First "Show me your banner and I'll show you mine" winners

Congratulations to the Roane County High School Yellow Jacket staff, our first banner photos winner. Joe, the editor, even crawled off his death bed to make the photo. The Yellow Jackets win a gift certificate to Handee Burger (or some other delight). (Wonder how they attached the banner to the brick building... secrets safe with me). See if you can't top this great photo. In two weeks we'll award another prize... send me your photos.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Visit my other pages InDesignYearbook and PhotoshopYearbook

(c)copyright 2009 Bill Stoess Knoxville, Tennessee

Share YOUR Banner

Five contests you can win.

1. Hang a BIG banner with the www.yearbookforever.com address in a place where lots of students will see it.
2. Take a photo with you and some staff members in front of it and email the photo to me. Most creative/effective will win a gift card from me.
3. In a couple weeks, move the banner to another location, take a picture with some staff members and send it to me. I'll pick another winner and send another prize.
4. Repeat the process every two weeks til Thanksgiving and I'll continue to send winners prizes.
5. Each time you send me a photo I'll forward it to Blaze Hayes and he is going to select 5 winners from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia for $50.00 prizes.
6. Register for the It's Worth it Campaign. Three schools will win $1,000. For increasing book sales, increasing ads sales, and increasing options sales. Even if you don't win... You Win!
7. Encourage your students and parents to register for $1,000 scholarships. One lucky student has already won $1,000 and two more will win. One name will be drawn in November and another in Decemeber.

Opps... I think that's more than five. If you try.... I bet you win something!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.
Visit my other pages InDesignYearbook and PhotoshopYearbook

(c)copyright 2009 Bill Stoess Knoxville, Tennessee

We Couldn't Be More Proud of Our Schools

Three of the top four books in the state are Walsworth clients!

Webb School of Knoxville's 2008 Princeps received the Tennessee High School Press's hightest rating... The All-Tennessee rating. It was also chosen by T.H.S.P.A. as the 2nd best book in the state.



Knoxville Catholic High and the 2008 Shamrock earned the Superior rating and was named the 3rd best book in Tennessee.




The 2008 Oak Log at Oak Ridge High School is also rated Superior by T.H.S.P.A. and was commended a 4th place award in the state competition.

These yearbook staffs and advisers work hard to produce great yearbooks and we commend them on a job well done.

The Tennessee High School Press Association will begin rating 2009 books soon and we expect our clients will shine again in this year's competition.

Buz & Bill "The Yearbook Guys' Roadshow"

My counterpart in Middle Tennessee, Buz Watson, and I will be teaching at the Tennessee High School Press Association convention in Nashville on October 16th. Our session on Online Design will introduce the benefits and downsides to producing your yearbook "in the cloud."

We will also be sharing how to use PhotoShop brushes and styles to add spice to your book. We'll be providing each school who stops by the Walsworth table, a CD with lots of brushes and styles plus links to tutorials on how to load and use them.

For anyone who can't attend the session, send me an email and I'll be happy to provide the CD to your school.

Students Will Win $1000 Walsworth Scholarships

How's a $1,000.00 scholarship sound to you? You and your parents can register to win a scholarship. In a random drawing, Walsworth will select a scholarship winner in the October, November and December. Once you register you are enrolled in all the remaining drawings. Don't miss this opportunity to win... you can be sure my son Sam is entered. Go here to register yearbookforever.com/win.

Reducing Noise in Photos

When shooting in low light situations like school gyms, a photographer often has to increase the ISO to shoot usable photos, however the result is often grainy photos. In "digital speak" they have excessive noise. There is software available that reduces the noise and magically smooths the photos. You will not believe the results. I use a stand alone product called Noiseware Community Edition on the PC and love it. You can download a free version at http://noiseware-community-edition.en.softonic.com/ On the Mac I use Imagenomic Noiseware and while it is not free, it works with Photoshop so you can do all your corrections at once from within Photoshop. You can down load this software for as little as $50 at http://www.imagenomic.com/ they have both PC and Mac versions.

Click on the photos to see the before (at top) and after (above) to see the difference. After using this software a while, you'll find, like I have, that virtually every photo is improved by it's use. Even photos shot at low ISOs often have noise in the shadows and by reducing the noise, the photo is better.

Using Noiseware software can make a dramatic difference in the quality of your photos. Next I'll show you an action for taking color photos to the next level with my color enhancement action.