UCreative

As anyone might expect, the birth of digital photography, moreover, all the hype about it brought forth controversy.  Does its birth mean the end for film?  Are digital cameras better as they are "technologically more advanced"?  Is digital photography simply film photography gone hi-tech?  As I found out, digital is not better than film – and film, is not better than digital.  Instead, it's like comparing apples with oranges – they're two entirely different fruits with different properties, having their own advantages and disadvantages.

One perfect article to read is the one by Darwin Wiggett, an advertising stock photographer who had his share of working with both film and digital cameras.

As he have learned, and I'm sure a lot of people will agree, digital images are smoother and has a lot less noise, while film images are usually grainy.  However, colors seem sharper with film, while digital photos tend to be flat and pale.  You might say, "That's what Photoshop is for!  To enhance color and fix everything there is to be fixed!"  Well, this brings Wiggett, as well as other professional photographers to another observation.  Digital has made people a lot lazier.

When you use film, you always seem to aim for that perfect shot.  With digital, you get instant feedback from the LCD screen.  This may have an advantage as it also gives you instant opportunity to improve your next shot by adjusting your technique,  Of course, you don't have that luxury with film and that's exactly what drives you to be focused – so you would get the best shot.  With digital, people tend to be "trigger happy," you're always thinking, "That's good enough… I can always fix it with image editor."

However, what they fail to realize is that they spend way too much time, checking on their LCD, dealing with their batteries, which gets drained oh-so fast, downloading or transferring files and of course, manipulating the images.

In the end, it all boils down to personal preference.  And just like in anything, people shouldn't allow commercialism and marketing make them judgmental or discriminating – especially the newbies.  As I always say, you need to pick the right tools for the kind of project you're working on, depending on your vision of that project.  If you  have the time as well as the resources, it is recommended that you try both on various projects so that you can make a sound judgment of what works best for you.  Therefore, people shouldn't be thinking Digital vs. Film.  Instead, it should be Digital and Film.

With that, let me end this article with Mr. Wiggett's words, which I find very wise: "A great shot is a great shot no matter how, when, or where it is captured."

Note:
Link for Mr. Wiggett's article:
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles0105/dw0105-1.html

Post created by U Creative: For web design tips, graphic design tips, and printing tips.

Wouldn't it be nice to see your black and white photos in full color? Learning to create and edit old photos is fairly easy and very worthwhile. Digitally restored photos can be used to make digital scrapbooks, posted to Web sites, shared through email, and printed for gift-giving or display.
To achieve this effect, we will need to colorize using Paint Shop Pro. According to Bill Brewer, "colorizing is a feature built into PSP that keeps the luminance values (the bright and dark parts that make up the recognizable image) and colors the image with one color. The image to be colorized needs to have a color depth of 16.7 million colors, and it can be in full color to start with (reduction to grayscale is not required before colorizing). Using that command brings up a dialog box where you have control over the hue and saturation, with a preview. I suggest you DON'T use that menu item to colorize images. Instead use the more powerful HSL adjustments accessed with the Colors>Adjust>Hue/Saturation/Lightness... command.
To start off, get your photo ready. Begin by scanning your black and white photo into your PC. Make sure that your picture is straight and if not, use Paint Shop Pro's Straighten tool to "uncrook" the image.  Next then would be running the One Step Photo Fix by clicking the Enhance Photo button in the Photo toolbar atop the screen and choose One Step Photo Fix. Try to clean up whatever dirt or scratch that you may see in the picture.
Now, moving on to the next part. Working in layers. Choose the Layers, Duplicate tab to make a duplicate of the image you want to colorize. We can now make color changes to the top layer without affecting the original image underneath, letting us adjust the intensity of the colorization by playing with the layer's opacity.
Now for the final part, you may choose to use either the Freehand Selection toll in Smart Edge mode or you may opt to use the Magic Wand. Set Feather to about 1 pixel, and select one of the faces. Once done, click on the Flood Fill tool and set the Blend Mode to Color in the toolbar at the top of the screen. For a typical Caucasian skin tone, set the Red, Green, and Blue levels to about 215, 190, and 150, respectively, then click OK. Now click Flood Fill to colorize the selected face. You can repeat this process for all of the skin in the image.
Then select the clothing and background and add color to as much or as little as you wish. When you're done with the image, you might want to adjust the overall intensity of the colorization. To do that, make sure the Layer Palette is open (if it isn't, choose View, Palettes, Layers) and then double-click on the Copy of Background layer--this is the one on top that we've been painting. Then you can use the Opacity slider in the layer's dialog box to change the color effect. When you're satisfied, click OK to keep your changes.
Above simple instructions from Dave Johnson is very easy to follow and is very helpful for the particular purpose.

Post created by U Creative: For web design tips, graphic design tips, and printing tips.

Professional and business-looking cards have become so tedious that I have been trying to get other programs to help me create cards and albums without feeling that it's a lot of work for me.

Broderbund's "The Print Shop" has been doing that for its clients, particularly users who need a quick, easy and affordable way to do basic publishing activities.

The Print Shop Deluxe 12.0 is for kids, as well as for those kids-at-heart, who love the idea of churning out fun projects. Aside from turning regular banners and greeting cards into great works that ensures attraction, the newest edition of the 16-year-old printing and desktop publishing program includes a photo editor and tools that can help users produce simple paper products from menus to other marketing products. It also has easy-to-use interface, and a great online support.
Print Shop 12.0 is easy to use, never mind that the program has six CDs of clip art. One review even stated that you might need to find enough drive space for the whole "monster program". The review even said that even if one should stick with the minimum installation option, the program still needs 670MB of drive space. On the other hand, if one should decide to just keep the extra clip art CDs handy, swapping them every time you need an image may be a time-consuming alternative.

But as I've said earlier, never mind the number of CDs. The huge collection of clip art and images will blow your mind. With more than 134,000 images and 11,000 layout templates, you'll have more than enough for the next decade of publishing, I think.

With its easy-to-use interface, the program is definitely simple and functional. Print Shop 12.0 has menus with scores of commands and toolbars easy enough to manipulate. One artist even boasts of its large open space in the center of all those icons and toolbars-- the better to design your work.

The program also boasts of 5,000 more templates than the previous version. Just choose a template from one of the many categories, do the easy instructions, then customize the text and art and your on your way to creating your very own greeting card, or banner, or whatever marketing material you need at the moment.

The new Color Set Creator also helps users change the Color Set on the background. With just one click, users can try different colors for their project.

With a user-friendly manual, even a kid can handle its features. The program's help file is complete and clear.   

Post created by U Creative: For web design tips, graphic design tips, and printing tips.

In times when you are writing a message in your computer, have you ever asked yourself the following questions: How will I convey my message with the use of my fonts? Do I need several colors? Am I going to use big, bold, crisp or spaced fonts? Fonts are the crossing point between writers and readers. This is the reason why they have to be catchy in appearance and content.

Presentation is crucial because it is not only the superb content that draws the reader's attention. It starts with the font's character. It should speak for itself. Font's role is to get attention, enhance readability, set and atmosphere and most importantly projects an image.

The first rule is to know what case to use. Avoid using all upper or lower case especially in the body of your composition because it is hard to read. Use upper case in titles and headings only if it is necessary. Do not make the readers curse you while reading your message.

The generally accepted size of a font is between 10-12 point for the body, 14-48 point for primary headings and one half of the primary heading point size for secondary headings. Be aware though, that fonts may appear larger in computer than the actual size.

Keep the font simple. Your font is used to augment your message and not to impair it. Simplicity is still a virtue in writing so bear in mind using simple fonts not exaggerated ones.

Sometimes variation is necessary. Variety is most of the time used to break the monotony. Examples of variation are underlining of the text, italization, making the letters bold, highlighting and the likes. But it will be overstressed if you used them all so use them sparingly. 

The last rule is to match your font with your medium. You can break other aforestated rules provided that it blends with your medium. Every project has many perspectives. Some are intended to general public some are specific. Some are serious others are funny. But whatever your approach and typeface it must redound to the benefit of your project and not to destroy its goal.

After you are through reading these rules, ask yourself, am I using my fonts perfectly? If so continue what you've started. But if not, try to change your ways for the better. Communication is more than just words. Actually, there are a lot of things that we should consider to achieve not just comprehension but retention.

One thing to take note is that fonts always give the first impression of a texts face.

Post created by U Creative: For web design tips, graphic design tips, and printing tips.

JPEG and GIF image formats are both compression based formats. They are the most widely used and supported image formats for web. They take an uncompressed image such as bitmapped image and compress them to a smaller file size.

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It supports 16.7 million colors. It is ideal for photographic images and high quality images. JPEG is a lossless method of compression or in common parlance, when the program that creates a GIF squashes the original image down to ensure not to lose any data. It uses an easy substitution method of compression.

GIF on the other hand, stands for Graphic Interchange Format. It supports only a maximum of 256 colors. It is the only alternative to make an image animated unless you want to use Flash. Between GIF and JPEG, only GIF allows transparency. GIF is good for images with flat expenses of color. It can be use for logos, titles, button, etc. GIF format is good at compressing images with a small number of colors with no gradations. In actual fact, most web graphics are saved in GIF by contrast when applied to JPEG, it usually results in images which are larger than their GIF counterparts and may appear corrupted.

Each image format has its own advantage. GIF may win out with the non-dithering, fewer color images while JPEG is excellent for dithered continuous tone images. An example to this is a photograph with several colors, shadows and even gradations. All these colors and shades call for the JPEG format.

JPEGs disadvantage is that it throws away parts of an image to save space. Apparently you just can't discard any piece of information so what JPEG does is divide the image into squares. GIF is short of colors, that's a blatant fact. Another disadvantage is that, Unisys discovered that it owned several patents to key parts of the GIF compression technology and has started demanding fees from every company which uses the GIF code.

Post created by U Creative: For web design tips, graphic design tips, and printing tips.

Choosing the right paper for a printing job is a very complicated undertaking. It should not be that way though. You have overwhelming options. All you have to do is to be specific. Paper influences all the aspects of a print project, together with overall perception, reproduction quality, durability and mailing cost. Choose defectively, and you can spoil an otherwise great project.

To be specific is to consider a lot of aspects. First the surface of the paper because it affects its look, feel and printability. It matters because people are influenced by the appearance of the paper, it's that simple.

Second aspect is the paper color. Color is the most important characteristic since it controls the hues and shades of the ink. At present, white is the most popular color and is generally optimal for conventional uses. Off-white paper produces fewer glares. It is usually used in publications such as novels and manuals.

Brightness is another aspect that needs to be considered. It measures the percentage of light that it reflects. Most papers reflect 60-90% of incoming light. It is important because it affects readability.

The fourth aspect is opacity. It is the degree to which other printing is visible through the page. High level of opacity minimizes the visibility of printing on succeeding pages, as a result, it enhances readability. Opacity is influenced by the other factors such as bulk and weight of paper, paper color, ink color, coatings, chemicals and coverage.

Grain, on the other hand, describes the direction or alignment of its component fibers. It is either grain short or grain long. When fibers run parallel to the width it is grain short. Grain direction determination is critical to paper strength, flexibility, tack and versatility.
The basis of weight of paper is premeditated in pound of one ream or five hundred sheets. Paper is sold by pound and understanding paper weight is essential to a triumphant cost control programs.

The eighth aspect is the bulk. It denotes thickness relative to its basis weight. Uncalendared paper will have a higher bulk than gloss coated paper. Keep in mind though, that paper may be bulkier or thicker than another grade but may still have the same basis weight.

The size of the paper depicts its physical dimensions. Ask your supplier for specific information concerning the range of paper sizes to ensure proficient usage.
 
The tenth aspect is the paper quantity. It refers to the number of sheets. A ream is equivalent to 500 sheets. Cartons of paper are typically weighing 150 pounds.

In purchasing paper, work side by side with the supplier. Paper suppliers can help you in picking the best paper in terms of possible weight, texture, tear strength and color for the printing surface. Always discuss your paper needs with your paper supplier and your printer at the earliest possible opportunity.

10 good ways in choosing the right paper for your printing works.

Post created by U Creative: For web design tips, graphic design tips, and printing tips.