Photoshop Tutorials For Newcomers - How Pixel Depend Influences Viewing and Printing Digital Photographs

Article by Jim Copeland

The ideal video clips are inclined to area you appropriate through the teacher's desktop, so it just would make it a entire ton easier to comply with precisely what's heading on.There are quite a few essential Photoshop courses out there, which coach you on every thing you want to study to get started out with Photoshop, and most of these tutorials come with each video clips and text transcripts, so you can't go incorrect.If you might be seeking to construct your private Photoshop portfolio, simply just by on line Photoshop tutorials and video clips, you would be greater off by mastering the interface as nicely as finding how to use some of the standard Photoshop instruments. On top of that, look at to come across a couple of lessons about layers, which is an individual of the most crucial aspects of Photoshop. This will help you assemble a strong foundation for additionally advanced methods afterwards.As you grasp the essential rules, transfer on to tougher video clips. When you start off to grasp a little something you constantly want to come across out much more, so broaden your Photoshop awareness and search for state-of-the-art tutorials.Have you edited a photograph on your pc and when you went to print it, it was just a tiny picture on the web page? Have you at any time e-mailed a digital photograph to your mother but the picture file dimensions was so big that her inbox rejected your attachment?Photograph ResolutionA pixel (shorthand for photo aspect) is the identify of the small dots that make up an image and resolution is a measurement of how a lot of pixels fit into one particular inch.Our televisions, computer system screens and even digital pictures are full of pixels -- thousands and thousands of them all crammed together so closely it tricks the human mind into thinking these very small dots are a sleek picture.The higher the pixel count inside an image, the smoother the picture appears to be like. Conversely, if the pixel depend is also low, the image good quality suffers. When the pixel count is so reduced you can see the jaggy edges, you've obtained a pixelated image.Digital camera images have a superior pixel count though most dwelling pc shows have a reduced pixel depend, typically beneath 100 pixels in an inch. Displaying the former on the latter benefits in an image that seems a lot more substantial than the laptop or computer display. Digital cameras seize images at higher resolution to permit photographic good quality prints. But e-mailing this massive image file will take megabytes of info and quite a few e-mail customers will reject it.Picture ResamplingThe option is to re-sample the picture which is computer system communicate for modifying the resolution. Reducing the pixel rely will make the picture appear regular on a personal computer watch. And this will permit you to e-mail Mom with the most recent family members photographs from your latest family vacation. But following re-sampling the image, really don't count on to get a top quality print any more given that you've used out so quite a few pixels.The basic guideline now would seem simple.

This tutorial is just the first video of a multi video session that will show how to turn a photo into a drawing and adding a lil jazz to the image. More tutorials coming soon @ ronjr.wordpress.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

The Stone Age Comes of Age With LED Signs

Article by Tom Radcliffe

Humans have been using signs to communicate since before we even had an alphabet to call our own. Those signs looked different from those we see today though. Drawings scrawled on cave walls, piles of stones arranged in special ways, or figures and shapes traced in the dirt all served to convey information of some kind to those who saw them. Times have indeed changed, and technology has, too. Instead of cave drawings, we see LED signs. Outdoor piles of stones and the scribblings in the dirt have been replaced by the LED message sign.

In spite of all the changes our civilization has gone through over the eons, our need for signs hasn't changed a bit. In fact, after walking down the streets of a major city, one could make a solid argument that it's grown by leaps and bounds. Programmable LED signs are in the windows of storefronts, shouting their vibrant messages at anyone passing by, and theater and nightclub marquees have been replaced with LED signs. Outdoor lighting is catching on to the craze as well, using the energy-efficient LED technology to help businesses and cities save money while also being more environmentally responsible.

The surprising thing perhaps, is that for all the astounding technological achievements that have gone into an LED message sign, it still does pretty much what the dirt scribble did: communicate. Every business needs to communicate with both current and potential customers. It might sound cliché, but there's just no getting around the truth of it. If people don't know what you can do for them, they won't think to look for you when they have need of your service. Using programmable LED signs can be a big help in that regard. Not only can you tell people what you do, but you can also fill them in about other things they might want or need to know.

So with all this talk about LED-this and LED-that, you might be wondering, "What the heck is an LED, anyway?" Well, the layman's explanation is that an LED (short for Light-Emitting Diode) is an electrical component that lights up when voltage gets applied to it. Their first practical uses were in devices such as hand-held calculators, and for replacing older incandescent indicator lights on instrument panels. Over the years, the technology has been refined and new applications in interior and exterior lighting and signage have emerged. All things considered, LEDs run cooler and more efficiently than other types of lighting and illuminated signs, which makes them cheaper to operate over time.

Becoming More Like Alfie


Image by Mark Witton
My housemates don’t quite understand my fondness for darkness. While it probably does my eyes no good at all and has led to more than one stubbed toe, I don’t put many lights on around the house. At best, I’ll put on a few lamps while drawing or reading, but I can’t stand ‘big’ lights. No, they’re too artificial, too orangey and somehow nowhere near as pleasing as genuine sunlight. I’m not one, y’see, for pretending that it’s not dark outside: in fact, there’s something quite comforting about being at home with the dark only held at bay by the localised glow of a little lamp. It’s the same feeling you get when sat indoors as rain lashes against your windows. You know the one: that warm, comfy feeling that’s amplified by the sound of rain peppering the glass and brings a smile to your face every time some poor bugger runs past, soaking wet and miserable, while you’ve got your feet up on the sofa and a cup of coffee in your hands. This means that as the nights draw in and temperatures drop in this October time of year, I’m quite happy to embrace the change. Still, it does mean that we’ve got to wave goodbye to all the summer hobbies and open the box on all the wintery, indoor counterparts. Goodbye snoozing on a lazy common under a clear blue sky, hello lazing on the sofa in front of the telly. Out goes watching bands on the seafront, and in comes piping your favourite tunes through the internet. So long to cycling around town looking as stereotypically French as possible and welcome to... well, actually, that will continue unabated: some things should persist all year, after all.

Of course, our transfer to winter conditions occurs quite slowly, caused by little more than successive subtle changes to rainfall and temperature over many weeks. In this respect, it operates in a similar manner to the classic model of evolution: successive generations of organisms build up incremental changes to their anatomy over time and, eventually, produce something radically different from their ancestors. We don’t see much evidence, certainly in the fossil record, of organisms dramatically changing isolated elements of their anatomy without effects elsewhere: they don’t, generally speaking, suddenly develop an entirely new skull structure or something without showing modification of other body parts. What’s weird, though, is that geneticists have found that genes – and the expression of them - often show signs of clumping together into genetic complexes or ‘modules’ that, in theory, could be modified independently of other modules to produce large changes to an organism’s bodyplan without affecting others. Typically, we don’t see such changes in the fossil record: organisms typically show a whole bunch of ‘advanced’ and ‘primitive’ features scattered across their anatomy, so called ‘mosaic’ evolution.

All this changes today, though. Stepping into the international spotlight is Frank, a new pterosaur from the middle Jurassic of China that combines features of pterodactyloid pterosaurs (classically defined as critters with reduced numbers of openings in their skull; long, simplified neck vertebrae; long bones in the ‘palms’ of their hands; short tails and reduced fifth toes) and their more basal ancestors (defined by the inverse of the criteria listed above). Of course, ‘Frank’ isn’t the animal’s real name: honouring 200 years since Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th year since the publication of The Origin of Species, it’s been christened Darwinopterus; but the moniker ‘Frank’, used by the scientists studying Darwinopterus to refer to the animal while they were thinking up something more grandiose, does reveal something about it’s strange anatomical bauplan. Frank’s anatomy, see, is somewhat akin to the construction of Frankenstein’s Monster, looking like it was bolted together from different pterosaurs. More specifically, the head and neck are classically pterodactyloid, while everything below the neckline is a textbook basal pterosaur. Frank is therefore important for at least two major reasons: it’s the first time in over 200 years of pterosaur research that we’ve gleaned an insight into the transition of pterodactyloids from basal forms, and, perhaps more importantly, it shows that this modular evolution stuff did occur and can be demonstrated in the fossil record. Frank’s discovery has other implications too but, I’m afraid, we don’t have time or space to cover them here. Happily for you though, you lucky dogs, I’ve penned a full summary of how Frank will shatter the world over at the online science magazine Flesh and Stone: why not nip over there and read it now? Just be sure to come back.

Right: got the full lowdown on Frank? Pretty neat, huh? Such an interesting little critter clearly deserves an equally interesting press release image and, presumably because all the other palaeoartists were on holiday or something, Frank’s minders asked me to produce that image for them. I was asked to focus on two things: Frank’s hybrid pterosaur bodyplan and it’s proposed ecology of an aerial predator. I have to admit that this proposed ecology doesn’t sit entirely comfortable with me: it’s not that I’m saying the authors are wrong, but there’s been virtually no research at all into the functional morphology of non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs and, as such, their assumption of things like their poor terrestrial ability lacks backing. What’s more, for all it’s modular innovation, Frank’s anatomy is quite generalised and there’s no features to really suggest it was a specialist aerial predator. That said, a number of birds manage to hawk animals in mid air without specific adaptations for the job, so Frank’s proposed ecology may get through on this technicality. Plus, at least it’s not another suggested fish eater or, God forbid, another proposed skim-feeder, and that should be celebrated. And, undeniably, aerial predation makes for a more exciting PR image than, I don’t know, grubbing for worms.

Frank’s portrait went through quite a few drafts before the version you can see here. The first decision involved deciding on a prey item: if you’re a mid-Jurassic aerial vertebrate predator, your menu will consist of gliding dinosaurs, mammals or other pterosaurs. The obvious choice had to be a dinosaur because, in these cynical times, dinosaur-eating animals tend to get more press interest. Once this was decided, composition had to be considered. Initially, Frank was powering in from the right of the image, mouth agape and wings at the end of their downstroke. The prey item was different, too: rather than the gliding troodontid Anchiornis seen here, Frank was chasing a tiny scansoriopterygid, a group of very birdlike dinosaurs that appear to have been adept climbers. In fact, the first draft of Frank’s image saw Frank about to engulf one of these chaps as it ran up a tree, but my commissioners were dead keen to retain Frank a predator of other aerial animals, so the scansoriopterygid took to the air in a parachuting fashion for the next draft. This version almost became the final draft, but two big changes were then asked for that resulted in the whole thing being started again. Firstly, Frank was found to look much better at the top of the image, looming over his prey with raised wings and using it’s long neck to reach beneath it. Then, re-dating of fossil beds containing Anchiornis gave us the opportunity to jump on the ‘isn’t it cool to have genuine dinobird in the mid-Jurassic’ bandwagon, and gave us a more topical and likely prey item. To begin with, this version had Frank flying directly at the viewer, meaning his chest obscured much of the detail of his anatomy. This didn’t really cut the mustard for showing off Frank’s chimeric characteristics, so he was repositioned again to appear as in a dive. Anchironis, too, once looked more birdlike, but this was toned down to ensure that people recognised it as a dinosaur. Once all this was settled, colouring finally commenced and, in tribute to the cut-n-shut processes taking place around Frank’s neckline, I thought it made sense to have a clear division between the dark basal pterosaur anatomy at the rear and the considerably brighter, funkier pterodactyloid anatomy ahead. Anchiornis was made deliberately bland to contrast with all those dinobird images that have them painted in the same schemes as the most brilliant birds of paradise: I’m sure there were fantastically coloured Mesozoic dinosaurs, but there were probably plenty of dull, brown ones too. I figure that I’m already working on a reputation for making pterosaurs less interesting (they weren’t hyperlightweight, had relatively uninteresting feeding strategies etc...), so I may as well try to make dinobirds boring, too.

Beyond this, a background had to be painted. The Tiaojishan Formation rocks that yielded Frank are much better known for their palaeoflora than fauna, suggesting that it would’ve been very, very green around there 160 million years ago. A lush, vegetated background was clearly needed then, and my initial plan was for the backdrop to be painted with a directional blur. You know, as if the image were a tracking photograph of Frank and his prey that grabbed the animals in focus but blurred the background. However, I opted away from that in favour of experimenting with some depth of field stuff that, with it’s grading into mist and fog, also serves as a subtle nod to old Chinese ink and wash paintings. I think it works. Sort of. That being done at the end of several weeks – maybe even a couple of months – of sketching and redrafting, the image was ready for presentation at the big SVP conference in Bristol last month. I think it’s generally all right, but there are some bits that could be better: Frank looks a little flat and undershaded, and some parts just look unfinished (apologies to the authors – deadlines and all).

And on that note, I’ll finish. Don’t forget to check out Flesh and Stone for more Frank-related goodies if you haven’t already, as well as their other articles on all things science. As for me, this year’s transition from summer to winter has churned up a very nice looking day, so I’m going to have a shower and enjoy the warmth of the sun for a while. Probably while drawing one of the dullest pterosaur fossils in the world. Oh well: can’t have everything.

Photoshop Tutorials Blog - Become a Photoshopper

Article by aaronsil

When we are talking about Photoshop tutorials, then you should know that Photoshop tutorials should let you in on the same rules that a graphic designer will follow. Yes, when we are talking about Photoshop tutorials then we can clearly state the fact that they are somehow related to writing.

If you have a photoshop blog and you want to teach a lot of people Photoshop, then you should first be careful how your blog is structured and the methods that you will be employing to have things done the right way. You should know that if you have a photoshop blog you should consider using a lot of images and videos, as most of the times text will definitely yield no good results. By doing so, you are automatically grabbing the attention of your readers and they will definitely keep on reading it and also be interested in coming for more info when they will be lost not knowing what to do next while they will be photoshopping their favorite images. Make sure that your photoshop blog is up to date with the latest news about Photoshop and other things that you might think will attract users and make your blog look very professional.

This blog will definitely teach you how to become a photoshopper and you will see that in no time you will start creating some of the most amazing images you've never thought you could crate. If you want to have your own blog crated, another thing that you should employ is a good technique. For this, there is clearly no sin in being inspired by some movies that you saw lately or some commercials that you loved. Thus there are millions of readers out there and each one will be looking for a special thing. One will need a cool design that he will be able to show off with, another will just need a quick tip on a certain technique and so on. So if you cover many such things you will definitely get a lot of users to be hooked up with your blog.

You should always have the audience in mind whenever you are aiming to help someone become a photoshopper. Try to see things their way if you can and consider the principles of aesthetics more. Yes, the users will be jumping to your blog because of the interesting info that it has, but if you can make it readable in a very nice design then you will impress them even more.

Palm Beach International Airport


Image by Captain Kimo
Details about this photo can be found by clicking here.

HDR photograph merged using Photomatix. Details enhanced using Topaz Adjust.
Final image processed using Photoshop.

HDR Tutorial | PhotoBlog | Web Gallery | About Captain Kimo

Beneficial Photoshop Tutorials

Article by Rubina Baig

The Temple of Heaven


Image by Stuck in Customs
One too-early morning brought me to this very important place for the Chinese called The Temple of Heaven. It's the most important Taoist structure in all of China and millions flock to it every year, especially during the National Holiday. It was built in the early 1400's during the reign of the Yongle Emperor.

I was lucky to get private access in the morning during the sunrise. After waking up in the dark at the hotel, my driver took me out to the location, where I met one of the directors while members of the military let me inside the giant doors. Since it was a special celebration week, there were throngs of people waiting to get inside. I'm sure they were wondering what in the heck some white dude was doing busting through the doors with a giant tripod! I nodded to them all in a mysterious way before I went through the doors.

(btw, a few questions as to whether or not I photoshopped the moon there. The answer is no... I'm not one of those guys that will "photoshop in" something major like a moon.)

Dump Your Desktop And Get One Of These

Article by Elizabeth Lord

The HP Pavilion dv9000t laptop has arrived and it comes packing plenty of punch. With the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor, dual 100GB hard drives, 17 inch glossy display, and to top it all off, a HD-DVD drive that plays the latest high definition movies, though not at the highest resolutions.

This 7.8-pound HP notebook not only has power, but it looks good as well. With a shiny black finish on the outside and silver on the inside, this system can handle just about anything from multitasking office work to music, photos and playing DVDs. The 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor, has no problem doing all of the above simultaneously, without any glitches to audio or video.

Navigating around the dv9000t is very easy. The large touch pad makes for easy scrolling, and the scroll bar makes scanning large documents a breeze. The QuickPlay multimedia buttons activate the DVD player and multimedia features, as well as starting or stopping movies or music.

Sound from the Altec Lansing speakers was very clear coming through, but cranking the volume right up made the sound a bit fuzzy, with the best option being to stick around the midrange for the best sound.

This HP computer comes with a 1.3-megapixel webcam that delivered good quality pictures, but had some trouble with videoconferencing and live video coming through a bit blurry.

The dv9000t has a 2.16-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor that delivers good performance without being stunning. Combined with a Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card with 256MB of video memory, this system is a very solid performer.

Battery life was pretty good at 2 hours and 40 minutes with the Wi-Fi on. The wireless networking performed strongly with 13.4 Mbps at 15 feet, and 11.5 Mbps at 50 feet. There are also plenty of ports to this system, with four USB ports, FireWire, VGA, S-Video out, two headphone ports and a mic port.

There is a nice amount of software that comes with this system, including Corel Paint Shop Pro X, HP's QuickPlay Direct 2.1, Photosmart Premier 6.0, Intuit Quicken New User Edition 2006, Microsoft Office Trial 2003, Money 2006 and Muvee autoProducer DVD edition with Burning 5. There is also a trial version of Norton Internet Security 2006. There is the standard one year warranty with this machine, and one year of 24/7 toll free tech support, as well as email assistance and real time chat online.

Overall, this system is a good desktop replacement with HD-DVD. Along with the built in webcam, the QuickPlay functions and affordable price, the HP Pavilion 9000t will not let you down.

Au Clair de la Lune


Image by fs999
Pentax K-7 • Pentax DA 12-24mm f:4 ED AL (IF)

Moon light only. Self portrait.
Long exposure 30" at f:4

Cimetière fortifié de
Hartmannswiller • Alsace • France

Purchase Corel WordPerfect X4 cheap

WordPerfect Office X4 is a speedy and powerful suite that's particularly handy for dedicated PDF users.

Buy Corel WordPerfect X4 cheap

Installation was simple. The software asked which modules we wished to install from a list that included WordPerfect X4, Quattro Pro X4 (for spreadsheets), Presentations X4, WordPerfect Lightning, and WordPerfect Mail. We got more detailed control over which module features were installed, such as Quattro Pro's charting templates and Presentations' CorelMEMO. It took about 15 minutes to install the software with all features.

Probably the best new option Office X4 offers is PDF handling. Instead of just allowing you to open and edit PDFs, the program uses OCR technology that lets you convert scanned characters into an editable text file.

Office X4 also offers password protection, support for tagged PDFs, and the ability to archive files using the de facto PDF/A format.

Other additions weren't as polished—such as the one new module, WordPerfect Lightning, a brainstorming tool and blank space where you can create, copy, store, and organize data in a tree structure. Corel should have added elements to make more of this, such as a keyword-association template and an idea wizard for managing the development of concepts. We also don't like that the Paradox database engine and SDK developers' tools remain unsupported by Vista. That's not to say WP Lightning is bad, only that it still seems a work in progress.

Online Services allows you to upload portions of your notebook and publish to a Web-based calendar, contact database, or e-mail system. You can also store up to 200MB of data online, but we had security reservations about this. The Internet isn't a completely secure environment; the safer place for apps like these is on your hard drive, behind your own multilayered security suite, or on a handheld device that can update such a drive.

Purchase Corel WordPerfect X4 cheap

Outdoor Portrait_web


Image by chemisti
A nice shot of my son.

The setup for this shot was simple because there was a nice backlight already.

Strobist info:
Nikon SB-800 used for fill, just above camera fired into 43" convertible umbrella - set at -1 EV. Triggered via D300 popup commander and Nikon CLS/AWL.

Nikon D300
ISO 200
Nikon 80-200 f2.8 AF-s
F 2.8
120 MM
1/250 sec
Manual settings.

Post processing completed in Capture NX2 and Corel Paint Shop Pro X2.

Making The Most Out Of Your Free Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

Article by Mario R. Churchill

You may be having the very best of the world's free Adobe photoshop tutorials, but if you yourself are not prepared for it and not as driven to devise ways to maximize your learning, you may find yourself unable to get your money and time's worth from your Adobe photoshop tutorial. A free Adobe photoshop tutorial is very loose and does not really compel you to give it time on a regular basis. You hold the decision ultimately on what terms you are going about with the free tutorial, along with many other things.

Be ConsistentRegardless of the amount of time and type of tutorial you are under, consistency is key to be able to really make it work. Set aside a time and place for your learning. You can't just expect to learn a lot if you are not able to devote much time and energy to learning the concepts on a regular basis. It takes 21 days to make a habit, so at least get in the tutorial for 21 days at a fixed time and place so that you will be able to make the tutorial part of your daily routine online.

Set a TargetYou must have a goal of completing the free tutorial if you want to be continually motivated to finish the course. That way, you will be free to take your learning to new levels and aim for advanced topics in the fastest possible time that your schedule will permit. A target will ensure that you are going somewhere and that will help you efficiently map out how you are to go about with your learning.

Apply Every Concept You Learn for Faster RetentionMerely reading the concepts won't make you a photoshop genius. You need to really install the software and apply whatever concept you learn from your free tutorial. Applying the concepts also helps you master it more quickly. That way, when new concepts build, you will better be able to integrate the new concepts with the old concepts you have painstakingly taken the time to apply. By the time you finish the free tutorial, you will be able to do it with less questions and worries, and you will also be well-equipped enough to teach others.

Get a Learning BuddyHaving someone to follow up on your progress or learn the tricks of the trade with you is one of the more efficient ways to learn. You will be able to have accountability and not be slack if you have someone to work with in learning from the free tutorial. Being able to regularly talk about your progress and goals from the tutorial will keep you in the right perspective.

Note and Track Your ProgressHave a checklist handy. There you will be able to track your progress in learning. If you happen to have things you specifically want to learn from photoshop, take note of them and list them accordingly. Mark those which you have already accomplished so that you will be able to know how capable you are becoming and how much more skill training is needed. This way, you will also be able to determine how much more time you need to practice on certain topics to further cement the knowledge that you have acquired from the tutorial.

Swing


Image by Paparuchas
Primera parte de la serie "Estoy desparchado por las tardes, pero es chevere porque aprendo cosas nuevas"

vladstudio.com/photoshoptutorials/tutorial.php?rainbows_m...

Images & Brushes Links: Texture: www.sxc.hu Car: www.sxc.hu Grunge Brushes: www.brusheezy.com Welcome to this tutorial! We are going to take a look at how to create this cool, fully customizable and editable grungy, dirty, distressed background. We will use a combo of texture, brushing, and blend modes to create a very cool background inspired by a modest iTunes Gift Card! Learn about brushing, adjustment layers, dodging and burning, blend modes, texturing, masking, and even a slight touch of the pen tool. Enjoy! Twitter! www.twitter.com Be sure to check out www.tutvid.com Check out the blog @ http
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Paint Shop Pro Training Review-A Complete Package Of 49 Videos With Over 4 Hours of Step by Step Learning!

These are high quality (HD) video tutorials for Corel's Award Winning photo editor Paint Shop Photo Pro X3. These Step by Step Paintshop Photo Pro X3 tutorials will quickly teach you how to create professional looking photographs in a matter of minutes. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced photo editor, you will get the most out of these video tutorials!
Discount Click here
Watch and Learn Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 today!

A Complete Package of 49 Videos with Over 4 Hours of Step by Step Learning!

1: User Interface Walkthrough

We introduce the user interface of Paint Shop Pro and describe the various work areas of the tool. Specifically, we cover the the main editor, pallettes, toolbars, the express lab and the photo organizer.

2: Toolbars and Palettes

We introduce the user interface of Paint Shop Pro and describe the various work areas of the tool.

Specifically, we cover the the main editor, pallettes, toolbars, the express lab and the photo organizer.

3: Organizing your Photos

Paintshop Photo Pro has just the right set of tools to help you with your digital workflow. In this episode, we show you how to keep your digital photos organized, rate them, add tags to make photos or groups of photos searchable and create smart collections.

4: Combining Photos 1

This is Part 1 of combining photos. Here we go beyond the simple extraction we show in Part 1. We use the selection feature to move the objects "behind" the other objects in the photo to enhance the way the photo looks.

5: Combining Photos 2

This is Part 2 of combining photos. Here we go beyond the simple extraction we show in Part 1. We use the selection feature to move the objects "behind" the other objects in the photo to enhance the way the photo looks.

6: Blending Photos 1

In this episode we show you how to merge 2 photos. We take 2 different photos from a wedding scene and merge them to create a nice blended effect.

7: Blending Photos 2

In Part 1 of Blending Photos, we show a simple 2 photo blend that uses of a mask layer. In Part 2, we show you how to blend photos using the brush pattern tool.

8: Blending Photos 3

Here we take the technique further and explore more variations of the blending effect. We take another wedding photo of a couple and make it memorable by giving it a vintage grainy look.

Express Lab 1

The express lab in Paint Shop Photo Pro is great for a faster workflow - make quick fixes, apply special effects and even delete photos - all in one single, user friendly and convenient work space. In this episode, we cover the many features and tools the Express Lab offers.

10: Express Lab 2

The express lab should always be the first place you go to when you want to make quick fixes to Photos. In Part 2 of Express lab, we continue exploring the Express lab and look at a few more features of this amazing workspace.

11: Selection Basics

The art of selection is an essential skill to master in any photo editing software. Paint Shop Photo Pro comes with some very powerful tools (selection tool, the free hand tool and the powerful magic wand tool) to help you in creating the perfect selection. In this episode we start off with some selection basics.

12: Selection by Painting

An alternative method to creating selections is by painting. Once you make the selection, you can then apply special effects to that selection. Painting is great way to accurate selections.

For more information on Paint Shop Pro Training

And more...

pinkish ball on black


Image by *Psycho Delia*
Just having fun seeing what I can do with different effects in Paint Shop Pro

View On White

Corel Draw Vs Photoshop...but Can They Be Compared??
Hi everyone, I found this article online when trying to suss out the difference between Corel Draw and Photoshop. I currently use Photoshop but am contemplating getting a new design software; anyone have any advice? I know they have huge differences- Adobe Photoshop is for image editing and Corel Draw is vector drawing but which one is better? Help please!

At one time, if you were serious at design then you'll have used Corel. Now in its 20th year, it's a leading application that has recently been superseded by the likes of Adobe's Illustrator package. X3 hopes to re-address this balance by introducing new features and streamlining the whole process. While Adobe is aimed at professionals, Corel has aimed for the semi-professional and the enthusiast market.

Loading the suite up you'll find that it still maintains its clean and easy to navigate interface. Comprising three separate standalone applications: CorelDraw Photo-Shop and Capture, it's as comprehensive as you need. That said, you won't find any layout tools, nor any applications specifically aimed at web design and remains an art-based package.

CorelDraw X3 is the heart of the package and remains a powerful tool and comes with newly designed controls that make creating images easier. PowerTrace is a re-invented tool that once stood alone but has been built into CorelDraw and is a bitmap-to-vector conversion tool. You can choose to do a quick scan for low accuracy conversions, ideal for getting an idea across. Or, more likely, you can convert high-res scans quickly and easily, as the application even allows you to specify and check the colour conversion before it does so, which can save considerable time later on.

It's not just images manipulation that has been improved as you'll find that TEXT has been overhauled, allowing for sentence and paragraph formatting - a feature that until now hasn't been supported. What's more, formatting also expands to allow bullet-points and tabbing. True, these features could be found in the previous Format Text feature but now they sit more naturally within the main application making it easier to edit text in real time.

Photo-Paint X3, as does Draw, is based around easy to access controls, called "dockers", which are lined on the side of the page for easy access to everything from colour palettes to Hints and Help tutorials. Image correction has been brought together in the Adjustments Lab, while the new Cutout Lab means you can remove details from images far more easily than in previous versions. Sadly, we feel the changes, while worthwhile, haven't gone far enough and still lag behind other applications on the market. Finally, Capture is a screen capture application that works well but doesn't boast too many tools.

When it comes to resources, you can't fault the wealth or quality of the included images and clipart. Even the most idea-bereft user can find inspiration here.

LeedsStreet01


Image by digitalrob70
Street scene in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.

Done in Corel Photopaint, Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact and Paint.NET.

Led Signs: Can You Count The Benefits?

Article by Carlos G. Garcia

Light Emitting Diode Signs, or Led Signs as they are more commonly known, are quite possibly one of the most powerful mediums available to promote your business's products to the community.

Day by day, more business owners are realizing the immeasurable benefits that LED signs provide to their company.

Some of the Major Benefits of Having an Led Sign for your business include:

The ability to improve your business' image.

**Image is everything. especially when it comes to business.

**Having the "right" image or even just being able to project a better image for your company can mean more customers and more profits for your place of business, and using an Led sign to do so means that you'll have a chance to showcase your business image 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Another Led Sign benefit is that you'll be able to bring in more customers.

**There could be almost nothing more attractive than for your potential customers to see the brilliant lights of an led sign displaying your business' name and/or message.

The ability to increase sales and company/brand awareness almost instantly.

**An led sign will allow you to display your daily, weekly and monthly specials with ease, while also enabling you to announce new products, upcoming promotions, and both holiday and seasonal specials with better efficiency.

Using an Led Sign can actually help you to save money.

**Yes, Led signs have the ability to help you save money because they are so energy efficient that they can reduce your costs by as much as 95 percent when compared to standard incandescent lighting, and the led lamp itself can last for over 100,000 hours!

**Another reason that led signs are able to save business owners money is because they are not only weather resistant, but low maintenance by nature.

**And, believe it or not, you may actually be able to generate some additional revenue from your led sign by offering advertising opportunities to other businesses.

Bottom line, although anyone who tried hard enough could find several more benefits to purchasing an led sign for their business, the major ones listed above should be enough to get any business owner motivated.

You’re dirty, sweet and you’re my girl


Image by Mark Witton
Tell you what: of late I’ve done nothing but talk. Thanks to covering my PhD supervisor’s teaching load while he’s away on fieldwork for a month, I’ve been delivering 3 hour lectures, tutorials, assisting in practical classes, invigilating in-class tests and all sorts: I’ve been rambling on at students more than Led Zepplin II. The funny thing is, save for one seminar I’ve given on my own research, none of what I’ve said has been my own words. No, instead I’ve been regurgitating the songs of other researchers, putting what they’ve said into my own words and launching them at students. It’s a bit weird, really: I must’ve said thousands of words more than normal over the last week and yet, in a strange way, I feel like I haven’t really spoken to many people at all.

While I’ve been busy putting other people’s words into my mouth, a milestone in my career has drifted by virtually un-noticed. Yup, last week saw not only the publication of my first ever solo paper, but also my first ever contribution to the big list of animal species known to exist across time. Enter, stage left, Lacusovagus magnificens, a brand-spanking new pterosaur from Lower Cretaceous deposits of Brazil, described, illustrated and named entirely by yours truly. Given that a half-decent new taxon will be forever referenced and discussed in scientific literature until kingdom-come, this is, I guess, a reasonably big deal. Shame, therefore, that my reaction to its publication was something more akin to ‘oh, that’s nice’ than ‘hot-damn, I’ve been immortalised in the scientific literature’. Even as I write this, I can’t shake the feeling that I really have more pressing concerns to address like putting a lecture together or reading through some proofs but, dammit, it’s been ages since I wrote anything other than some hastily worded E-mails, so write I will: the words of other people will have to wait for a few minutes longer.

So, what is this Lacusovagus beastie all about, then? Well, the holotype specimen (that is, the specimen to which the name Lacusovagus magnificens is attached to) was sourced from the Crato Formation of Brazil, the age of which isn’t entirely clear. Based on fossil spores and pollen, the Crato Formation seems to have a ballpark age of about 110 million years old, dumping it towards the top of the Lower Cretaceous. This stretch of time records one of the richest, most diverse pterosaur faunas we know of: between the famous Jehol Group of China (you know, the place that's blossoming with all those fuzzy dinosaurs you see splashed across the news every-so-often), the Crato Formation, the neighbouring Santana Formation and a few other sites, we know of at least ten major groups of pterosaurs around at this time, and God-knows how many different species. So, Lacusovagus doesn’t exactly rewrite our knowledge of pterosaur temporal distribution, then: in this respect, it simply adds another name to the already-long list of pterosaurs known from this time.

What is a bit more exciting, though, is what Lacusovagus is. It took a little while to verify exactly what Lacusovagus was because of the, frankly rather crappy, nature of the holotype. Affectionately known to its friends as SMNK PAL 4325, the only known specimen of Lacusovagus is simply a fragmentary rostrum – essentially the front end of the upper beak and elements of the bars making up most of the skull length (to be all technical, we’ve got the complete pre-nasoantorbital fenestral rostrum, most of the right maxillary bar, some of the left maxillary bar and a short stretch of the posterodorsal extension of the premaxillae). Unusually for a Crato pterosaur, SMNK PAL 4325 is preserved with the roof of its mouth flat in the sediment, making it damned difficult to see even the most basic features of it - like the presence of absence of teeth. Adding to this problem was the fact that the chaps who collected the specimen decided that, because the limestone slab housing the skull was quite thin and delicate, they would secure another slab to the underside. In theory, this is an excellent idea because, hey, no-one wants their sexy new pterosaur skulls to split in two, but they used car body filler to cement the slabs together. We removed a section of the bottom limestone slab pretty easily, but the infernal car filler was a real cow to get through. In fact, only a tiny portion was removed before the juxtaposition of bloody inert car filler and delicate fossil became too much of a liability for preparation to continue. What you can see of the underside of the jaw shows no sign of teeth, and we later CT scanned the specimen to find a similar result. Thus, whatever Lacusovagus was, it didn’t have any teeth.

Thankfully, other aspects of Lacusovagus ‘s skull weren’t so difficult to see. Although pretty fragmentary, we’ve got enough of the skull preserved to show that the skull was quite long – at least 655 mm and probably well-over 700 mm when complete – but, based on doubling the width of the widest part of the skull, it’s also unusually wide. This is something you don’t get too often in pterosaurs: their skulls are typically quite slender (though no-where near as paper-thin as suggested by some workers), with only aberrant, derived things like istiodactylids and tapejarids having proportionally wide skulls. Lacusovagus stands out with weird skull proportions, combining a long snout with a relatively wide skull. In fact, only one toothless pterosaur, Tapejara, has a wider skull for its length than Lacusovagus.

And that’s not the only weird thing about Lacusovagus. For a long-jawed pterosaur, its rostrum – the bit of the beak in front of its nasal opening (although, of course, pterodactyloid pterosaurs have fused nasals and antorbital fenestrae – but you knew that already, didn’t you?) is pretty short. Given that the jaw is not entirely complete (but I figure most of it is there), the ratio of jaw length to rostral length will be even shorter in a complete specimen. The unusually wide skull is also reflected in the rostrum, which is pretty chunky along much of its length. However, unlike an awful lot of edentulous pterosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous, there’s not a hint of a headcrest anywhere along the skull. Given that the specimen is osteologically mature, it’s unlikely that it’s crestlessness (um... that may not be a real word) can be put down SMNK PAL 4325 being an immature individual still awaiting the crest development, shoegaze music and moodiness that would arrive with puberty.

So, are these features enough to give an idea of what SMNK PAL 4325 actually is? Well, it looks like Lacusovagus can be quite reliably shoved inside the pterosaur group Azhdarchoidea, the social club that also features thalassodromids, tapejarids and azhdarchids. However, it can’t be placed in any of these ‘classic’ azhdarchoid groups: no, Lacusovagus finds its closest chums in a relatively new pterosaur group, Chaoyangopteridae. These chaps – like Lacusovagus - have long, edentulous jaws with shallow, crestless rostra, big nasoantorbital fenestra and - a bit like azhdarchids - long neck vertebrae. Now, when I submitted the Lacusovagus manuscript to Palaeontology I hadn’t verified the chaoyangopterid affinities of SMNK PAL 4325 with any kind of cladistic analysis, but I managed to work one into my PhD thesis: in all recovered trees, Lacusovagus hangs out with the likes of Jidapterus, Eoazhdarcho, Eopteranodon, Chaoyangopterus and Shenzhoupterus - certified chaoyangopterids - to the exclusion of all other azhdarchoids. Interestingly, I found Chaoyangopteryidae to form a little clade with Azhdarchidae, suggesting that long necks only evolved once within Azhdarchoidea. Neat.

Now, if pterosaur palaeobiogeography floats your boat, finding a chaoyangopterid in Brazil is extremely cool. Chaoyangopterids, y’see, have thus far only been found in the Jehol Group of China. Lacusovagus, therefore, provides the first record of these guys outside of Asia and suggests that this otherwise poorly-known group were far more widespread than previously realised. It also heightens the faunal similarity between these two localities, suggesting that we should expect pretty similar pterosaur diversity between China and Brazil. All in all, it goes to show that we’ve still got a hell of a lot to learn about pterosaur diversity and biogeography and emphasises just how reliant we are on fossil lagerstätte – sites of exceptional fossil preservation like Crato and Jehol – to tell us what pterosaurs were up to at any given time in their evolutionary history.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got time to tell you about Lacusovagus for now. Only two more things are worthy of mention: with an estimated wingspan of 4 – 5 m, Lacusovagus is the biggest chaoyangopterid yet known and the biggest pterosaur from the Crato Formation (estimated mass of 20 kg, wingspan-mass regression fans). I mention this because, like all palaeontologists, my main concern is that any animal with my name attached will kick the asses of its contemporaries and closely-related animals. Finally, a quick word about the name: I really wanted to avoid another terribly dull place-name-opterus or something like that with my first scientific moniker. Hence, Lacusovagus magnificens translates from Latin to ‘magnificent lake wanderer’, a reference to the fact that the specimen comes from the Crato water body and was of some magnitude in size. This name, for some reason, really makes me want to listen to The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour album. Hmm: probably just me, that one.

Oh, and as usual, there's been no mention of the picture at the top of the text: what you've got there is the first ever restoration of Lacusovagus, suitably wandering around the margins of the Crato lagoon. Which is nice. Anywho, thanks to all those who helped out on the paper and with figuring out the specimen. Much appreciated.

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UPDATE (4/12/08): Well, bugger me: this whole Lacusovagus thing has gone crazy in the last few days. It's been in the national papers, national radio, is all over the internet like a cheap suit and may even end up on the TV. It's funny to think that I only contacted our press office with the idea that someone - maybe, one, two bloggers, tops, would find Lacusovagus interesting: now it's a bona fide international megaevent. Crazy stuff. The best bit, is though, that the BBC have used my scale graphic for their picture caption of the week competition. So far, I've been likened to John Lennon, David Bowie, Rod Hull, Noddy Holder and at least two people can't figure out what sex I am. Superb (the BBC stuff, that is: not gender confusion. Not that there's anything wrong with that, you understand - I'll freely admit to dressing in a rather androgynous fashion on occasion and am perhaps favourably compared to women somewhat more often than I should be comfortable with. And I do moan about men a lot, so, hey, gender confusion is savvy with me. Um, where are we going with this? This is a sort of corner I've written myself into here: best trail off...)