Aviary Blog

Creating T-Shirt Designs for Threadless Using Aviary

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 03:15:49 EST

Have you ever had the perfect idea for a t-shirt and wanted to see it in print? Do you ever find yourself perusing the t-shirt designs at your local clothing establishment thinking to yourself, "People get paid to design these???" Or are you just plain sick of being naked?

Whatever the case, you can satisfy any one of these problems by creating your own t-shirt designs and submitting them to threadless.com, where you can win up to $2500+ in cash and prizes, not to mention seeing your very own t-shirt design in print!

First, launch Raven, Aviary's Vector Editor, to draw your t-shirt design.

Then, it's all a matter of creating your brilliant idea using Raven's powerful vector drawing tools.

New to Raven? Here's a tutorial on the basic functions of Raven to help you get started creating vector art.

Here's the super hilarious design I drew for my shirt.

(Click to view layered file)

In the event your image is chosen for print on threadless, you'll need to provide them with your vector file. So, you'll want to export your design to .eps format.
To export the vector file of your image, select File > Export to EPS from Raven and click Save to generate an .eps for your design.
Once complete, simply press the Download button, name your file (remember to save the file with the .eps extension!), and save it to your computer!

Now that you have your design all created and ready to go, you'll need to prepare the submission files for threadless.
You will need to prepare two presentation images for submission; one low resolution preview of your design, and a 100px x 70px thumbnail.

Creating your submission files in Aviary is simple!
First, open the Threadless tee template in Raven, the Vector Editor.
Then, select which color t-shirt you want your design to appear on from the Layers Panel by enabling the "eye" icon next to the t-shirt color of your choice.

Next, you'll need to import your design into the template.
Select File > Import file, and select Aviary Library. From here, you can select your t-shirt design and import it directly into the template.

Then, you'll want to export a bitmap version of this image which you can upload to threadless.
Select, File > Export Bitmap and press "generate image" to save the bitmap image to your computer.

Finally, you'll need to generate a thumbnail of your image as well. You can do this by opening your t-shirt design file in Phoenix, and using the Image > Resize Image function to fit the 100px x 70px size specifics.

Then, it's all a matter of uploading your design to threadless using their handy submission form.
Then sit back, wait for the money to roll in, and do it all over again!

Go on and create some t-shirt designs yourself!
Fame and fortune await you!

Be sure to read through all the documentation provided on threadless.com prior to submitting your designs.

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Enhancing Your Etsy Photos using Aviary’s Online Photo Editor

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:30:15 EST

Ask any successful seller on Etsy for tips on how to improve sales in your shop, and 99.9998%* of them will tell you that your items need to have great pictures.
(*statistic might be made up)

In this post, I'll be showing how to correct common photo problems using Phoenix, Aviary's free, online Image Editor. So you won't even need expensive photo editing software!

Help! My photos are too dark!

One of the most common problems users run into is with exposure. For extreme cases of photos being overly dark or bright, you may need to re-shoot your photograph. But often times, you can adjust the brightness in Phoenix.

First, launch Phoenix and select "Load existing file" to upload your photograph into the program.
I would recommend doing your adjustments on a duplicated layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer), so you"ll always have your original photo on a separate layer in case you want to undo the adjustments you made.

To adjust the brightness of your photo, open the Brightness & Contrast dialog from the Image tab. Slide the Brightness slider to the right to make the image brighter if it's too dark, and slide it to the left to make the image darker if your photo is too bright. Additionally, you can raise the Contrast by using the Contrast slider as well. When you are satisfied with the results, click Ok to apply the adjustment.

My photos are too blue!

Often times, taking your photos in natural light may create a blue cast over your image. You can fix this problem by adjusting the channel levels in your photo. Open up the Levels dialog from the Image tab.
In the Levels dialog, you will see a preview of your image with your Levels adjustments, on the fly. Select Blue from the Channel dropdown. You will see three sliders in the dialog. Slide the midpoint slider to the right, which will control the brightness and darkness of the selected channel.
The left slider will control the lightest areas of your channel, while the right slider will control the darkest.

Play with the settings until the blue cast is removed from your image, then click Ok to apply the adjustment.

You may also need to raise the Brightness & Contrast (from the Image tab) to fix the overall exposure of the image.

Alternately, if you find your indoor photos appear to have a yellow cast, you can adjust the Red and Green Channels in the same way.

How do I create clean white backgrounds in my photos?

It is desirable to use clean, simple backgrounds for your products, as not to distract from your items.
To enhance the brightness of your white background, first adjust the Brightness & Contrast (from the Image tab) of the entire image. For my image, I raised the Brightness by 20 and raised the Contrast by 33.
You can also use the Paintbrush Tool with the foreground color set to white to spot clean any undesirable areas, such as creases. Create a new layer (Layer > New Layer) and use the Paintbrush Tool to paint directly over the areas you want to "white out".

How do I create Depth of Field in my photos?

Using the Blur Tool, you can blur distant elements in your photos to create the appearance of depth of field. The Blur Tool can be found docked with the Smudge Tool. Select the Smudge Tool to bring up the tool's options flyout, then select the Blur Tool.
Paint over the distant elements with the Blur Tool, set with a lower Hardness level of 10-20, to create the effect.

How do I crop my photos in Aviary?

Cropping photos in Aviary is a simple job! To crop your photo, select the Rectangular Selection Tool and drag it around the area you want the image to crop to. Don't worry if you are not happy with your selection. You can always deselect (Select > Deselect) and try again!

Once you are happy with the selection, select Image > Crop Selection to crop your image to your desired area.

A couple notes on resizing for Etsy:

Etsy will resize your image to 430 px wide in your listing, so make sure your image is at least that size or larger. To check the size of your image, select Image > Resize Image to check the proportions of your image.

Etsy will also generate 155 x 125 px, and 75 x 75 px thumbnails from the center of your image, so be sure to include all the pertinent elements of your photo where it won't be cropped in the thumbnails.

(For additional tips on cropping your photos, check out our tutorial on Compositional Cropping!)

How do I sharpen my images?

To create a nice, crisp look to your photos, you can sharpen your photos a couple different ways.
The first method is to simply duplicate your layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer), and apply the Sharpen filter to it. The Sharpen filter can be found under the Filter tab.
The filter will apply a very harsh sharpening effect to your layer. But don't fear! By adjusting the Alpha of this layer from the Layers panel, you can adjust the amount of sharpening you apply to your image.

Phoenix also allows you to sharpen only the edges of your image.
Instead of applying the Sharpen filter to your duplicated layer, apply the Find Edges filter.

The image will look all funky at first, but do not feat! Simply set this layer's blend mode to Screen from the Layers panel to apply precision sharpening!

When you're finished editing your photo, select File > Export Image to export your creation to your computer all shiny and ready to upload to Etsy!

As each image will need a different approach to processing, the best practice is to experiment with the various methods and see what's best for your particular photo!
You can upload up to five photos per item, so play around with different angles and crops to give your buyers as many views of your items as possible!

Happy sales!

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Making Web Comics in Aviary

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:55:02 EST

Hey, Aviators! Did you know you can make web comics in Aviary?
Well, if you didn’t, I have some news for you.
You can make web comics in Aviary!

Click for layered file

Go on and try one yourself!

Here are a few tips for creating comics.

What I like to do is lay down the background for the panel first.
Don’t worry if the elements of the image extend beyond the canvas. Only the content within the canvas frame will be visible in the final output.
I would recommend creating all the background layers in a single layer group.

(New to Raven? Here's a tutorial on the basic functions of Raven to help you get started drawing vector art.)

Using an old classical animation technique, you can find yourself saving time by creating character templates with expressionless faces/extremities.

(Click for layered file)

Then, it’s all a matter of drawing in the appropriate expressions…

…and adding the text for each panel!
(Here’s a video tutorial created by Aviary user learonthefly on creating speech bubbles in Raven.)

Save each of the panels of your comic as a separate Raven .egg. You’ll find all your panels saved in Your Creations page.

I like to assemble the comic in Phoenix. Begin with a canvas size large enough to fit your panels.
Then, import them all into the document by selecting File > Import File, then upload each of your panels through the Aviary Library tab.

Using the Move Tool, assemble the panels on your comic any way you like.
Then, you can add a title and author using the Text Tool in Phoenix.

And your comic is complete!

If you created the background in a single grouped layer, you can easily disable this group…

…and create infinite backgrounds using your comic template as well!

Let’s make some funnies!

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Myna API & Press Round-up

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:54:24 EST

Last week we released our online audio editor, Myna.
We weren't the only ones who were excited about the release.
Here is a quick round-up of what others had to say:

CNET:
Aviary launches impressive audio editor

DownloadSquad:
Aviary Myna: The best web-based audio editor yet

Mashable:
Myna: Garage Band in Your Web Browser

ReadWriteWeb:
Aviary Rocks with Free, Web-Based, GarageBand-Like Audio Editor

Lifehacker:
Myna Is an Awesome Multi-Track Audio Editor for Anyone

Lifehacker- Again!
The Aviary Suite is #1 Underhyped Webapp of 2009

TechCrunch:
Bands Should Really Take Advantage Of Aviary's Myna Remixing Tool

For all the bands and developers in the audience we are pleased to announce that now you can use Myna along with the rest of our suite of online creation applications on your very own website.

For more information take a look at the Aviary API documentation page.

If you have any questions or are looking for a customized versions of Aviary's apps please dont hesitate to contact us

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Aviary release Myna Audio Editor!

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:53:00 EST

Since acquiring Digimix in October, our team has been hard at work on releasing Myna, Aviary's audio editor. We're finally ready to share it with the world. :)

Here's an example music remix made in Myna (Click "Open in Audio Editor") to edit the project directly.

Myna, a powerful online audio editor, makes it simple and easy to upload, record, and remix audio clips online. Whether you are new to audio editing or a professional you can get started right away on Aviary.com.

Along with the release of Aviary's online audio editor we are happy to announce a partnership with APM Music and their Quantum Tracks library which contains thousands of professional stems, loops and beats will now be able to accessed by anyone using Myna to try for non-commercial purposes.

Highlights of Myna Features

Powerful Clip Editing
Trim, Loop, Stretch and Reverse your audio clips, width editable loop points, and interactive time stretch capabilities.

Automation
Easily add fade-ins, fade-outs, pan from left to right, and modify gain over time, with editable control points.

Effects
Add non-destructive effects to your audio clips including Pitch Change, Reverb, Delay, Parametric EQ, and more.

Import / Export
Import your own audio files, or search one of our provided libraries. Mix it down and export directly to your desktop or publish back to your account.

Share and learn
Collaborate with other users. Follow step-by-step tutorials to learn new skills.

By providing a powerful audio editor online along with access to a library of professional content online you can have access to powerful tools.

We look forward to see and hear what people create using Aviary's online applications.

More About Aviary.com
Aviary (www.aviary.com), based in Hewlett, N.Y., has created a suite of browser-based creation tools, accessible and free for all to use. Whose mission is to "make creation accessible to the world." Aviary's online software offers anyone with internet access the ability to create digital content directly from their favorite browser. Current list of applications can be accessed http://aviary.com/tools

Additional released apps include:

* Phoenix , an online layer-based image editor
* Raven, the world's first online vector editor
* Peacock, an online effects editor
* Toucan, an online color editor
* Talon, a screen capture app
* Falcon, an image markup and simple image editor

More About APM Music:
http://qt.apmmusic.com/pr/apm/qt/about-us.aspx

APM Music (APM), is the largest provider of music for use in film, television, radio, video games and new media production is a joint venture of EMI, the world's largest independent record label, and BMG, the global music division of Bertelsmann AG. APM Music provides the United States and Canada with music selection services and exclusive licensing rights to libraries of music specifically for use in film, television, radio, recording, new media and video games.
http://www.apmmusic.com/

Video demo on YouTube

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We found an exploit in InsideRIA's polling software - and we were not the only ones

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 17:42:49 EST

As most of you are aware, we are "competing" in the semi-finals at InsideRIA for a discussion at Adobe Max. When I say compete, you might conjure up images of banner ads on web sites, Twitter posts and Facebook messages. Nearly all of the contestants have done things like that (just look at their respective web sites) and it seems fair. In fact, part of the purpose of the competition is to drum up interest in InsideRIA and the above tactics are well within the spirit of that goal.

However, we noticed some irregularities within the process. Certain sites, some of which were hundreds of votes behind, jumped 500 votes overnight and then stagnated for a while, only to surge again when the sites would again lag behind.

Armed with the realization that something didn't smell right, we decided to investigate to see if the system could be gamed.

We came across the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header which is primarily used with proxied requests to indicate the true IP address of the client. Or, as we discovered, it can be used to trick the poll into thinking that the request was coming from any IP address specified in this header. All a scripter would have to do is send a POST to http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/pq/237 (the poll results page) with a body of qid=237&aid=[poll choice value here] (in our case it was 1289) and add the header "X-Forwarded-For: [Random IP address here]". Send the post 500 times with 500 random IP addresses and voila! you have 500 votes for your company!

We are not going to use this exploit ourselves (and would have only shared this with InsideRIA had we not noticed it already being used by others). We do wish to point out that participating in a competition that has an obvious exploit that can be used by competitors makes us rather uncomfortable. I hope InsideRIA will fix this exploit and start the competition (which ends this coming Sunday night) over from scratch.

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Back to School: Getting Better Grades in School Using Aviary!

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 22:26:37 EST

It's back to school time! Break out the internet papers, internet pencils, and internet books (or whatever you kids use in school these days)!

Hey! How would you like to get a jump start on the other kids this year?
Well, you can! Today I'm going to show how you (yeah, you!) can improve your grades in school this year in minutes, using Aviary.com!

Exam time!

Uh oh! It's exam time, and you forgot to study!

Fear not! Using Phoenix, Aviary's Image Editor, you can achieve any grade you desire on your tests!
Simply scan your test paper onto your computer, and upload the image of your test into Phoenix.
Using the Paintbrush Tool with the foreground color set to white, simply "white out" the undesirable grade!

Select the Eye Dropper Tool to sample the color of the original grade as your foreground color. Then, write in the grade you desire (and rightfully deserve!) using the Paintbrush Tool!

Report Card time!

Yikes! What's mom going to say when she sees your report card this year???

Well, follow these instructions and she's GOING to be saying, "Son or daughter, I'm buying you a [insert current video game system]!"
Again, select the Paintbrush Tool with the foreground color set to white to "white out" the original comments on the report card.
Then, select the Text Tool and simply type in your super-believable high praise!

I'm siiiiick.

So, you've learned the preceding techniques but still worried about an upcoming test?
Would you rather take a make-up test another day for that one extra day to cram for that exam (or watch Price is Right)?
Then you're going to need a permission slip from your parent or guardian!
For that, you're going to need their signature. But how are you going to get your parent to sign a fake slip? I'm sorry, but you won't.
Not a problem for an Aviary user like us! First, create a fake petition that you know your parent will most likely support, and present it to them to sign it.

Then, using the Freeform Selection Tool, copy and paste their signature onto your pre-written permission slip, using the Move Tool to line the signature up at the bottom!
And voila! One free ticket out of class!

I take no responsibilities if you happen to get caught using any of these methods. But in case you do, here's one last tip.
You'll most likely be punished in the form of writing lines, declaring your guilt.

Write your solemn declaration on one sheet of blank paper, and scan in a sheet of ruled paper.
Import the two images into Phoenix, and use the Transformation Tool to resize and position your written line onto the sheet of lined paper.

Select the Layer > Duplicate Layer function to make as many duplicates of the line that is required as your punishment, then set these layers blend modes to Multiply.
And there you have it! A full sheet of lines!

So the next time your parent asks you why you're spending your whole day on Aviary.com, you can say, with great honesty, that you're improving your grades!
Look at me, ma! I'm learnin'!

(This post is for satirical purposes only. All content herein should be treated as such. Neither the author nor Aviary shall be held responsible for consequences resulting from the usage of the information in the real world. In other words, do not try this at home!)

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Unlimited Filter Effects in Aviary

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:38:27 EST

Now you can create custom effects in Aviary's Effects Editor, Peacock save them as blackboxes and then directly import them into Aviary's image editor, Phoenix. What this means is now you can have an UNLIMITED amount of image filters and effects can be used since they are user generated.

When you are in Phoenix and click the Filters Dropdown you will notice the option to Import Custom Filters

These filters were created by the Aviary community using Aviary's effects editor, Peacock.

Choosing an effect from the blackbox library

I have chosen to use the T-shirt Template created by mpeutz

Once the effect is selected you are given the option to tweak the effect:

The applied effect looks like this:

And the final product

To learn more about Peacock's Blackboxes you can check out the userwiki for documentation

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New Aviary Resource Browser includes Search

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:30:35 EST

If you have recently imported a file you might have noticed the new spiffy Resource browser, looks something like these screens:

You can view the new resource browser by going to the File dropdown and select Import File in any of the visual apps. You will notice there are shiny new tabs that allow you to import images from your computer, from the web, from Aviary's library, along with 3rd party sites such as Flickr, Facebook, & Picasa:

Besides for simply importing your personal photos from these 3rd party sites, you now can search from their public libraries as well.

With Flickr you have the option to search through all images that have no known copyright as well as Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution- Non-Commercial Licenses. Which is roughly over 31 Million+ photos give or take a couple of pixels.

With Picasa you can search through all public content.

Go find something awesome and remix it!

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Convert Bitmaps to Vectors with Raven

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:22:02 EST

Aviary's Vector Editor, Raven, now includes the awesome feature of bitmap tracing. Allowing you to quickly convert bitmap pictures into vectors!

Simply import an image then choose the Object dropdown menu and select Trace Bitmap

Select what type of vector layers you would like:

Bam!

What are you waiting for, go convert your pics into vector art!

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