for display on most web browsers. I rarely use this type of photography.

PNG: In some ways it surpasses .jpgs because it is a lossless file that can be viewed on the web. It still is not as small of a file size as a .jpg. This file also can transparent background (which a jpg cannot), and although not seen on some of the old browsers, its the transparency is viewed on firefox, safari & IE 7 or later browsers. I also use .pngs in print design a lot when I’m layer pictures with logos or other imagery.

RAW: ”Raw image formats” are a nearly lossless file that is on many digital cameras. Its file size is smaller than a .tif while still keeping all the variations of color. A lot of professional photographers shoot with this format & there are many programs that will convert them before opening in photoshop.

GIF & BMP’s you can read about here. I rarely use them and never in relation to photography.

The picture that I’ve posted below is a PNG of Noah that I edited in Picnik. I used the 1960′s filter that rounds corners, but also rounded them a little further in “frames”. The corners, although you can’t tell on my white background are transparent.

Posted in photography | Tagged photography, tiny tips | Leave a comment

kitchen improvising & updates

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 27, 2010

Our kitchen here doesn’t hold near as much as the previous house we had did. Pots and pans are falling out of the cabinets all the time and there isn’t enough spaces to hold my spices. So we improvised & this table here has made all the difference. My parents gave us this table a while ago and we’ve used it as a craft table. Now its my counter space for cooking and baking, especially with the kids. It holds kitchen towels, napkins, fruit, bread, some spices and now our pots & pans. Chris created a pot rack on the bottom of this table & its kept the kitchen so much more organized and clean. He’s pretty smart like that.

And on the subject of organization, I’ve added some links at the top of my page. I haven’t updated them all, I’ll let you know when I do. The only one that has something in it right now is the mouth of babes, which are some quotes from Cami & Noah that I’m keeping a list of. I’ve realized recently that they say so many cute and memorable things and I forget them. What I wrote was half of what I wanted to, cause I’ve already forgotten. This is my attempt to not forget.

Posted in home design, repurposing, reuse | Tagged DIY, life, military moves | 11 Comments

playdough for fun

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 26, 2010

We made to new batches of playdough this weekend following the recipe at Create Kids Crafts that adds koolaid for coloring. We added an extra packet each to really saturate the coloring. What I like about these particular directions is they mix all the dry first before mixing lukewarm water over low heat (vs. adding the dry mixture to boiling water). This really gives Cami a chance to have her hands in there.New colors and playdough brought along with it fresh inspiration and a lot of fun including lots of animal footprints.

Posted in child play, cultivating creativity, handmade | Tagged child craft, children, DIY | 9 Comments

the sleep chart prize

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 24, 2010

I appreciated the comments regarding Cami sleeping. It reassured me that her middle of the night wake-ups are normal to many kids. We have set up the chart the doctor recommended and what it seems to help with the most is her getting up right after we put her to sleep. Her sleeping has improved a bit this week, so we’ve decided to keep at it. She still receives a sticker when she comes down to our room in the middle of the night if she made a concerted effort to stay in her bedroom right at bedtime. Mainly because I don’t think she’s really with it when she comes down like she is right at bedtime. Cami got her first prize this morning & here it is:
I made these little wood cutouts and she loves them, especially the rainbow. It took me one naptime this week to create it for her. I found her arranging them so many different ways today. Here’s one of them: One little side story that just warmed my heart:
Cami randomly had placed an extra sticker on her chart. Chris and I told her that didn’t count toward her prize because she stuck it on for fun when her babysitter was watching her. She kept trying to convince us the sticker counted though we knew better. The day before she earned her last sticker and prize, she brought that particular sticker into my bedroom and handed it to me. She said “its otay, I’ll get it later, tomorrow.” How sweet, patient and honest. The next day we both ran down and put that sticker back on her chart.

Posted in cultivating creativity, handmade, instilling rhythm | Tagged celebrations, children | 6 Comments

this moment | climbing together

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 23, 2010

Posted in memories | Tagged life, outdoor fun, this moment | 10 Comments

creating side bar images in picnik

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 22, 2010

Side bar images are great little buttons for people to connect to a certain “theme” that you have throughout your site or a specific post. All of my side buttons, except for “Thrifting Beauty” are specific posts. I create mine in photoshop and illustrator, but you can do the exact same thing in picnik.

Start out with your picture:Import it into picnik . Go to crop and type in your dimensions. For mine I always start with 300 X 300 pixels. Both wordpress and blogger can size to the correct pixels.

Crop your photo and go into Create where you can type your text. I like typing my text directly on the photo. Edit the coloring and style any other way you want it & now it is ready to save.
TO UPLOAD: Go into blogger or wordpress and choose add image. In blogger is says “picture” and wordpress says “image”. From there you choose your image and put the html link of post or group of posts that you’d like this to link to. Don’t fill out the other boxes in either WP or blogger. You don’t need to if you’ve put the title directly on your photo. All you need to do is fill in the html link and choose sizing. For blogger choose shrink to fit and WP I choose 150 pixels.

Its really simple and super useful for people who come to your blog. When I go to a blog I love to scroll through their side images and find old links that really interest me. Its also easy to go back to a tutorial that I really liked.

Posted in photography, web design | Tagged tiny tips, tiny web tips | 12 Comments

sleep chart

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 19, 2010

Last Friday we had a doctor’s appointment. One of my main concerns I talked to the doctor about in terms of Camille is her sleeping habits. Camille doesn’t sleep through the night. She doesn’t even go to sleep right away when we put her to bed at night. What concerned me most was the several times in the middle of the night she would wake up and wander down. Sometimes it was to go the bathroom or because she had a bad dream, but other times she’ll just come down for no reason & I’ll walk her back to bed. It just didn’t seem healthy to me. The doctor suggested a sleep chart, with stickers and a prize after a certain amount of nights of solid sleep. I saw another sweet sleep chart and also did this sort of thing for potty-training so I figured we’d give it a try. Together Camille and I made this chart. The first night, it didn’t work a bit. This morning however, Camille was more than thrilled to put a sticker in one of her squares. We’ve worked a deal since she’s almost four to have four stickers in a row and then a surprise. Hopefully a sleeping through the night pattern is coming into place.

Posted in instilling rhythm | Tagged kid art, life, parenting | 14 Comments

beads, beads, beads

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 18, 2010

We’ve been making beads over here. Not that its been all at once. Just a little bit at a time. About a week or so ago we started making recycled newspaper beads. It took several days to make it, basically because it was just perfect to do a little bit a day without getting bored.

First what we did was soak old packing paper. We still have a ton & I used that instead of newspaper. The instructions said to soak for 1 hour, but because the packing paper is a bit stronger we ended up soaking a day, drained the water and then smothered with homemade glue.

: Easy Cornstarch Glue :
boil 3/4 c. of water
separately combine 1T of cornstarch to 1/4 c. of cold water until its dissolved
Mix cold and hot together until it thickens.

We then rolled it into little balls like this: After we rolled them and let them set for another day or so. Camille sanded the sharp points (which were very few) and painted her favorite ones: We then drilled holes in them.
She used acrylic paints for these and we finished them with a clear acrylic gloss to give it a nice shine:
My favorite part was watching her bead using a large needle. She hadn’t used one before, and because this needle was so large it isn’t as sharp as smaller ones. She did awesome. She asked to make a necklace with these & this is how it turned out!
After we were done with that she asked if she could use the needle on her other beads, so the next day we pulled the beads that she’s wet felted and she tried her needle with those: She ended up perfect amount to make a little bracelet.

Posted in cultivating creativity, handmade, reuse | Tagged child craft, DIY handmade, reusing | 9 Comments

this moment | the crib exit plan

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 16, 2010

Posted in memories, photography | Tagged children, photography, this moment | 19 Comments

using picnik

Posted by tinytwistcreative on July 15, 2010

Picnik is a free photo editing app that you can use to edit your photos. You can pull photos from facebook, flickr, picasa, your own computer and many other places that they are stored. For those not having photoshop this is a great way to get some cool effects for absolutely free. This is also a great place to create a blog header.

For example: Here is a picture of Camille from a photo-shoot I did for a client website I’m currently working on right now: Little Bird Vintage Designs.
Now here is a sample blog header that I made in Picnik:

All that you do is import your photo into picnik.
• Go to the Edit tab on the top. Here is where you can crop the image to the size you want. I made the width of my 750 px by 400 px. But you can create whatever you want. Make sure after you put your dimensions in that you click on the little square that says “scale photo” so that you can keep the correct dimensions while cropping the area you want.
• The Edit page also allows for saturation, contrast, lightening, exposure & red eye removal. I did add a bit of saturation to this photo before I clicked on the next tab on the top of the page: Create
• In Create you can try all kinds of effects. I chose “cross-process” at about 50%, which is one of the featured effects. You can also add text and size text, which is really great for a custom header or photo.
• To create rounded corners, go to frames, and it will allow you to chose that option. Make sure to click transparent corners in the rounded corners box when you are creating this.
• The next tab is Share & Save. Because I made transparent rounded corners it is important to save the file as a .PNG not a .JPG. If I save it as a .JPG the corners will become white where they should be transparent.