Aesthetics - Beauty and the Beast of Website Design

It does not matter how much time and money was spent on the creation of a website, if the first impression is not eye-catching, your chances to attract an interested and returning audience are extremely slim. Like most people, in the first five seconds of his stopover, a visitor will decide if he will stay or move on.

Elements of good design

The majority of websites are written documents that rely on good prose to make a dramatic impact. Add some bells and whistles, e.g. pictures, charts, funky buttons and dividers, and the occasional video clip and you think you have hit the jackpot.
Unfortunately, there is more than "good looks" involved in creating a superb website. Just ask yourself, what do flash animations bring when people click off, even before your animations have downloaded? Instead of bringing a chuckle to your audience, you will get a sneer! People dislike waiting and they want to feel welcome and well treated. If you want their attention and sell your goods or services, give them just that.

The art of blending colors and fonts

Developing a web design strategy is an excellent idea and can be used for the home page, as well as all additional pages. Start by defining your target demographics. Believe it or not, but what message you are trying to convey with your website, or what services or goods you are trying to sell will largely determine what kind of colors and fonts should be used for your titles and text. Just picture a party supply site in all shades of gray, or a Harley motorcycle supplier all in pink. Would you shop there? I didn't think so!

Scale matters, and not just for your text content. Buttons, pictures and everything else displayed on a page should be in proportion and in balance. Items that are too small may be overlooked, while massive, unbalanced productions may scare visitors off.

Be informed

A demographic analysis will make you understand your audience. Knowing what your visitors are looking for will help you in your product selection and marketing strategy. Visit the sites of competitors and see what makes their site so popular. Inform yourself about the products you are selling and find out which selections are selling like hotcakes. What you find stylish, may actually not be a top seller!

Keep your expectations real

The best way to extract customer profile information is by chatting with potential clients and thoroughly researching the market you want to infiltrate. As much as we want to believe our gut feeling, when it comes to e-commerce, it is better to rely on hard facts and real statistics.

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that when you are building a website for an assisted living, or retirement home, your target audience should be seniors? If your answer was yes... you were wrong! Although some seniors may be having a peek at the site, it is more likely that baby boomers, or those just past the 40+ mark will be checking out options for their parents and grandparents. Knowing this, you will have to adjust your writing style, content and illustrations to fit a younger crowd.

However you, the novice web designer, decide to build your website, always treat your audience with respect. Even though you may be living on the other side of the country, customers will still expect the same courtesy as if they were going to their neighborhood corner store. They may even want to communicate with you, and if you are really interested in what these customers have to say, you could always add a forum or feedback page to the site. A direct customer service email address would not hurt either.
As much as it may hurt your wallet, if you do not have all the skills to optimize your website, please, hire professional assistance. You might be a great technical writer, or perhaps even a poet, but that tone of writing may not be appropriate to market your products. Also, getting your website noticed by the search engines requires skill and understanding. Do not think that key search engines will shoot your site right to the top of their pages just because you used your product's name a hundred times on a single page... It really does not work that way.

The conclusion is simple. There is a big difference between selling boots, sandals and pumps at the mall, and presenting your selection on the Internet. They both have their advantages and they both can be quite successful. Just follow the rules and do your research... good luck!


Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Simple Guidelines to Designing an Effective Logo by: Wain Roy

Logos build up your online identity and as such should reflect your business objectives as well as effuse professionalism. Without these, your brand might sink into oblivion. Over the years, the logo designing industry has been significantly expanding. A good logo designer is one who combines his artistic skill with good business sense.

Designing a logo requires skill and method. An amateur might consider the logo design job as a mere simple one. The task is essentially simple for good artists. Before designing a logo, make sure you have the following:

• Knowledge of the company/organization/business.

• The company name or initials; ask the client whether he needs a symbolic logo or a text logo.

• Check if the company has a tagline.

• Know the color preferences of the client. Many clients prefer specifying the logo color while some leave it to the imagination of the graphic artist. Color choice may also depend on the industry. For instance, an eco printer business will essentially need a touch of green in its logo to emphasize on its environmental aspect.

• Style of the logo- Logo style depends generally on client choice; they might opt for an illustrated logo, a vector logo, or a 3D logo.

This knowledge is enough to proceed with the first draft of the logo design http://www.mycorporatelogo.com/ . Once you get the concept right, you can be assured of moving on the right track. The rest becomes easier with client feedback. A good logo designer thus works on a step by step process to design an eye-catching logo.

About The Author

Wain Roy is an internet marketing professional expert in writing content on various industries like real estate, web design, finance, medical tourism and corporate identity design http://www.mycorporatelogo.com/corporate-identity-design.htm

The author invites you to visit: http://www.mycorporatelogo.com

10 Tips In Better Photography

Taking a good photo isn't as hard as you may think. You don't need the most expensive camera or years of experience, just 10 simple tips.

Enjoy!

Tip 1 - Use All Your Available Space
Don't be afraid to use all the space in your photo. If you want to take a picture of something, it's ok for it to take up the whole shot with no or very little background showing. Keep distractions out of your shot

Tip 2 - Study Forms
This is a vital aspect to photography. Understanding forms in your photos. Don't see an object, she its shape and its form and find the best angle to photograph it from. Form is all around us and I highly suggest you read as many books on it as possible.

Tip 3 - Motion In Your Photos
Never have motion in your photos if you are photographing a still object. If there is something moving while you are trying to photograph a stationery object, your photo won't turn out anywhere near as well. Also never put a horizon line in the center of your frame.

Tip 4 - Learn To Use Contrasts Between Colors.
Some of the best photos have shades of white, gray and black. You can take great shots with just one color on your subject, but the contrasts between colors in a shot is what makes you a great photographer.

Tip 5 - Get Closer To Your Subject
This is one of the biggest mistakes most photographers make, not getting close enough to their subject. Get up and personal and close the distance gap. You can always reshape and resize a good shot but you can't continue to blowup a distant object.

Tip 6 - Shutter Lag
Shooting action shots with digital camera's can be tricky due to shutter lags. What this means is, when you press the button to take the photo, it can take up to a second for the shutter to take a photo, by that time what you were photographing would have moved or changed somehow. This means you have to compensate for shutter lag by predicting what your subject is going to do and taking the photo just before it takes the action you want. More expensive digital cameras don't have this problem.

Tip 7 - Pan
If you are taking an action shot and your shutter speed is slow, pan with the object. Follow through with the subject, from start to finish and one of those shots will be a winner. You have more chance of getting a good shot if you take more then one photo.

Tip 8 - Continuous Shots
To pan like I suggested above you will need a camera that does continuous shots and doesn't need to stop and process after every shot.

Tip 9 - How To Take Fantastic Night Time Shots
Night time shots can be spectacular, almost magical.... if done right! If not they can look horrible. Really horrible. Without adequate lighting, even good camera's can turn out crappy photos if the photographer doesn't know what he or she is doing.

Tip 10 - Study Your Manual
If your digital camera has a special night time mode, read the manual and follow their instructions on how to use it properly.

Author Bio

Michael Colucci is a technical writer for Photography Tips - A free site that offers the latest tips on photography. Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

How to Customize a Free Business Card Template With Photoshop By Emillie Loh

Without a doubt, business card is important for promoting your business and many million dollar deals start off with the exchange of business cards. If you're starting out on a small business with limited budget, hiring a professional graphic designer to design your card could be pain in your pocket. But don't be sadden by this. There are literally thousands of designs available over the Internet, which many of those templates can be downloaded for free. Do a search on your favorite search engine with the keyword 'free business card templates' and browse through all the relevant websites. Find a suitable design, and download the template. Most of these free templates are not made to be exclusive and this is where business card template customization comes into play.

Step 1: With Adobe Photoshop, run the downloaded template by clicking on File>Open.

Step 2: Then check the image or color mode, making sure that CMYK color is check (Image>Mode>CMYK).

Step 3: Make sure that the resolution is mark at 300 pixel/inch (Image > Image Size)

Step 4: Now you can customize the template by adding your business logo and contact details. Make sure all images and text are within the blue guideline. Remember to save your work frequently. If you're unsure about where to place the contact details, most of these free templates come with a sample image of the business card. You can use that as a reference.

Step 5: When you're done with customizing the template, save the file by clicking on File>Save As and select a file format from the dropdown menu. Then, hit the Save button. Now you're ready to send your business card design for print job.

Do visit the business card templates website to get more information on business card design and download the templates for free.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Emillie_Loh

How to Design Your Own Digital Backgrounds Using PhotoShop By Gavin Smith

In the recent past, digital backgrounds have become an integral part of photographs. No photograph is now complete without a digital background to enhance it. In order to make your photo look good and get rid of the same boring look that is has, you have to resort to using digital backgrounds.

The good news is that latest technology and new software have made it possible for you to design these digital backgrounds on your own. With a little bit of expertise, you can go about achieving this.

For creating your very own digital background, you have to be familiar with Photoshop. Photoshop helps you edit photographs, pictures and create your own digital art. With Photoshop, there are no limits to what you can do to a photograph. For creating a digital background, you need to open a new document. This step needs to be followed by deciding the image mode, size and resolution of the new Photoshop document.

Choosing the background and foreground colors are also an important step in the entire process. After the color is decided, you have to add the effects that you want your digital background to have. You can choose from a wide range of effects. Certain things, like Color Burn, can be used to change the appearance of a particular layer. Apart from this, you also need to change the opacity and transparency of the layers according to your requirements.

The more layers you add to your document, the more complex your background becomes. After you have added all your desired effects, you should lock all the layers. After everything is done, do not forget to save your document in a format that you prefer.

In order to create good digital backgrounds, you must try and get familiarized with the way things work in Photoshop. For those who are new to Photoshop or find it too complicated, a good option is to go for the products available at http://www.digitalphotobackdrops.com

They have ready to use digital backgrounds that can be of great help if you want smart looking backgrounds for your photographs but are not willing to spend time creating them on Photoshop or find it difficult to make new backgrounds.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gavin_Smith

Making the Impossible Possible With Adobe Photoshop

Are you looking for a way to improve how you take your pictures? Even if you have that ultra expensive SLR camera, you just can't seem to do what the professional photographers do best, which is to take professional looking photographs. You have all the latest photography accessories and still you can't take high quality pictures. You need to remember that before professionals develop the photos they take, they first edit it using a photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop.

Today, Adobe Photoshop is one of the most popular photo editing software programs available today. It is very easy to use and it also provides all the necessary tools you need in order to edit your digital photos.

For example, if you want to make someone look a little bit younger, you can simply edit out the wrinkles and age spots using the smudge tool in the Adobe Photoshop. The liquefy gallery in Adobe Photoshop also has tools that will make someone fat look thinner and vice versa. This is only a sample of what this photo editing software can do.

In fact, even if you took pictures in bad lighting condition, you can easily edit the photo using Adobe Photoshop and make it look like as if it was taken with a very good lighting condition. As you can see, this is usually what professional photographers do. They are able to get the best lighting conditions because they make it so by using Adobe Photoshop.

There are quite a lot of tools that you can use in Adobe Photoshop. You can paste objects from another picture in to another picture. For example, if you want to be beside a celebrity, you can do it with Adobe Photoshop. By adjusting the lighting effects as well as doing a bit of erasing and editing, you can make it look like it was real.

In fact, you can even change the clothes of someone with Adobe Photoshop. It may require a bit of work, but it will produce great results. These are just some of the few things that you can do with Adobe Photoshop. There are so many effects that you can try with this software.

Another great effect is by turning old black and white photographs new again. If you have a scanner, you can scan the old black and white photographs and repair or restore it. In fact, some professional photographers can even make the black and white photographs in to colored photographs by just using this photo editing software.

There are so many possibilities that you can do with Adobe Photoshop. Although it may be hard to master especially when you are just a beginner in the world of photo editing, you will see that with experience, you will be able to get the hang of it and start converting your amateur looking photographs in to professional looking ones.

With the tools that Adobe Photoshop needs, you can be sure that any pictures you take will be able to become something magical. Whether you have a problem with the red eye phenomenon, or the bad lighting conditions, you can be sure that Adobe Photoshop will be there to rescue you.

So, the next time you take pictures with your SLR camera and you still can't get it right, just remember that with Adobe Photoshop, you can get everything right.

Did you like this article? Curious about learning photoshop fast? Well now you can by reading this free Guide...what are you waiting for?

Business Cards And Your Company Reputation

One of the first things you get when you meet a professional contact for the first time is a business card. A simple gesture to reach into the pocket, wallet or card case and to offer one is the very first impressions you or your business contact are likely to have of each other. In fact, this simple and effective card is one of the most important things you can ever collect. Several professionals have enjoyed great success on the strength of the business cards in their rolodex. Super salesmen are so because they have the several dozen contacts with them. One could also go so far as to say that in the present world, they are like currency in their own right! Don’t be fooled by their size either. After all, the old adage says that dynamite does come in small packages! Even though it is small, an average business card will contain the following information. The name, professional titles, company address and all relevant contact details of the individual in question will surely be included (this also includes e-mail ID). Additionally, some may include home contact details, details of the professional qualifications, and in some cases, personal messages. Speaking of personal messages, business cards have of late become a sort of an advertising medium, although they are very below-the-line in the truest sense of the term. It all began when some smart marketer realized that since they are handed out to business contacts; why not use the chance to offer a compelling message? And sales personnel started including their objectives and mottos on their cards, advertising professionals listed out the tag lines of their clients, independent professionals started listing out the names of their clients while egoistical people began outlining their personal accomplishments! Whatever be the case, this advertising medium soon became a medium in its own right. And it is no longer a difficult thing to design your own variety. Most home software like Microsoft Office come with custom templates to design and print your own. If these are insufficient, the Internet has a wealth of free resources that you can download and use. Professional design software like Corel Draw and Pagemaker have many more options for unique business cards. No longer do you have to be satisfied with single sided, plain ivory paper. You can opt for business cards shaped like place holders, four sided, color printed, laminated, and the new rage, business cards which look and feel like credit cards! If you can imagine it, the present day software can ensure that it is do. Your imagination is the only limitation! There are also several Internet based service firms that will custom design your business cards, create a logo and printing options for you, and deliver to your address for a very nominal cost. Some of them even offer websites with the capability to design your own. But remember to design with care. After all, it is your personality it represents!

About the Author

Joe enjoys home and small business ventures but within reasonable budgets. For his latest business branding resource, see: Business Branding

Printing On Shirts And T Shirts

Getting t-shirt printed is liked by everyone. T-shirt printing presses make sounds as the warm weather approaches because they make loads of t-shirts for sports tournaments, company barbecues, and favorite corner bar. These days t-shirts have become a universal symbol of good times and brand awareness worldwide. One cannot take the responsibility of printing of t-shirts lightly as it affects the business a lot. Whenever a t-shirt printing project comes off poorly, the brand comes in a bad light. One should not panic on getting an order of printing t-shirts. On following some simple steps, you can save yourself lots of heartache and dollars. Experience is the biggest weapon in this world. Once you get familiar with work then it becomes an easy task. The best technique of printing t- shirts is screen printing. In case you are doing one-off shirts, heat transfer paper is fine. Also it is great for working out your design ideas, too. If the time comes to do a big run of shirts, you'll likely go the screen printing route. Secondly one should leave plenty of time for t-shirts to be printed. You should be clear about the drop dead date for delivery of the printed t-shirts. One week should be added in a week's worth of cushion and work the schedule backwards. Third step to be followed is to limit the number of colors in the design. One should simply avoid usage of more and more colors as by doing so the cost increases. Thus a large amount of money can be saved by cutting down on the number of colors. Also one should create the artwork in a vector drawing program. In case you want to do your computer design work in a vector drawing program, such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel DRAW, or Macromedia Free hand then do not use a paint program such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Thus generally speaking, the stencils need to be cut from vectors, rather than pixels (paint). Also you should have a design pro handle the prep work. A killer logo might have been designed by you but it should be made sure that it will print properly and economically. In case you are working with a good t-shirt printer, you should be able to hand off your design and have them take care of all of the technical details. One should also know that they may very well charge you for that service. A person in the industry of printing t-shirts should always take pre orders. Also you should get folks to commit to reserving their shirts before you place the order. By doing this one saves in the long run. Also you should not order more shirts than required.

About the Author

John Bush is a professional fashion designer with 10 years of experience in the Custom Printed T shirts design and Screen Printing T Shirts design field.

Aesthetics - Beauty and the Beast of Website Design

It does not matter how much time and money was spent on the creation of a website, if the first impression is not eye-catching, your chances to attract an interested and returning audience are extremely slim. Like most people, in the first five seconds of his stopover, a visitor will decide if he will stay or move on. Elements of good design The majority of websites are written documents that rely on good prose to make a dramatic impact. Add some bells and whistles, e.g. pictures, charts, funky buttons and dividers, and the occasional video clip and you think you have hit the jackpot. Unfortunately, there is more than "good looks" involved in creating a superb website. Just ask yourself, what do flash animations bring when people click off, even before your animations have downloaded? Instead of bringing a chuckle to your audience, you will get a sneer! People dislike waiting and they want to feel welcome and well treated. If you want their attention and sell your goods or services, give them just that. The art of blending colors and fonts Developing a web design strategy is an excellent idea and can be used for the home page, as well as all additional pages. Start by defining your target demographics. Believe it or not, but what message you are trying to convey with your website, or what services or goods you are trying to sell will largely determine what kind of colors and fonts should be used for your titles and text. Just picture a party supply site in all shades of gray, or a Harley motorcycle supplier all in pink. Would you shop there? I didn't think so! Scale matters, and not just for your text content. Buttons, pictures and everything else displayed on a page should be in proportion and in balance. Items that are too small may be overlooked, while massive, unbalanced productions may scare visitors off. Be informed A demographic analysis will make you understand your audience. Knowing what your visitors are looking for will help you in your product selection and marketing strategy. Visit the sites of competitors and see what makes their site so popular. Inform yourself about the products you are selling and find out which selections are selling like hotcakes. What you find stylish, may actually not be a top seller! Keep your expectations real The best way to extract customer profile information is by chatting with potential clients and thoroughly researching the market you want to infiltrate. As much as we want to believe our gut feeling, when it comes to e-commerce, it is better to rely on hard facts and real statistics. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that when you are building a website for an assisted living, or retirement home, your target audience should be seniors? If your answer was yes... you were wrong! Although some seniors may be having a peek at the site, it is more likely that baby boomers, or those just past the 40+ mark will be checking out options for their parents and grandparents. Knowing this, you will have to adjust your writing style, content and illustrations to fit a younger crowd. However you, the novice web designer, decide to build your website, always treat your audience with respect. Even though you may be living on the other side of the country, customers will still expect the same courtesy as if they were going to their neighborhood corner store. They may even want to communicate with you, and if you are really interested in what these customers have to say, you could always add a forum or feedback page to the site. A direct customer service email address would not hurt either. As much as it may hurt your wallet, if you do not have all the skills to optimize your website, please, hire professional assistance. You might be a great technical writer, or perhaps even a poet, but that tone of writing may not be appropriate to market your products. Also, getting your website noticed by the search engines requires skill and understanding. Do not think that key search engines will shoot your site right to the top of their pages just because you used your product's name a hundred times on a single page... It really does not work that way. The conclusion is simple. There is a big difference between selling boots, sandals and pumps at the mall, and presenting your selection on the Internet. They both have their advantages and they both can be quite successful. Just follow the rules and do your research... good luck!

About the Author

Bliss Media is one of Australia's leading web design agencies. We create highly engaging web design for large to medium size enterprises. Our cutting edge web design will boost your competitive advantage.

5 Ways To Avoid the 1998 Look

If you've looked around at a few websites, you might have noticed that many of them look absolutely terrible. In many cases, this is because they were produced in the early days of the web's mainstream popularity, but they haven't been maintained or updated since. The chances are that their creators have never even looked at them in a modern browser, and don't realise just how bad they look now. These websites have an affliction I like to call the '1998 look' But, unfortunately for you, even new sites aren't altogether immune to it. Here, then, are five ways to avoid becoming a victim.

1. Don't Use Animated GIFs.

The animated GIF is dead. It was a charming idea, once, letting us include animations on our pages as easily as normal graphics. Now, though, it looks extremely dated thanks to the small number of colours used, not to mention jarring and out-of-place. It's even worse if you use one of those early-web 'stock animations', like that spinning @ symbol to represent sending email. There are very few things that look more amateurish.

If you don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing, stay away from animated GIFs.

2. Text in Graphics.

Unless it's your logo or possibly a heading, don't type text in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, save it as an image, and then put it on your site. It's supremely silly, and gives you no benefit whatsoever. Not only does it make the text take much longer to download, but it also stops people from selecting it or doing anything else they might want to do with it. Not to mention that text created this way is usually aligned badly and compressed so that it looks even worse than it would usually.

Keep your text as plain text, and use graphics for pictures. Text as a graphic is almost always bad.

3. Bad Backgrounds.

It's amazing that people still do it, but there are plenty of websites out there still with absolutely disastrous backgrounds. Either they'll have a colour that doesn't provide enough contrast with the text, making the text unreadable, or, even worse, they'll have a small pattern, tiled to fill the entire background. Wallpaper-style patterns are one of the most 1998 things in existence, and instantly make your website look like a joke, not to mention often making it entirely unusable.

So what should you use as a background colour? In almost all cases, the answer to the question is white. But, if you really want a colour, make sure it's a restrained background colour that people can still read your text over. If you're using a pattern, don't repeat it more than once.

4. System Requirements.

Listing system requirements on your website is no longer fashionable, and thank goodness for that. In the bad old days, sites would write things like "best viewed at 800x600 using Internet Explorer 4". Did they really think people were going to switch, just to view their website? It acted like a disclaimer, saying they couldn't be bothered to make the site look good for everyone, and anyone using something unusual had no right to complain. It was, quite simply, terrible.

The end of the Internet Explorer/Netscape war thankfully consigned these messages to history, for the most part, but there are still some sites that have them. Don't let your site be one. It does nothing but make you look hopelessly out of touch.

5. Open in New Window.

Finally, there's this one, back from the days when graphic designers were just starting to get to grips with the web and wanted exact control over everything, including the size of the web browser. Going to a site would give you a message like 'click here to launch', and the site would then try to open a new window automatically, with none of the browser's toolbars.

This technique has always been bad (it takes away too much control from the user), but it's even worse now that so many users have pop-up blockers thanks to the abuse of pop-ups for advertising. If you design your site this way, many people will have trouble seeing it, including people with the latest version of Internet Explorer. Don't do it.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Benefits of Cheap Web Design

It is becoming more and more obvious to businesses that the best way to reach their target market
is through the internet. Gone are the days when a business owner can successfully trade without his or
her own website. Being "online" means businesses can reach more people in less time than any other
marketing mediums.

A lot of people assume that they need to spend thousands of dollars to get a website that will be good enough for their online home. However in this article we will show you how cheap web design can be both appropriate and effective to get you started.

One way to get your website designed at a low cost is to do it yourself, or get a friend or family member to design it for you. However despite the initial savings, this approach may well end up costing your business a lot more down the track! Doing it yourself means you waste precious time that could be spent working on your business, building relationships and doing actual work. Plus if you don't have a high degree of web design knowledge, you will end up with a website that looks amateurish and unprofessional.

Getting a friend or family member to design your site seems good on the surface. But again, they may be lacking skills and even if they are competent in the area, the fact they are doing it "cheap" means they will not be giving it as much commitment as someone who you are paying a proper rate to.

So how can you get cheap web design that is ideal for your business? The answer is to shop around and find the right web design firm. Big agencies are good to avoid because they have overhead costs such as rent, office supplies and ongoing wages. Finding a self-employed web designer who runs their own small business can be the best way to get a quality website designed at a low price. They usually work from home and have minimal overhead costs and usually are willing to reduce their fees in order to attract clients.

Some web site designers also offer professional templates that are already established. This allows them to develop the site faster and easier, thus passing the savings on to you. Make sure you look at the types of templates each web design firm offers, to ensure you will be happy with the final product.

Web design does not have to be expensive, but the way to save money is to shop smart. Finding a professional designer working for themselves or in a small firm, and using attractive professional templates can be an effective way to get your website online at the right price.


Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Personalizing Your Phone With Cellular Phone Wallpaper

As the popularity of the cell phone continues to rise, so does the effort to personalize the features and services offered on its behalf. No longer does the phone just offer communication capabilities; today's phones provide everything from cameras and personal organizers to video and music capabilities.

Often, the type of phone that we pick is reflective of our personalities and subsequently, we take the decision-making on a variety of topics very seriously including size, shape, color, and features.

Those of us who travel often prefer a phone with Bluetooth capabilities, others of us who need help multitasking prefer those services provided by phones with organizing capabilities.

In addition, cell phone owners go to even greater lengths to personalize their phone - choosing everything from ring tones to cellular phone wallpaper to customize their experience.

Cellular phone wallpaper is that image that is displayed on the screen of our phone. Generally, when we purchase a new phone it comes with a variety of wallpaper from which we can choose. The number of choices and the types differ depending on the brand and model of the cell phone that you purchase.

But the choices of wallpaper do not have to begin and end with those images stored on your phone at the time of purchase. There are a great many images available online for download. Generally, a Macromedia Flash program is required to download the picture from the computer onto your cell phone but it is a process that takes very little time. Even better is the sheer volume of images available over the Internet; literally any image that you can think of is available to use.

In the case of these websites, while there are some sites that charge a nominal fee for image usage, there are a great many that offer these images for free. Some sites even offer the ability to design and download your own wallpaper for the highest level of customization. Design can be achieved in a number of ways including the upload of artwork that you have drawn which the website will condense to make into suitable wallpaper.

For those phones that include cameras, you need only take a photo that interests you to create new, changeable wallpaper. You may wish to take a photo of each of your children and rotate the wallpaper daily or a picture of a place that you particularly love so as to always carry it with you. One clear advantage to wallpaper is the fact that you can change it whenever and wherever you want in order to fit your mood - just as easily as you change your ring tone.

The cell phones of today offer us the maximum opportunity to express ourselves on a daily basis; allowing us to display our personalities through the use of cellular phone wallpaper - a changing tribute to our moods and particular place in life.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Making Your Photos Look Professional With Photoshop Tools

Have you ever wondered how professional photographers take such amazing looking photos? Do you want to take photos like the professionals do? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then the Adobe Photoshop software will be able to help you out.

First of all, Adobe Photoshop is considered to be one of the best photo editing software programs ever to hit the market. It is so good at doing its job and can provide the entire necessary photo editing tools that professional photographers from all over the world are now using this software to make their beautifully taken photos even more beautiful.
If you love to take pictures as a hobby but you can't seem to get the proper lighting or the proper angle in order to get the perfect shot, then you will see that Adobe Photoshop will be able to help you out. So, just what are the features of Adobe Photoshop that will be able to turn your pictures in one that looks professional?

Well, Adobe Photoshop has all the editing features that you will usually find in a photo laboratory. This means that you will be able to eliminate red eye, back lighted pictures, and even enhance color. You can even add effects that will be able to make a simple picture look great.

These days, you don’t have to be a professional photographer to produce high quality pictures. You don’t even have to learn about exposure compensation, white light balance, and even learn how to tweak an SLR camera. With a normal or ordinary digital camera, you will now be able to produce great quality photos. With Adobe Photoshop, you can correct color saturation and even make good exposure compensation.

You can even edit old yellowed photos and make them look brand new again. Also, you can add new backgrounds on the subject on your photos. For example, you can even make a picture of yourself standing behind your house in to a picture of yourself standing behind the Eiffel Tower and making it look as if it was real.

You can even cut and paste your face on to other people's body. For example, if you want a photo with you standing besides your favorite movie star, then you can do so with Adobe Photoshop. You can adjust the lighting effects of your picture in order to match it with another picture.

Another great effect is that you can convert your colored pictures in to sepia or grayscale. Back lighted pictures are a thing of the past as the Adobe Photoshop has editing features that will be able to eliminate the back lighted environment and lighten the dark areas of the picture.

Hand shake errors are also very common. With Adobe Photoshop, you will be able to correct this problem by sharpening the images with the sharpening tools in the software, such as the smart sharpen. For that misty feel, you can blur your photos with smart blur.

With practice, you will be able to remove unwanted objects in a great looking photo, like a trash can or a complete stranger doing wacky poses behind the actual subject. If you master Adobe Photoshop, you can even make money out of it.

As you can see, Adobe Photoshop can turn an ordinary looking picture in to a high quality picture with vibrant colors and great effects that looks professional.

By: DavidPeters

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Restoring Old And Worn Out Photographs With Adobe Photoshop Software

Photos are considered to be priceless by a lot of people. It serves as a great way to preserve memory and it also has this sentimental value especially when the photo is very old. For example, if you have a photo of your grandmother and grandfather together, you have to consider the fact that it will start to wear out sooner or later. It will not be as vibrant as before, and it may even fade in time. Also, the elements can ruin the photos, such as moisture and even sunlight. Adobe Photoshop is the answer for this problem.

There may even be some tears on the photograph. Getting it restored by a professional can cost you a lot of money and you have to consider the fact that you are not really sure about the quality of the restoration procedure.
If you want to restore old photographs that you consider to be priceless, then there is a way where you can do so by yourself. With a scanner and a photo editing software, you can make the picture look as if it was taken and developed yesterday. Adobe Photoshop is considered to be one of the leading software programs that will enable you to edit photographs.

The first step in editing old photographs is by turning it in to digital format. To do this, you have to scan the photo and save it in your computer. Then, the next step is to open the photo with Adobe Photoshop.

Once you opened the photo with the photo editing software, the next step is to start editing it. Make sure that you create a backup copy of the original picture in order for you to start over when you make a mistake when editing.

To mask out the torn part of the picture, you can just use the smudge tool. In most cases, the smudge tool is what you will be using most of the time. This particular tool will be able to erase blemishes on the photograph, such as moisture stains, and sun damage. It can also fill out torn pieces on the photograph and even improve the overall look of the picture.

You can also adjust the brightness of the picture if you think it's too dark. Also, you can adjust the contrast in order to make the picture more crisp and clear. The sharpening tool can also help in making the picture clearer.

These are just some of the tools that you may need to use when restoring old photographs. As you can see, it is very simple to do when you have Adobe Photoshop. In fact, with this photo editing software, you can even improve the overall quality of the picture by removing any imperfections in the original picture. If you are good enough, you can even make a black and white picture a colored picture just by using the tools provided in Adobe Photoshop.

These are the great things that you will be able to do with Adobe Photoshop. Restoring old pictures aren’t the only use for Adobe Photoshop, but you will also be able to edit your pictures by removing undesirable objects in the picture, such as a trash can or a plastic bag lying in the middle of great looking scenery.

There are more things that you can do with Adobe Photoshop. Just be creative.

By: DavidPeters

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

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Adobe Photoshop Elements For Mac Editing Tricks

If you're like me you've taken tons of photos with your digital camera and now they are all stowed away somewhere on the hard drive of your Mac. Does sound like you? Are your photos in need organizing and editing but you don't know where to start? Since I have been there I hope to provide some advice to help you get started in digital photo editing with Adobe Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0.

To begin with you need some digital photo editing software. I would recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0, which is now available for the Mac. It is compatible with G-series as well as the new Intel Macs. Photoshop Elements is based on the market-leading professional Adobe Photoshop software. Aimed at the home digital photo enthusiast, elements performs basic photo editing tasks quickly and easily and there are also many sophisticated Photoshop features available to you at the click of a mouse.
The interface is clear and well laid out, a great feature for the digital photo editing beginner is the use of descriptive icons, where you hang your mouse over an icon and it shows a description of its function. Organising your photos is a snap, Elements allows you to manage, sort, delete and view your picture collection in many different ways including face tagging and keyword tagging. It also displays an exhaustive list of file properties for each of your images so you'll never misplace a photo on your hard drive again. Also, a partnership between Adobe and Kodak gives you the opportunity to share photos online, print greetings cards, custom calendars or photo books. Before you eject the install cd, make sure you copy the Goodies folder to your hard drive - it contains loads of frames, backgrounds and extras to play around with.

A very handy feature is Quick Fix which allows you to perform basic editing functions which correct the most common digital photo flaws in one handy location. With a few mouse clicks smart fix and auto red-eye removal will give you a photo that is ready to print. A few other functions include the straighten tool which gives you the ability to straighten and crop crooked photos and the skin tone adjustment tool, which makes skin tones appear more life-like. A few of the more advanced features include the magic selection brush and magic extractor tool - I have used them often in Photoshop CS2 and am quite impressed with how well they performed in Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0. The magic selection brush allows you to scribble on an object and, if there is enough contrast between it and the background, Elements will select it for you. The magic extractor is even better; this tool is easy to use and allows you to separate objects from the background of an image extremely accurately in seconds (this works better than the extract function in the full-priced Photoshop CS2 - but don't tell anyone I told you!).

Hopefully you now understand that if you want to edit your photos with no trouble with and a minimum of fuss, and get them off your hard drive for people to see, Adobe Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0 offers all the functionality you'll ever need and is excellent value for money.

By: DavidPeters

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

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