In this newsletter:
- How to resize your art images – the AMAZING "Photo Resizer" utility
- Attention: Use your MyArtClub.Com web skills to earn money!
- Improve Your Search Engine Rankings: Making the most from 'links"
- Exploring Search Engine "Classified" Ads from MyArtClub.Com
- MyArtClub.Com visits to OPUS Framing and Art Supplies
How to resize your art images – the AMAZING "Photo Resizer" utility
Imagine being able to resize any entire folder of images, even a whole CD ROM of images, all at once! The "Photo Resizer", will do just that, creating a new folder with the correct format and size all ready in one place for you to upload to your MyArtClub.Com website.
MyArtClub.Com is very pleased to recommend the "Photo Resizer", which is no longer available from the original vendor but is available for download from your artist member page. We know it will save you time – let us know how you like it!
Here is how to use "Photo Resizer"
Download this software from the above site and install it on your computer. The following paragraphs (also in our FAQ) show you how to use this utility to resize your art images, your artist picture, your signature file and your object images. Easy as 1 -2 -3!
- Crop and orient your images.
Use your photo handling program (or Futurix Imager) to review and adjust the images on file. In this step, crop the image close to show only the art image, and rotate if required to the correct orientation. Save your files into the directory you will use in step 2 as the "source" directory.
- Select the source and destination directory.
On "Photo Resizer" set the source directory of your art images under the "Path Settings: Read images from:" text input box. The program sets up a destination directory automatically.
Details: When you select your directory of images to read from, the Photo Resizer updates the "Save Images to:" text input box to the same directory but adds a new directory Resized underneath your directory. Normally this is fine, but you can change this directory to another location if you wish as long as it is not the same as your input directory. You will need to choose a C drive directory if you are using a CD ROM as source of images.
- Set the image file size, compression level, and resize.
Set the "New JPEG compression" factor (try between 80 and 90 % compression) by sliding the bar to the left or right. This control modifies the physical size of the images that you create. For your art images, set the "Max. image width" to 550. Set the "Max. image height" to 450. Make sure the "Aspect ratio" is selected as 1:1. To resize your art images, click on the Resize button.
Details: The photo resizer will process all the images in your input directory. When the photo resizer is complete, look in the output directory using Windows Explorer. In order to see the size of the image, you may have to click on the menu bar "View" option and then click on the "Details" item. All you photos should now be listed with the size showing in KB beside the name.
You may need to run the resizer with different compression values in order to determine the appropriate setting to get the physical file size you want. Remember you want between 50 and 140 KB - ideally around 80 - 100 kb. If your resulting output images are too small or too large, set the "New JPEG compression" slightly higher or lower respectively. Once you have an image of the right size, move it to another directory so it doesn't get overwritten.
MyArtClub.Com settings summary for Photo Resizer:
- Art images set "Max. image width" to 550. Set the "Max. image height" to 450.
- Artist picture image or object images set the "Max. image height" to 250.
- Artist signature image, set the "Max. image height" to 200.
Techie TIP: To process only a few files or one file at a time using Photo Resizer, first create a new directory and put only the files you want to process in that directory. When you have processed a file, move the output file from the /Resized/ directory to a new directory so it won't be overwritten.
Use your MyArtClub.Com web skills to earn money!
MyArtClub.Com helps artists learn how to use our system to build their do-it yourself websites, which we are always happy to do. If you have found this easy to use, and have a flair for design, please read on about a potential opportunity - building MyArtClub.Com sites for others.
Many artists over the years have asked for help to build, stylize and/or maintain their websites. While many website businesses earn respectable hourly wages this way, we are focused on feature improvements and marketing programs, and so we have turned down these requests.
Thus artists who are otherwise interested in joining or perhaps improving their sites, are not able to get the help they need. These potential artists could represent a part-time opportunity for you to provide them with paid assistance, using the very skills you have learned with MyArtClub.Com.
If you are interested in helping out other artists for a fee, let us know, as MyArtClub.Com is very interested in advertising your services. In fact, we are creating a "classifieds section" with a link from the member's login page so that we can advertise your services. Write to [email protected]
If you are interested in having someone help you or maintain your site, we are interested in hearing from you too. We want to determine if there is a demand from artists seeking this type of service, and what services for a fee are needed. Services might include image preparation, website reload, website signature, website re-styling, or website marketing. Let us know your interests; we want to help you make the most of your internet presence. Write to [email protected]
Improve Your Search Engine Rankings: Making the most from 'links"
Internet search engine experts advise that the more links you have pointing into your website from external sites, the higher up in the search engines you will appear. And the deeper those links point to within your site, the more they count.
Search engines often rank websites on the basis of most "votes". The more external links you have, the more "votes" your site gets, the higher your site appears on a website ranking.
As well, the deeper the links go into your site, the more "votes" your site will get. For example, when a new artist is added to the MyArtClub.Com site, that artist's name will appear in the search engines within a few days. This is made possible because every new artist created has a new link deep within the MyArtClub.Com system, creating more significant votes to that artist's site.
To strengthen your website's ranking, consider getting your own domain name as a sound long term marketing strategy. Your custom personalized domain name not only establishes your brand online, it creates an external site to MyArtClub.Com. Thus MyArtClub.Com links to your website directly greatly enhance the search engine ranking of your domain name, instantly. Further, the more places that you register your domain name externally, the more votes you get for your site.
Experts also advise on the importance in linking from and to sites that share a common interest. It doesn't do your site much good for search engine ranking if you are linked from an internet gambling site or a car sales site (unless that is what your art is about).
For a list of suitable sites with linking opportunities, review the links page that can be found at www.myartclub.com under the Resources header and then Links. Look for the section entitled Databases for artists to list their sites for free. And of course, if you have suggestions for linking, let us know and we'll post them for all to share. Write to [email protected]
Exploring Search Engine "Classified" Ads from MyArtClub.Com
MyArtClub.Com has been running Search Engine Paid Advertisements to make our presence more visible on the Internet and to attract more visitors to view your art. Our traffic has grown, and many new visitors have indeed come.
For those of you who may not be familiar with this form of advertising, it is relatively new, and is now a strong part of Google's rise to fame and fortune. It works like this: when someone enters a search request, like "Fine Art in Vancouver" or "Fine Art in BC" in a search engine such as Google, on the right hand sidebar several ads may appear, including perhaps one from MyArtClub.Com. In effect, the advertiser is paying to be seen high up in the list of search engine results. Every time someone clicks on an ad of this type, the search engine sends the viewer to the advertised site, and the advertiser pays for each time a viewer clicks through to their site.
Our use of this advertising function has led us to explore the possibility to offering this feature to you, the artists on MyArtClub.Com as a shared cost classified advertising feature.
We are proposing to offer you the opportunity to advertise your site on a MyArtClub.Com classified page featuring, for example, "Fine Art in Vancouver" or "Pet Portraits in BC" or "West Coast Seascapes". A paid ad would then be located on the sidebar of Google with a link to this MyArtClub.Com classified page featuring an ad for your work.
The advantage of this type of arrangement is that the cost of these classified ads would be shared among all those participating in the ad pages thereby lowering the cost of these ads and making them accessible to our artists.
Alternately, we could provide a service of setting up the Search Engine Ads for you individually so that whatever was advertised would point back directly to your artist page. The costs for these ads would then be borne by the specific artist who commissioned them.
The cost of the Search Engine Ads is dependent on the words that you choose. Picking words like "Landscape" or "Oils" or "Fine Art" comes with a relatively expensive price tag in dollars per click through. More specific searches such as "Victoria Fine Art" or "Vancouver Island Oils" or "British Columbia Landscapes" are much less expensive and much more likely that the ad would be presented by the search engine. As well they are much more targeted to your local marketplace.
If this is a service that any of our artists would be interested in, please send us an email to [email protected] indicating whether you are interested in shared or individual advertising as well as what categories you would want to advertise in. We will compile the interest and let you know what sort of costs and benefits to expect, along with the specific details should you wish to participate in the program. We believe this would be a terrific opportunity for those wishing to extend their marketing capabilities. Please write to us at [email protected]
Opus Framing and Art Supplies Visits
We want to thank all the friends and artists who dropped by during our visits to the Opus Framing and Art Supplies stores this fall in Langley, Vancouver, Victoria and North Vancouver. We also are indebted and very grateful for the hospitality of all the Opus staff and management. We were delighted to meet both new and existing friends who offered lots of good advice and suggestions for our service. We appreciate your feedback and encouragement.
Well that is it for the November 2006 update!
Thanks for reading – hope you enjoyed it, look forward to seeing your latest art on the Internet!
Peter Newell and Cam Anderson,
MyArtClub.Com
Do you have any questions, comments or suggestions?
Please write to us at: [email protected]
P.S. Previous issues of this newsletter are available on the MyArtClub.Com under the Member's Help Section.
P.P.S. please pass this newsletter on to others. If interested all artists are welcome to post up to 3 of their images at no charge.
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