This is a guest post by the talented Chenin Boutwell. You can see her delightful photography at cheninboutwell.com. Also, be sure to checkout Fudge Banana Swirl, a site that provides daily inspiration for hip parents looking to live a healthy, stylish and sane(!) life with children. PS- We held this post until the end of the month because of the belief that any goals set the first week of January are doomed to fail. You know we’re right. 

I’ll be honest, I have mixed feelings about January. On the one hand, the New Year is an opportunity to start fresh, set new goals and establish new habits. On the other hand, the New Year brings with it a lot of pressure to start fresh, set new goals and (you guessed it!) establish new habits. Add to that the sheer exhaustion that inevitably comes during the Holidays and January can be a real bummer.

So what’s a person to do when they are overcome with pressure to be awesome and all they want to do is be on the couch? I like to start off the year with writing down three simple goals; one goal pertaining to my work as an artist, one personal goal and one business goal. I love this approach, because it means I have three opportunities for success and because it also means that, if I fail in one area, I can make up for it in others.

Your personal goals can be related to health, fitness, family, self-improvement, finances, education or anything that is just for YOU. Personally, I try to resist the urge to focus on the outside and choose to set goals pertaining to what’s on the inside. For example, my 2012 personal goal is to take more time for myself (as opposed to “get a body like Giselle,” which is also a nice goal, but which probably won’t ever happen.)

In my opinion, business goals should be as specific as possible, so as to avoid the inevitable “make more money” resolution. A good example would be to make three new networking connections, or take a colleague to lunch once a month, or reduce overhead expenses by 20%. The purpose of a business goal doesn’t always have to be to make more money. For example, my 2012 business goal is to become more productive by outsourcing and establishing better work-habits, so that my business takes up less of my time.

For artists, I think that it’s particularly important to set goals, so as to not become too comfy in our work. Setting artistic goals can be tricky, though, since achievement is difficult to measure and is often open to interpretation. This is why it is especially important to be honest with ourselves when evaluating whether we are truly working towards our goal – we can’t look to our bank account or scale to tell us whether we’ve been successful in this area (sorry Giselle.) My 2012 artistic goal is to turn off the “auto-pilot” that occasionally sneaks in when you’ve been shooting weddings for nine years. Your goal might be to master the use of a particular kind of light, or to work on a personal photography project, or even something as simple as make a photo you’re proud of.

Regardless of your approach, taking the time to set a few simple and do-able goals at the start of each year provides a great time to reflect on past achievements and to dream about future ones.

The RadNation!

We asked our Facebook and Twitter community to share their goals for 2012. Enjoy a few of their answers below, and be sure to share some of your own in the comments. 

“My goal is my word of the year Focus. Learning to live my priorities & keeping my eye on the prize” -Cathie Heart

“I think right now my goal is to find who I really am and where I really want to be as a photographer.” -Shanon Daly

“To enjoy the little moments in my wild and crazy life!” -Photo Business Tools

“Spend less time hiding behind the camera/computer, and more time engaging clients face-to-face!” -Allegra Villella

“Believe in my ability. I’ve learned a lot in three years and I need to be proud of my work.” -Jared Carr

“To remember why I started my business in the first place and to stay true to that. It’s not just photographing as many weddings as I can or trying to make the largest profit possible. It’s about how I was so attracted to the idea of capturing love, documenting those fleeting moments of beauty that tells a part of someones story. When I first started all I wanted to do was make a honest living off of something I felt I could do well and with a passion. If I can start each day remembering that, it’ll be reflected in everything I do.” -Corinne Krogh

RadLab + Video = Magic

In the not too distant past, somewhere on planet earth, possibly in a wizard’s lair far beneath a castle, the good people at Faded + Blurred had a EUREKA moment. They discovered a simple method for using RadLab to edit video. Oh yes! You read that correctly. After watching the tutorial video below, you’ll have the knowhow to edit video with your favorite Photoshop plug-in.

Be sure to share any videos you’ve edited with RadLab with us on Facebook. Please keep ‘em PG-13 though, some things cannot be unseen.

Faded + Blurred RadLab Recipe Packs

The mad scientists over at Faded + Blurred have also pumped out FOUR free recipe packs for RadLab. You can download their rad recipe packs at the links below.

• F+B RadLab Recipe Pack, vol. 1
• F+B RadLab Recipe Pack, vol. 2
• F+B RadLab Recipe Pack, vol. 3
• F+B RadLab Recipe Pack, vol. 4

Once the dust of the holidays finally settles on January 2^nd I get to indulge in one of my guiltiest pleasures, “best of” blog posts. December is WAY too busy to try and get all retrospective, so I save that for the first week of the New Year. When all of my friends and family are looking forward and planning their next 12 months, I take a look back and relive some of my favorite things from the year before; without further ado, the best of the “Best of 2011” blog posts.

Photography

Do you know who Fer Juaristi is? If not, prepare to have your mind BLOWN. In the past week, I have seen a TON of photographers posting a retrospective of the last year, and though they were all pretty awesome, few were as jaw dropping as Fer’s. We’re so excited to have him as one of our affiliates, and love seeing our products put to such amazing use.

To see more images from Fer Juaristi’s 2011, check out his full post.

For more 2011 photo goodness, check out the posts below.

• Jay Eads did a spring cleaning post earlier in the year that rocked our world.
• Neil van Niekerk did a fantastic slideshow reviewing his best work from this year.
• I Heart Faces has a best of post for both pets and kids. It is an adorable overdose.
• TIMES Best Portraits of 2011 will change your life.

Just For Fun

Because we’re not a bunch of robots here at Totally Rad! I also have some awesome, random “best of” articles to share.

• You NEED to watch this video mashing together the best viral videos of 2011.
• Be sure to check out this post of the 30 Best Google Doodles of 2011.
• Be sure to learn something from this post about the 15 most shocking social media disasters of 2011.
• Finally, check out this video from Google about their top searches of 2011.

Oh yes, on the twelfth day of Christmas Totally Rad! gave to you…a 15% off holiday sale! Yup, today everybody wins! You just need to enter the discount code TREATYOURSELF at checkout.

We’ve had an amazing time with the 12 Days of Giveaways, and it has been an absolute joy to chat with all of you this holiday season. Be sure to take some time to enjoy time with your families, eggnog, holiday traditions, oh and to pick up whatever Totally Rad! products you’ve been lusting after. And don’t forget to use the discount code “TREATYOURSELF” to save 15% off your final checkout total!

Yesterday’s Winner

Sherry Lawrence just won the ENTIRE product lineup!!!

Yesterday’s Winner

Ryan Cohen is the lucky guy who won yesterday’s B School giveaway!

The Prize

On the 11^th day of Christmas Totally Rad! gave to you…everything. Yup, we’re giving away EVERYTHING. Today’s winner is going to take home the entire Totally Rad product line.

They’ll receive TRA1 and TRA2, the legendary Photoshop actions that have helped thousands of photographers take their images to the next level.

They will take home our Lightroom Presets, which come with 51 unique tools that will help take your images from bland to bitchin’ in record time.

They’ll win Dirty Pictures, our simple, quick, and intuitive textures product that will add texture and grit to your images with a few simple clicks.

Finally, the main event, they will also get our new baby, RadLab. Our world shatteringly amazing new product that simplifies photo effects, offers intuitive browsing, and a new rendering engine that gives you unparalleled control.

How to Play

All you need to do to enter to win is tell us what Totally Rad! product you’d most like Santa to bring in the comments section below. We’ll announce the winner at 10 a.m. PST in tomorrow’s blog post. Multiple entries for the same item will get you disqualified. Good luck!

Yesterday’s Winner

Alexandra Keller is yesterday’s lucky winner!

The Prize

You need to go back to school…no not that kind of school, with huge tuition, jocks and not nearly enough respect for the chess club. You need the B School, the social mentoring and referral network.

It is an amazing web community where you can get answers in its forums, get clients because the public profiles help raise your Google juice, get inspired by the massive amounts of images in its shared galleries, and get connected with your fellow photographers through networking. I could go on and on and tell you all about the customizable homeroom, video tutorials, clubs and social forums, but you really just need to check it out for yourself.

Today’s lucky winner is going to get to rule the school with a Private School membership, a prize valued at $1,000!!! Oh yes, today’s prize is worth a grand!

If you don’t win, don’t be discouraged from joining the B School. They have monthly and yearly memberships that are very affordable, especially considering they’re having a 20% off sale!

How to Play

All you need to do to enter to win is tell us what you’d use your membership for in the comments section below. We’ll announce the winner at 10 a.m. PST in tomorrow’s blog post. Multiple entries for the same item will get you disqualified. Good luck!

16-bit support is BETA. That means we’ve tested it on our end and don’t know of any problems, but the feature hasn’t been tested publicly. If you do find any issues with RadLab, please let us know ASAP, because we want to fix it. Until 16-bit support is finalized for version 1.2, you can always convert images to 8-bit if you encounter trouble with 16-bit photos.

As an aside, this is a new concept for us at Totally Rad! By releasing features earlier, as beta-level additions to our products, we’re giving our users faster access to new goodies, and also allowing the community to have a little say in how things develop. I think it can be a potential win-win, allowing us to move faster on new features for our users, while communicating about the parts of a program that haven’t been thoroughly proven. Let us know what you think of the whole idea!

-Doug Boutwell

Yesterday’s Winner

We can’t wait to see Cassi Claire, yesterday’s winner, new website from Sitehouse Designs!

The Prize

Holy crap, 2012 is upon us! Another year has come and gone, and our hard drives are chalked full of a year’s worth of images. Luckily, today’s giveaway—courtesy of Paislee Press—will help you get your personal images (and yes, those of your clients…we wouldn’t want to forget them) off your computer and onto your walls and photo books where your memories can be seen and not forgotten on some computer.

Today’s prize is a FOUR parter. Yup, one lucky winner will be getting a treasure chest of swag.

1)   2012 Poster Calendar Kit | Professional Use Version

Do something unique with your calendar this year—go BIG! Making a custom wall calendar is a breeze with this kit. The layered templates include clipping masks for easy photo insertion. The calendar stamp is in its own layer so you can easily change the color to suit your project needs.

2)   hello, love a collection of layered templates

This collection of layered templates is perfect for pulling together your favorite photos from any event—a birthday celebration, a baby shower, a wedding. The album also works well for displaying snapshots of everyday moments.

This is a 20-page layered template album, designed specifically for print at blurb.com. Layout designs for this album are offered as both single-page templates (layered psd files) and as double-page templates (layered psd files) so you can use the album as is, or mix and match pages to fit your project needs.

3)    snapshots no. 3 12×12 square, a collection of layered templates

Like all of the albums from Paislee Press’ snapshots series, Snapshots No. 3 is designed to help you put together multi-photo layouts with ease. Included in this kit are 20 layered templates (8.5×11, landscape orientation) that you can mix and match to fit your project needs.

4)     RadLab

Oh yes, we’re not going to give you all kinds of design goodies without an amazing product to edit your images. Not only will the winner be walking away with the three products above, but they’ll also get our latest piece of Photoshop magic.

How to Play

All you need to do to enter to win is tell us when was the last time you made your own family album in the comments section below. We’ll announce the winner at 10 a.m. PST in tomorrow’s blog post. Multiple entries for the same item will get you disqualified. Good luck!

Yesterday’s Winner

Lucille Balite is the lucky member of the RadNation who will be rocking the Kelly Moore Boy Bag on all her shoots!

The Prize

So your pictures are awesome, you rock your manual settings like it ain’t no thing and no crying baby, mother of the bride, or “too cool” senior can phase you. It is time to get real and set up your digital storefront—you need a website.

Don’t panic! This is 2011 not 2008, and there are all kinds of tools out there for you to get your website up and running without having to become a designer/programmer/wizard.

One of the best such tools is Sitehouse, Promise Tangeman’s designer style groups for Showit. They allow creatives like yourself to build their own unique, custom website from a template that provides a strong foundation.

Today’s lucky winner will be able to choose a Sitehouse style group to help them develop their website and brand.

How to Play

All you need to do to enter to win is tell us why you need a website in the comments section below. We’ll announce the winner at 10 a.m. PST in tomorrow’s blog post. Multiple entries for the same item will get you disqualified. Good luck!

Yesterday’s Winner

Scott Syndergaard is the lucky guy who won a $200 credit to everyone’s favorite print shop, ProDPI.

The Prize

The Kelly Boy Bag brings sexy back faster than a 2006 pop culture reference. It has a gorgeous look with a faux leather exterior, and the material used for the inner lining and compartments is a slick nylon that makes changing lenses really easy because they just slide in and out. It is a fantastic bag that will draw you looks and compliments wherever you go. We’re very very excited to be giving one away for today’s giveaway!

How to Enter

All you need to do to enter to win is tell us why you want to rock the Kelly Boy Bag in the comments section below. We’ll announce the winner at 10 a.m. PST in tomorrow’s blog post. Multiple entries for the same item will get you disqualified. Good luck!