HD Artists

First Artist Community Photo Inside Cards Live

Our first two Artist Studio Photo Inside cards are live and doing very well!  Thank you Jaime Pardo and Neil Bushnell for your great work.  Remember that Photo Inside cards tend to be sent more often, are more viral, and will be part of our subscription program (earning you more $).

You can see the new cards here:
Jamie Pardo's Birthday Toast
Neil Bushnell's Birthday Bear

For more information on creating Photo Inside cards, check the Artist Wiki for revised documentation and samples that make the process pretty straightforward!

*As you're thinking of concepts, remember that your animation can 1) include one or two user-uploaded photos, 2) fit the photos into any shaped space (Too Many Candles fits a users' rectangular photo onto top of ellyptical cake without requiring cropping) and 3) include faceshots on animated bodies (this does require a special cropping feature, which we will make available).

Photo Inside Opened to the Artist Community

We have now officially opened up the ability to create Photo Inside animations to all artists!  This allows you to create animations using custom user photos like the ones seen on the HD Greetings site.

The process is fairly easy, well documented, and works for both 2d and 3d artists.

We have also provided a small example animation to learn from as well as a tool for artists to automatically test that everything is working before having to start the upload process.

The documentation is an open wiki site which means we encourage you to actually make comments, changes, or add samples yourself if you like.

Finally we are here to help: If you have any questions please submit them to develop@hdgreetings.com.

To get started, click here now:  http://wiki.hdgreetings.com/artists

Thank you!

Photo Inside cards

You may have noticed that certain cards on our site have a camera icon next to them like this .

This means that the art for the card was designed so the the end user can add a photo that becomes part of the art itself.  We call these Photo Inside cards. 

Initially all of these cards we done internal to our company because as you might guess there's a certain process involved in preparing the art to support this feature.

However you've been asking us how you too can make these cards and we definitely want to make it possible for the entire community.

We only ask that you please be patient with us, because we really want to make the process as easy as possible for you.  This means a couple of things have to fall into place:

1)  We have to provide documentation on the Photo Inside process.  That documentation is available here on our wiki.

2)  We may be a bit slow in processing the first few submissions in order to iron out any kinks, but after that we expect it too be pretty quick on all sides.  We've already received first content from several artists.

3)  While the process is documented Photo Inside sample projects need to be created because for many of us the easiest way to learn is by starting with a working sample and building on it.  This part will take a bit longer because we want to provide examples that are specific to the most common tools.  For example we'll have samples for both 3dxmax and Maya.  This is just happening as we speak.  In fact we sold a small car and used the money to order Maya 2008 just today.

One question we received regarding Photo Inside was if is was just for 3d artists.  Well at first yes, but then we were appropriately castigated for this as being unfair to certain artistic styles and therefore we are providing a way for any art to use Photo Inside, not just 3d work.  While we happen to use 3d tools internally, we love stop motion, hand illustration, and other styles too and don't want to discriminate. :)

Want to add your card to YouTube?

1. Personalize a card, send it to yourself, receive the e-mail and click on the link to start viewing the card.  **We recommend putting "You can personalize tand send this card for free at HDgreetings.com" in your message so viewers know how to find and personalize your card.

2. From the your browser menu, select 'View', then 'Source' (in Firefox, it's 'Page Source').  A notepad window will appear.

3. Within notepad, search for '.flv' - it is the end of the link.  Follow the text backwards until you get to the start of the link. That whole link from start to finish is what you want.

4. Copy and paste the link into your toolbar.  Your browser will ask if you want to open or save it.  Save it- this is the file you will upload on YouTube.

5. Go to YouTube and follow links to Upload a Video. When it asks for the file, click on 'Browse' and select the flv file you saved in step 4.

6. YouTube asks for searchable keywords for your file. Your card will get more views if you have more keywords so be creative.  'Ecards', 'e-cards', 'greetings', and holidays or occasions related to your card , other themes involved in the card, 'funny', 'animation', '3D', 'high definition' are all good starting points.

Making a Good Place for Artists

Welcome to the HD Greetings blog exclusively for artists!

Keeping a close partnership with artists is a core value for us and drives many of the decisions we make at HD Greetings.

To give an example of this, unlike the biggest greetings related companies we decided from the beginning that any artists featured on our site would be fully credited for their work and be able to provide as much information about themselves as they like on their profile pages.  This not only respects the work of the artist, but we feel also makes it interesting for our users to know they are sharing unique creations from unique individuals.

Another part of our philosophy is that we will not participate in "bulk" artwork.  To give a real life example I noticed last week one of the major greetings sites is advertising for "1000 new ecard designs" for which they will pay less than $5 each.  I do understand their business needs of wanting to offer selection but really, can any good come from this?  Quantity over quality is usually not a good idea anywhere but especially not when building an art collection. 

I know our company can't make all artists rich to say the least, especially being that we're a small recently launched company.  However I can promise that every single artist and every piece or work in individually reviewed and considered by multiple people.  There is a quality bar and to be frank we turn away quite a few folks who want to offer content to us for free.   As the bar gets raised over time the club which is our artists community will become even a little more exclusive.  We don't want to ever be snobbish, but we do want to be a place where you are proud to have your work displayed.

If you have ideas on how we can improve the community for artists, we're always listening.