Thursday, September 28, 2006

Investing Time and Effort in Photoshop Training

Novices often balk at the complexity of Adobe Photoshop. To the inexperienced user its greatest advantage – the mindboggling range of options – becomes its biggest drawback. However, for those who are willing to persevere through the Photoshop training necessary to become proficient in the basics – and a little training is required, believe me – the benefits of this vast array of options will soon become apparent.

You see, that’s the thing about Photoshop (and most image editing software, generally). What seems maddeningly complex from the outside becomes much simpler, almost intuitive, once the user has invested a little time and effort in training – the tutorials, tips and tricks and good old trial and error.

So, here is your situation: you’ve spent a little time getting a good hold on the basics of Photoshop. You can comfortably manipulate an image and produce a fairly good result. Not fantastic, but acceptable. The choice you now face is this: either sit back and rely on your current skill level - continuing to produce ‘acceptable’ results - or forge ahead with your training, mastering the finer points and advanced options of the software until you are capable of producing excellent work. Not just acceptable, but exceptional.

Whether you’re working in the creative industries or just editing images for your own enjoyment, if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing right. The skills you’ll learn through advanced training in Photoshop will pay dividends far into the future, and right now you’re standing in the doorway to creative freedom.

About The Author

Frank Monty is the owner of Photoshop Talent. You can find more articles at http://www.photoshoptalent.com.

Article source: www.articlecity.com

Friday, September 22, 2006

What is HDTV?

By Kamal Kannan

"High Definition Television" is an international digital TV standard aired in 16:9 format (4:3 for normal TVs) and in Dolby Digital surround sound.Viewers get clear contoured shows with vibrant colors and a wider depth-of-field compared to normal systems.HDTV has up to five times the number of pixels on standard PALs used now. In America and Japan,films and series are aired via HDTV offered by Pay-TV stations.

What kind equipment is needed? The rule is digital data transfer.You won't be able to capture HDTV signals with the old antenna perched at the top of your roof.At first,HDTV signals were aired through satellite,but now it can also be done thourgh cable.It's yet to be determined whether HDTV can be recieved through a DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting).It might not work as transfer signals of HDTV are fairly complex for DVB-T to handle.

When was HDTV born? In the early Nineties,HDTV was suggested as TV standard in Europe under the project D2-MAC.However,the proposal failed as data transfer then was still analog.Equipment like recievers and display systems weren't ready as well.The first TV station in Europe to air a HDTV program in full was "HD1"(www.hd-1.tv ) in belguim.The station started on January 1,2004 under the name "Euro 1080" and broadcasted through the Astra satellite.

Can HDTV be recieved only through satellite? Analog equipment cannot be used.A HDTV display should support the 16:9 format and a resolution up to 1,280 x 720 pixels.To avoid purchasing wrong displays,look for the "HD ready" sticker which guarantees compatibility.Also,a HDTV reciever (approx 400 Euro) is required.If you're not "HDTV ready",you may still watch PAL shows which are broadcasted parallel to HDTV by TV stations.

720p or 1080i,which is better? On PAL,resolution are at 576 (vertical) x 720 (horizontal) rows.Currently,for HDTV,two general resolutions are used - the 720 x 1,280 and 1,080 x 1,920.There are ongoing debates as to which one is better of the two but no conclusion has been drawn yet.So the probable format is still up to market selection.On PAL,HDTV 1080i is broadcasted in half-pictures whereas 720p is in the full picture format.720p exudes a soothing image,but 1080i has a better and clearer resolution.

When to migrate? There's no doubt that HDTV would be replacing PAL.It's only a matter of time before that happens.Prices are now still steep with equipment costing up to thousands of dollars just for a standard display and reciever.However,manufacturers are introducing newer models by the month,therefore providing consumers with more competitive prices.If you only watch news or game shows on TV,then migrating to HDTV might not be feasible,but if you're a movie or sports fan,then HDTV is the way to go.

Why haven't many TV stations adopted HDTV? Not many own a HDTV setup.Besides that,many station are wary due to higher cost involved,especially for producing their own programs in HDTV.Also,production equipment like high-end video cameras etc would be a necessity.Face makeup needs to be near-prefect as every little wrinkle would be visible.It's estimated that each HDTV airing would incur an extra 25 percent cost.However,experts say that most of Europe will be airing their programmes in HDTV format by the year 2008.

Can HDTV films be recorded? The film industry is trying to equip all HDTV format files with HDCP copy protection.This way,HDTV programmes can only be watched and not recorded.However,this restraint has already been penetrated by a Korean-made minibox called "DVIHDCP".It changes the protected signal into VGA format hence allowing it to be copied.In truth,the minibox was not designed specifically to hijack the copy-protection plan,but was instead used to display HDTV through a beamer/projector.

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

Thursday, September 21, 2006

How to Download iPod Movies in 10 Easy Steps

By R Welch


The invention of the iPod makes it easier than ever to take along your favorite media. Whether you're interested in movies, TV shows, music videos, or sporting events you can now take all your programs with you. The iPod is one of the best portable media devices to come along in years.

One frequently asked question is how to download iPod movies to the device for viewing at a later time or on a later date. Your first objective should be to join a network that allows you to download movies to your iPod. There are many networks across the internet that sell iPod movie download subscriptions. Generally speaking, you will get the best value for your money if you can find a network that allows you unlimited iPod movie downloads for a one-time subscription price. Beware of the websites that ask for a sign up fee, then also hit you with a fee for every movie you download. If you love to download iPod movies, the download fees can add up quickly.

Once you have your network account set up, just follow these 10 easy steps to download movies to your iPod.

1. Browse your chosen iPod subscription network for the movie, video or sporting event you want to download.

2. Once you find the desired movie, you should be able to click the video's title, image thumbnail or download button.

3. Look for the 'Video iPod/Sony PSP' option in the drop-down menu. It should appear on the video's playback page. Please be aware that you can only download the movie if your iPod has video capabilities.

4. Choose 'Video iPod/Sony PSP' from the drop-down menu and then click download.

5. Save the movie or video on your computer in a location you will remember.

6. Now you can connect your iPod to your computer.

7. Open the Apple iTunes application. Select 'Add File to Library' from the 'File' menu in the iTunes application. Browse your computer for the video you previously downloaded and click 'Open.'

8. click 'Edit,' then click 'Preferences in the iTunes application. Next, click the 'iPod' tab, then click 'Videos,' and then 'Automatically update all videos.' Lastly, you should click 'OK.'

9. The iTunes application will copy the movie to your iPod automatically.

10. To play back your movie on your iPod, click 'Videos,' then click 'Movies'.

That was the down and dirty, quick lesson on how to download iPod movies. A good source of helpful information should be the user's manual that came with your iPod or customer support from the maufacturer. The best sources of helpful information are friends who already own an iPod and have some experience with the device. They can also help you learn how to download IPod movies for your enjoyment.

Find and download Movies, Music and your favorite TV series (even old-time favorites), get full episodes and seasons of the hottest shows around! Download iPod Movies and get a free Mp3 player with your subscription.

Things You Need To Know About Adaware Download

The only problem with free adaware download software is that it does not protect your computer. Although it will delete spyware which has effected it, it will not stop the infection from occurring in the first place. To do that, you need to buy the adaware professional version, which is quite cheap, but still not free like the other one. If you do a lot of web surfing, it might be a worthy investment, but for my needs, the free adaware download software does the job quite well. I just need to remember to run a quick scan every couple of days, and it will catch any spyware, web diverters, malware, and other common junk slowing down your computer.

I got an adaware download when I noticed that my computer was running much slower than it should. Before I downloaded adaware, I was getting a ridiculous amount of pop-up ads as well, and my web-browser would crash every few minutes. I couldn't understand what was going on. Was something wrong with my hard drive, I wondered? Was this a windows problem? Once I found out that a free adaware download was what I needed, my life quickly got much easier.

The adaware download went easily and smoothly. There were mirror sites all over the country, so it was no trouble to find an adaware download site close enough to provide a quick response. And installing the adaware download software was equally simple. Just click on it, and it runs itself! And not only was the adaware software free, but it was free with professional level service. Every week or so, there is a new adaware download update made to defend against the latest spyware.

Of course, along with an adaware download, you really need to an anti-virus program to fully protect your computer. An adaware download will go part of the way to protecting it from malware, but that stuff is merely annoying. Although spyware can slow down your computer, unless you are very unlucky it will seldom do anything to really mess it up. There are some versions which can be used to hack into your computer, but these are best caught by the anti-virus anyway. An anti-virus program can protect your computer from the really malicious bugs, in the same way that an anti-spyware program can protect it from the stuff which is merely annoying.

This article is written by
Paul I. Etkin. You can view the original article at www.articlecity.com

Video Games: They Way We Where

Video games have been around for more years than most people know. Most people today can remember the Pac-Man, Pac-Woman era. In reality video games have been in our daily lives for far longer than that. In fact one of the first video games on record goes back to 1947, where the first ever patent was filed in January of that year and that patent was issued in December 1948. Little did we know that this would come to be one of the hottest commodities to hit the American and International markets. One of the earliest video games was created by the same man who developed the atomic bomb.

In the 50’s and 60’s a video was being patented to run on computers. This became a reality, the problem was that little was known about computers and they were so expensive that few people had them, and this program was run on a platform called oscilloscopes, which was a piece of electronic equipment that could show two dimensional graphs. These were located at colleges and universities.

The 70’s brought about new developments in the video industry. In 1972 a patent was granted for the release of a home video console. In was large and bulky, but it satisfied the video game demands of the gaming public. Later, in the 70’s and early 80’s, along came the development and release of Atari. This lasted for only a few short years, when the video market took a big dive. The reason for this was that there were so many entities producing these video games (most of which were the same game) that the market became flooded. The industry had really gone stale, because how many versions of the same video game can there be. One just seemed to be an updated version of the other. The public became bored with this and needed something fresh and new.

In 1989 the market once again had a new video game gadget, Nintendo Game Boy. This was new and exciting and the games were different, challenging and, best of all, you could take it with you wherever you went. There were several competitors who put their video games on the market by this time, but even today Game Boy seems to be the best selling hand held video game and console.

The 1990’s came alive with new and improved versions of consoles for video games. Nintendo was overtaken by the newcomer, Sony’s Play Station. The public went wild and now anyone who had the Nintendo switched and had to have a Play Station, with more bells and whistles than had been seen before.

Up until now all video games had been developed for computer type consoles, hand held consoles and computers. 2003 saw a new direction come to life with the development of video games on cellular phones, this came from none other that Nokia.

The video game industry has evolved into a multi-million dollar industry today. Almost every person in the world has at one time or another in their life either played a video game, whether it be on the old oscilloscopes, coin operated consoles, hand held consoles, home computers or the cell phone. It is an industry that is growing by leaps and bounds on a daily bases.

This article is written by Taisha Grant. View the original article at www.articlecity.com