Hey everyone, Happy Monday! With Easter around the corner, I got to thinking about how to make Easter cards to send to the family. In all actuality, this is something that could really apply to making -any- kind of card, but I figured Easter was a good a time as any to get this going.

Considering the fact that tomorrow is probably going to be a little hectic, I figured i’d give you guys an XXL blog post for today and will be light on the blog for tomorrow. I made 4 videos, broken down into a series of parts. If you click on the “Read More” section at the bottom, you will be brought to a page where you can see all of the videos in one section. It’s up to you:

The videos

1. The video talking about the idea, the camera I chose to use it (In this case, it was the Nikon D90), and the settings that I was using for it. click on the video below to check that out.

Click here to see the Intro video

2. The lights that Using for the shoot. In this case, I chose the Westcott TD5 Spiderlite kit. I really really love using these lights – simple, consistent, and cool (temperature wise). It also helps not having a big flash pop on a 6 month old.

Click here to see the Light Setup video using the Westcott TD5

Lightroom Workflow Tutorial with RC
3. The third part of this process is what I do with the shoot once the shoot is captured. In the tutorial featured here on the Layers Magazine website, I talk about going through the pick/reject process, Collection Sets, whittling down the collection, and making picks that I will use to create the card.

Click here to go straight to the tutorial

4. The “Creating the Card” process in Photoshop. In this tutorial, I go through a series of techniques of how to get the card setup, completed, and tricks on how to play around with brushes to get it going.

Click here to see the Card Creation Process in Photoshop.

That’s it for today everyone. Click on the Read More link below to check out the contest for this week, as well as to catch up with all of the videos in one spot.

Contest Time
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM, and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question: Who writes the Artistic Expressions column this month on Layers Magazine (you can find it on the site)

The Prize: A copy of Layers: The Complete Guide to Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature by Matt Kloskowski, as well as a year subscription to Layers Magazine!

Now, for the Videos
1. The Intro video

2. The Westcott TD5 Lights video

3. The Lightroom Video

4. The Photoshop Video