Latest Story

New Freebie Posted

By Kendra

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I’ve uploaded a new freebie. It’s been a long time, I know but while I’ve moved away from Poser and have been focusing on Photography I’ve decided I really miss it. So, here is a texture set for the Psyche outfit from Daz3d.com and you can find it on the Downloads page (link above).  You’ll need the outfit to use the texture. Enjoy!

Spring - It’s the perfect time to consider new jobs for the budding Photographer

By Kendra

It’s spring and for many obvious reasons, spring inspires people to have portraits taken.  Whether it’s a family portrait or just the kids in their Easter clothing, both the weather and blooming flowers are the perfect backdrops.   Because it’s a busy time for photographers it’s also the perfect time to look for work.  If you’re not quite ready to strike out on your own and open your own business but you are definitely ready to move past the pin money you are making by photographing friends and family and relying on word of mouth to their friends and family,  get working on your resume.  Detail your experience, your work and projects you have been a part of.  There are quite a bit of online resources.  Consider a professional resume maker for a crisp clean resume that will get a potential employers attention. Most will offer a resume template you can follow and provide a professional resume sample geared towards your profession. The best way to expand on your skills is to apprentice with an established photographer. June is right around the corner and if you’ve always wanted to learn about wedding photography, apprenticing is the perfect way. You’ll get your foot in their door the more confident and professional you present yourself, and a good clean resume is the perfect way.

Don’t fall for XP (or Vista) Antivirus Pro!!

By Kendra

It looks bad and I should have grabbed some screenshots but DON’T FALL FOR IT!

What happens is you’ll be surfing the web and suddenly a pop up appears in your task bar that looks legit and states that your computer is being attacked. A pop up will look like it’s scanning your system and will “report” a few dozen bogus infections. What it does is install itself on to your system and will re-direct your browser to the website that claims it will fix your computer. Don’t go to the website! From everything I’ve read online about this malware, the whois info shows it’s in the Ukraine and others have mentioned that the website itself is dangerous to go to.

When it popped up on my system I assumed it was much like the other one that I’ve seen and known people to fall for. It’s not. It won’t let you open some of your exe files. Your system runs slowly and if you ignore it not only will you deal with pop-ups, you run the risk of having your information compromised.

Most sites that discuss this POS malware suggest malwarebytes, you can download it for free at www.malwarebytes.org. I had to download it from another computer and it took a while to get it to install since the Antivirus Pro malware was affecting my ability to run exe programs. Some suggest that a more vicious version specifically affects the ability to run malwarebytes because it’s said to be the most successful at removing it.

I’ve installed it to my laptop which hasn’t seen the malware yet so I’m prepared.


Program Review - Postworkshop

By Kendra

k-pwcover I recently acquired PostWorkShop Pro. It’s basically a filter that will expand on anything Photoshop offers. Turn a photo into a sketch or or give it a painted look.

Here is one example of how I have used it.   I needed a cover for the schools yearbook and when I was browsing through the different styles in Postworkshop, I came up with the idea to have a “sketch”.  So I took 3 photos into Photoshop.  One of the school itself, one to add a flag that wasn’t there in the original and the children, which is from a stock image.   Then I adjusted each layer so that it would appear the lighting is the same on all three, flattened the layers and imported it into Postworkshop.

Once you decide on a style you aren’t limited to what it originally looks like.  You can edit line lengths and strengths and adjust it to exactly what you need.

All in all a good program to have if you plan on doing any print work or web design.

Find PostWorkShop here.

An Excellent Tutorial

By Kendra

I blogged about this but really felt it deserved a front page spot. This is a great tutorial even if you don’t care for the grunge look.
Open this post up to see the video.

Poser 8 Update - Smith Micro Releases Service Update

By Kendra

While they took their sweet time about it, Smith Micro has finally put out the first service release for Poser 8.   While it has fixed some of the issues on my desktop, it rendered the program completely useless on my laptop.  So, I uninstalled the service release on my laptop and I’m back to a somewhat functional program that can’t handle large renders.   My laptop is maxed out with memory but may benefit from a better graphics card so that may be the way to go.   The way Poser 8 works on my desktop now is much improved.  I still hate the library and feel it’s an unnecessary resource hog.  I found out that the library has a refresh feature that was less than obvious and using indirect lighting still slows the rendering down considerably even to the point of crashing on anything complex.

So, for now it’s workable.  Still not happy with Poser 8 on my laptop but even Poser 7 didn’t work well with it.  I haven’t had the same issue with other programs but we’ll see what happens when Smith Micro puts out Service Release 2.