• When taking photos, be sure to set the resolution high, then back up far enough on your subject that no cropping occurs.
• Remove photos often from your camera to prevent it from becoming an overwhelming task.
• When removing photos from a camera, or copying from another source, take the time to either tag, or at least create sub-folders to separate different events.
• If sharing your photos with others, use an easy to use online service such as Flickr, Picasa, or allow us to set up a ZenPhoto site or other cms based site for you.
• When uploading photos, only upload the ones that you feel will be useful and choose the best of duplicates rather than uploading them all.
• Before uploading, resize your images for the web, this will save you much time in uploading, but also make the photos ready for website use. You should keep the original in a corresponding folder on your computer for print use. form more information about resizing, you can see our blog post “How to optimize photos for the web or email“
• While uploading, or immediately afterward, tag your photos and add captions. This is something we have seen over and over where a client uploads a ton of photos, thinking I’ll tag them later and then never do. It is better to upload a smaller set of useful photos than an unruly bunch that are not.
• Tagging is what makes the photos useful. Create many tags, but try to use a consistent system for tagging (for example if you used a tag ‘bird’ be careful not to tag others ‘birds’ but rather use ‘birds’ even for singular items).

Taking some time to organize photos will save a lot of time later on when you want to start using these photos. Contact us if you would like more information on photo management systems that can be installed on your website.

I have found that this application works well to get my basic ideas in one place and up on the website in draft form. When I do get to the computer all I have to do is proofread it, get the layout right and send it on its way.  I am also able to add categories and tags right from the phone. Note: there was more editing to do with voice to text than if I would have simply typed the blog post.

The mobile wysiwyg has the ability to add links, bold, blockquote and italics.  It even enables the user to add images. However the image uploader works much better on the web based version of WordPress. When done from the phone I was not able to pick where the photos would be displated or how large they would be.

This week I found it to be an entertaining way to post my blog.  Time will tell if it is just a novelty.

Well, here goes nothing… post!

So now you’ve picked out a template and it is time to do some customizing Figuring out a color scheme can be fun with a great online tool called Color Scheme Designer. Often the best way to start is to look at a picture that you want to use in the site, either as a banner, or a prominent picture. Install a great little plugin in Firefox called ColorZilla. Once installed, restart your browser and open that picture in Firefox (you can use file, open from a browser window). In the lower left corner of firefox, you will now see a little eydropper, click on that eyedropper and then click on a region of the picture with a color that you would like to use as a starting point. You will see the color changes in the lower left icon. Right click on this color and copy to clipboard.

Open Color Scheme Designer, to the lower right of the big circle, you will see ‘RGB:’ and some number, click on these numbers and paste or type in the color you chose with colorzilla. Now you have your starting point. Depending on how many colors you would like on your site, you can chose mono, compliment, triad etc from above the wheel to see complimentary colors. To take a look at how the colors work together on a website, below the boxes of color on the right, click on ‘Light page example’ and ‘Dark page example’.

You should also take a look at the ‘Vision Simulation’ link at the top right, to make sure that someone with a different visual perception would see your site. Once you have finished playing around and have decided on a color palette you like, you can click on ‘color list’ below the big circle, highlight all the colors and past them into an email to send to your favorite web-design team, or use them yourself when constructing the css file for your website.

If you have other ways that you have picked out a color scheme for your website, please add a comment so that others can benefit.