Daily Archive for November 8th, 2006

How To Resize A Photo - Part 1: Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Published
by
Chris
on November 8, 2006
in Digital Photography Tips & Info
. 2 Comments

Along with my position as President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club, I am also maintain the club website. Recently, I asked our members to send me some images to add to the website, after all, we are a photography club. I was surprised when I was asked by a few different members how to size the images as I had requested images no larger than 1000 pixels on the longest side, which leads me to todays tip, how to resize a photo.

Once again, I will be using the new Adobe Photoshop Elements 5, though the procedure is the same in previous Photoshop versions, and in most other image editing programs.

Resizing your photo should be the last step you take in your image processing workflow. I recommend saving your image in its full size, then after resizing your image, saving as a new file name. This preserves your original data just in case you decide later on that you want a larger size image.

To access the Image Size dialog box, Click on the Image menu item, then Resize and finally Image Size. The dialog box has two sections and a few options. The first section deals with image size for display (Pixel Dimensions) and the second image size for printing (Document Size). We will stick with just the display options today. The width and height will be populated already with your current image size in one of several measurement units. Also notice that there is an icon to the right of the measurement units linking the sizes together. This is turned on or off using the Constrain Proportions check box below. When turned on, your aspect ratio will remain the same as you change your image size, and also, as you change one number, the second will change proportionately.

imagesize.gif

In this example, my original image is 1200 px by 1161 px. To resize the image, simply enter a new value for width or height and the other will change appropriately. Click OK, save your image and you are done.

Next week, I will discuss the options in the bottom of the dialog box as well as the Document Size options.

The digital photography tip of the week is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long time photographer and is currently the President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.

Firefox 2 vs IE 7

Published
by
Graham
on November 8, 2006
in Software Tips
. 2 Comments

firefox2_logo.gifie7_logo.gif

Some quick thoughts on Firefox 2 and IE 7…

Firefox 2 doesn’t seem like it should be a whole new version. It seems about the same as 1.5, which seemed about the same as 1.0. But overall I still love the software, and the add-ons/extensions are great. I use this for 99% of my browsing.
Installation was a snap. The download was about 5 MB and took about 2 minutes to install. No reboots were required and so I was up and running quickly.

IE 7 is a much bigger update and it is beautiful. I think the integration with feeds is fantastic, and it definitely has the look and feel of Firefox (or other tabbed browsers). I actually think the way it handles feeds is better than Firefox/Sage in that if a feed has an “attachment” or link to a file to download, IE 7 shows you the link but Firefox/Sage doesn’t.
Installation was not nearly as easy as Firefox. The download was about 18 MB and took about 15 minutes to install. I needed 2 different reboots until I was able to use the software. I did have a beta version of IE 7 installed, so if you installing IE for the first time it may be quicker.

What are your first impressions?

Two-minute Photoshop tricks

Published
by
Graham
on November 8, 2006
in Digital Photography Tips & Info and Recommended Web Sites
. 0 Comments

Yet another one I found on Download Squad…

Chris does a great job with the Digital Photography Tip of the Week, but there’s always room for more tips. The 2 Minute Photoshop Tricks site has around 40 different tips (some of them even with video) that explain how to accomplish certain effects in Photoshop. The web site has a brief outline of the “trick”, and then you download an MP3 of the tip or watch a video (for those tips that have them).

Google denies rumor of YouTube legal reserve

Published
by
Graham
on November 8, 2006
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From TechRepublic:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt denied a widely circulated rumor that his company had set aside $500 million to settle copyright claims by media companies as part of its deal to acquire video-sharing site YouTube.

Speaking to more than 500 Internet industry insiders at the Web 2.0 Summit, Schmidt said Tuesday that an anonymous blog post asserting that YouTube has reserved $500 million for legal claims, out of the $1.65 billion takeover price, was “not true.”

Windows Vista’s last mile

Published
by
Graham
on November 8, 2006
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From TechRepublic:

The last stop for Vista is a windowless conference room in Building 26, on Microsoft’s sprawling campus in the Seattle suburbs.

Each day, members of the Windows team gather inside this “shiproom” to go over the bugs that remain, and to debate which of these can still be fixed in the days left until the product is declared finished, a milestone that is expected any time now.

The intense “end game,” as these final weeks are known, is a well-worn tradition inside the shiproom, which is on the third floor of the Windows development building. The small room, with its dated, dark wood conference table has been the war room for every Windows release since Windows 2000.

Zamzar: Free online file conversion

Published
by
Graham
on November 8, 2006
in Recommended Web Sites
. 0 Comments

From Download Squad:

Awhile back I linked to Media-Convert, a web service that will convert files while you wait. I was duly impressed by Media-Convert, and I’m even more impressed by Zamzar, a very similar free service with a Web 2.0 touch. It can convert between five image formats, 14 document formats, 11 audio formats, and nine video formats, and unlike Media-Convert you can convert many files at once, up to 100MB (though you can only do one kind of conversion at once).

Check it out…