Shaun Pearce's Blog

The other day, someone contacted me to say they used Photoshop for doing video graphics and, as I've been in the film and video business for over 20 years, would I answer an off-topic question for them. I was happy to oblige.

Their concern was this:

They wanted to shoot a piece with someone standing in a summer garden talking to camera. The only problem is: it's the middle of winter, so they planned on shooting the whole thing indoors against a chromakey background, and adding a still photo of a garden behind the presenter in post production. They had two questions: Is chromakey difficult to do, and what colour should they use for the background?

First of all, in my experience, chromakey can be a right pain in the you-know-what if you're not used to doing it. The trick is to get the lighting even. You can adjust the tolerances to a certain extent in the edit, but if you have bright spots or shadows, you can run into real trouble. For that reason you want to have the presenter and the background lit separately. Likewise, you should make sure any drape you use is hung evenly and is crease free, as creases will show through. A studio with a properly constructed background is the best option if you can afford it.

You also want to bear in mind what picture is going to be superimposed later on. If you're trying to simulate the outdoors indoors, make sure that the subject is lit from the same direction (i.e. the shadows are all in the same direction), otherwise it will just look fake.

As far as colour is concerned, most people use bright green or bright blue (chromakey is commonly called "Green Screen" or "Blue Screen"), but in my experience the only colour to really be avoided is black. This is because when someone is speaking, the inside of their mouth can become transparent!

Whatever colour you choose, make sure you use a non-reflective fabric or matt paint to avoid any hotspots. You should also ensure your presenter isn't wearing a similar colour to the screen colour – so if your presenter is going to be wearing blue jeans, say, you should use a green background.

It's also a good idea to get your presenter to stand at least four feet away from the background. This helps to avoid shadows and makes it easier for the software to have a solid key.

If you're thinking about starting your own website this year, I've got some great news for you. Starting today, I'm offering a $1 (One US Dollar) Trial Month Membership offer to my subscription site: YourWebsiteAcademy.com.

Webmasters (and those who want to be webmasters) who take advantage of the $1 offer will be able to access thousands of dollars in training resources for only $1 for the Trial Month period.

Trial Month Members will have access to all the Academy's rich resources such as training videos, eBooks, software, and users' discussion forum.

January is the time of year that many people contemplate doing new things, such as starting their own website. With everyone counting the pennies these days, I want to give everyone the opportunity to get top notch training at a price they can afford.

While it seems everyone and his dog is trying to teach people how to market their sites, hardly anyone teaches how to set up and run a site that functions as it should. All the marketing techniques in the world are worthless if a webmaster doesn't know how to get a site up and running in the first place, and run it efficiently in the second place.

The techniques taught at Your Website Academy can be applied to any website – be it a sales site, information portal, blog, or personal site.

In addition to my nearly 9 (nine) years online experience, I've also roped in some top experts to give students the benefit of their expertise, with more “visiting faculty” lined up for the year ahead.

Your Website Academy can be access directly from the website at http://www.yourwebsiteacademy.com

Note if you are a magazine, newsletter or eZine publisher, and would like review access to the site, please contact me at bizvids@googlemail.com, by telephone on +44(0)1227 264003 during office hours (GMT), or via Skype – address “interactivevideotutorials”

Happy New Year, everyone .

In this first post of 2009, I want to share some timely advice on a problem currently causing havoc in the Internet, and which can really put a dent in your Adsense earnings.

You see...

Many web site owners are getting their Google Adsense account terminated when they have done nothing wrong. Considering the money that that can be made from Adsense, if this were to happen to you, you would certainly be pretty hacked off and want to get back into it.

It is that same consideration that makes Google Adsense click fraud so appealing, and why many people are getting into it.

Click fraud is the act of clicking on ads to cost the advertiser money. It is simply the same as paying out cash for false leads. Many website owners are aware of this fraud and agree that this is the one big problem that Adsense is facing.

How do you prevent being involved in this fraud?

Most of web hosts offer access logs. Once you have access to it, hand it over to Google as well. This allows them to look for any suspicious activity on your site. Problems like this are very serious, and giving them the log is saying that you would want to help them in any way you can to solve the problem.

It can also help if you have a click monitoring software. If you do not have it yet, run a search in Google to get a copy. Most of this software is free.

As usual, all the information you have received should be turned over to Google. This shows Google you are fighting against click fraud and are no way a part of it.

Study your server logs and watch for any activity that seems suspicious. Report anything that you may find odd.

You may also want to consider disabling ads for your own IP address and local geographic area. This will certainly prevent accidents and will not make Google mistake another user for you. You can do through your htaccess file. This will avoid you making the mistake of clicking on your own ads and Google kicking you out of the program out because of it.

Keep your Adsense ads off on pop ups and pop unders. Your ads should not be displayed on content sites that promote anything that could in any way be considered illegal activity – this includes gambling or gaming sites, and anything that could be considered 'adult' content.

Be truthful and confess up to Google about times when you might have clicked on your own ad, whether accidentally or intentionally, or the times when you have done something that is against the Terms of Service . Be honest about anything that you may have done that is wrong. Confessing is way better than Google learning about it any other way. If you get 'caught' it would mean eventual termination and no getting back what you have worked so hard for.

Do not tell your family or friends about Adsense on your website. Chances are they may start clicking on them to help you make money without you knowing it. They may mean well, but they'll be doing more harm than good.

If someone you know chances upon your Adsense, make sure they understand that they cannot click on your ads under any circumstances. It would be wise to brief them on important things about Adsense and what not to do.

Most pay per click networks have different measures in hand to protect website owners against click frauds. Other search engines can track more than 50 data points, IP address, browser’s information, user’s session info and pattern recognition. They also have “systems” available that detects fraud. Not to mention the specialized teams monitoring how things are going and helping advertisers stop click frauds.

Google offers suggestion on how to avoid click fraud. Using “negative keywords” can be used to keep your Adsense showing on products and services that are in no way related to yours. Adding tracking URLs to your links so you can track the traffic coming from Google.

Do not be caught in the Google click fraud. Be aware and be wary.

It seems hard to believe Christmas is less than a week away! There's no snow on the ground here (yet), although we did get a dusting back in November. We got a lot of snow here in the Southeast of England in early 2007, and I took plenty of photos -- one of which I used as a Christmas card last year. It had stopped snowing when I took all the photos, but I've recently discovered a way to use Photoshop to make it look as if the snow was still falling. I share the technique in the video below.

BTW. My office will be CLOSED on December 25th-28th (inclusive) and on January 1st.

Happy holidays!

Warmly,

Shaun Pearce

PS. If you're stuck for a last minute gift, or you need to send a present to someone and you've missed the mailing deadline, the download versions of Photoshop Master, DTP Master, Web Master, or eCover Master make excellent gifts. Just enter the recipient's name and e-mail address on the registration page instead of yours. For more info, visit http://www.interactivevideotutorials.com

Somebody asked me this question yesterday:

How do you use Photoshop to put someone's face on someone else's body?

This is a quick and dirty way of doing it, I'm sure there are more refined ways.

First of all, you'll want to make sure the photos you select are taken from similar angles, otherwise the result will look "wrong".

1. Make sure both the "face" and "body" pictures are the same dpi, and colour format (eg. both RGB ).
2. Use the magnetic lasso tool to go around the face, then copy it into the clipboard (Edit > Copy).
3. In the "body" photo, create a new layer, and paste the "face" into it.
4. Use the Move Tool to move the face over the body, and the Free Transform Tool (Ctrl/Cmd + Move Tool) to manipulate it into place. This can be tricky and takes some practice. Match key points on the face such as the chin, ears, etc.
5. Use the Eraser Tool on the "head" layer to remove any stray bits ob background from the old photo.
6. You then need to blend the skin tones of each layer so they match up. There are two ways you can do this. Either go to Image > Adjustments > Hue and Saturation and Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and adjust the sliders, or hide the "head" layer, use the eyedropper tool to select the flesh tone from the body, then unhide and select the head layer again and use the Color Replacement Tool to blend in the head layer.
7. Finally, go around the edge of the "head" layer with the Blur Tool to blur the edge and make it less distinct.

For more info: http://www.learnphotoshopfast.com