Thursday, March 17, 2011

10K Fans and a HUGE giveaway--Week 1

We love our fans.

When we first started all of this, we really had NO idea how amazingly it would grow and how many friendships we'd make and how much fun we'd be having. About 7 months ago, we were photographers who were just having fun shooting weddings and newborns and loving what we did. After a lot of requests for workshops, we decided to do a webinar to show some of our
newborn post-processing techniques, and as a part of that we decided to dedicate some of our processes to actions for our attendees and voila! Pure Photoshop Actions was born.

Who would have even imagined that from that very small beginning, we'd be hitting ten THOUSAND fans only seven months later? Not us!

And the even more amazing part of it all is just how wonderful all of our fans are. We've laughed together, cried together, learned together and become friends. There is such a sense of community on our fanpage. People feel comfortable asking questions. Others are happy to share. We share images of our families, our children and our lives.

So it only seems appropriate that as part of our big celebration of 10K fans, we celebrate just how awesome our fans are! So for the next month, we'll be showcasing the talent of our fans who are also vendors. Each week there will be a new group of awesomeness to check out and more chances to win.

Each week one lucky winner will win all of the featured items in the post and a second lucky winner will get a chance to choose a set of Pure actions! We'll be randomly selecting each from the comments. Please fan each of these amazing vendors, as we'll be checking on that as well. (We also figure it is easier to fan smaller groups rather than one gigantic group, right?)

We also have a free sampler set of actions on our facebook page, so please make sure to grab those actions and enjoy!



Without further ado, here is our first group!

SHOOT BABY! will be giving away a GORGEOUS newborn posing ottoman. Have you seen these things? They are AMAZING. In fact, Crystal and Rachel are green with envy for this winner of this week. These posing ottomans are HUGE and perfect for newborns and even small children. They are also gorgeous. You will look like the coolest photographer in town as you bring this fashionable bean bag to your newborn shoots.

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And what would be better with the SHOOT BABY ottoman than an AMAZING newborn posing
guide from the fabulous Rachel Vanoven? She is a Jedi master of newborn posing, and
she has graciously provided a posing guide for this giveaway. Woo!










Heather of Bugaboo Boutique will be giving the lucky winner a DARLING orange tutu dress! Heather says, "Bugaboo Boutique offers custom made tutus, tutu dresses, personalized t-shirts with embroidery, and personalized towel sets. All items are custom made to order. Pick the color and style you want and I will create it for you. I love to get special orders from you with all your creative ideas and mingle them with my ideas to make something special and adorable for your little one."
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Ok, this next one is adorable! Chi from Sugar Petunia Photography is giving away some photographer bling! It is called the Sugar Shot necklace and you can choose the color of the bling! Red, Turquoise, Clear, Blue or Pink! Seriously, these are just way too cute. What photographer would not want one?




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Our next vendor, Kristen, is offering a Wee Wrap from her shop Son-Kissed Knits and Props. The wraps are just so gorgeous and very high-end. In fact, it looks so comfortable, I would love to be wrapped up in it. Check out her beautiful prop offerings for your next newborn shoot!









Naja of Naja's Prop Shop is offering a headband to the lucky winner! Naja says of her shop, "All of our hand-made props, from headbands to blankets, are carefully made with TLC, and we also offer trench bowls, fur blankets and more at unbeatable prices!" Check her out and fan her!




And finally we have Kathy of The Photog's Helper. Kathy is a virtual assistant for photographers. She will help people with everything from image manipulation, correspondence, social media and marketing. A wide variety of services are offered including, but not limited to: basic cloning and skin correction to full blown artistic edits for sessions. Email organizations, newsletter creation and processing, Twitter/Facebook/Blog account setups and management. Again, Crystal and I are incredibly jealous of the winner!








Make sure you fan all of these awesome vendors and comment below for your chance to win! Remember we will be hosting giveaways for a few weeks, and each week will have one HUGE winner of awesomeness and one winner of a set of our actions. It's going to be so much fun!


Friday, March 11, 2011

Amanda Aykroid....come on down!!

You're our big winner!!

Amanda wrote:

"I absolutely love your actions and would LOVE to win a set of these actions for myself. As a foster parent, I try to capture memories of the kids that come in to my care.
Each child whether with me a week or a month or longer, has updated professional photos taken and then candid memories within my home. When the child returns to their parents, I provide the parents an edited CD of the photos of their child while they were in care.
I realize the difficulty it is for most parents to be away from their children and providing this CD allows these parents a chance to fill-in the 'gaps' from days their child was away from them. It also allows me precious memories of the children that have filled my home and warmed my heart.
By choosing me, you will allow me the opportunity to serve these kids, their families, and myself through reduced editing time and GREAT photoshop actions which will provide cherished memories for myself and others.
Thanks for considering me!"

9000 Fans and a Giveaway!!!

We are so excited to have reached 9000 fans! We feel so blessed and amazed that we have gained so many wonderful fans in our short 6 months.

To express our thanks, we will give away a single set to one of our fans! To enter, post here with your name and what set you'd love to get and why. We will choose a winner in twelve hours.

Thank you all so much for helping us grow. We are so incredibly grateful.

Monday, March 7, 2011

We are so excited to announce....

Our upcoming Facebook Contest!

We used to have so much fun with Facebook contests but then we learned of the restrictions Facebook had put on contests. But we have found a way to run contests within Facebook's rules and we are really excited!

Please check out our Sweepstakes tab on our Facebook fan page. We will be giving away a one-hour Sykpe mentoring session to the lucky winner. We are really excited. (We love chatting and teaching, so this is right up our alley!)

We will be running the contest until we get 10k fans, so the sooner we get 10K fans, the sooner there will be a winner!

Please make sure to only enter once.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Using Clipping Masks in Templates

We are so excited to have two template designs in our store currently. One is the set of 20 blogging templates (and 3 printable freebie storyboards) and the other is our highly-anticipated Black Damask Letter templates. Here's an example of how we've used them in the past. This FAMILY collage was printed at 10x20 and mounted on styrene then adhered to the wall with 3 mm strips of velcro.

Clients LOVE these unique ways to display multiple images from their session in a very cohesive wall display and YOU will love how simple they are to use. If you're interested in either of these template options, they are in our store. The Black Damask Letter template is currently on sale until Sunday (the 13th of Feb) for 20% off using the code TEMPLATE.



Using templates is a very quick and easy process, and below I am adding one of our tutorials on how to create clipping masks in Photoshop and Elements, so that you can see just how quick and easy it is.


Monday, January 24, 2011

Texture Mania

Adding a texture is a quick and easy way to add a fun, unique, and artistic look for your images. There are lots of ways to do it, but if you've never done it before, it can seem daunting. Here's a quick tutorial on how to add textures to images.



AND to help you try out your newfound texture skills, we'd love to supply you with the texture from the tutorial...FOR FREE! Hop over to our fan page and check out our new custom Welcome Tab and find the download button and get that freebie texture. Woo!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Winner!

According to Random.org Maegan Laurie and Tara Willey are the winners of the Pure Blogging Templates Set 1!!

We can't wait to see what you do with them! We'll be emailing them shortly!