In the first post, I highlighted Katharine’s beautiful, abstract of Peacock Feathers created with ACDSee Photo Manager. In this post, I’ve invited her to share how her creative use of ACDSee Photo Manager has evolved, resulting in a variety of gorgeous works of art!
Katharine explains how she got started:
My first venture into “altering” my photos was with the “pixel explosion” effect and I have to admit, I went a little pixel explosion crazy! It was just so much fun to “explode” an image and then increase the contrast and play around with the hue adjuster to change the colors.
“Gallery Dancing Peacock” is an abstract created by using “Pixel Explosion” as well as the “Mirror” effect and then intensifying the contrast and coloring.
Then I started playing around with the effect called “Colored Edges” and I loved the textured appearance it gives. I don’t think this effect works well with most photos, but for some, it is the perfect touch.
“Southwestern Recollections” is a combination of “Pixel Explosion”, “Colored Edges” and “Mirror” effects with some dramatic changes in contrast and color adjustments. I loved how the Colored Edges effect gave the texture and appearance of a sand painting.
“Contours” is another effect that I have a lot of fun with sometimes, it’s great for creating posters. It took me awhile to find anything I liked using the “Furry Edges” effect on but when I finally did, I was beyond ecstatic! It was the perfect finishing touch to one of my all time favorite abstract creations, adding just the right amount of texture.
“You Tell Me” is probably one of the images I’ve had the most fun with. It was also my first experience using the “Furry Edges” effect. Who would have ever thought the finished version started from a weed growing out of the sidewalk!
“May I Have This Dance” is a combination of the “Mirror”, “Colored Edges” and “Furry Edges” effects, an example of how I use a little bit of this, that and everything.
While I was in Victoria I had the pleasure of having dinner with one of our wonderfully talented ACDSee product forum moderators! There was no shortage of conversation that evening! We both love ACDSee products & had plenty to talk about.
Meet ‘Chippy’ as he’s known on the forums. He is a charming Victoria resident who hails from London. London is high on my destinations so we talked about that too! Another forum moderator, ‘Samdring’ is from London, so his ears were probably ringing. We also have Alice from the UK too.
Chippy has an amazing amount of legacy knowledge. He’s used every ACDSee product back to ACDSee 1.0 & is always willing to help people with older versions. He was telling me that when he’s helping the forums sometimes he has four to five products open at once. That’s a great resource to our customers!
Forum moderators are the unsung heroes. They help answer questions & sometimes have to keep the riff raff from ruining the forums experience for others. My team of moderators are fabulous! I’ve mentioned Samdring & Alice from the UK. And we have Tankred from Germany. From North America we have Chippy & Marc Sabatella. Marc wrote a RAW workflow for using ACDSee Pro 2. And my sister, Heidi does a stellar job with tech support issues. I’m there also & kind of moved in last March. There are also many ACDSee staff moving around there, but that’s for another blog post.
Chippy & I talked about the previous forums & the hurricane. The present product forums began in January 2006. The forums have a lot of information & are searchable. ACDSee held it’s first beta in the forums this past summer for ACDSee Pro 2. That signals a new direction in that we will continue to ask for customer feedback as we create new products. I presently am gathering information on what types of uploaders people would use. And there is a lot of interest in ACDSee 3.1, so I’m collecting information on a lightweight viewer type of product. ACDSee is listening to what customers want in their products.
I can’t blog without a quick example! ACDSee Photo Manager & Pro 2 have a feature where you can compare images. The photo on the left is the result of using the Highlights & Shadows tool in ACDSee Pro 2. Call it vanity but I just warmed up my skin tones a bit because my skin is so fair as seen on the right. (and I didn’t need to show that! but if you’re still reading, it’s worth a smile…probably a result of too much computer time!) Do you agree that the left is improved or no?
Sue from ACDSee, got up early this morning to give me a ride to the airport & see me off. We were laughing because because neither of us had overly considered makeup considering the hour. But I convinced her that we were ok for a photo!
Sue is ACD’s tech writer. So if you’ve read the help file, user guide or how-to’s, you’ve seen her awesome work! I proofed the help file for ACDSee Pro 2 & Photo Manager 10, so I’ve seen ALL of her great work! While doing that I added some tips that I had noticed were common pain points for customers. Sue integrated them into her help files & I hope that they will help others.
I feel that a product really needs to have help files that are easy to understand & straightforward to use. This past week at a couple of meetings we wondered if people find the valuable information in the help files? The help files for ACDSee’s products have always been easy for me to understand & quite useful.Next time you have a question, take a minute to check the help files. And now you know who is behind them!
I love these big met flower sculptures outside the Victoria Airport! It was dark though when I took the photo, so I used the Shadows & Highlights tool in ACDSee Photo Manager to lighten the photo. More photos of the people from ACDSee are coming!
I am excited to announce that on Monday I will begin my new role as ACDSee Community Manager. I will be continuing Jason Kiwaluk’s vision for ACDSee to better connect with it’s customers. If you frequent the ACDSee product forums you may have met me there.
About me:
For almost a year, my sister & I have been creating third party tutorials, videos & plug-ins that are available at our site at DigiScrapInfo.com. We have provided tech support & connected users to ACD when necessary. I have utilized our blog for fostering community, exploring creative marketing strategies, and software solutions to make everyone’s busy lives easier. Recently I’ve helped our community explore social media & it’s tools as avenues to maximize their hobbies & online businesses. In addition to blogging here, I can also be found at conniebensen.com & DigiScrapInfo.com
In my new role with ACDSee, I wil be the “voice of the customer”. I look forward to communicating your needs as digiscrappers, photographers & tech illustrators to the company. My goal will be to ensure that the company’s products & services best reflect your needs. Together we can make great products even better!
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