“I have no idea what we should wear!”

This is THE most common comment I receive after a lucky family has booked a session. After all, it is pretty important. I don’t really see too many people purchasing a 30″x40″ gallery wrapped canvas to put over the fireplace featuring mom wearing a sweatsuit or dad wearing that nasty old ballcap or little miss wearing her favorite ratty old Dora tennis shoes. Considering the investment, you want to look good.

That is where we come in… After photographing numerous families over the last few years, we have a pretty good idea of how to help you look your best and how to accomplish that together. We have written a handy wardrobe FAQ with tips, tricks, and even ’Where to Shop’ suggestions to help you get started and are more than happy to offer personalized one-on-one assistance in your pre-session consultation.

To take that one step further, today we are featuring a What to Wear blog post that is all about spring family photos and builds off of our wardrobe FAQ. The main thing to remember when dressing a group for photographs is “Coordinating, not Matching”. See our wardrobe FAQ for all the details and see below for a visual representation of our advice.

Enjoy!

Are you, your sister, wife, aunt, friend, neighbor, co-worker, husband’s friend’s girlfriend’s sister, etc, expecting a new baby?

Newborns are tough work. Feeding every 2’ish hours, even more if they are a piggy. Sooooo many diaper changes. Clothes on, clothes off. Gas. Colic. No schedule. What new, or newly repeating, parent has the time, the energy, for newborn pictures?

 That squinched up, wrinkly, kinda hairy, pre-baby acne and cradle cap bundle of goodness quickly changes from newborn to infant… Your window of time with your newborn is so, so small. They change into a chubby, personable, won’t-sit-still baby almost overnight. Really, how can you afford not to take the time to properly, professionally, document the curly-ness of your just hatched newborn?

Luckily, a newborn session with CYE Photography is easy by design and little to no work needs to be done by the newly exhausted parents.

How? Newborn sessions take place in your home. Not on-location or in studio. We come to you and bring everything needed with us; backdrops, lighting, even props. After all, home is where you are most comfortable and also where the truckload of baby’s necessities is. Not to mention you don’t have to wrestle your new baby into their car seat, pack a million and one things in a diaper bag and try to get somewhere on time. Ideally, the session should happen between days 4-10 of life or earlier. That way mama’s milk is in and baby can have a full meal and hopefully your new family has been home a few days and is getting into some sort of routine.

We do request two things of you prior to the session:

• Feed baby just prior to our arrival so they have a full tummy.
• Make sure your home is very, very warm. If you are sweating, that is about right.

Those are all of the requests. Most likely you are already feeding baby and also have your home nice and warm since, hello?, you have a newborn in the house that isn’t able to effectively regulate body temperature. So, in actuality, we don’t really make any requests at all!

So, schedule the session.

It is very relaxed and low key. Parents and siblings are welcome to participate as much or as little as they would like. You can schedule the session way ahead of time and we can agree on a tentative date, or do it at the last minute and we will squeeze you in.

You may not be able to stop time. But we can. Remember… forever.

Pregnancy takes forever to be over and no time at all to forget.

Let me ask you…

Because I can tell you from experience, twice, that I can’t remember what pregnancy was like. Not how it looked, or felt. If it was good or bad. All I have left are the stretch marks to prove it happened inside me at all. And Quinny was born only six months ago.

Between sleep deprivation, feeding (otherwise known as ‘assault on your body by wee bitty thing’), diaper changing, more laundry, doctors appointments and just general life upheaval after your bundle of joy arrives, any remembrance of pregnancy is quickly removed from your brain and replaced with mommy scatterbrained-ness. The only way I can remember how it was is to look back on my maternity photos.

A lot of women are unsure or skeptical of maternity photography. I know, I know… you feel like a cow, can’t get up off the couch and have come to realize the whole ‘pregnancy glow’ thing is a myth. You’ve seen the snapshots someone evilly took of you and can’t even imagine wanting to pay for more of those lovely tokens. Not to mention those stretch marks.

Newsflash! Professional maternity photography is NOT your average snapshot.

The perfect lighting, a flattering angle and divine clothing choices make a big difference. Editing will erase those stretch marks and ‘flaws’. You WILL have the perfect, creamy belly we all want. Again, we’re concentrating on the belly here. Not how big your tush has gotten or the fact that your ankles have disappeared. Because, let me tell you, I’ve BEEN there and KNOW that isn’t what you want to remember. 

So, will you remember after you have forgotten? I can guarantee you will with a maternity session by CYE Photography. And the best part is… you will WANT to remember, not cringe when someone busts out the album with THOSE photos. In fact, you may have to restrain yourself from showing off your pics to each and every person who walks in the door.

Click ‘portrait info’ above for all the session details. Then, drop me an email (info@cyephotography.com) to chat about your session. We can set it up way ahead of time, or last minute. Consider combining your maternity session with a newborn session in our Belly to Baby package and remember. Even after you forget.

Digital Stationery 101: Creating an announcement for beginners

This tutorial was created using Photoshop Elements 6 (PSE 6) to ensure maximum compatibility. All versions of Photoshop can be used to accomplish this tutorial. PSE 6 and 7 are also compatible. I have included some keyboard short cuts; these are PC compatible. Also, I’m sure there is a better or more effective method of accomplishing what is included in this tutorial. This is just my way of creating and designing this type of stationery; I hope other find it useful and can build off my knowledge.***If using PSE, please download and install the layer mask action from Hidden Elements www.hiddenelements.com. It is free and will make your life soooooo much easier when it comes to Photoshop. 

1. Open a new file at 300 pixels per inch. The most popular stationery sizes are 4×6, 5×7 and 5×5 inches. This tutorial will utilize the 5×7 ratio. 300 pixels per inch (dpi) ensures superior print quality with the least chance for pixelization.
2. Create a new layer, PC: shift+ctrl+n
3. Utilizing the paint bucket tool from the tool palette on the left, fill your new layer, Layer 1, with your chosen background color. I chose a medium pink as I am creating a birth announcement in this tutorial.
4. Next decide on the photo layout for the announcement. Be sure that you are not placing anything close than 1/8 inch to the edge to allow for bleed during printing. I decided on three rounded rectangular photos for this announcement. To create a layer mask for the photos, I created a new layer, shift+ctrl+n. This will become your photo shapes layer. Next, I switched my foreground color to black, just hit ‘d’, and chose the custom shape tool (right under the gradient tool) from the tool palette. The rounded rectangle shape is under the ‘shapes’ menu in the standard PSE 6 rollout. Next, I created a rounded rectangle using the custom shape tool. Then I copied that custom shape layer twice so I had three black rounded rectangles. Using the free transform option, ctrl+t, on each rounded rectangle shape layer, I lined up the rectangles utilizing the ‘snap-to’ option with the grid. This ensures that everything is even. Now, select all three rounded rectangle shape layers, right click the mouse while in the layers palette and click ‘merge layers’. Now all of your rectangles are simplified in one layer.
5. Now make another new layer, shift+ctrl+n and fill the layer with white with the paint bucket tool. This will become your photo mask layer. Add a layer mask to this layer utilizing the layer mask action from Hidden Elements. Now, click your mouse back down to the Photo Shapes layer. Using the magic wand selector tool found in the tool palette click on the Photo Shapes layer in the transparent area, NOT the black rounded rectangles. This will select the entire area except the rectangles. Now, on the layer palette, go back to your new Photo Mask layer and click on the layer mask that you just added with the Hidden Elements action. Press shift+ctrl+I to invert your selection. Now, using the paint bucket tool, fill in the selected areas with black. You should now see three white rounded rectangles.
6. Now, to add your photos! For my announcement, I need three photos. To start I created a new layer, shift+ctrl+n, above my new Photo Masks layer. Next, you need to group this new layer with the previous layer’s mask. To do this, select the layer in the layers palette and hit ctrl+g. Now check out the layers palette. By grouping your newest layer, Photo 1, with the previous layer it has caused Photo 1’s layer to indent slightly and a downward pointing arrow to appear just to the left of the layer’s thumbnail. Next, I opened the first photo I wanted to use in PSE 6 and copied the photo, ctrl+a and then ctrl+c. Now, go back to the stationery file we have been creating. Click on your new Photo 1 layer in the layer palette and paste your photo into the layer, ctrl+v. Now you need to resize and align your photo into the layer. Use the transform tool, ctrl+t to do this. Repeat these steps for all photos that need to be added to the stationery layout.
7. Now you need to decide where and how you want any text to appear on the announcement. I decided to add three cloud-like objects to put my text into. I used the custom shape tool to accomplish this. The cloud shape is under the ‘shapes’ menu in the custom shape tool. I put in three cloud shapes, using the grid to help me with alignment, then I merged the three cloud layers together by selecting all three custom shape layers, right clicking on the layers palette and choosing ‘merge layers’.
8. To give my clouds a more ethereal look, I decided to add a glow to the outer edges. To do this, I clicked on my clouds layer in the layer palette, then went up to the effects palette, which is just above my layers palette, chose ‘layer styles’>’outer glows’>’heavy’ and then clicked ‘apply’. You will notice that to the right of my clouds layer in the layer palette there is a blue icon that says ‘fx’. This means a layer style is applied to that layer.
9. I wanted to add some whimsy to this layout. I created a new layer, shift+ctrl+n. To make the butterflies and their trails, I chose a nice chocolately brown color and then selected the brush tool from the tool palette. After you select the brush tool just under the main menu at the top of the screen (File, Edit, Image, Etc menu), there will be a white rectangular box with a black stroke in it. Click the downward pointing arrow just to the right of this box. This will bring up your brush menu of all the available brushes you have installed. I selected my butterfly brush, went to my new Butterflies layer and stamped on the bigger butterfly first, then the trail and finally the two smaller butterflies.
10. My layout needs more of that chocolately brown. I decided to add brown frames around my photos. To do this, I used the same rounded rectangle from the custom shape tool. To make the rectangles brown, I made sure my foreground color was the same color that I used for my butterflies and then made the rectangles. To get the rectangles behind the photos I clicked on the Photo Shapes layer in the layer palette and then drew in one rectangle that was slightly larger than my photos. I then duplicated the layer twice, ctrl+j, and then aligned the other two rectangles using the transform tool, ctrl+t. After that I merged the layers together. The brown frames were a little too brown, so I lowered the opacity of the brown frame layer to around 65%.
11. Last step was to add text! I chose the chocolately brown color for my text. Utilizing the text tool in the tool palette, I clicked in the leftmost white cloud and wrote out my parent’s info in the MurphyScriptViva font. Then I clicked the rightmost cloud and entered the birth info in the same font.

BONUS! Want to add a cool texture to your background? All it takes is one adjustment layer!!

• Click on your background color layer, Layer 1 in my tutorial, in the layer palette. Next click the ‘Create adjustment layer’ icon. It is at the top of the layer palette right by the trashcan. Choose ‘Pattern…’. This will bring up a list of the patterns installed. Choose your favorite by clicking the little arrow to the right of the pattern thumbnail and click OK. Voila! Instant change. To further customize, change the blending mode of your pattern layer: click on the ‘Pattern Fill 1’ layer in your layer palette and change the blending mode. The blending mode menu is just above the ‘Create adjustment layer’ icon. Try out a bunch of them to see what you like. You can also adjust the opacity to taste or double click the pattern thumbnail on the layers palette and change to a different pattern. My pattern layer is in the Hard Light blending mode at 58% opacity.

Here is the final outcome! I have also created a second side for my birth announcement, which became the introduction side of the card. Can you figure out how to make the other side using the information in this tutorial? I bet you can! I didn’t do anything fancier that what we covered here. Have faith and go for it. Besides, if it doesn’t turn out you can always try again and no one will be any the wiser. 

 Resources

PSE layer mask action: Hidden Elements                www.hiddenelements.com

Pattern: Gypsy Garden by Pixels & Ice Cream       www.pixelsandicecream.com

Butterfly brushes: Obsidian Dawn                          www.obsidiandawn.com

Font: Murphy Script Viva Pro                               www.fontpark.net  

Recommended Sites

www.kuler.adobe.com       Free color scheme ideas and swatches

www.flickr.com                 Free patterns and textures

www.deviantart.com          Lots of free brushes, patterns, textures, etc.

Do you have a suggestion or request for a future tutorial or how-to? Drop an email to info@cyephotography.com

COMING SOON: Project 365 CYE Style week one photos. Stay tuned!