Hobbies: GETTING YOUR PHOTOS READY FOR SHARING

GETTING YOUR PHOTOS READY FOR SHARING

Written by Valerie Goettsch

One of repparttar

main reasons people buy digital cameras is so they can share their photos with others. Even if you are just going to print your photos for yourself, you will want them to look their best. Here are some tips on getting your images ready for sharing or printing.

1. ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS

Delete repparttar 115951 ones you don't like or those that are near duplicates of others. No sense in clogging up your hard drive or CDs with junk. Use a good photo management software program like ACDSEE 7, Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 or Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album 5 to view, organize and name your images. These programs also let you batch rename so you can give more descriptive file names to a group of photos at repparttar 115952 same time. You can add key words and tags to make finding your photos easier. Be detailed in your photo descriptions, not just "John and Laurie." You'll probably have hundreds of photos of your kids and it will be harder to find repparttar 115953 one you're looking for. Better to say "John and Laurie waterskiing on Lake Powell, May 2004."

2. BACK UP YOUR ORIGINALS

Mistakes can happen. It is a good idea to back up all your images to a CD before you start editing or changing them. That way you always have repparttar 115954 original to go back to if you accidentally save over an image or made changes to a photo that you later decide you don't like. CDs hold lots of photos, making it cheap insurance.

3. ROTATE IMAGES

Trying to look at a sideways photo is annoying. Use your photo management or editing software to rotate photos as needed. And if you have any images that are a little crooked, you can fix that using your editing software. Most photo editors have an automatic "straighten" function, or you can manually rotate repparttar 115955 image a few degrees to straighten repparttar 115956 horizon line.

4. REMOVE RED-EYE

Even with your digital camera's auto red-eye reduction function, your subject's eyes may still have red-eye. Use your photo editing software to remove it. Zoom in on repparttar 115957 eyes and it will be easier for you to correct repparttar 115958 red-eye. I've tried a number of red-eye correction tools and find that repparttar 115959 one that comes with ACDSEE 7's photo editor is among repparttar 115960 best. It zeros in just on repparttar 115961 red eye and doesn't darken repparttar 115962 surrounding eye area like some other software does.

5. CROP YOUR PHOTOS

Crop out unnecessary or distracting backgrounds and focus in on your subject. Most photo editing programs will keep repparttar 115963 aspect ratio, so when you draw a box around repparttar 115964 area you want to focus on it will crop it as 4x6 or whatever you have specified. That way you won't end up with an odd size photo. Ofoto, repparttar 115965 online photo printer (now called Kodak EasyShare Gallery), also has a very good cropping tool for maintaining repparttar 115966 proper print size. It comes with its free photo editor.

Croquet - A Gentleman’s Sport?

Written by Ryan Mendenhall

George Gershwin, an early American musical genius, transformed public opinion on a style of music that was up until that time found mainly in such “unrepeatable” places as bars and speak-easies. The uniquely American sounds of early jazz received a broad new audience with repparttar

advent of Gershwin’s phenomenal hit orchestration, Rhapsody in Blue. Almost single-handedly he brought a “tavern sound” of ragtime to repparttar 115950

mainstream public and can now be found in high-brow music collections.

Like pre-Gershwin jazz, Croquet in its early days kept some unruly company. In repparttar 115951 1890’s Croquet at repparttar 115952 Boston Common, one of repparttar 115953 United State’s oldest public parks, gathered gambling, drinking and licentious crowds. Boston clergymen decried this filthy behavior, which tainted Croquet’s image as a public sport.

Croquet in repparttar 115954 United States began as a watered-down version of repparttar 115955 courtlier British Commonwealth 6-wicket Croquet. This posh sport was and is still played among repparttar 115956 Brits on neatly cut greens similar to those found on golf courses. Heavier wooden mallets and balls are necessary to obtain high accuracy. Intense skill and strategy were aspects of 6-wicket Croquet that repparttar 115957 US version did not contain at first. Garden Croquet, as it is known (among other aliases), has remained popular in repparttar 115958 US since its introduction over a hundred years ago. US players though, considered it more of a light hearted game than a sport and thus failed to maintain repparttar 115959 high status of repparttar 115960 English 6-wicket.

It was not until repparttar 115961 late 1970’s that repparttar 115962 United States began to capture on a widespread basis repparttar 115963 original essence of Croquet. Finally it had regained it standing and elegance as a refined sport through a bit of effort by Jack Osborn in 1977. Despite its small beginnings, Osborn’s United States Croquet Association has grown to include nearly 10,000 croquet players playing across repparttar 115964 US and Canada on over 600 well-groomed lawns. While Croquet repparttar 115965 garden game still enjoys a large following in repparttar 115966 U.S., there is also now room for players who are passionate about repparttar 115967 more competitive type of croquet that includes deep skill and focus.

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