The difference between film and digital photography

There are many differences between film and digital photography. To most amateur photographers they do not matter much. They prefer the convenience, ease of use and lower cost of digital cameras and are not going to revert to the film age. However understanding the differences can help taking even better photos and can also help when debating with friends about the future of film.

Following is a list of differences that are important to understand. The differences are listed in no particular order.

The sensor: The most obvious difference between film and digital is the sensor used to take the photo. With film cameras a film sensitive to light is placed behind the lens. When a photo is taken the shutter opens for a predetermined period of time and light hits the film. The result is a photo “printed” on the film. To take a new photo the film has to be rolled and a fresh “clean” film is place behind the lens. With digital cameras a fixed electronic sensor (sometimes known as CCD) is situated behind the lens. The sensor is built from tiny light sensitive sensors each representing a pixel. When the shutter opens light hits the sensor and each pixel gets its “value”. Put together all the pixels comprise one photo. To take a new photo the photo is saved on a digital media and the CCD is electronically emptied.

What does a different sensor mean? The main difference is in the Depth of Field. Since digital sensors are smaller in size than a 35mm film the depth of field will be much higher and in fact in most compact digital cameras almost infinite. The result is that blur backgrounds can not be created.

The cost of a photo: Photos taken with a digital camera literally cost nothing. The photos are kept in erasable memory and thus can always be discarded at no cost. Also the photos you would like to keep can be copied to digital media such as a computer’s hard disk. With storage prices going down the cost of saving a photo on disk is practically zero. Film does cost money. With a film camera you have to pay for the roll of film, for developing the negative and for printing the photo. Every time you press the shutter button you spend money.

The capacity: With ever growing storage capacities digital cameras today can hold hundreds and sometimes thousands of photos on a single media. You can always have a few more in your pocket and changing is very fast. The result is that a digital camera has practically infinite capacity. You can shoot as many photos as you want and at the end of the day just dump them on your computer’s disk. Film cameras’ capacity is very limited. A roll of 36 photos can only hold 36 photos. After a roll is used changing to a new roll can take time and is not easy to do in scenarios such as darkness or a harsh environment. For that reason many professional journalists carry a few cameras on them and instead of changing rolls they turn and use another camera just so that they do not miss a shooting opportunity.

The feedback: One of the most important features of the digital camera is instant feedback. Almost all digital cameras include a small LCD screen. Once a photo is shot you can go back and watch it on that screen. The ability to see how the photo looks like results in better photos. If the photo is not good you can take another one. Being able to see the photos on the spot results in an educated decision how to fix a photo or how to better compose it. It takes a lot of the guessing away from photography. With film cameras there is no way to know how the photo on the film will look like when printed.

New shooting angles: Just a few days ago I took a great photo with my digital camera that I would have never taken with my film one. I shot a cat that was resting on little rock. I held the camera in my hand and positioned it down where it almost touched the ground and I started shooting. I probably took 50 or more photos. I immediately looked at the camera’s LCD to review my photos and make sure they were focused and had the cat in them. The result was one great photo looking at the cat from the ground. I can not imagine myself just lying down on the dirty ground with a film camera looking through the viewfinder and perfecting that one shot.

With digital cameras you can actually take photos without having your eye glued to the viewfinder. Overhead shots where you raise the camera over your head are much easier to do since you can still see what the camera is shooting by just looking up at its LCD screen.

Correcting photos: With digital cameras photos can be corrected using photo editing software. Some correction abilities are built-in to the cameras but many more are available as software packages for your PC. With film cameras what you get is what you get. After the film is developed it is very hard to make any corrections. Usually if corrections are absolutely needed the negative or the printed photo will be scanned (i.e. converted to digital) corrected and then printed again (in a long and costly process).

Changing conditions: Every roll of film is designed for best results in a specific environment. For example there are indoor and outdoor films or films with different light sensitivity. If conditions change rapidly a film camera user will have to either shoot with the wrong film, change the roll (and usually lose photos that were not used in the current roll) or use another camera with a different film in it. The results of shooting with the wrong film can be distorted colors (reddish photos for example), a grainy photo and more.

With digital cameras the characteristics of the sensor can be changed instantly for each photo taken. With a click of a button the camera can be put in an indoor or outdoor mode, low light, night photography etc. Some cameras will automatically sense the scenario and set the sensor mode accordingly.

The myth of quality: While it is true that film photography has its advantages the claim for superior quality is no longer true. As digital camera evolved the quality of high end digital SLR cameras is superb and in many ways even better than film. When considering quality you should also consider the quality in terms of composition and the scenario caught in the photo. With digital cameras’ high capacity, zero photo cost and instant adaptability to changing conditions photographers can produce better compositions and experiment more to get the best photo possible.

Longevity: We have also paged through old photo albums of our grandparents. The photo looked a a bit yellow, scratched and just plain “old”. Storage of printed film photos or even negatives results in quality deterioration. Digital photos on the other hand never lose their quality. A digital photo will be identical today and 500 years from now. As long as we remember to refresh the digital media every now and then and to back it up our photos can literally list forever and not lose their quality.

Digital Art Schools

Students who want to pursue careers in digital design now have more opportunities to formally train and graduate with actual degrees, thanks to the emergence of digital art schools. A student will can learn all about print and web digital designs through guided curriculums. However, before you enroll in a digital art school, it is wise to do your research first, so that you’ll know what to expect. Read on for some pointers.

Skills you’ll learn in a digital art schools

Expect to learn almost all digital design techniques in a digital art school. During your first months, you may be taught fundamentals covering basic art and computer concepts such as color theory. You will also be taught digital composition, layout and typography, graphic design and drawing board skills.

Expect to be taught more specialized techniques as your progress. Over and above the primary digital art skills you will learn in your first years, detailed techniques in specific software will also be taught. These detailed techniques cover the basic and the latest illustration software, advanced desktop publishing, etc. You will be taught all kinds of photo editing programs, creation of three-dimensional shape designs and offset printing.

Careers after digital art schools

Graduates of digital art schools are not confined to just creating artistic media used in print, computer demonstrations and the web. They also find employment in diverse creative fields like graphic designers. Some become production artists, assistant designers, assistant art directors, art directors, production coordinators for movies involving digital imagery and computer artists. Remember that the digital design industry is very fast paced and challenging. In order to survive, you must be knowledgeable of the latest digital design trends and technologies.

All The Untold Secrets Of Digital Photography

It's amazing how far digital photography has come in the last decade! When the technology first came out many photographers were very skeptical and they believed that it was going to destroy the world of photography forever and they were scared that everyone was going to be able to become a photographer and remove any kind of professionalism associated with this art form. We all know this isn't the case and in fact digital photography has done more for the world of photography than anything else in history.

What we've come to realize is that digital photography and print photography have been split into two different categories and that neither of the two are better than each other. Going back to that belief that many photographers had about digital photography ruining any form of professionalism, this is of course not the case. There are many professional digital photographers who do amazing work and use this piece of technology to its fullest extent.

So How Do I Get Involved In Digital Photography?

Well it's so simple, all you have to do is go out and buy a digital camera and start shooting! No but seriously though, there are some things you have to know first but they are pretty basic. First of all you are going to need to get a camera with a decent lens. Fortunately most professional cameras come digitally nowadays so you shouldn't have any problem finding one. The benefit of having a camera with a great lens is that you will have the ability to focus on different things in your shots. This is the real art of photography, being able to show something that stands out and has meaning. That meaning you will of course have to find and explain yourself through your pictures.

Benefits of Digital Photography

There are many benefits of digital photography but perhaps the most obvious is that you will have the ability to see what you have taken and choose whether or not it is worth keeping or discarding. The second benefit is that you can also upload your pictures onto your computer so you can edit and change them around. There are lots of different pieces of photo editing software out there that allow you to do amazing things.

If you are just deciding to start digital photography now, then you have started at the right time as we will only start to see more and more advancements in this form of technology in the future which of course we will have the privilege of first trying and testing. Good luck!

How To Have Great Looking Skin

Every woman idolizes the female stars of the red carpet. How is it that their skin is so perfect and flawless? Why can’t we have skin like that? What unique skin care treatments and regimens do they use? Why is it that some people just have amazing skin? There are thousands of skin care products hawked in TV ads and at the local stores. Some can be quite expensive like Strivectin SD (around $100 a tube). What really works? Great skin is not only for the stars and can be achieved by anyone with a little knowledge of skin care and treatments. It also doesn’t have to be super expensive either.

First of all, too many of us use harsh soaps and cleansers that actually dry out the skin. Dermatologists know this and routinely prescribe and recommend gentle cleansers like Cetaphil that will clean without irritation. Irritation can lead to rashes and breakouts. It can also worsen acne. Yes, in some really oily cases, dermatologists will recommend a strong anti oil soap like Dial soap. But for regular to dry skin it will cause over drying and can cause photo aging of the skin (which causes wrinkles and fine lines to appear before their time).

It is a good idea to follow up with a moisturizer that is non comodogenic or non pimple causing. Find a moisturizer that you like and stick with it, one that smells pleasing, does not cause skin allergies, and one that you really like. It is important to find a moisturizer with sun blocking features added. If it does not then you will need to add a sun lotion to your regimen. Basically, you want to keep your skin care regimen as simple as possible. The simpler it is the more likely you will follow it. Every added and unnecessary step will make it that much more likely that it will end up like a New Years resolution, a wish that doesn’t hold out.

Limit sun exposure as it can age your skin and cause wrinkling, sun spots, freckles and fine lines. Yes, many of the stars always seem to have beautiful tans and the sun only makes them look better. The reality, though, is that many of them fake it. They use spray on tans and products with self tanners in them. They also have these professionally applied so it is a beautiful and seem less application. Also, many of the pictures we see have actually been touched up by computer photo editing and digital software. The latest advances in digital photo editing have recently been revealed in articles in the New York Times and it is quite amazing. They can add or remove weight, age or rejuvenate skin, etc… So, many times when we see these stars and how beautiful they may look, they really don’t look that way.

One treatment currently used by almost every plastic surgeon and dermatologist on stars and non stars is the TCA peel. The TCA peel has the ability to remove several layers of skin and reveal younger and fresher skin from underneath. It can treat aging skin, remove or lessen blemishes and pigmentation problems, even tighten skin as it increases the production of collagen. A TCA peel will also restore the skins pH to normal and reduce the conditions favorable to a bacterial infection like acne. TCA peels are actually one of the only treatments currently used for both anti aging and acne treatment. So there you have some great advice, use a gentle cleanser, moisturize, use a high SPF protection, get a TCA peel, and don’t get discouraged as the stars don’t always have perfect skin.

Online Photography Schools

Have you been a photography hobbyist for a very long time? Are you now thinking of enrolling in photography school to enhance your skills but do not have the time? What is your choice of equipment? Do you prefer using those analog/manual type cameras or are you a techie who loves the flexibility that your digital SLR gives you? Whichever equipment you use, the principle you need is the same, and there are online schools you can enroll in and take classes at your own pace.

Learning photography from an online school would not limit you because of your age. As long as you have an Internet connection, you are good to go. By enrolling yourself in an online photography school, you will get access to their virtual library on the best techniques to utilize and what equipment you can use to enhance your pictures. You will probably begin by learning the basics using a manual SLR camera. With this kind of camera, you can easily see the different components of photography – from the aperture to the shutter speed, exposures and cropping.

With a digital camera, you will learn that you can opt to produce sepia images with ease. You can access tutorials on lighting techniques and the different lighting utilities and lenses for photo enhancements. A lot of websites offer tips for even the most casual photographers.

You can find lessons on creative techniques used by professionals and how they produce photographs for different genres such as portraits, fashion, documentary, sports, landscape, macro, wildlife, travel, night photos, advertisements and the like. These techniques can help you capture breathtaking images to capture special moments in a person’s life or even something historical.

If you use your computer to help you in your photography, you can also find lessons in digital file management and basic layering and masking using your photo editing software.

Your Digital Photo Developing Options

These days, purchasing a dedicated digital photo printer for developing your digital photos may be a more costly and necessary route than selecting a reputable digital printing service. There are many services online that will print your digital photos. If you need results faster, almost every modern drugstore or photomat offers digital printing. Usually this is as simple as placing your digital cameras memory card in a machine and selecting which photos you want and any other options. Your images then print right before your eyes.

Digital photo prints usually cost the same or even less than traditional prints, but the savings go even deeper. One of the biggest advantages digital photography has over traditional photography is that you can choose to only print the images you want. Imagine the money you would have saved over your lifetime if you could pick and choose your film based prints. No more dozens of blurry throw away images, now digital photography technology has made it easy for you to simply submit the images you actually want, not the ones you dont.

The real question is one of quality. Luckily, the technologies that are involved are advancing rapidly. Todays digital prints are made to last decades without fading or discoloring. The lifetime of a professionally printed pictures is now equivalent to the lifetimes of film based pictures. This is another major advantage that professional digital printing has over do it yourself photo printers, they last longer. The prints that you make yourself with most consumer photo printers do not share the long lifespan of prints that have been made professionally. This is mostly due to the use of commercial grade archival paper and ink in the printing process.

Preparing your photos for printing is really easy. First, you can make any desired corrections to image quality with your favorite photo editing software. Then, you simply save your images (usually as .jpeg) and upload them over the internet to the photo printers website. If you are printing them locally, you would simply take your memory card with you and either place it into the self service machine or hand it to the clerk.

If you ordered your photos from an online photo printer, you can usually expect your images to arrive at your home in 2 to 5 days, depending on the service you choose and other variables. You will likely be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the images you receive. If you are using a relatively modern digital camera (with high enough resolution), the resulting images will be the same quality or better than if they were developed from film. Digital based photos at higher resolutions store more "information" (pixels) in the image than can fit into the fine grains of film. This extra data makes for finer, better prints.

As you can see, there are many cost effective options for digital photo developing. So, save your money on a photo printer and get those images ready to upload. Its fun, its easy, and the pictures will last a lifetime.

Internet Newsletter Use of Graphics

Internet newsletters are designed to catch the reader's attention and direct them towards your website. One of the biggest dangers of today's online newsletters isn't the lack of good content - it's the way it's content is presented, often in the most boring and unattractive graphical layout. Graphics and photos will make any boring looking text much more attractive. On the other hand, the more graphics you have the longer it will take for the newsletter to load on the subscriber's computer. Valuable subscribers will be lost if your newsletter takes long to load. Remember that your readers want quick and accurate information, and while it's your task to present that in a visually attractive way, it's also your responsibility not to keep them waiting excessively.

Using Graphic Elements in Your Newsletter

One common and effective way of presenting an Internet newsletter is by creating a design that resembles your website's visual aspect. In other words, you can use the same kinds of graphics, separators, column borders, buttons or even headers to make your newsletter look and feel like your website. Of course, all these graphical elements take their share of download time, and things get worse when you add large photos to the newsletter. If you want to approach your newsletter layout like this, try to minimize the number of graphical elements borrowed from your website. Reduce the fancy banner to a thin graphic that houses the name of the newsletter and get rid of some of the column borders and page separators. You can also drop the menu graphics and simply choose a similar background color and text links instead of buttons.

Using Photographs in your Online Newsletter

A newsletter that has no photographs is dull and has less chances of impressing your subscribers. But as we have shown before, photos lead to longer download times. However, you can always process the photos to make them express the same thing but eat up a lot less space. Here are a few tips on hot to do that:

* Try to make the photos smaller - they don't have to stretch on the entire page. In most cases, a 200 by 200 pixel wide photo will have the ability to tell a story without excessive download time

* Use a photo editing software to reduce the quality of the graphics. In many cases, the visual aspect of the photo is almost identical between a high resolution and a lower resolution and smaller image

* If you are using photos taken with your own camera, or scanned from publications, be aware that most are at 300 dpi (dots per inch). Web graphics should be saved to be around 72 dpi - try this with a photo and see the huge difference in size between the two, while the quality stays the same

Using Text Elements to Make your Newsletter More Dynamic

You can also use different text elements to bring some color in your newsletter. You can use larger drop caps, or assign them a different color, for a nice professional look. Bold or italic text can also be used to bring variation in the newsletter design. While playing with font size and color is fine, make sure not to use fonts that browsers won't be able to read.

The newsletter graphics and the visual aspect of your publication play a vital part in the success of your promotion campaign. A newsletter with excellent content and a graphic layout to support it will become a very effective traffic building tool.

RAM What is It & Why You Need Plenty

This is the first article in the Understanding Your Computer series from aworldofhelp.com. Our goal is to help people understand how their computer works, not simply tell them what they need to buy or use. When you know how your computer works, buying the right system or upgrade is easy. The series is designed to provide valuable information to users of all knowledge levels, so if part of it seems too complicated or too simple for you, I hope you read on and get all you can out of the articles. If you have questions or comments about this or any article, please ask in the forums!

RAM - What is it & why you need plenty

Many people picture a computer as consisting in part of a

Processor - CPU

Memory - RAM

Hard Drive

The way these three components interact is important to understanding how a computer works, and ultimately to understanding why you need enough RAM for your programs. Around the Internet and in Magazines you can find recommended RAM amounts for typical users. You also will find many places proclaiming RAM as the best performance for your dollar upgrade. I don't disagree at all, but I want you to understand what RAM actually does, and why it can be such a valuable upgrade.

I covered this subject briefly in the aworldofhelp Notebook Buyer's Guide on page 4. The information in that article is accurate, but I want to try to make things a little clearer here.

The article is divided into four sections, covering:

1. The functions of the three components we are discussing and their relative speeds

2. Why you need RAM and what takes up RAM

3. Multitasking and how RAM improves performance

4. How much RAM you need

CPU stands for Central Processing Unit. It is the brain of your computer. When you open a program, like Microsoft Word for example, the CPU reads through lines of computer code and follows the instructions so you can use your program. When you play an audio file like an MP3, the CPU has to do work to decompress it while it plays. When you edit a picture the CPU has to perform many calculations to make even the smallest changes.

One thing to note is that the CPU actually does have a very small amount of memory in it. This is the fastest memory in a computer system, but it is so small it doesn't really affect this article. Generally speaking, the CPU doesn't store the information that makes up the program, MP3, or picture, it only processes it. The data has to be located somewhere in your computer, and the CPU has to find it and then retrieve it.

That action, the problem of locating the data and how it affects your overall system performance is what this article is about.

RAM

RAM stands for Random Access Memory. This memory is very fast, and you will see it in sizes like 256 MB, 512 MB, or 1024 MB. When you turn off your computer, the contents are erased, so it is only temporary memory. This is where the CPU looks first to get data to process. So if you are editing a picture, and its data is in this RAM, because RAM is fast memory, editing the picture will happen relatively quickly.

Hard Drive

Your Hard Drive is where you store all of your programs, music, video, and everything you keep on your computer. This is the memory where you store your files that remain even after you turn your system off. You will see them in all sizes, now typically ranging from 30 GB, to hundreds of GB. Hard drives are very slow compared to your CPU and RAM because they are mechanical. Inside the disk there are actually small readers that physically move around to locate and read data.

If you are editing a picture, the CPU will first look in RAM memory to see if it is there, because RAM is fast. If it isn't, the CPU will go to the hard drive and edit the picture there. Because your hard drive is so slow, this takes a much longer time than if the picture had been in RAM.

Again, the CPU only stores a tiny bit of data, so it has to get it from somewhere to operate on. If the CPU has data to process, it will do so as fast as it can, but if it doesn't, the brain of your computer simply sits and waits doing nothing. Only after it finds and retrieves the data it needs can it process it.

So ideally, you want your CPU to find data in the fastest place possible. As you can see, if the data is in RAM you are far better off than if it is in your hard disk because RAM is so much faster. Just take a look at the graph below. It shows the time it takes to access each memory type in nanoseconds.

Clearly, your hard drive is slow, but when you look at the above graph, and you see the numbers it is based on below, you realize just how slow it is. Each is an approximate access time in nanoseconds:

CPU 1 ns
RAM 60 ns
Hard Drive 10,000,000 ns

It should be clear why the bars for your CPU and RAM do not even show up on this graph, your hard drive is simply extremely slow.

So why bother with a hard disk?

Seeing that, you might think that it would be great if you could just use huge amounts of RAM instead of a hard disk. You are right, this would be a great situation, but as you might imagine, the faster the memory in your computer, the more expensive it is. RAM prices have come down significantly in recent years, but it will still cost you much more compared to Hard Drive space.

Computers work within this constraint - that faster memory is more expensive - by looking in the fastest place for information first, then moving to slower locations only when they need to. So if you hear your hard drive making noise or you see a light telling you it is being accessed, you know the data could not be found in RAM.

Now you know that the hard drive access that's going on is very slow, and that is the reason your CPU, and in turn you, have to wait.

So now you know that you want lots of RAM, at least enough for all your programs, so you don't have to access your slow hard drive too often. But what actually uses your RAM, and how can you see whether your system has enough?

Windows itself takes up a lot of RAM. Microsoft says Windows XP will run on a machine with 64 MB of RAM, though they recommend 128 MB or 256 MB. If you have even more RAM than that, and I recommend you do, Windows will use some of it as well.

Everything that loads when you boot up your computer also uses RAM. What these programs are actually doing is putting themselves in to RAM, if enough is available, so that they can be used very quickly. The problem is when there isn't enough memory for all these programs, and your computer runs very slowly.

On my machine these programs load when I turn on my computer:

 AVG Antivirus
Scanner Software
Digital Camera Software
Gmail Notifier
AOL Instant Messenger
And some server software for testing

Then, everything I run after the boot up uses more RAM. Whatever Internet Browser I use, for example, takes up RAM. Microsoft Word does too, as well as all my programs. To see how much RAM you have and how much free RAM you have, you can open up Task Manager by right clicking on the start menu and selecting it, it looks like this.

On the right, in the Physical Memory section my RAM is listed. My total and available memory is listed, and as you can see, just booting my computer into Windows XP and loading all the things I do, I have less than half of my RAM available for other programs.

Your system will probably have less total RAM, but you'll be able to see how much and how much you have free. You can easily find out how much ram you have by right clicking on "My Computer" and going to properties, but it's useful to see it here so you understand what the Task Manager is showing. You can use this tool to convert the number shown in "K" to a number that you may be more comfortable with, in "MB".

K MB

On my computer, 1048040 K converts to 1023.4 MB, which is 1024 MB.

Your own system may give you a number a few megabytes lower than the actual. For example, 252 instead of 256. That is normal, and is a result of something else, like a video chip, using a portion of the RAM. The actual RAM your programs has to work with is the number listed in the Task Manager.

In my example, I have a hundreds of Megabytes of free RAM. I sometimes fill the RAM if I am video editing or photo editing, but beyond that, it is rare. This is a good thing though, remember the chart. If your RAM is full, your Hard Drive will be used more, and since it is so slow, your system will grind to near a halt.

By looking at the Task Manager, you can get a good idea of how your system is running. If you have lots of available RAM, you are in good shape. But many systems I see actually have almost no free RAM, and this is what causes the system to use the hard disk instead and run slower. Note that the available RAM will generally never hit zero, but will fluctuate around very low numbers if your system is out of memory.

Our example so far has been simplified to show how doing one thing on your computer needs memory. But a real benefit of having adequate memory is multitasking. Basically, if you are doing more than one thing at a time, you are multitasking. If you are reading this article and editing a picture at the same time, you are multitasking.

Generally, if you can switch between two open programs on your machine very quickly, they both are loaded into RAM. In this case, you can likely see plenty of available memory in Task Manager. On my machine, since I have plenty of RAM, I switch between two or three Internet browsers, Excel, PowerPoint, Instant Messenger, my audio player, and more very quickly.

On the other hand if you don't have enough RAM, even with just two programs open, when you switch between them your computer may slow down considerably. The program you are switching to is not in RAM, and the CPU is forced to get information from the hard disk. As you open more programs, the situation only gets worse. A check on task manager in this case will likely show very little free RAM, too little in fact to fit all your programs.

How Much RAM do you need?

The best answer is that you need enough RAM to run all your programs and multitask between them quickly. If your system is running well and you check Task Manager and have lots of available RAM, you are probably in good shape. If your system is slow switching between more than one program, look at the task manager and see if your available RAM is low. If it is, adding more will likely make your entire system run faster, just by fitting more programs into RAM.

You'll be amazed how fixing this problem will improve you computing experience overall. That is the reason so many people talk about RAM as being the best upgrade for older systems.

If you are buying a new computer 512 MB is a good amount of RAM for most users. If you edit a lot of pictures or video, or if you can just afford the upgrade, moving up to 1024 MB (1 GB) is not a bad idea. Memory prices are much lower than they used to be, and you'll have extra memory for more programs now. For most users, the biggest advantage to getting more RAM is that if you keep your computer for a long time, the extra RAM could save you an upgrade down the road.

But how much RAM is too much? Well you won't really slow down your system by adding RAM. Typical systems currently can accommodate up to anywhere from 512 MB - 2 GB of RAM. The problem is, after you have enough RAM, adding more really doesn't get you much, if any performance gain.

With that in mind, check back soon for an article comparing performance of common applications, including multitasking, with different amounts of RAM. We'll test from 256 MB to 1024MB, and you'll be able to see how all we've covered here has a real affect on the speed of your computer.

Unique Gift Ideas for Family and Friends Picture Gifts

Giving gifts is one of the most wonderful experiences that you will ever have. Just watching your loved one's expression once they received the gift is priceless. So, if your family or friends is celebrating something on just about any occasion, you want to give them something that is unique something that they can use everyday.

With today's technology, you can do almost anything to your photos. By just having a home computer, you can install your favorite photo editing software and manipulate your photos. You can even scan your previous photos and store it digitally in your computer.

The software can even let you place celebrities on your photo and make it seem like they are posing with you. You can even print your own photos in a photo paper. However, editing and printing your photos isn't the only thing that you can do with it. You can even print your favorite photos on just about anything. You can print it on T-shirt transfer paper and iron the print on your shirt, or just about any cotton fabric you choose.

There are a lot of gift ideas that you can think of by just using your favorite picture. With a gift idea like this, you will surely keep your friends and family guessing just how you did it. The iron-on T-shirt transfer is one of the most common gift ideas available. It only requires you to digitize your favorite photo or your friend's favorite photo, print it completely reversed on a T-shirt transfer paper and iron the print on a fabric.

Another picture gift idea that your family and friends can truly appreciate is by printing a special photo in a coffee mug. For example, if your friend just had a baby, you can take a picture of the new mom holding her first baby for the first time and print it on a coffee mug. This is definitely a perfect gift for your friend who recently became a mom.

Just imagine, the morning she wakes up for a cup of coffee, she will always remember the first time she held her child. This kind of gift is truly unique and will really show your creativity. These kinds of gifts are simple and can be cherished for a long time.

You can even personalize a mouse pad that you can give to your coworkers. A picture can be printed onto a mouse pad. It can be a photo of him or her making faces. With this kind of gift, your coworker can truly appreciate the thought and they will surely remember the fun times you and your coworker had in the office.

There are lots more picture gift ideas that you can give as a gift to your loved ones. You can even personalize a handbag and give it to your friends who collect handbags. It can be a photo of you and your friend having a great time or it can be anything at all that your friend will have good memories of.

Giving these kinds of picture gift ideas will not only show how thoughtful you are and how creative you are, it will also show how much you cherish those memories you spent with the special people around you. So, whether you are giving gifts to your friends, your parents or to your brothers and sisters, you can really give a gift that they can truly appreciate by giving something that has a memorable picture printed on it.

A New Tradition Create A Holiday Memory Book

The Holidays are a magical time of year, especially if you have or spend time with young children. Seeing the holiday through their eyes is so special. The memories created from our own childhood Holidays shape how we present the holiday season to our own children. A Holiday Memory Book can be a wonderful new tradition to help preserve and share those memories year after year.

A Holiday Memory Book can be as simple as your favorite photographs from each holiday season placed in a special photo album. Each year, add a page or two of photographs from that year’s holiday. Or, you can get more creative and make a scrapbook. It can be a tradition paper scrapbook if that is something you enjoy, or a digital scrapbook.

There are many digital scrapbooking sites that offer information and free templates, papers, and embellishments to get you started and most have digital kits based on themes you can download. You’ll need a photo editing software to work with, most that come with your digital camera will work fine. There are also some available with free trials and for purchase that are inexpensive and good for a beginner to intermediate scrapbooking.

Include photographs of the family celebrating the holidays. Everyone gathered at the table for the holiday dinner, opening the gifts, and decorating the tree. Also include any special holiday events like a child’s school play, a holiday party, and the visit with Santa. If you are creating a scrapbook, add some journaling detailing the gifts received that year for each person and anything else you want to be sure to remember including that custom holiday card you sent out!

A new tradition is formed. Early in the new year, a family project can be choosing the pictures to add and creating new scrapbook pages to add to the album. Every year the album comes out with the rest of the Holiday decorations and sits in a special place for everyone in the family and your visitors to enjoy and spark the memories of Christmases past.

Cant Print Wont Print

Digital photography has exploded, exceeding all forecasted figures and many of us have one or more of these great devices, but one of the basic values of photography has been lost in the transfer from film to digital cameras.

Research shows that the majority of digital photo's are not printed or published in any way, instead billions of photos are sitting on computers and memory cards all over the world, hidden away in cyberspace. This is a sad prospect as passing photographs through friends, family and generations has been a tradition for many years, reminding us of our ancestors and memories of times gone by. Photographs gain importance with age and there is a pleasure in flicking through old photos. It should be remembered that it may not always be possible to view photos held on today's digital media, as progress may backdate the media type and the compatibility to read them. We should therefore not overlook the importance of making actual prints of our precious digital snaps.

The major reason for our reluctance to print digital photos is the perceived complications in printing a quality digital print, but with digital photo kiosks, affordable photo printers and easy to use software, it is really not that hard. It is entirely possible for the novice computer user to produce great quality prints from their digital camera using the home photo printer.

Generally speaking, getting a picture from your digital camera to your printer normally involves these simple steps:

1. Copy images from camera to a folder on your computer.

2. Load up your printing software and choose the images you would like to print.

3. Select the size and type of paper you are using (always use photo paper).

4. Print your photos.

A great new function on many of the latest cameras and printers cuts the process right down. The PictBridge print system is probably the easiest way of getting your images from your camera on to photo paper. This system does rely on having both a PictBridge compliant printer and a PictBridge compliant camera, but most new photo printers and cameras on the market will have PictBridge as standard - but it's worth checking out if you are about to buy a printer or camera.

The PictBridge system allows you to print directly from your camera to the printer without the use of a computer. You can select photos, print size and quantities, all from the screen of the camera and process the print with a button!

The great thing about printing your own pictures is that you have total control, choice and discretion. You can print as many copies as you like, choose various sizes and finishes and using photo editing software, you can tweak your pictures as a dark room technician would, or even get creative! In fact half the fun of digital photography is what you can do with the printing of the photo.

Desktop Processors A Brief Guide

The Stone Age:

If you are like me, you have spent the majority of your life in the PC Age. I can remember toying with the very first Personal Computers. In those days you were generally required to write your own programs in BASIC and your code or programs were stored to either a cassette tape, or, if the program was small enough, to a 5 ½ floppy. I spent many a day playing true gaming classics like Oregon Trail or a two-dimensional Star Trek game played with the up and down arrow keys on a keyboard. One thing is certain; PC performance has increased virtually exponentially since their inception.

As I write this guide, I am surrounded by a faint glow that comes from my well loved Macintosh Color Classic PC, which at the time of its manufacture, came with an "An Oh So Powerful" 16 MHz processor and an 80MB Hard Drive. I was so impressed with my Mac when I purchased it; it had a small but bright color screen built in, a hard drive, and a 3 1/4 inch floppy drive. Thanks to Al Gore I could hook up a 1200 baud modem and access a world of ASCII websites via the "Internet". I truly viewed my Macintosh as a portable PC, it was relatively light and easy to tote around and I took it virtually everywhere I could. Today my Macintosh is still functional, however the only real purpose it serves is as something of a curiosity to any visitors I may have under the age of 25.

What a Difference a Decade Makes:

I am writing this guide on a Dell Latitude Laptop which I purchased a mere 13 years after the Macintosh. My Laptop is far from the latest and greatest in portable technology, yet it is hundreds if not thousands of times more powerful than my beloved Macintosh.

We all recognize that Personal Computers serve many functions in our lives, from reducing complexity, to entertainment, the list is virtually endless and their impact on out lives truly astonishing. Central to the seemingly unreal advancement in PC performance over the last 2 decades is the processor. Processors or CPUs as they are commonly called are present in virtually any electronic device that you touch today. Whether you are looking to upgrade your current PC or buy an entirely new system, you can quickly become confused by the sheer range of processors that are available and the terminology associated with said Processors.

The purpose of this guide is to give you a basic understanding of CPUs and to help you make a good decision when deciding on what CPU is right for you. This guide is not meant to be a technical dissertation; its goal is to provide very general information and designed to give you, the reader, a general understanding of what a processor is and to help you make a good decision when it comes time to purchase. If you are more technically oriented, I would suggest the many tech-detailed guides available elsewhere online.

First Things First: What is a CPU?

CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, and even after many years of refinements in PC technology, the CPU is still the central part of your computer's operations. A CPU manages the flow of data throughout your entire PC. The role of a CPU is to manipulate (process) data that passes through your PC, reading it from your PC's devices, manipulating it as required, and then sending it out to storage or display devices.

Physically, a CPU is comprised of millions of microscopic transistors which are etched onto a layer of silicon via chemical and lithographic processes. Transistors themselves are exceptionally simple devices that store binary (on/off) values, and it's from these on/off states that more complicated processes can be performed. Modern transistors are extremely complex; a CPU such as AMD's Athlon 64 FX-55 is comprised of just fewer than 106 million transistors. A dual-core chip such as Intel's Pentium Extreme Edition 840, that transistor count jumps to around 230 million.

Simply put, the CPU is the brain of your PC. All of your PC's functions rely on the CPU and all functions interact with the CPU on a constant basis.

Deciding on a CPU that meets your needs isn't simply a matter of price point. There are an extreme number of processors available for purchase today and they can range in price anywhere from $2.00 to $2,000. CPUs are the central component of a PC's processing power; however they are a part of a whole. There are many components within any individual PC and they all must "plug" into what is known as the PC's motherboard. To put it simply, the motherboard is the component of the PC that integrates a PC's individual components, the CPU being one of them.

When upgrading a PC or constructing one at home, it is important that the CPU you choose is compatible with the Motherboard. I will talk in more detail about determining the compatibility of a CPU with any given motherboard later on in this guide.

When purchasing a CPU you should consider the capabilities that you're looking for in a processor, and the types of software you're likely to run on your machine. It's much better to make the right choice and get a PC that's ideal for your chosen applications than end up with something that sounds good on paper, but can't run the core tasks you need.

The Two Major Brands: AMD and Intel:

Intel and AMD offer us a wide range of CPUs and the two companies' products are in direct competition. AMD and Intel CPUs are capable of running the same PC software and are not software specific or proprietary in nature. The primary differences between these processors are technical in detail that for the purpose of this guide will be considered inconsequential.

You will generally find that pricing in the CPU market is very competitive and, generally speaking, Intel chips are more expensive than comparable AMD processors. On the higher end, Intel offers the Pentium 4 in numerous configurations with names to match. Terms or names that you may see tied to the Pentium 4 include Hyperthreading, Extreme Edition, Dual Core and Intel Duo. Intel Processors come in both 32 and 64 bit versions. AMD was the first CPU manufacturer to offer a 64-bit CPU and come as both the Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX. The Athlon FX and the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition are competing chips for power users. You may have heard of 64-bit processing, it is available in both manufacturers CPU lines. The primarily advantage that 64-bit processing has over 32-bit is in the amount of data that the processor can address. 32-bit chips can handle around 4 gigabytes of data while a 64-bit chip can handle 16 BILLION gigabytes - quite a difference. 64-bit processors can run most 32-bit applications but require a 64-bit operating system to function properly. At this stage, 64-bit processing can be considered as something of overkill as a 32-bit processor, especially one that is dual core, can efficiently run the majority of today's software applications.

Both Intel and AMD offer budget versions of their processor, Intel's offering being the Celeron - a striped down version of the Pentium. AMD's budget offering is the Duron; both Budget chips again offer similar performance and pricing.

Hyper-threading VS Dual Core:

Most of Intel's Pentium 4 processor support a technology called Hyperthreading. Hyperthreading allows the processor to be utilized virtually as two processors as one. This technology can give a boost to performance; however it should not be confused with Dual-Core processing. Hyper threading utilizes software to create two "virtual" processors out of one in an effort to allow for multiple applications to be processed simultaneously. A Dual-Core processor, such as Intel's new Extreme Edition physically contains two separate processing units on one chip and offers far greater performance.

Naming Conventions:

Manufacturers methods for naming their processors can be very confusing for the average user. Until recently Intel simply used the clock speed of the processor, for example 3.2GHz Pentium 4, while AMD uses names based on the processor's supposed capabilities. For example, an AMD XP3000+ may have a clock speed of 2.16GHz but in practice it performs more like a 3GHz processor. Intel which for years used clock speed to define its processors has moved to a new 3-digit naming convention. Intel processors will now start with a 3, 5 or 7 - each group representing the type of processor and the motherboard that it is compatible with.

Sockets and Pins:

Simply put, Sockets and Pins are terms used by manufacturers to define the compatibility of a processor and motherboard; a description of a processor should always contain what socket type it is. Motherboards designed to utilize an Intel Socket 478-pin processor for example, will not accept an Athlon Socket A processor, and vice versa.

Front-side Bus:

The front-side bus (FSB) is the interface between the CPU and the main system memory and determines the fastest type of memory your system can use. The faster the FSB the quicker data can be passed between the CPU and the memory.

Cache memory:

Cache Memory is memory that is added directly to the processor. Manufacturers add this memory as a way to eliminate potential data "bottlenecks" and to speed the CPUs handling of information. Cache does this by storing frequently used data directly on the CPU itself. Greater Cache generally means faster and better overall performance.

Upgrading:

Most users PC's can be upgraded from their current configurations. Often times you can save yourself hundreds of dollars by performing a little research about your existing PC. Many times PCs can accept much faster processors than were included originally by the manufacturer. A little research on the subject can go a long way toward saving you money and extending the life of your PC.

If you are interested in upgrading your PC you can generally determine rather easily if your existing PC will accept a more powerful processor than it originally came with. A little research into the exact model number of your PC and the PCs motherboard will allow you determine what processors are compatible with your existing PC. Many tools are available online to help you determine what processors are compatible with your existing motherboard. Often accessing your motherboards manufacturers' website and researching your specific model will give you all the information you need to determine what processor is right for you.

How to Choose the Right Processor:

Determining what processor is best for you requires that you take an honest account of your computing practices. If you are a power user and use your PC for high end gaming, demanding applications or video editing you should look toward the latest and greatest processors available. You will want to pay attention to Speeds, Cache and Front Side Bus speeds and purchase the best CPU you can afford.

If you are a standard home or business user and require your PC to handle tasks such as word-processing, e-mail, photo editing and internet access, it would be a waste of money to invest in a high-end CPU.

How to Design a Book Cover For Self Publishing

In your quest to self-publish your novel or short story, you may run into a little trouble with how to design a book cover. There are several ways to make an attractive cover for your book, but most writers fail in this particular area because they can't afford the photo editing software or don't trust their artistic abilities enough to do the work themselves. Making a book cover graphic is a simple process that anyone can do with a little guidance and effort.

You do have an artistic ability as a writer; it's mostly with words, but this artistic ability can also be manipulated toward graphic design. Your goal with self-publishing is to do so in a way that is most cost effective for you and at the same time look professional enough to make the sale. If you learn how to make your own book cover, you will greatly reduce the cost to produce your novel or short story.

Creating a book cover isn't as hard as it seems. The first thing you should do is gather ideas at your local bookstore; look at several new stories in your genre and compare styles, formats, graphics, and layouts. One thing you will find in common with almost every book out there is that they have a title and author's name on the cover. Your main focus will be on the book's title; this is what captures the reader's attention and makes them want to pull your book off the shelf.

The title of a book gives a basic description of what your book is about. It should fascinate your reader to the point they have to pick it up. Your title is a simple word or phrase that represents the primary focus of your book. Overall, what is your book about in five words or less? To choose a proper title, brainstorm the content of your book and create a word or phrase that sums up everything for your reader. Your title is the book's first impression, so this is a crucial stage when you design a book cover.

Once you have a satisfactory title for your book, open your word processing program or photo editing software and type it out along with your byline. Play around with different fonts and font sizes as well as locations on the page. You are looking for a layout that will automatically make your potential readers focus on your title. Don't use plain fonts; try to use a font that fits the era or time frame of your story. Make it a legible font that will give your reader a good feel about your book, but at the same time subconsciously tells them a little bit about your book. When playing around with your font types and sizes, ensure you make the byline smaller than the title as to not distract from your primary focal point.

Now think of a color that corresponds with your book's theme. A books theme is the main picture people get when they read your book. Examples of themes are love equals red and death equals black. Each theme should have a corresponding color. The theme color you choose will be your background color for your cover.

If you have some creativity in you, and I know you do, try to choose a particular scene in your book that has a corresponding picture (a barroom, a mountain, a river...) that you can use to design a book cover background instead of just a plain color. Pictures tend to give your reader an image of a scene within your book so when they do read it, they can get a better picture in their mind about what's going on around them. Don't choose a picture that will distract all attention away from your title.

After you have a title, font, and background, choose a complimentary color for the title and byline font of your book. Making your title and byline stand out from your background is a key ingredient of designing your own book cover. Play around with different color harmonies to see what presents the best mood as you look at it. If it looks good, you're done. Have others look at it as well to give you constructive feedback to make it even better.

Learning how to design a book cover can take a little time and effort on your part, but will ultimately pay off when you present your book to the world. You don't have to be a full-fledged artist to make this work; all you need is a little creativity to effectively create a great book cover.

Tips For Choosing Your Home Office Software

There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling in your stomach as you realize that everything you have been working on for the last month is gone! It has happened to many home business owners - maybe even you. You bootup your computer one day and you realize that your computer has been hit by a virus and all your data has been wiped out! Because a lot of your home business operations are likely to be conducted and stored on your computer, setting yourself up with the proper office computer software, including virus protection is essential.

Of course before you start choosing software for your home office computer you will need to asses exactly what you need. You will need to select software customized to what you do. For example, if you are entering data reports, you will need to install spreadsheet software. Likewise, if you are writing for a living, you will need a solid word-processing software program. Photographers will require photo editing software, while a book-keeper will not.

Beside the specialized programs there will be a few other software programs that every home business should have. You will need a way to keep track of your expenses, invoices and all of the money in your business. There are a number of really good finance software programs on the market that will help you do this. Quickbooks and Quicken offer a few options depending on the size of your business and whether or not you have employees and inventory to track as well. You will also require tax preparation software; however this needs to be purchased every year. Although if you have a separate accountant or book-keeper, you will not need this.

You will also want a word-processing program that will handle basic letters, label printing, estimates and other daily business needs. There are a number of choices here. You could try the Microsoft Works package which has an integrated word-processor. If that doesn't quite meet your needs then Microsoft Word offers all the features that you could ever need. If your budget is really tight then make sure and check out the Open Office software package - it's totally free and gives you a complete home office suite of programs.

Of course if you are using the Internet, you will need an Internet browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape in order to access the internet. Firefox is an especially good web browser and doesn't suffer from nearly as many "issues" as Internet Explorer. Some of these programs also come with an email program to keep your email filed properly and allow you to compose new messages as you need to.

Of course, the most important software that you will get for your computer is virus protection software that will keep your computer safe. A firewall is also a good idea to protect your investment. Be sure to set up a backup system for your computer as well. By backing up your work, every day, once a week or at least once a month, it will not be quite such a disaster if your computer suffers a virus as you'll be able to get all your info back and continue working.

There is a wide variety of computer software available on the market today and you may need to look around for the programs that are going to work the best for you. Remember to keep to the basics however and do not overload your computer with a bunch of programs that you will not use.

Double Your eBay eBook Sales With This Tip

Picture a storefront that is bare as an empty pool with no water. The window has no showcase pieces, no sale signs, no glaring merchandise begging to be sold. Instead it sits empty more likely to send people away, then to invite them in to shop. This is a situation that doesn’t just happen in the physical world, it often occurs in online shops as well. Not just any online shops, but eBay listings to be specific.

The way your listing looks to others is a sure tell sign of the type of salesmen you are, and what type of quality products you are offering. Never so true has this theory been then when it pertains to eBooks, and other information products. You must know that selling eBooks online takes trust building efforts to a new level. There are many sellers of eBooks that peddle useless information like it was the secret to life. Selling eBooks on eBay should be a trust building experience that starts with having a quality product to offer, and ends with a proper listing.

Spicing up your eBay listings for eBooks is not hard to do, and can be done once, and reused over, and over again. The more repetition you have creating quality listings, the easier it will be for you in the long run. EBook eBay listings should consist of at least three items to make your listings pop; cover picture, your picture, and a preview of the text.

Most eBook products that are allowed to be resold on eBay will come with a cover image file that you can use to promote your product with. If you don’t have a cover image file, you can create one easily with some basic photo editing software, of you can buy a cover for as little as twenty dollars. The cover image will help make your listing official looking, and give the customer a visual image to put with your product title. This image should be used as your gallery photo when listing your eBooks on eBay.

Your picture while not as important as the cover photo, is still very important to help enhance your listings looks. A picture of yourself will add authenticity to the product, and give the listing some much needed emotional appeal. The picture of you should be dignified, not you at last summers beach barbeque, but you in a suit, or a button down blouse. Having a picture of yourself will give the buyers more confidence to buy when looking at your eBook eBay listings.

Finally include a preview of the eBooks contents in your listing. Don’t just give the eBay members a table of contents; try to give them a sample chapter, or two to help them understand why they must own your product.

How Digital Stock Photos Mean Sales For You

Many of the images you see everyday in magazines, direct mail materials, and commercials are filled with digital stock photographs. Stock photographs are those taken by professional photographers and then distributed to users for a fee.

Digital photos are taken with digital cameras and can be easily modified and edited with the appropriate software. These photos are used by advertisers who know that a good picture can translate into product sales. No one knows just why human beings respond so well to pictures, but the effects have been proven.

If you use digital stock photos to sell your product or idea, you will find that your message will be strongly reinforced by the visual method of presentation. Additionally, business stock photos create a professional image for your business, which helps you make a sale even before you start to talk to a potential buyer. Digital stock photos can help you convey your unique characteristics and ideals as well.

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is especially true for businesses that use digital stock photos. Taking out space in a yellow-pages book or using a business card does not provide much information. You need to make a big impact in a small space with these methods. Using stock images in your ads will help you make that impact by representing your business visually and letting consumers know about you with just a quick look.

Using digital stock photos to advertise your services or products guarantees that your customers get a real sense of what they can expect from your business. Using these kinds of photos is also a good way to advertise a special event because there is nothing that can influence the imagination of human beings like a great photograph.

If you’d like to create your own photos, you should look for a digital photography class to help you learn the basics. You’ll need to learn about digital cameras and photo editing software. Luckily, you can find a lot of information online about these products. You can also consult with your local retailers for recommendations.

If you are shopping for a digital camera, make sure you get a model that does everything you want to do. Look for a camera that provides great photos and easy docking options that let you download your priceless photos to a printer or computer with the greatest efficiency.

All About Batch Image Format Conversion

If you already have photo editing software on your computer, you may want to know how to convert a number of images at a time to the format you desire. This feature, batch image format conversion, may be necessary to send out picture invitations/announcements to friends and family via email, or you may be preparing a business brochure and need to find a way to get the best quality graphics on each brochure that is sent out. Here are some companies/programs that offer this service that you may want to take a look at.

www.snowbound.com has a number of format conversion software programs that will work well with your computer and give you graphics with rich color and detail. The conversion tools support a number of formats and file types, including PDF, JPEG, and Microsoft Word. The programs also allow you to split multi-page files into single page files, and to convert PDFs, so the files are easy to see and read no matter how you download them. The program is best supported by Windows NT and Windows XP, which are on most computers. You can even provide the company with an evaluation of your Snowbound or Snowbatch software once you purchase the image conversion program.

If you’re not sure which company you want to purchase your batch image conversion software from just yet, or if you want to know more about what the program should be able to do, you can check out www.batchimage.com. There are a number of companies that sell batch image format conversion software on the site, so you can click on the links for each programs to learn more about which one would be best for your computer. Programs include Batch Image Commander, which comes in three modules (command line, time-based controlled tray icon, and batch timer processing modules).

These features help you to accurately resize your images while retaining the resolution and quality, change the JPEG quality, and create captions for your photos. You may also want to check out Batch It!, Batch It! Pro, and Batch It! Ultra, which are Windows-based image processors that are easy to use. You can create HTML and thumbnail galleries using these programs, and can individually crop or rotate certain images in your photos. The Pro and Ultra versions of the program allow you to convert more files at a time, and can also give your graphics a better resolution. For more information on these products, or to find out about other companies that offer batch image format conversion, visit the site for more details.

Adobe Photodeluxe is a Snap to Use

Modern technology has come along way in its goal of making our lives more convenient. Among the conveniences that have been made available to us is the option of being able to handle photos and graphics through photo-editing programs. Adobe Photodeluxe is a great example of a photo-editing program that can help you build amazing pictures and graphics for photos and website design.

Adobe Photodeluxe’s features are easy to use and it comes with a competent help section which is really helpful for beginners. You can learn to use it by experimenting with its’ controls and with a bit of imagination and creativity you may come up with a decent project. With this software you can transform your photos into chalk drawings or turn colored pictures into black and white portraits.

Adobe Photodeluxe is also useful for downsizing photos from your digital camera. With the most recent computer models you can resize large quantities of photos to photo size or pixel size. You can choose to turn photos into any file type you want. It has settings for commonly used file such as jpeg and bmp and for more complicated file types used in web design.

The erase feature of Adobe Photodeluxe also makes it popular to users. This feature allows you to remove your photo’s unattractive background and replace it with something that is more to your liking. With a bit of imagination you can create wacky pictures by putting together pieces taken from different photos into a collage.

Repairing pictures is also a feature with Adobe Photodeluxe. While this feature can still be improved you can still do a decent job of restoring those scratched and old photos. It is also useful in adjusting the brightness and contrast of a photo.

I ran into a few problems when I upgraded my computer’s operating system. I found out that Adobe Photodeluxe Home version 3.1 is incompatible with Windows SP. If you also experience difficulties you should purchase the new version made or Window XP. It would a shame if you are not to be able to enjoy the convenience that goes with an excellent photo editing program like Adobe Photodeluxe.

Get Involved With Digital Photography

The continuing advances in digital photography make it possible for everyone to capture moments of their lives with more detail and accuracy than ever. Improvements in photo resolution and shutter speed make it easy for both professional photographers and beginners to take great pictures. And even if a photo is not perfect when it is taken, sophisticated editing software can transform it into a work of art.

Experienced photographers say that timing is the most important factor for getting a good picture. There is only a small, limited opportunity to capture a great shot. Whether you are trying to get the perfect sunset photo or get a picture of the winners as they cross the finish line, you must have a good sense of timing and the intuition that lets you know exactly when to press that shutter button. It is this factor that makes photography an art form.

Most people never quite realize the dream of getting a perfect shot. Maybe your picture is framed well, but the lighting is not quite right. Maybe you’ve got the lighting just right, but you forget to use the flash or red-eye reduction option. In cases like these, digital photography offers an excellent way to get just the look you want in a photo.

Any picture you take with a digital camera can be edited to reach its full potential. Digital photos can be automatically enhanced to improve their color; they can be zoomed or cropped to their optimal size. And, of course, the red-eye reduction capability can improve any portrait. These editing options can all be completed within minutes, giving you the chance to have the most wonderful photos you’ve ever taken.

With a good digital camera and photo editing software, you can accomplish great things. The capabilities built into your camera represent only the beginning of the editing potential. Software programs really help you make the most of the photos you have. You can use editing software to change the images in any way you desire.

Local or online retailers can provide you with the equipment, software, and information you need to take great digital photos. When selecting a digital camera, you should be sure you buy one that has the features you need and want. You should look for a model that gives great pictures and that also has simple docking methods for downloading the photos from the camera to the printer or computer. Good photo editing software that will let you alter your digital pictures includes products like Kodak Picture, and Corel Photo Album.

Finding Photo Editing Software

If you take a lot of pictures, or are getting ready for an event where you’ll want to have lots of quality photos to include in your family album (i.e. weddings, holiday get-togethers), you’ll want to know more about photo editing software that is both affordable and easy to use. Here are some software programs for editing photographs and graphics that you may want to check out.

Virieu has a free photo editing program that is easy to use, and is compatible with most computers. With the program, you can add captions to your pictures, ‘frame’ your portraits digitally, and make your photos into backgrounds for your screen or to send out in your email by using the fade and shade features that come along with the program. The programs will also show you how to darken or lighten certain sections of the picture, so that you can remove certain items from your photograph. You can try the editing software out for free during a 21-day trail, and then the service is $29.00. www.reallusion.com also has a wide variety of editing equipment to try that will make any picture you take look professional and impressive. You can take advantage of the muscle-based facial enhancement feature, so that you can ‘fix’ the faces of the people you take pictures of to create a more flattering photograph.

Other products from the company include the Effect 3D Studio, a graphics editing and design program that allows you to make animated graphics no matter what your skill level is. You can also purchase CrazyTalk, a program that allows you to create animated talking characters for PowerPoint and DVD presentations. Most computers are equipped to download the programs (a Windows 98 or higher is usually acceptable), and you can try the products out before you purchase any of the programs.

In order for you to download, edit, and save your photos on your computer, you’ll need a digital camera to take your pictures with. Brands like Canon and Olympus have great digital cameras that are easy for you to use, and produce quality photos that you can save on your computer. You may also want to pick up a book or two with some more basic information on photo editing software, so that you’ll know which programs are easiest to use and most affordable. You can also find new and used photo editing programs, such as Instant Photo Editor on sites like www.amazon.com, with complete CD-ROM instructions on how to make sure you edit great photos every time you use the program.

Photo Editing Software Organize Enhance and Share Photos

Photo editing software is essential to making digital photography more rewarding. Software programs range in price from free to hundreds of dollars. The first thing to decide is exactly what you need the software to do.

For many, simply organizing all those digital image files is a nightmare. For others, editing and enhancing photos is a real need. Software that will perform both duties is even better.

Manage and Edit Pictures

Our friends at Google have a handy free software program called Picasa™ that makes photo management a snap. It will quickly find, organize and label every picture on your computer. Basic edit tools clean up and enhance photos. Share photos, create movies and slideshows and more with this easy to use editing program.

Another popular photo editor is Preclick. It has many of the same features as Picasa with free and $20 upgrade versions. For photo file management and basic editing tools, these two software programs deserve a close look.

The Best Image Editing Software

The standard and industry leader in editing software is Adobe PhotoShop CS. It will do just about anything you could want or imagine. But for the average user there are two problems. The first is cost. At around $600 it ain't cheap. The second is its complexity. Quite simply, learning how to use PhotoShop isn't easy.

Many experts feel Jasc Paint Shop Pro has nearly the same functionality as PhotoShop and is easier to use. For about $130 they throw in Corel Photo Album to manage and share photos. For those who like the Windows look and feel, Microsoft Digital Image is a close runner up for under $100.

Free Photo Editing Software

GIMP is open-source software with features similar to PhotoShop. Free and shareware software programs that feature painting as well as photo edit functions include Ultimate Paint, VicMan and Pixia.

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