Once upon a time, people who wanted to make design improvements to their homes either had to lug fabric and fittings samples around or call in the pros. Watch our webchat with design goddess Anna Ryder Richardson and discover how far we’ve come since then. Nowadays, anyone with a basic degree of computer literacy, a digital camera and a PC can create realistic simulations of their design ideas. Using actual images of your home as a template, you can experiment with colour, materials and fittings until you’re happy with your final choice and you’re ready to turn it into a reality.

Adobe Photoshop Elements is the simplified version of the industry standard design software. Anna will show you how easy it is to take photos from your very own collection and turn them into features of your home. Personalise the front room with lampshades and blinds of your own design, add colour to your bedroom with cushions of your own creation and make your home your own. Watch this webchat and let Anna show you how to design your home the 21st Century way.

H: Host, Yemi
A: Anna Ryder-Richardson, designer

H: Hello and welcome to the Homes and Gardens Show, my name’s Yemi. Now, once upon a time, people who wanted to make design improvements to their homes either had to lug fabric and fittings samples around or call in the professionals. Nowadays, anyone with a basic level of computer literacy, a digital camera and a PC can create realistic simulations of their design ideas. Well here to tell us all about this and more is interior design guru and pioneer Anna Ryder-Richardson ladies and gents. Anna, how are you doing?

A: Fantastic, a guru and a pioneer

H: Yes absolutely. You are a pioneer, you were there right at the beginning

A: I was yes

H: A lot of people probably remember you best from Changing Rooms but you’ve been there a long, long time haven’t you?

A: Yes ok, quite a long time, probably long before computers! But it was different then and it is much easier now. There are so many different – they’re not gadgets really, they’re your working tools and it just helps keep everything together and keep you referencing products all the time, and the scheme that you’re trying to design

H: So when you talk about the way things have changed, initially, I know there’s things called mood boards isn’t there, things that you used to use to create a design concept?

A: Yes

H: How does that work?

A: You see this is what I advise to people, anyone whose thinking of designing their own room or house or whatever, or even if they’re going out and designing for someone else, is a mood board is probably one of the most important tools that you ever have, because basically it’s something like this – I’d like to say I did these but I didn’t actually, this is a friend of mine whose very good at drawing. Mine would be a little more childlike! But you can see she’s got this gorgeous window treatment here with the curtains, couple of samples, a trim, etc etc. now that’s fantastic and that’s great for referencing all the time if you’re trying to go and buy fabrics, but what if you wanted to see it in a different colour? Or what if you wanted to put it in your handbag so that you could move around? Well basically you could just load it up onto your computer and print it out now but when I was saying about changing colours, basically there is this brilliant new product out called the Adobe Photoshop Elements and it’s not the Photoshop which is really complicated and basically for professionals, this is for your average person on the street like myself. Got some images, or got my mood board, photographed it with a digital camera, and then uploaded it onto the computer with the Photoshop just sort of changed some colours, so I decided I wanted to see these curtains in a red or you know maybe I could take it to the client as well and say ok if you don’t think the black’s going to work for you, what about if we do it in brown? Show them – nothing like showing a client what they’re going to get, because that’s what people find really difficult, is to visualise and they need to see, so with this you can change everything all the time. And then print it off, stick it in your handbag, and walk around with it

H: Brilliant – that’s what we like. Now I know – is it true that you originally started off working with children’s rooms – is that kind of true?

A: It’s very true, yes – I mean I’ll explain I’m not the best drawer in the world, I can’t do fine art, but I can do big sort of cartoony-type images, and the first bedroom I ever had, my mother said I could paint it myself, so I painted metre high blue footprints up the walls and across the ceiling. For some bizarre reason!

H: Excellent stuff. Now as you may know here we do take questions from the people watching and stuff, we have got a few already

A: Yes

H: So I’m going to throw one at you Anna, if you’re ready

A: Ok

H: Let’s see – ok, this is from Thomas Charles Whitman

A: Ooh

H: Thank you Thomas Charles Whitman. The question is “I’m about to move into a house and was wondering about unleashing my hard drive full of photos and producing some nice canvases and prints. Thomas wants to know if he should go with prints that are matt finish, gloss – or a bit of both?

A: Well you can basically have any image at all, because with this product you can just upload them, get the image on there – see like I’ve got this one here, now I found this on a website, so it’s not my image, but it’s one that you could use, particularly in your own home, and I thought it was fantastic, really, really lovely, but I thought you know, that’s just a photo, perhaps I could do something else a little bit more arty with it, not brilliant at doing it myself. So on here, in the full effect section, it’s really easy to use, you’ve got all sorts of different effects here, so for instance something like – not that one, a paint dorb, I’m going to apply it now, he’s gone all sort of paint dorby – not you know, it’s different, it’s nice but I’m just showing you different ones that you can do. Something like a water colour – ooh, now that’s nice, but the one I went with, is the rough pastels. And you can actually play with that as well, you can play with the stroke length, so you can go up and down. You can see it’s quite subtle, but you can actually change the pastel work on that, and even the stroke detail as well. But what I did was I left it as it was, and then went online, found a fantastic website where basically you can put it onto fabric and look – what I did

H: Wow

A: Now that – and it’s unique as well. Unique to me. I think that’s really, really lovely. A nice piece of art on your cushion – I mean it’s not just your cushion is it?

H: No no no

A: That is a piece of art Yemi

H: Absolutely, it really is art, and it’s personal as you said, really individual which is important –

A: Yes and a lovely present actually

H: I hope that answered Charles’ question adequately. It has for me anyway

A: Because you know what you could do as well Charles, I’ve just thought of, is you could probably do that, and maybe do that in 3 different colour ways, so a bit like a Warholy type thing going on –

H: Yes absolutely

A: Going on

H: Absolutely

A: I’ve just thought of that off the top of my head – that’s what this is like

H: Perfect. I’ve got another question for you Anna, this one’s from Charlotte

A: Yes

H: And she asks “what top tips do you have for enhancing my house which is covered with Magnolia and IKEA fittings?”

A: Well you see that is an age-old problem for everybody –

H: Right

A: Isn’t it and there’s nothing wrong with IKEA, they’ve got some great designs, but we don’t all want to have the same products do we, in our house? And we do all have your own ideas of what we like and what we don’t like, so to be honest that is a blank canvas, that’s what she’s got there. A fantastic big, blank canvas that she can play around with. Now maybe to actually apply it to the walls is going to be a bit scary. So take photos, put them on your computer and then start playing away with them. Maybe put one wall in plum which is all the rage this autumn, a sort of berry shade, something like that. Maybe move your sofa in, you know you can literally cut products out like a sofa and plop it into the room and see how it looks, so you can actually build your whole design onto your computer and go that’s what I want – and then print it off and do it

H: Absolutely. You should be worrying here Anna – you’re creating a whole nation of interior designers!

A: I know, they won’t need me any more. I’m very old anyway so –

H: We have got another question here for you and here we go – sorry to bombard you

A: Yes

H: And this is from Adam Benmore

A: Adam

H: And he says “well done on buying a zoo”

A: Oh

H: Which is a sentiment we all share, obviously. “Must be a real mission. Have the animals given you any design inspiration?”

A: Well Adam they really, really have. Now I don’t know if Adam remembers this because he’s probably quite young, but I was tinged with being Miss Leopard print and pink – once I did it. Once I did a leopard print cushion or something, been tarred with it forever. However, when I took over the wildlife park and you’ve got these lovely zebras and all this animal print – total inspiration everywhere, and that combined with nature as well, so lots of lovely rolling hills and you know trees and stuff like that. I can literally zip around the park taking photos of leaves or flowers or – just a bit of their fur, you know? Don’t know why I’m doing that, but you know what I mean – if I was up close to a zebra –

H: They could look like that! Anna, there’s people up there who are going to be very much interested in your business practices, the way you work in design concepts. Is there anything you’re working on at the moment that you’re quite pleased with, or happy about?

A: Well to be honest the zoo, or the wildlife park, has completely taken over my life. And I’m very much part of it, there’s a big old house in the middle that needs renovating and I’ve actually been trying to do some of my own design work in there, so this Photoshop has come in really useful. For instance, let me show you something else that I’ve been doing – this is an image I took of some towers in Malaysia (I’m half Malaysian so I popped out there). Now you can see, lovely image, I really like that, very strong with the towers, but it’s very dull and cloudy. So, now this is really really quick. Basically it’s called Quick, so Quick Fix – so you click on Quick, you click on blue sky – oh no, you click on that one which is blue sky, and then you basically just wiggle your cursor around the buildings, look – it’s already going bluer. You just have to do it quite carefully. Take it round the top there, and down there all the way – whoops. Bang.

H: Wow

A: A really sunny, lovely day. Who would have known –

H: Brilliant

A: But I didn’t stop there. Because I need a lot of blinds in the park, so basically I found another website, sent them the image and they put it onto this magnificent roller blind, so you’ve got a whole landscape when you pull the image down

H: That is brilliant

A: Rather than just a piece of fabric at the window, you’ve actually got a piece of art at the window

H: Yes

A: And you know just roll it back up and down as and when. You could do all sorts of things on there couldn’t you?

H: Brilliant stuff. Really simple but really effective

A: Yes

H: Really effective. Ok Anna I’m going to ask you another question

A: Right

H: This is from Nick Walgar

A: Ok Nick

H: He wants to know have you ever painted someone’s house a colour that you’ve then regretted.

A: Well Nick that’s a bit of a daft question isn’t it, because you know I have! Only a couple of times but – pink was one of the worst ones

H: Yes

A: I did this girl’s room and she – basically there was quite a lot of pink going on in there, lot of roses, and it was her best friend of 20 years that I was working with. Clearly didn’t know her at all, hates pink, hates roses, oh wait I did stick a pair of pants and a bra as art on the wall. She really took offence to those. Terribly sorry, can’t please them all, I say – Nick

H: You see I want paint – I want pants and bras as decorations in my house! I think that’d be perfect

A: We’ll talk later

H: Ok we’ve got another question. This is from Lucy Kramer and she says “hi Anna, I’ve just started out doing interior design. What advice do you have for me?” That’s from Lucy Kramer

A: Well I mean Lucy there’s so much advice out there, but I honestly think that starting with things like mood boards and having a computer is a really good way – and a camera, a digital camera

H: Yes

A: Because you just don’t know when you’re going to hit a bit of inspiration. I could be walking down the road and I’ll see a Vesper that’s a really lovely green and I’ll use my mobile phone a lot, sort of – put it onto my computer and then with things like this Photoshop you can then play with those images. Or you know if she’s thinking about designing then she can put them on there, change the colours, maybe even do some – you know some adding and taking away with some images as well

H: Brilliant stuff Anna, thank you so much for all your advice and help and everything. I think I might have to take some of this on board myself you know?

A: I think – I’ve started it haven’t I with you?

H: Yes

A: A little bit of creative thinking

H: Yes absolutely. Can we have a look at the last bit of kit that you bought with you, because I know that you have something else for us that – something about using black and white, is that right?

A: I do yes, now as I was saying in the park I can sort of walk around and take all sorts of photos, and I think they look quite arty when I take them, so this one is of a plant – a flower which I don’t even know what it is, but it was very nice and yellow, and I can’t get it up. Come on. There it is! And there was this little bug – well it’s quite a big bug actually crawling about on it and I thought that was really lovely but I wanted the flower to stand out more. I really wanted this to be a piece of art basically, so again in a quick part of Photoshop I went on the black and white and just – this one’s quite difficult because it’s quite detailed so – I might not be able to speak at the same time Yemi – but no, so you drag it up there, look you see it’s gone black and white there – where’s the thing gone? There it is. Pop it in there, black and white and drag it all the way down the edge – and I missed a little bit there – look at that! You see that really makes the flower stand out and the little insect, whatever it is. So then because I think that is pretty astounding, I actually sent it off, got it blown up, and put on to this canvas

H: Beautiful

A: And I can actually say that is Anna’s art

H: Yes. You see that’s nice because that’s personal and it does look really, really good

A: Doesn’t it? You know, I mean think years ago you wouldn’t have been able to do something like that because maybe the image wouldn’t have been good enough to blow it up, or things like you know touching up the colour or taking out the blue in the background , you wouldn’t be able to do that

H: Yes

A: You know I certainly wouldn’t be able to use the professional sort of version, but with a simplified version it’s easy

H: Brilliant stuff. Anna, I’ve been in the presence of greatness!

A: Euugh!

H: Thank you so much for coming and joining us and giving us all those tips and everything

A: Thank you

H: Really appreciate it. So there you go, if you want any more information please feel free to go to adobe.com/UK. My name’s Yemi, from myself and Anna, till next time. Bye bye