About Lesa
Welcome!
A note from Lesa Snider King, The Graphic Reporter
Welcome to The Graphic Reporter, your source for tips, tutorials, and reviews for all levels of creative enthusiasts. You'll find detailed, easy-to-follow step by step tutorials on software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, the Mac OS, just to name a few. Peruse web design techniques, marketing ideas, site visiblity tricks, digital photography, software reviews, and much more. Join me each week as I upload new Tutorials & QuickTips, the latter being just that—very quick, time-saving tricks and keyboard shortcuts. Not only will I be writing QuickTips myself, but I invite you to submit your own as well.
Go on the road with me by visiting my Travel Schedule. Discover some of my favorite gadgets and software in Hotpicks & Tips. For some pretty (interesting!) pictures, be sure to subscribe to my Travel Bog.
So come and join me on an exploration of being digitally creative, learn time-saving tips, and be my virtual travel companion on the road. I hope you visit often!
Spotlight: Photoshop CS4 Missing Manual
Jan. 28, 2009
This past Saturday night I treated myself to a trip to my favorite book store: Barnes & Noble. I went to stock up on some great sci-fi books (a list follows) but as I trotted across the parking lot, I wondered, "Oh holy Thor! Will*my* book be here?!" And sure enough it was. I can't tell you how surreal it felt to see it on the shelf. The manager even came over and got me to sign them so they could slap the "autographed copy" sticker on the cover. Wow! I was so proud. For those of you who haven't yet picked up a copy, O'Reilly's wonderful 40% off sale lasts thru Feb. 14. You can find more details here.
After much goofy grinning and staring, I finally made my way over to the glorious sci-fi section (whee!). For the sci-fi fans among you--I know there's a few!--here's a list of what came home with me:
Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series, book one: Wizard's First Rule. This is what the new sci-fi TV show "Legend of the Seeker" is based on.
Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" (mainly because he keeps "tweeting" about the movie on Twitter!).
Michael Moorcock's "Stealer of Souls" featuring Elric, the albino Emperor of Melniboné.
"The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life" by Twyla Tharp (because Paul Kent tweeted about it--darn Twitter!).
Book 3, "Grave Peril", of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. I just finished watching the series on DVD and really enjoyed it. Too bad it only lasted one season!
Patricia Briggs (and others) "On the Prowl". Lots of wonderful werewolf tales included. I'm addicted to both her Mercy Thompson (coyote shapeshifter) series and her Hurog duology (involving dragons and a really hot Norse-looking dude named Ward).
I figure those will keep me busy for a night or three ;)
Lesa joins Kelby Training
May 15, 2008
Woo hoo! Today my first title for Kelby Training went live. It's a 2-hour little ditty called From Photo to Graphic Art and covers how to take normal photos and turn them into beautiful pieces of art, using Photoshop CS3. Here's a quick run-down of the content:
Partial color effect, faded color effect, colorizing a black & white photo, sepia-tone with burned edges, blurring the background, from photo to pencil sketch, realistic reflections, ornamental vector photo frame, filtered and painted edges, real world picture frame, combining images (4 parts), turning a photo into stone, high contrast effects (2 parts), breaking a photo into pieces, aging a photo, and eyes of the Otherworld.
Each QuickTime movie is approximately 3-6 minutes long and shows each step of the tutorial while I talk you through it.
Pricing for KelbyTraining is $19.99 per month or $199 per year and that gives you access to every class (more are being added every day). Scott Kelby has literally gathered up the best instructors in put them all in one place and I'm very honored to be one of three female instructors in the whole program. I do hope you'll take this new service (and my title) for a spin.
Coming soon is Practical Photoshop Elements, and whatever else I can dream up. Enjoy!
Photoshop World Fun
A 3D Photoshop project
April 10, 2008
A little sillyness ensued last week while I was teaching at Photoshop World. Before the conference got started, the instructors attended an Adobe training day followed by a workshop with Russell Brown. He taught us how to create a 3D lenticular effect and even had a specialist properly affix the lens (glass) atop the printed image to complete the product.
Loads of fun was had by all, especially Jack Davis (author of the Photoshop WOW books) and I. In keeping with the overall theme of the conference, we donned Star Trek costumes. With Photoshop, you can truly transport yourself onto another world!
A Big Thank you...
Staying in touch while in the hospital
Dec. 5, 2007
Thanks to everyone who sent cards and well wishes while I was in the hospital last week. The beautiful flower above is an illustration by YML fan Daniel Potvin. And through my iPhone, I was able to *see* all the wonderful emails while I was in the hopsital, even when I was unable to hold my laptop. Technology really is grand :)
Time Out
 Every once in awhile you need to take a time out. That is, to just sit and enjoy nature for just a minute.
Well, that's exactly what Shawn and I did recently here in New England. We spend so much time parked in front of our computers, that we like to escape on our motorcycles as often as we can to see the great outdoors. We're really lucky to live in such a beautiful area!
Thanks to the good folks over at Canon, I had a PowerShot SD40 in which to capture the moment. Just click the photo to see the video (4.4 mb).
Hope you enjoy the video!
Spotlight: Duct Tape Marketing
A week or so ago I had the immense pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of Duct Tape Marketers in Kansas City, MO.
Say what?!
That's right, a brilliant marketer named John Jantsch wrote a marketing book for the rest of us, called Duct Tape Marketing. Since then he's been training folks in the Duct Tape Ways and I was invited to enlighten them about the importance of communicating through imagery and the evils of bullet points in presentations.
The following week, John was kind enough to have me on his podcast. You can listen to the interview here.
Spotlight: Photoshop CS3, The Missing Manual
TGR chosen as coauthor of new book
April 27, 2007
 There's a new book on Photoshop CS3 headed your way in a few months, coauthored by myself and good friend Colin Smith (of PhotoshopCafe fame). It'll be edited by David Pogue, author/publisher, New York Times technology columnist, and CBS news correspondent.
Those of you who have been known me for a long time know that I work on many Missing Manuals as screen shot/production goddess, tech editor, etc. *This* time, however, I get to be coauthor!
I'm super excited about this opportunity and I hereby pledge to help make this the most comprehensive, all-encompassing Photoshop book on the shelves.
Stay tuned and may the force be with me!
Spotlight: New York Times Video
March 7, 2007
This week, David Pogue's New York Times video was all about taking old memories digital and how the Sony DVDirect turns your old home video tapes into DVDs. I'm here to tell you, if you're reading David's columns and missing the video, you're missing half the fun!
The premise was that since all the great moments of David's life lived on VHS, he'd reshoot them... as an adult. To do this, he needed my help to play a nosey neighbor and my husband Shawn's help to shoot and edit the video.
Hope you enjoy it! As always, it's tons of fun to work with David. Keep an eye on his videos as he enjoys sticking both Shawn and I into them.
New Look--Same Great Taste
 I'm proud to report that my favorite technology writer has launched a new web site! I'm even prouder because, well, I built the darn thing.
What did I learn during this paricular project? That David's writes *a lot*. The man has written a literal truckload of books. I know this because I looked up each and every one of the little buggers on Amazon.com. Oy, that was fun ;)
I hope you enjoy the new site and be sure to peruse the Columns section where you will find Vintage Pogue Writings circa Macworld Magazine's Desktop Critic. Oh yeah baby, that's good stuff right there.
Check back often as one of these days I'll attach a backend to this puppy so we can archive all the NYT columns. Now I'm headed out on my motorcycle to celebrate. Vroom vroom!
Lesa appears on PhotoshopTV
 It's been posted! Again, a big thanks to Scott Kelby and Dave Cross of the Photoshop Guys for having me on PhotoshopTV while Matt was away.
 In other news, Your Mac Life listener, Neil Carter, sent me the coolest desktop screen I've ever seen: a beautiful Mac dragon (click the dragon to visit the link and download one of your own).
Now if I could just figure out a way to incorporate this design into my existing Apple tattoo... :)
Is it Chocolate...
Or is it art?
It's both! When I came back from visiting the guys at iStockphoto in Calgary, and before I left for Seattle for FlashForward, I received the most wonderful present from my friend John Welch who I often say, is the smartest man on earth. I had given him a little tip on doing a mail merge within InDesign CS2 with a new feature called DataMerge.
The tip saved his office so much work that he sent me this *beautiful* box of chocolates. Thank you John! It was so nice to be able to help you for once, instead of it being the other way around. You are a thoughtful, thoughtful man :)
Spotlight: New York Times Video
Feb. 3, 2006
 Yesterday, Motorola announced their new SLVR iTunes compatible cell phone. New York Times technology columnist David Pogue cooked up an entertaining video comparing it to the popular RAZR. Can you spot my graphics handiwork throughout the video?
My mission was to find celebrity photos with RAZRs, slip SLVRs in their hands instead, and outfit a couple of superheroes with both a RAZR and SLVR. The Bush photo was a bonus, the opportunity to add a pink RAZR was too good to pass up. A special thanks to Ian Nixon for finding the Batman and Spiderman pics, and thanks to J Curtis for helping make the gnat sneeze.
I've been iconized!
Paul Sahner brings my cartoon self to life
Feb. 9, 2005
 A big thank you to Paul Sahner of IconizeMe.com for turning me into a cartoon character. So when you're searching for that perfect forum avatar identity, Paul's your man.
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