Announcing ‘Easy Actions’ – My New Product

I have been working on a new product – it’s called Easy Actions – which is all about using Photoshop Actions to make stunningly beautiful graphics.

In this article I want to cover:

why this product is important
what it does
how you can do it
where and when you can get it

Why Easy Actions is Important

In his book, The Brutal Truth, John Reese says “Mediocre graphics no longer cut it, you must use beautiful top-notch design (no exceptions). The days of ugly websites that make a lot of money are over.”

If you don’t know who John Reese is, he is reputed to be the first internet marketer to make a million dollar product launch. He has gone on to incredible success as a consultant for other businesses. When he says something, I listen.

The internet, and websites in particular, are a very visual medium – we make an instant assessment about a website from how it looks, even before we start reading the content. Whilst the quality of content is critically important, so too is the packaging of your content.

When I first got into internet marketing in April 2009, graphics were a problem for me. I was very afraid of infringing copyright and inadvertently did so.

I wrote an article on avatars and used an image from the film Avatar to illustrate my article. It was stupid, I know but I little thought anyone would take any notice of my little website at the time. I was offering free advice and therefore I was not really making any money from the article.

Suffice it to say that I soon received a threatening take-down email – for a while I thought I might be involved in legal action. It was a harsh lesson that I won’t forget in a hurry.

So for a number of years, the graphics on my site were pretty uninspiring because I could not source good graphics without spending money.

In the meantime, I gradually learnt to use Macromedia Fireworks (which was bundled in with a copy of Dreamweaver that I had been given many years before) to edit images and to this day I still use this software for simple edits.

I’d heard about Photoshop but the cost of around $700 seemed too expensive and I didn’t fully understand what advantage would accrue to me by investing in it.

So for a long time I stuck with Fireworks.

What Easy Actions Does

Over the years I have bought a number of graphics packages – some of these included Photoshop Actions. These Actions were for marketing graphics – things like e-covers and mock-ups. I was intrigued by these and managed to get hold of an old copy of Photoshop CS5.

Eventually I managed to run one of these Actions – the very first time I used it I was instantly hooked, even though I was frustrated by how complex all the tools seemed. A simple task like importing an image seemed less than intuitive in Photoshop.

For a while my usage of Photoshop was confined to running Photoshop Actions for marketing graphics until one day I stumbled upon Actions that can create works of art out of Photographs. These Actions have transformed my ability to create stunning graphics from quite ordinary photographs.

The power of Actions gradually led me into using Photoshop more and more for creating and editing images. Now I am a full convert.

There are loads of free and low-cost graphical editors available today but, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had tackled Photoshop a lot earlier – in my opinion it is the one and only choice of graphics editor principally because of Actions.

These are ‘scripts’ that run automated processes on top of a photograph that can instantly transform it into a sketch, watercolour, oil painting, poster and many other stylised forms at the push of a button.

When you add in the power of Photoshop brushes and styles and some of the other powerful tools within Photoshop, nothing else comes even close to Photoshop in my experience.

I see Photoshop Actions as a great way to start using Photoshop as Actions do 95% or more of the heavy-lifting and you can get an instant result at the push of a button which encourages you to go on and learn more about manipulating and tweaking that result.

Photoshop can now be acquired for around £10 per month which makes it affordable for everyone.

My product Easy Actions is a great introduction to Photoshop Actions – once you get started, I anticipate that users will soon be ‘hooked’ by the power and scope of what they can achieve i.e. creating beautiful stylised images from ordinary photos.

How You Can Do It With Easy Actions

In Easy Actions I go into my sources of copyright free images – there are 2 or 3 principal sources.

I then show how to open an image in Photoshop, load an Action script and then run the Action.

I then demonstrate some simple edits using several different types of Action as case studies. You can literally watch over my shoulder as I create my images.

I believe anyone will be able to do this in less than 60 minutes from start to finish.

However, you will want to then get into more advanced editing on Photoshop so I have given an optional extra of 41 videos that go through all the tools of Photoshop and how to use them. This is a one-time-offer for those that want to go a step further.

As an additional offer, I am also offering very low-cost coaching so I can cover new Actions as they come onto the market and advanced Photoshop techniques. I also hope to get guest contributions from cutting edge designers over time as the membership increases.

How To Get Easy Actions

I am planning to launch Easy Actions as a Warrior Special Offer via JVZoo at 3 p.m. GMT on Friday 3rd July 2015 for 7 days only on a dime-sale.

My hope is that I can work this product into my flagship offering so I can spend more time on Photoshop which is something of a passion for me.

I also want to sell my images as printables on Etsy and also to offer a ‘done-for-you’ service. So there are plenty of options for monetising my skills and to fund ongoing investment into buying more Photoshop Actions.

So look out for the Easy Actions Launch on or around 10th July – hopefully it will take-off like a rocket.

Scenes of Stratford-upon-Avon

When I take our dog for a walk, I slip a small camera into my pocket and simply snap the scenes of Stratford-upon-Avon that I see. When I return home, I quickly upload the pictures to my computer and process them through Photoshop. I use a combination of Photoshop Actions and ‘play’ with the images until I find something that appeals to my eye.

Here are a collection of some of my pictures – click on them to take a better look:

All this is within 5 to 10 minutes of my door-step. It seems foolish to measure wealth in terms of money. When you take the time to look around you – i mean really look, you begin to see just how wonderful life is.

My grandfather used to paint and photograph the local scenes (-a number of which adorn my office wall -) and he would be interested to see what I am doing with my photographs – I like to think he would approve

I hope you enjoyed these scenes from Stratford-upon-Avon and maybe they will inspire you to look more closely at what is on your door-step!

Am I A Graphic Artist?

I think that I have discovered a graphic artist in myself.

I have always been interested in pictures and art. My house walls are covered in other people’s art that I have acquired over the years!

Also, when I was much younger, I used to enjoy drawing but I gave it up as it did not seem to have much income earning potential as a skill.

In working with Photoshop, I have discovered that I have a passion for working with photographs.

Here are a few examples of pictures taken of my grandchildren and how I have changed them in Photoshop using a combination of Photoshop actions and touching up with Photoshop tools:

Apart from creating a family calendar for Christmas, and using these skills to create graphics for my products, I’m not sure where I am going with these skills! All I know is that I enjoy the technical and artistic challenge of working with graphics like this.

If you have any suggestions as to how I can make a living from doing this I would be very grateful.

Am I graphic artist? I don’t know but all I know is that I really love working with photographs like this – the act of creating something nice is very satisfying.

Branding: Photoshop Actions & Engaging Graphics

Marketing and branding is enhanced by design skills, so I have been quietly developing my Photoshop skills – particularly using Photoshop Actions to create engaging graphics.

Creating graphics is a very desirable skill in website design and it can be expensive and frustrating to outsource.

My coach advocates that we should outsource of graphics because we need to focus on marketing but in so doing you also lose control of your brand to some extent because it is created by someone else.

To build my skills, I have therefore taken shots with my small digital camera and turned them into works of art. Judging from these pictures, I should probably go into photography because I love it. These are some of my personal favourites.

I hope you enjoy these images of my grandchildren (who are the real blessings in my life, together with the rest of my family!) and local scenes. As you can see, I have a little bit of the artist in me. (The dog picture on my home page, is Poppy, my constant companion and disciple!)

These have nothing to do with marketing but everything to do with developing my graphical skills to enhance my web pages and marketing collateral.

Internet marketing has given me a somewhat eclectic mix of skills and I don’t really know what the bigger picture is. I am just trusting that they will all come together for some greater purpose that I am not yet aware of!

If you click on each image, you should see an enlarged version in your browser.

Easy Web Page Graphics Released Today

I’ve released Easy Web Page Graphics today. I’ve been working on this for a while now and finally plucked up the energy to finish off the sales letter and get a payment button on the letter.

I love creating products but the act of writing the sales letter and putting it out onto the market is always difficult.

If you would like to find out how I create some of the nice branded graphics on my blog then this product could be for you.

To be honest it is not as good a product as I had hoped but, in the right hands, it could be life-changing.

Click It Please

Why do I say that?

Well, for me, the discovery of Photoshop Actions and Smart Objects has transformed my ability to create visual works of art. I love the aesthetic satisfaction of creating graphics and good-looking websites. It’s work I love to do.

The problem is that it is probably not the best way of making money online. I really need to focus more on marketing and traffic generation but my heart does not lie in that direction.

I console myself by the fact that design and packaging are important aspects of product and content creation. If I can just find a systemised way of creating traffic that only takes up a small part of the day then I could ‘eat the frog’ and then get on with what I really love to do.

Anyway, Easy Web Page Graphics fits into the framework of products that I am creating to coach anyone to success in internet marketing. I’m covering all the skills that I have had to learn along the way in order to do business online.

Now that Easy Web Page Graphics has been launched I will keep improving it over time as my own skills keep moving forward.

Solo Ads Assassin is all but finished, but my partner in this project, Daniel Madeira, has got distracted by his solo ads coaching business because he is raking in more money on this part of the business. I have therefore put a proposal to him to at least release this product and find out how it is received.

That will leave me with two outstanding projects – Email ATM and Business Creation Mastery. This latter project is under construction and will be my high-ticket coaching programme. Email-ATM will be created in conjunction with my next product.

Before I release Business Creation Mastery, I am creating a sales funnel product called Honey-Trap Funnels. This is a cloned sales funnel system teaching others on how to quickly create sales funnels.

This project was already on a mind-map when Jason Fladlien released his Reverse System which costs $500 to $700 – he sold 500 copies to gross around $250,000 recently.

I don’t have this product so I won’t be copying it but I guess my product will be a poor-man’s version. I do want to templatise my system as much as possible to make it an easy system to implement. I will be using this system myself to sell my own products as well as affiliate products I like and use.

I do think that Jason Fladlien & Wil Mattos are doing a great job of increasing prices in our niche – I won’t knock them for that. However, their products are now beyond my budget and I believe that I can produce a product that is equally easy to deploy.

Anyway, the release of Easy Web Page Graphics is another step forward on my journey – next month is my 5 year anniversary in internet marketing which I started on 9th April 2009 by joining my first training with An Sieg and Mike Klingler. A few months later I discovered WordPress and I have not looked back since.

Mark Is Exploring Photoshop Actions

I have been exploring Photoshop Actions recently and, because I share what I am doing to build my business, I thought that I would share this with you.

Part of the reason for playing around with Photoshop is that I am creating a product called Easy Web Page Graphics sharing what I know about how to create graphics.

I am mostly self-taught. I started out with Macromedia Fireworks which was bundled with an old purchase of Dreamweaver. I find that Fireworks is now relatively simple to use and I use it a lot for simple graphic creation for that reason.

However, some time ago I managed to get a free copy of Photoshop CS5 (which I have since upgraded to CS6). I was buying products that had Photoshop Actions as part of the purchase and was curious about how to use these. With a little bit of experimentation, I soon found that Photoshop Actions make graphic creation very easy.

Recently I discovered a site called GrahicRiver.net that sells loads of Photoshop Actions for very cheap prices and I have been buying a few of these to take my graphical skills to the next level.

Recently Brad Gosse was offering some free stock ‘spicy’ photos. Whilst these do not really have a place in my internet marketing business, I thought that I would share some of the stunning results.

I think that design excellence when presenting your website, content and products is extremely important and I am hoping to take my graphical skills and turn my content into works of art. This combined with green screen video where I can use images as video backgrounds will make for some interesting results. I can also use nice images for squeeze page backgrounds, headers, banners etc.

These sketches have been created from ordinary photographs – some are cropped and others have been touched up. I just wanted to show you what is possible with Photoshop Actions.

As you can see I love creating digital art. For many years, I think I have buried my creativity because my employment (banking and consulting) has really been more about logic than art.

I remember writing an essay at school about an apocalyptic, post-war scenario. The creative process was extremely hard work and I think I frightened myself by my creative potential. I gained outstanding top marks for the work but I never again exercised my creativity to the same extent.

Only during the last year or two, with my websites and now with my graphic creation, I am I now re-finding the creativity that at one time scared me into almost a lifetime of burying the creative muse. I find that this is the kind of work I would like to do but I wonder if I can make a living from it?

Anyway, I love exploring Photoshop Actions – please comment below if you have any ideas on how I can make money from this!

Update:

I am finding the images I have created with Photoshop Actions super-useful for my web design business. When I have a free few moments, i create more designs that I hold in readiness for use on future projects to set my work apart.

They are also useful for eCovers, banners, headers and general website images or even to drive traffic from Pinterest or Facebook. If you want to know how I am doing it, then you may want to pick up a copy of Easy Web Page Grapghics. This product could set your design business alight with the possibilities and tools I reveal.

Logo Design Concepts

I like playing with logo design concepts and I have just bought a package that enables me to play around with any logo to create different logo designs.

Using Photoshop actions, it is easy to get some stunning logo effects and to create something quite sophisticated.

I have basically created a number of logo concepts below to see which one I like best and I thought that I would share my tests with you.

Which one do you like best – feel free to give your opinion below and tell me which one you like and why.

Colour Letterpress