Archive for March, 2007
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“Fade to black”: Blending with layer masks |
Sometimes it is fine to use a soft edged eraser to fade one image into another, but what if you are no longer happy with what you’ve done and want to scrap it all together?
Yeah, sure you can go back a few steps in the history palette, but better than that just apply a layer mask to an image and go back and reveal whatever you want by painting white in the mask. That is just one of the advantages to using a layer mask when blending images.
In this tutorial you can learn a quick way to use layer masks effectively to blend various images together in a collage like technique. I use layer masks a lot now, and am always discovering cool things that they can do. When using layer masks just use this mantra, “white reveals and black conceals”.
No Comments » - Posted in Design, Tutorial by Patrick Winfield
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‘An eye for an eye’: Cut and paste collage technique |
In this tutorial you can learn how to replace some elements from one image with any elements from another image, a general cut and paste mash-up. I will be focusing on replacing a woman’s eyes with a cats in this example. This works best if the images are similar in head position and lighting.
We will cover the basics of cutting and pasting with various tools, as well as selective burning and dodging of the images tone and color. Rotation and scaling will be used to match the right angle.
These are the images used:
Step 1. Make a selection of the cats eye with either the pen tool or the polygon lasso. Be sure to select everything you want and it may be a good idea to make a larger selection and later on erase what you don’t need. Copy the cats eye and paste it onto the document you will be merging it with, the face.
9 Comments » - Posted in Design, Tutorial by Patrick Winfield
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The big day has finally arrived….Mar 16 2007 | Announcements |
As many of you know, I am getting married tomorrow to my fiance and 10e20 co-founder, Danielle Lanzillo. Danielle has done a wonderful job of working here at 10e20 and planning an amazing wedding at the same time. It’s weird tomorrow she will be Danielle Winfield but she won’t be able to have her own email because dwinfield at 10e20.com is already taken (by my father Dan).
So I will be offline for about 5 days (the longest time since we started 10e20) for the wedding and then a quick trip to sunny Bermuda (which will be a stark contrast to this snow storm today). All the best and thanks for your support!
19 Comments » - Posted in Announcements by Chris Winfield
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Optimizing the Mix of Paid and Organic Listings |
Chris is at two for two: his second webcast in two weeks has been extremely valuable, as always. Thanks to Chris, SearchMarketingNow, and iProspect for the opportunity to listen in and learn. 
Today, Chris talked about mixing paid and organic listings. Is it worth pursuing? What are the benefits? Keep reading!
Overview
I am going to talk about definitions and critical differences between paid and organic listings. There are two fallacies and two important concerns. How do you achieve a balance between the two? I will discuss why paid and organic listings are both important parts of a search marketing campaign, and I’ll then give tips on how to balance the two.
Definitions
Organic listings:
- Natural search results that are derived from the full text of all pages found on the web
- The position result is determined by search algorithms that consider dozens of factors: keyword density, meta tags, etc.
7 Comments » - Posted in Coverage, SEO by Tamar Weinberg
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ComputerWorld: Cracking Google’s ‘Secret Sauce’ Algorithm |
I know we focus on social media a lot here on the 10e20 blog but at the end of the day I still view SMO (or SMM) as part of the search engine optimization toolbox.
“Being at the top of Google is probably the most important factor in your whole marketing plan online,” says Chris Winfield, president of 10e20 LLC, a global search marketing and Web solutions company in New York. “Nothing comes close to being able to match it with people looking for what you do.”
Whatever you need to do to get there - do it.
As I told Stacy when she was doing the interview - I don’t believe that anyone knows what Google’s ’secret sauce’ is (not any of the engineers, not even Larry or Serge) because it’s evolved so much beyond any one thing. So obviously you aren’t going to get an answer to Google’s secrets in this article but its a really good read nonetheless with feedback from myself, Matt Cutts, Rand Fishkin and others.
1 Comment » - Posted in Press, SEO by Chris Winfield
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‘Pop goes the photo!’ - Selective colorization with layer masks |
Selective colorization can be a useful and effective technique to isolate certain elements within a photograph or give your work that artistic effect similar to a silkscreen.
The most basic way to do this is by duplicating a color image. Then desaturate one of the layers and increase the contrast- white whites and black blacks! Then make shapes of the elements you would like to colorize, like the eyes, lips and hair, and finally make a layer mask and paint out the areas.
Andy Warhol is the most obvious art icon that comes to mind when playing with this “silkscreen-like” technique. Check out some of his silkscreen paintings for inspiration. Warhol didn’t bother to clean up the imperfections of the print: those slips of the screen, uneven inkings of the roller, and general graininess. What they suggested was not the humanizing touch of the hand but the pervasiveness of routine error or chaos.
No Comments » - Posted in Design, Tutorial by Patrick Winfield
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As We Continue to Go Social, Are We Moving Closer Together or Farther Apart?Mar 13 2007 | Social Networks |
After yesterday’s blog post announcing my new role as a blogger for Search Engine Roundtable with Barry Schwartz, I can’t help but wonder, is this a “goodbye?” I’m being wished good luck on my future endeavors, which is difficult for me to really grasp (and comprehend) as I feel very much part of the 10e20 community and our blog, and truthfully, I don’t feel that I am going that far away from it. It’s interesting to realize that this is an industry where the virtual office is not an incredibly outrageous work environment, and the reality of that vision is apparent in the emphasis on social media and online communities.
1 Comment » - Posted in Social Networks by Tamar Weinberg
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So MySpace is Launching a News Service….Mar 12 2007 | Social Networks |
Last Thursday, Terry Heaton broke the story about MySpace launching a news service on his PoMo Blog. At the time his information was unconfirmed but based on reliable inside sources and the company’s own sales materials that he had come across. This potential Digg Killer became a hot topic and led to interesting conversations.
Well in today’s edition of the NY Post (sister company to MySpace - both are owned by News Corp) they confirm Terry’s story:
MySpace’s news aggregator service is intended to keep users on the site instead of having them go to other places on the Web to get gossip, news and sports stories. The new venture, which could launch in the second quarter, could be a tough competitor to news aggregation and sharing site Digg.com.
This brings two immediate questions to my mind:
2 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Chris Winfield
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Why Search Engine Optimization is Crucial for Your Small BusinessMar 12 2007 | SEO |
In many instances small and mid sized business owners are not 100% sure that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the right solution for the online marketing needs, when in fact, there are very few instances where SEO is not a crucial and central part of an online marketing strategy.
The point of SEO since “day one” is to increase sales by obtaining qualified business leads from Internet search engines. Achieving this goal is possible with almost any business of any size. And, while SEO is a complex, evolving issue and requires tons and tons of work, every business Owner, President, CEO or CMO must recognize that without an organized SEO campaign in place, you will fade off the map, lose sales to competitors and bleed the value of your brand over time. You will spend tons of money on traditional media buys and find it ever so difficult to track and tie sales to those sources. To ignore SEO in its traditional and new evolving forms is to deny your company and its employees the opportunity to succeed online in the long-term.
18 Comments » - Posted in SEO by Jake Matthews
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10e20 Blog Update - Tamar WeinbergMar 12 2007 | Announcements |
Some of you might have seen Barry Schwartz hinting about his new “sidekick” recently – that sidekick is Tamar. Tamar will still be contributing here at 10e20 but will now be writing on Search Engine Roundtable mainly and working with Barry full-time. It’s a good fit for Tamar and I think she will really flourish in this new position.
Tamar started at 10e20 as a systems administrator but I noticed how involved she was in social networks, how much she enjoyed them and understood them on a very pure level. Seeing this I took her under my wing and started teaching her about SEO, social marketing and encouraged her to start building out her own blog (Techipedia) and become a main contributor here at 10e20. She learned quickly and has put together some really amazing posts professionally and personally.
