Want to do your own step by step?

[scotfly]

Some of you might be contemplating doing some step by steps, it?s not that difficult to do and you don?t need to be an ace tier to do them(I?m certainly not). Fly tying is about fun and the steps by steps are about helping others. There are a few basics to learn in order to present a reasonable step by step and a few pitfalls to avoid, so here is a step by step on how I take the pics and my set-up. It is by no means comprehensive but I hope some of you may find it useful and maybe help you avoid some of the many early mistakes I made.

First a word on presenting your step by step.
On some of my earlier step by steps on fly forums, apart from poor photography, I also delivered some poor presentations. I was occasionally guilty of taking short cuts or thinking..?That should do, it?s only for beginners and you can see an idea of what I?m getting at?
I was fortunate though, Hans Weilenmann took an interest in my presentations and offered me constructive criticism, helpful advice and encouragement. I pass some of these onto you.
Don?t take shortcuts.
When taking pictures and preparing the text, think about what you are trying to show and say. You may know exactly what you are trying to show or say, but a beginner won?t. Don?t confuse them.
If you are doing something to make the demonstration clearer which is not part of the normal tying process, tell them this. As an example look at my posts on winging where I use a dubbing needle to hold the loop up for the picture, Hans pointed out that some beginners may think that the dubbing needle is part of the ?pinch and loop? process. Hence, although I knew it was only there for the purpose of the demonstration, a beginner might not have.
When you tie a fly for the step by steps, tie it as you would do normally. In one step by step I stated that I prefer a small head on my flies but  had shown  a larger head in the step by step. I had shown the larger head because I thought it would be easier for the beginners. Hans pointed out to me though that that was the way beginners would think it should be tied. So I now tie the flies the way I would normally tie them, but may say in the text ? ?to begin with take 5 turns of thread, but with practice and experience you will only need 2 turns?
The above along with the poor photography is why I am redoing all of my old step by steps.

Now onto the photography and preparation.
Bearing in mind that I am at the bottom of the photography evolutionary scale I still think I do a reasonable job of the photos. (Now)
When I first started doing the step by steps my set-up was as shown below. A piece of blue card on a clipboard propped up on a plastic box approximately 6 inches behind my vice with my light source, anglepoise lamp with daylight simulation bulb directly above. The camera, Fuji s7000 on a tripod.

My present set-up is essentially the same, the only difference being I use a larger sheet of cardboard suspended from the ceiling. The main advantage I have now is I can easily move the card out of the way when necessary and I don?t have to continually pick it up when I bump it!!

As you can see it is a very basic set-up, but I think yields reasonable results.

One of the major problems I had to begin with was colour balance. I was taking all my pictures with the camera set on auto then I read an article on setting the white balance (WB) and after setting it the difference was instant.

Here are a few pictures highlighting the difference, I think you will appreciate the difference. In each case the first picture was taken using auto WB, and the second picture using manual WB.

As you can see the difference is unmistakable.
If your camera has manual white balance refer to the user manual on how to set it.

The camera I use has a macro facility on it, so I can take photos from close range showing more detail.

If your camera does not have macro you can still take detailed pictures of your flys.
This picture was take from two feet away then cropped in Photoshop

As you can see it still shows everything clearly.

Once you have taken your pictures and transferred them to the computer it?s time to do any work needed in your software, I use Photoshop mainly and paint shop pro occasionally.
You can alter almost anything, but you cannot make a bad picture good. Normally the only thing I do is crop and resize the picture.

The pictures above show the before and after of a cropped fly. After cropping I resize the picture. All my pictures are cropped to 500 pixels wide, I have ticked the box ?constrain proportions? which means that when I alter the height the width is altered automatically keeping everything in proportion. The size I have selected gives a good balance between the size of the picture on the screen and the size on the server and the download time.

I then give them a name and upload them to either photobucket or imageshack. These are the two sites I use, but there are plenty of others out there. I use the option ?save for web? in Photoshop. This automatically saves the image in a smaller file size.

This picture in it?s original uncropped size was 1.50 MB (1,574,910 bytes) after cropping, resizing and saving it is 9.48 KB (9,714 bytes)  This makes it quicker to upload, quicker to open in the web browser, uses less space and makes Fred happy! 

I then prepare the step by step in Microsoft word before uploading to the step by step threads.

Hopefully this will help you avoid some of the  mistakes I made and avoid some of the pitfalls.
So that?s it, no excuses now for some of you to do some step by steps.
Go on have a go, you will feel good knowing you have helped someone.

[Wildfisher]

Great info Dennis. Very professional. Both yourself and Mike Connor  have raised the standard of fly tying related posts on this forum enormously. We are greatly indebted to you both.

[haresear]

Yes, excellent explanation there Scotfly. No point in me doing step by steps though as every fly comes out the vice different from the last.

Alex

[scotfly]

Yes, excellent explanation there Scotfly. No point in me doing step by steps though as every fly comes out the vice different from the last.

Alex

Thank you.
Mine too! Just do what I do.. Pick the best one for the step by step.
Seriously though, the step by steps are good fun, it's a good feeling knowing you have helped people, and it will also improve your own tying.