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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk brought to you by NO BS Photo Success Photography Forum. Dedicated to the portrait and wedding photographer who has the passion and desire to grow. Now here's your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Today on No BS Digital Photography Shop Talk, from Nashville, Tennessee, we have Mama Shan Canfield. She is the owner of Mama Shan Digital Imaging Goodies, and her website is www.photoshopmama.net. Welcome to the program, Mama Shan.

MAMA SHAN: Thank you.

JOHN: Well, tell us, what is Photo Shop Mama?

MAMA SHAN: Photo Shop Mama primarily is a teacher. I have been teaching for over 10 years. My site though offers free tutorials on digital imaging and I also sell a whole line of products to help photographers expedite post-processing; mainly, digital makeup-type products, but there are some artistic actions and things like that on the site, as well.

JOHN: Let's talk a little bit about you. What is your history as a teacher?

MAMA SHAN: I have been teaching for the past nine years. I actually took a sabbatical two semesters ago when the business started taking off. I teach at a local community college, Nashville State, and I started out there as a student and became a teacher after I got certified by Adobe as a Certified Expert in 1999.

JOHN: Now, are some of the classes that you are giving on Photo Shop Mama, is that something that can be transferred to college credits?

MAMA SHAN: Not on my site, no. Basically, I am not teaching classes on my site. For the college; the web classes that I have developed there, yes, those are college credits. On my site, what I've done is basically provided several video tutorials, so you just come and look at videos anytime you want and there's no interaction between me and the people that are viewing my site unless they email me to ask me a question. It's pretty much on demand.

JOHN: Okay. So, what exactly is in these videos that are on your website?

MAMA SHAN: In the Chores area, just different little snippets about how to do some things in Photoshop. There is quite a variety there, and I have over 100 videos on YouTube. My YouTube channel is www.youtube.com/photoshopmama, and there are over 100 videos on there, various projects that you can do in Photoshop. The Products section of my website also has videos that are pertinent to the products I make for Photoshop, so it's how to's, how to use them, plus some other little techniques and tips as far as retouching goes.

JOHN: Now, do you find that you are getting both amateurs and professional photographers on your site?

MAMA SHAN: Yes. Absolutely.

JOHN: Now, can people purchase some of these tutorials in a DVD form?

MAMA SHAN: I have several different iterations of DVD's. You can download the video Chores. I provide them for free for viewing, and there is a nominal fee for them, anywhere from $1 to $10 for a video; very reasonable. It's more like a courtesy thing because, like I said, I'm an educator first, and so I have free things on my site because I don't want anybody not to be able to self-educate, financial situations, etc. Basically, the Chores area, even though it has prices for the videos, I'm still giving them out free. I know it's a bad business thing, but that part's not about business. It's about giving people the opportunity to step up with some skills in life so they can do what they want to do.

JOHN: That's pretty generous and very helpful to any photographer, I'm sure. Well, how long have you been doing the Photoshop Mama?

MAMA SHAN: Photoshop Mama. I started the site in 2006, and I formed the LLC in the middle of January of 2007, so almost two years.

JOHN: What do you find to be the most common difficulty people have with Photoshop?

MAMA SHAN: Let's see. The most common . . . well, there's several, because it's a pretty large program. I think that if somebody has just started, being overwhelmed by the complexity of the whole program and the interface, the most difficult thing of course as a newby that happens is you're not aware the keyboard, number one, is cause and effect in Photoshop. And people don't realize that if they accidentally hit any key, it's going to have an effect in Photoshop because all of the keys are assigned as shortcuts pretty much. For example, if you hit the letter "B" accidentally, it's going to select the brush tool. You know, things like that, the cause and effect. If you hit one of the slash keys, you're going to go into quick mass mode, things like that. So, it's learning the interface of Photoshop initially that is difficult. The next thing is people on balancing color, on how to work the functions in Photoshop, and there are many because there are like ten ways to skin a cat in Photoshop, I always say. So, it's adjusting and balancing color and taking care of color casts is another problematic area that I get questions on a lot, on how to fix, but I have video tutorials that show how to do that up on YouTube.

JOHN: We are in the studio with Mama Shan Canfield of www.photoshopmama.net, and her business is Mama Shan Digital Imaging Goodies, and she is out of Nashville, Tennessee. You are listening to the No BS Digital Photography Shoptalk. We will be back with more with Mama Shan in just a few minutes.

ANNOUNCER: This program is sponsored by No BS Photo Success Photography Forum. Visit them on the web at www.nobsphotosuccess.com. No BS Photo Success. Dedicated to the portrait and wedding photographer who has the passion and the desire to grow.

SPONSOR: MorePhotos.com helps professional photographers manage their digital images on line in over 20 countries. They can help you with domain names, web site shopping carts and online proofing solutions. Please visit them at www.morephotos.com. MorePhotos.com. The online sales solution for professional photographers worldwide. We now return you to the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Spotlight Show with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: We are back in the studio with Mama Shan Canfield, and you are listening to the No BS Digital Photograph Shop Talk. Mama Shan is www.photoshopmama.net on the internet. Her business is Mama Shan Digital Imaging Goodies. Welcome back to the program, Mama Shan.

MAMA SHAN: Thanks.

JOHN: Now, we have been talking about your tutorials on your Photo Shop Mama site. Obviously, being a teacher at a college certainly gives you a different perspective when sharing these kind of things with people. Do you find that business is good right now? What kind of business are you getting on your website?

MAMA SHAN: Business right now is, for the year total, about 20 percent down from last year, which with the economy and everything going on, I'm not too concerned about. I'm doing fine with it. I'm still paying my bills and getting ready to release some new product lines, too, so I'm sure that will help with it. But really, for just being a Mama/Grandma teacher at home, it's doing well. I'm very grateful and happy about the business.

JOHN: Well, let's talk a little bit about the new products that you have coming.

MAMA SHAN: Well, I actually did a pre-release at the Inferno here in Nashville of our new product line called Mama's Lollipop, which my daughter, Nora, who is also my business partner and the shooter for our studio; she's fabulous. We came up with a concept and worked together on creating this caricature-style look and we call it Lollipop. Can I give you another website address?

JOHN: Sure.

MAMA SHAN: Okay, because this is our photography site. It's M-S-D-I-G, MsDig, the acronym for Mama Shan's, so it's www.msdigphotography.com. And one of the galleries in there is called Lollipop Gallery. So, you can take a look and see what this new concept is. And it's a combination of lighting style and it's a fun thing, where you do a caricature-style portrait of somebody, and they can make a funny face, they can use a prop, they can hold a lollipop. And it's shot against a bright orange background that's been yetted in post-processing, and we have been doing this since 2007. This is when we came up with it, in November, but we released it just in November this year at the Inferno, and set up a Lollipop booth to shoot some of the members and moderators there. It's just a type of portrait that everybody looks at and they smile or laugh, so our vision, Nora's and mine, is to lollipop the world, so we made up this package to sell to photographers to offer it as a product for their customers. You want to get lollipopped? 50 bucks a pop, or whatever. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of creative ways to market it. Just with the name lollipop, I'm sure you can think of things. We have too. It's just been a lot of fun, and we've got the demographic as far as who you can target to get these is very wide, from babies to old people. They are just a fun type of photos.

JOHN: Well, it sounds like a lot of fun. Now, you mentioned the Inferno that No BS puts on. How did you become familiar with No BS?

MAMA SHAN: Well, as I told you, Amy Koe had contacted me about a group buy, and so I checked out where she was from, who I was selling to for the group No BS, and I was just very impressed with what that particular forum had to offer as a professional photography forum. I belong to another photography forum too, but I never go there. I'm not going to mention any names, but I immediately just gravitated to this place, just because of the demeanor of the members, their body of work, and the fact that it seemed you could post something and somebody would answer immediately. You know, some forums you can post things and just wait and wait and wait for an answer, and so I just observed them for a while and everybody is so on the ball and so helpful. Like I said, it was like a kindred type of thing.

JOHN: You know, I hear that a lot and it seems that the relaxed attitude that James and Rob have really spread to the people that are using the site.

MAMA SHAN: Well, it's nice, because while we're in this business of being competitive, they do not operate, nor do the members within the body of members, they don't seem to have this chatty or superior attitude towards others. They are also teachers, even though some of them may not be teachers, some of them actually are teachers, but it just is a good karma kind of place, and that's I guess what attracted me to it, because I don't like the dog-eat-dog mode of operation. Like I said, I'm a teacher at heart and I love it when people can share knowledge with one another. That's what it's about.

JOHN: Well, Mama Shan, we certainly appreciate you sharing knowledge with us today on the No BS Digital Photography Shop Talk.

MAMA SHAN: My pleasure.

JOHN: Before I let you go, why don't you share your website and contact information real quick.

MAMA SHAN: Okay. It's www.photoshopmama.net and www.msdigphotography.com. And don't forget about my channel on YouTube, which is very popular. I've got over 9,000 members/subscribers there. So, check it out.

JOHN: Great. Once again, we have had Mama Shan Canfield of Photo Shop Mama. Her business is Mama Shan Digital Imaging Goodies, and you have been listening to the No BS Digital Photography Shop Talk. Thanks for tuning in. Everybody have a great afternoon.

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