A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies (Free Kindle Book)

To celebrate 20 years of the For Dummies books, you can download A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies for the Kindle for free. It features sample chapters from various For Dummies books and includes sections on using Digital SLR cameras and social media.



Don't own a Kindle device? There are other ways to read Kindle books.

Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader

Amazon Kindle for PC

Amazon Kindle for Mac

Amazon Kindle for Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Amazon Kindle for Android Devices

Shoot Video Like A Broadcast Journalist

Five Quick Ways To Shoot Video Like A Broadcast Journalist
Video on from BBC Academy on the shots you should get and use for voice overs.

Tshirt Mockups

Note: I used a different method to that described in the link in the previous blog entry.

Photorealistic Shirt Mockups

How To Create Photorealistic Shirt Mockups

A Twitter Story

There was a vocal groan when we looked at Twitter in class... but I love it.

At any rate it can be a very useful way of finding stuff out.

I was on my way home from the West Nowra TAFE building when I decided to stop in town and get some cash from an ATM. As I got out of the car I noticed a bright flash of light behind me. I assumed it was a faulty fluorescent light. It wasn't. It actually turned out to be a police photographer. There was police tape around the rail outside the Nowra Medicare office.

I was curious to find out what happened. So I googled a few terms. Nothing. Nothing in the local media. But then I searched Twitter.

Edit Your Video IN YouTube

Nalts reports it's a little buggy but, in theory, you can edit your YouTube video after you've uploaded it.

Link Roundup

A couple of links that might be of interest to the class.

Moving at the Speed of Creativity: Wikis For The Collaborative Classroom

Lifehacker Australia: Mudgee Tourism Gets Its Own iPhone App

Shooting Raw And More

Over the weekend I spent some time photographing the Huskisson region (for a TAFE assessment task). I decided to shoot in RAW format for the first time since buying my Nikon D70. Everyone kept telling me that these files would take up a lot of room on the camera's memory card but I was still surprised at how quickly it did fill up the card.

Some street art from my travels:

Kung Hei Fat Choy

Testing blog posting from BlogSpace app

Testing posting a blog entry from my iPod Touch with the free app store app BlogSpace.

Today I went to the local Asian grocer and bought some goodies including Mint Oolong tea.

Colour Elephants On Lilypads

Chinese New Year Photo Montages

I couldn't decide which background looked better. What do you think? Leave a comment.

Version 1: Lantern Background


Version 2: Neon Sign Background

Chinese New Year Celebrations

Chinese New Year Celebrations in Sydney, 2011.

Photography by John Lacey
Music by Kevin MacLeod

The Problem With Condensing News

This is a video I created some time ago (November 2009) for an audition for something... I actually didn't end up using it. But I loved the concept and the editing.

John's Video Toolbox

Video Camera

Got a ultra HD video camera with all the bells and whistles? No? Well there are plenty of cheaper alternatives. Consider buying a webcam, or using your iPod Touch or iPhone camera. Keep in mind that even the most basic digital cameras usually have a video mode (and some people have made it big on YouTube with little more than a humble digital camera).

Video Editing Software

Windows Movie Maker - This came preloaded with earlier versions of Windows, however from Windows 7 onwards you need to download it as part of the Windows Live suite. (And it's free!)

iMovie - Look I'm not a Mac User but my friends tell me iMovie is a thing and that it comes preloaded as part of the iLife suite.

(You can of course buy wonderful editing software. My preference as a PC User would be Sony Vegas Movie Studio.)

YouTube offers what it calls "Create Partners" - websites that allow you to create simple movies and slideshows. Check them out!

Royalty Free Music

You've finished your video and uploaded it, your friends are checking it out and suddenly it's gone. What happened? Oh, YouTube didn't appreciate the soundtrack you used (and not just for aesthetic reasons). Copyright is a big deal on YouTube. You can avoid a world of pain by using royalty free music.

Incompetech - Kevin McLeod

There are other sites of course, but read the fine print carefully!

Your Branding Media

If there are video sequences (introductions or credits) that you'll use over and over make sure you have copies of these in easy to access places and, of course, always back them up!

Keep Up To Date On Online Video Trends

Nalts is a whacky guy but he seems to know about these things. Subscribe to Will Video For Food for hints and tips and trends.

Video Distribution

You've made a video. It's the best movie you've ever made. You want to share it with the world. Sure there's lots of traffic on YouTube, but there are other sites out there. Tubemogul allows you to upload your video file once and then send it to multiple sites. It is by far my favourite video tool on the web.

Blip.TV is a great site (sadly unavailable at TAFE, but try it at home!) which lets you upload multiple versions of the same video file and set up RSS feeds. And this is the best place to start if you want to set up a video podcast. You can upload the same episode in multiple formats for different users (iPod Touch, Zune, etc.) and let your audience use those feeds. Helpful for listing your video podcast with iTunes.

Learn About How To Make Videos

Got a question? Google for a solution. Look for tutorials on video sites like YouTube. Borrow a good ol' fashioned book from your library. Ask a nerdy friend. Follow relevant blogs, sites and podcasts (and interesting people on Twitter and Facebook)!

Video Output Settings

Although there are a number of different output settings for Photo Story 3 for Windows (and yes YouTube can clearly see the difference - one is offered as HD, while the other isn't) it is hard to see much improvement from video to video. Though this might be just be the compression at the YouTube side of this process.

Photo Story (With Titles)

Photo Story Experiments

Spooky Tree

An Eagle Flew Over It

Just playing around with Photoshop.

JohnLacey.com Wordle

A Wordle Graphic based on the entries at JohnLacey.com:

Lavendar With Curves Adjustment

Lavendar (Edited)

Slide.com Slideshow

Depth Of Field

Shallow Depth Of Field


Wide Depth Of Field

Local Graffitti/Street Art

Local street art spotted over the weekend. (Photograph taken on iPod Touch.)


View Larger Map

Touching Up Photographs

Cloning Fruit and Flowers

Cloning Tool Exercise

Kookaburra Outside My House

As I was leaving for TAFE this morning there was a Kookaburra sitting on the tree just outside my house. I couldn't resist taking a photograph.



(Feathered in photoshop.)

White Balance Experiments (SlideFlickr Slideshow)

New Flickr Account

I now have a class related Flickr account, johnlaceyphotos. I have uploaded the photographs from our capture/edit digital images class.

[Yes I do have another Flickr account which is dedicated to my artwork and personal photographs. It is actually a Pro Account which a lovely lady in the US bought for me as a gift. Thanks Sonia!]

I really like Flickr. It is probably the only Yahoo! owned service I really use. Though I do only use it to showcase my photographs for the benefit of other people on the website. If I put photographs on the blog I tend to resize them and upload them to my own hosting. If I use photographs on Twitter I tend to use Twitpic.

What I Did Over The Weekend...

I had a fairly lazy weekend, catching up mostly on bad television.

Google Plus

You can't use Google Plus on TAFE computers but if anybody wants an invite let me know.

Selection Exercises

Photo Colour Correction

Flowers (Edited)

White Balance Comparisons

Social Networking Sites Blocked At TAFE

Thought it was a little funny that sites like Google Plus are blocked... especially since the name of the course I'm doing is Certificate II IT Tools For New Media.

White Balance Photographs

Today we learnt about our cameras' white balance settings. Here are some photographs from our experiments.


I think this photograph makes the bricks more red than they are in reality but I really like the warmth and colour.



I like the crisp cool greeness of the plants and that you can clearly see the reflections of the windows.



I like the detail of the flower although having it in the centre of the frame was probably not the most visually interesting option.