Digital Photo Editing Tips

by : Gen Wright

Thanks to advancements in editing software, a number of mundane pictures can be transformed into an eloquent collage, or even made to look like part of the same composition. To do this efficiently, however, one of the most essential tools is the lowly cut-and-paste.

Cutting and pasting pictures sounds quite simple - after all, that's the first thing four year olds learn to do in school! With intelligent scissors, it's about as easy on a computer as it is by hand... right? But think of a cutout featuring a woman against a multicolored background with hair flying behind her, or of a magnificent lion flaunting its mane in the African savannah. Do cutouts still seem that easy? Not so much!

The Photoshop Disasters blog stands as testimony to the fact that no photo editing gaffes are tolerated in today's world. If a cutout looks anything less than realistic, woe betide the person responsible for it! This is why intelligent masking is absolutely necessary for professionals, as the best alternative to spending hours selecting each and every fine edge individually. On complex and varied backgrounds such as trees, lattices or grass, the quality of the masking software is tried to its utmost. Being able to tweak transparency is also very useful, especially when blurry edges need to be blended into a new background.

Once cutouts are ready, it is time to play with them. Each individual cutout can be modified to fit the final composition you want to put them in. Image editing can broadly be grouped into color
editing, retouching and shape editing. Shape editing includes effects like scaling, shearing, and twisting the perspective. Retouching is done in a wide variety of ways - blurring, penciling, sharpening... anything that is required to remove blemishes and enhance where required. Color is also a huge playground for the photo editor, as color balance can be altered, colors muted or brightened in select parts of your cutout, making it look anything from utterly realistic to billboard-worthy to downright spooky.

Finally, you can place your cutouts in the final composition. Create a custom background or use an existing picture - you may want to delete the foreground figures in an existing photograph and place your own cutouts in their place, or you may take a picture yourself to use as background for your composition. Some of the changes you make to the cutouts may need tweaking or even total reworking at this stage, so be prepared to take some time at this stage of your project. In the endArticle Search, the goal is to end up with a project that looks exactly like the idea in your head made real.

Skype Password - How To Change It?

I'm sure you know what Skype is and for this post I want to share with you how to change Skype password. Here are the steps you need to do to change your Skype password.

Step 1
Open the application Skype on your computer. Click on Skype's desktop shortcut twice to launch it on your computer. Now, if you have not set a desktop shortcut, then go to Start first and click on it. From the Start menu, direct the cursor to All Programs. A cascading menu should pop up after which you will need to look for the entry Skype and click on it.

Step2
Access your Skype account by logging in. Access your Skype account after opening the program. Simply key in your Skype name into the designated text field. After that, key in your password and click on the Sign in button.

Step3
Access the Skype program that allows changing of passwords. Once online, click on the first tab labeled Skype found at the top left corner of the window. From the list that pops up, highlight and select the option Change Password by clicking on it once. Doing so should pull up the Skype - Change password dialog box on your computer screen.

Step 4
Think up of a new password for your Skype account. Come up with a password that you will easily remember but will be hard for others to crack. Once settled on a new password, then perform step 5.


Step 5
Start the process of changing your Skype password. From the Skype - Change password dialog box, first key in your current password into the allotted text field. Click on the next empty text field labeled Enter new password or press Tab on your computer keyboard to get to this field. Type in the new password you have come up with. Click on the next empty text field or press Tab once more on your keyboard to get to the last field labeled Re-enter new password. Just type in the new password you have thought of one more time in this filed. Once done, simply click on the button Apply.


Credits to Zenaida Gutierrez

Teleportation Of Energy Is Possible

Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan has prove that teleportationof energy is possible by inducing an energy change in a series of entangled particles. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point. This is another interesting stuff by genius.




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Sound Scape

Sometimes music can make you feel calm when you are stressed. Designers Hyunsoo Choi, Hyori, Kim and Gisung Han has come up with an interesting concept called "Sound Scape" that designed for relaxing purposes. What's so cool about this concept is if you play your music, the tiny LED pico projector in the speaker will project some relaxing images to go along with the music on your desktop. The image size can be customized from the sensor parameter of the system. Now you can fantasize more while playing your favorite musics. I wonder what image will appear if we play some heavy music.


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Seven Tips Of Taking Great Photographs

by : Carm Paynter

Taking great photographs with today's automatic cameras allows anyone to produce a sharp, well-exposed image. If you are just beginning to use an 'auto-everything' camera like a 35mm compact or program SLR then your main area of control is going to be in the composition of your photographs. No one can tell you how to take a great picture because it comes down to your ability to 'see' the potential to create a picture. Never-the-less, here are 7 tips and techniques you can use to improve the final look of your photographs. You will find some of the most popular, effective and easy to implement photo techniques, that you will be able to start using right away, to improve your picture taking.

Tip 1: Read your camera manual, then read it again. Keep it with the camera and learn all of your camera's features. The more familiar you become with what your camera will do the more you will be a photographer and not just a picture taker. The more your camera automatically becomes an extension of your eyes and fingers, the more you can concentrate on your photo before you take it.

Tip 2: The Rule of Thirds. Divide the image in your viewfinder into three sections with 2 imaginary horizontal and 2 imaginary vertical lines. Place your subject near one of the intersections of those lines.
Placing your subject off-center creates an interesting, dynamic image that makes the photo more interesting.

Tip 3: Find fresh angles to take your photograph from. Change your viewpoint or the angle of view, don't be afraid to shoot from a low angle especially when photographing pets. Several years ago a single use camera manufacturer gave a camera to each of a group of younger children, the resulting pictures changed the way we look at camera angles to take photographs. When you change your camera angle be sure to get horizons horizontal. Be conscious of getting Images Straight and be sure to fill your picture frame.

Tip 4: Create active space - When photographing any object that is moving or would require space if it moved. leave space for the move. If you photographed your pet and placed the nose on the edge of the photo and left space behind, the photo would look very uncomfortable. Leave room in front and put the back close to the edge of the photo to create active space.

Tip 5: Getting backgrounds right and framing your shots. Use a dark background for taking a picture of a light object, or, alternatively, a light background for a picture of a dark object.

Caution: Absolutely light backgrounds cause flare effect that lead to reducing the overall contrast of a picture. The use of an object to frame your photo can greatly reduce this effect. For example you can use a tree limb over the top part of your photo when you take scenic photos to help improve the composition and reduce the glare.

Tip 6: Center of Interest. Try and keep only one center of interest having too many interest points in a photo is distracting causing the viewer to lose focus and interest. Use Tip 2 to place the center of interest in the proper place. When you shoot people portraits keep the subjects eyes around the top 1/3rd grid line.
Always use less distraction. Sometimes your mind tends to exaggerate what you see through the viewfinder of your camera. Very often things are perceived bigger than they actually are. What you end up with is a photograph with huge areas of wasted space around the edge and people with things growing out of their heads.

Tip 7: Editing: Before you show anyone all those holiday photos you took, edit your work. Take out all the doubles, all the duds, the ones that are out of focus and generally the ones you think are crap. Only show people the good stuff and your perception as a photographer immediately increases. Pro's often shoot a load of junk like anyone else, they just don't show it to anybody.

Kitchen Garden System - Grow Plants In The Refrigerator

As everyone knows, we can't grow a plant in a refrigerator because plant needs sunlight. What about if right now we can plant it in a refrigerator? Sounds too good to be true huh? Interestingly, designer Hanna Sandstrom with Green Fortune & Whirlpool has come out with a concept refrigerator that you can grow plants right in the refrigerator. It will be automatically watered, and light will be provided.



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Happy Chinese New Year 2010

Happy Chinese New Year 2010 to all my Chinese readers.

Considering IP phones?

by : Kendra Webb-Scott

More and more businesses are turning to VoIP, but most of them have no clue what to look for in IP phones. In a recent study, market research firm In-Stat found that only 40 percent of IP PBX seats are deployed with IP phones--the majority are installed using traditional analog phones.

Because IP phones represent the largest chunk of the capital outlay required to implement a VoIP solution, cost control is a key issue that has kept businesses from making the shift. Unfortunately, these organizations could be missing out on the following enhanced features that could make a positive impact on day-to-day business operations:

1. Call Control: Have a sales team full of road-warriors? Or how about a busy executive who's constantly traveling to meetings? Instead of having to call in for voice mail messages, they can easily re-route incoming calls to a mobile phone using the call control features on an IP phone. This can usually be done with just the touch of a button. Can't get to the phone? No problem, since most VoIP solutions allow you to manage an entire system across multiple locations using a web-based portal.

2. Unified Messaging: The average worker can spend more than half of his workday away from the desk. Voicemail used to be a great tool for keeping in touch and following up on important information, but consider the time it takes these days to check multiple devices such as laptops, pagers, cell phones, and BlackBerrys. Using unified messaging, IP phones can send message alerts through your mobile phone, allow you to check voicemail over the Internet
using a web-portal or receive your messages as email attachments that can be saved for future reference. In fact, there's even technology that can transcribe these messages into text so that you never have to listen to voicemails again!

3. Company Directories: Many IP phones incorporate corporate directories that allow you to connect with colleagues, clients and important contacts faster than any Rolodex. By accessing listings stored in any database from your company's Microsoft Active Directory to your personal Microsoft Outlook contacts, IP Phones can allow you to search by first name, last name, company name, and phone number on the phone screen, eliminate duplicate records and filter searches to expose a subset of contacts.

4. Client Matter Codes (CMC):Does your line of work require you to keep track of billable hours? IP Phones can use CMC to force users to enter a code to specify calls relates to a particular client matter. Codes can be assigned to specific customers, routine tasks, or whatever else you want to keep track of for call accounting and billing purposes.

5. Color, Touch-Screen Display: Yes, the backlit, high-resolution, color touch-screen displays available on a number of IP phones do look cool, but they also provide practical benefits by providing more intuitive streamlined access to communications information, timesaving applications, and feature usage details. These features can be especially important for businesses in the retail, hospitality, education and government sectors.

Prepeat - Inkless And Tonerless Rewritable Printer

What do you think about a paperless printer without using any ink cartridges at all? Sounds like too good to be true right? A cool printer called the "PrePeat" can do that. It use sheets made of heat-sensitive PET and can print, then erase and reprint on the same page over and over, eliminating the need for ink cartridges and plastic. The plastic sheets are rated for about 1000 uses.Each printer comes with a price of $5,517 and the plastic sheets come in lots of 1,000 at the price of $3,300.




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Lost Your Password?

by : Pavan sharma

A password is a secret word or phrase, that is applied to restrict any intruder, hacker or unknown person from getting access to the personal information. A password is generally applied for authentication of the identity or to gain access to a particular location or resource. So, in case you lose or forget your password, you will not be able to access that location of the system. Also, losing password would prohibit accessing any application like MS Office, Gtalk, etc (i.e., if you had set a password). This would lead to huge loss and inaccessibility of data or information, as you will not be able to access your password protected location or application. To avoid such situations, you must note down your password at some place where you can easily find it. And in case you lose it, you have to use a powerful Password Recovery Software to recover your password.

Imagine a practical situation – You are a regular user of GTalk application. But, one fine day, while trying to log in, you could not remember the password of your account. You try hard to recall the password, but to no avail. Finally, you take help from the 'forgot password' option of the application, but still fail to extract your password. Finally, you give up on hope, engrossed by the only thought – How can I access my account now?

Now, obviously, you would not want to lose your friends list, settings and most of all the account that you were using since a long time now. So, the question immediately arises in your mind- Now what? How should I get back my password?

The answer to this is simple, use a powerful Password Recovery application to recover your forgotten password. Such kinds of software employ high-end mechanisms to recover all your lost, deleted, or missing password of chat applications including GTalk. These Password Recovery applications can also reset any password used to login to Windows.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Password Recovery, an advanced password recovery software that recovers all your lost and forgotten password of your chat messenger accounts including G Talk, Windows Live Messenger, etc. This is a sophisticated tool that also recovers serial numbers, product keys for all applications like MS Office, WinZip, etc. It supports most of the Web Browsers like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, MSN Explorer, Netscape navigator and more' and is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2000, and Server (2000-2008) based systems.

Necker Nymph - Underwater Plane

Recently Virgin has unveiled a new underwater plane called "Necker Nymph." Virgin claims that the Necker Nymph has "near-zero" environmental impact and that its "positive buoyancy prevents the sub from landing on a reef, and its low light and noise emissions ensure the fragile ocean ecosystems remain undisturbed." The Nymph typically goes between two to five nautical miles an hour and can dive up to 100 feet under the surface. I guess this is better than the Squba car.



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Apple iPad

Another magical devices from Apple called the iPad has been launched lately. For me, this new gadget from apple is like the combination version of trio - iTouch, iPhone and Notebook, but in a compact version. One of the brilliant feature of iPad is iBook which is an eBook reader and apple is setting up a library from where you can buy books. Check out a video review by PCMag.com below.