John Scherer is now available

More and more printers designed specifically to print pictures are flooding the market. If you take a lot of pictures, but don’t want to make a thousand trips to the photo shop, you might want to buy your own photo printer. This purchase could actually end up saving you money in the long run, or not so long run if you print enough pictures. But don’t just rush out and buy the cheapest printer. Read some photo printer ratings before you make a purchase so you are spending your money wisely. By just taking a few minutes to read some photo printer ratings, you could end up finding a nice bargain. Several web sites provide free and rather in-depth photo printer ratings, so take advantage. Many photo printers are designed to be as compatible with cameras as possible, and others are designed to print the best pictures, while the best have both of these advantages and more. Take a look at these photo printer ratings from cnet.com and try to find one that works for your price range. The first two are photo printer ratings for higher end printers.

Epson Stylus Photo R2400 - The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 isn’t for everyone: it’s expensive both to buy and operate, it’s a space hog, and it’s a bit awkwardly designed. But when your images mean everything to you–especially if they’re black-and-white–then the R2400 is the printer to own. Its flexible paper handling, long-lived and color-accurate prints, expanded gray tonal range and nth-degree driver controls are designed with enthusiast and pro photographers in mind. Price range: $599.00 - $1,349.95

HP Photosmart A826 - The HP Photosmart A826 is the first standalone snapshot printer we’ve seen that truly attempts to bring the in-store photo kiosk experience into the home. The printer’s large size and extra large touch screen make using it a pleasure. And the fast print speed and wealth of features make it easy to produce a variety of prints. Only its hefty $250 price gives us pause. Given the tendency we have to take lots of pictures, but only print a select few, we wonder who the audience for this product will be. Given its size, it’s not easily portable, so it would be a hassle to drag it around to family events. We think this printer could find a home among professional party organizers and professional photographers, who could set it up as a photo kiosk for attendees to print images straight off their digital cameras or memory cards, or to display a slide show of the proceedings as they happen. Price Range: $175 - $249.99

Here is one of the many photo printer ratings for a more basic printer.

HP Photosmart 230 - This compact and sturdy inkjet resembles a small, gray toaster. When the printer is open and functioning, its entire footprint is smaller than a breadbox, taking up approximately 9 by 15 by 6 inches. Although this inkjet is a little heavy, you can purchase a carrying case for around $35 to make it truly portable. This unit requires some assembly. You must install the software first; then, when prompted, you turn on the power and plug in a USB cable (purchased separately). You shouldn’t have many questions, but if you do, the clear, concise manual should answer most of your concerns.

Check cnet.com for more expanded photo printer ratings on these and many more printers.

Sometimes, we all need a little help. Technology today can be confusing and overwhelming, heck, it can be downright hard! John W. Scherer, CEO and founder of Video Professor, created a slew on both online tutorials and CD ROMs to help people like you learn the computer programs you want, fast. The idea behind these online tutorials was such that people could log on to their computers and without having to use the CDs, have access to the great learning already offered through Video Professor. These online tutorials are accessible to anyone willing to learn!

With Online Tutorials, Ask Yourself, “What do I Want to Learn?”

There are lots of computer programs out there. Hundreds to be sure. Video Professor’s online tutorials cover a wide range of titles for you to choose from. So, whether you are interested in PhotoshopÒ or AccessÒ, wireless networking or digital photography, Video Professor’s online tutorials can help you learn them all!

Wondering where to go? It’s as easy as sitting down at home! These days, most people have a computer in their house. And if you don’t, computers are everywhere, airports, coffee shops, schools, libraries, and even grocery stores! You can access Video Professor’s online tutorials from pretty much anywhere.

Online Tutorials To Help Improve Your Career!

Most offices in the United States require that their employees know ExcelÒ, Word, and PowerPointÒ to at least some extent. How well do you know these programs? Are you an expert, maybe just OK, or do you not know them at all? Try Video Professor’s online tutorials and learn the program of you choice in just three hours.

It’s really amazing that in just three hours, you could become a fluent user of the computer program of your choice. Take a program that you are completely unfamiliar with and in just three hours you will be navigating it and using it as though you had known it for years! Surprise your boss, surprise your co-workers, you might even end up surprising yourself!

Video Professor’s online tutorials are designed to help you in the shortest amount of time possible. Many people wonder how Video Professor guarantees their learning in just three hours; the answer is our patented learning method. We call it the “What-You-See-Is-What-You-Do” learning method. This means that you work in the program you are learning, while you are learning it. Much like language immersion, we consider this form of learning to be computer program immersion. Many other computer tutorials will simply explain what you need to learn and leave you to practice on your own. Video Professor’s online tutorials stay on top of the program you are learning so you can work in the program while you learn. You can’t make a mistake when you are lead through the program each step of the way.

Millions of people have tried Video Professor’s online tutorials and have been met with success. They are easy to use and what’s even better is that they are fun! So, what do you have to lose? The answer is nothing; you only have knowledge and skills to gain!

If you want to try and learn Photoshop on your own then go right ahead, but you should plan on being very frustrated early and often. It is a hard program to work with and very hard to learn. There is just too much to learn, too many features and too many ways to accomplish tasks. You have to learn the right way to perform any given task or you will spend a lot of extra time trying to figure it out. If you want to save some time and endless amounts of frustration, then get some help with Adobe Photoshop. You can get help with Adobe Photoshop in the form of tutorials both online and in CD form.

There are a lot of different Photoshop programs so there is bound to be one that fits your needs, no matter what type of photographer you are. From casual photographers to designers using more advanced programs, you can get help with Adobe Photoshop.

Starting with the most basic Photoshop programs, there are plenty of enhancements that you can give to your pictures through Elements and other basic Photoshop programs. Get help with Adobe Photoshop and do more than just take and print pictures. If you are the person who always carries a camera with you, then you could benefit from a basic program like Elements, which quickly downloads your photos onto your computer.

You can get help with Adobe Photoshop to learn how to make manual adjustments with color, sharpness and more. This program will also make it much easier to organize and share your photos with others. You can customize and get creative with your pictures by creating calendars, cards and online scrapbooks. Use different borders and other effects to make more lively pictures.

For the more skilled and advanced photographers, or even people who make a living photographing or designing, there are several programs that might be used on a daily basis. Not only can these programs help you more quickly organize and edit your photos, the enhancement features are staggering. These are complex programs, but help with Adobe Photoshop can explain the quick adjustments you can make in terms of exposure, saturation or contrast. With the digital revolution, you can make alterations in just minutes without damaging or altering the original picture. Help with Adobe Photoshop can quickly aid the professional photographer.

Photoshop is used more often and by so many different professions. The capabilities of the newest programs are excellent and more people are taking advantage of the programs in their professions and daily lives.

More advanced Photoshop programs can be a key tool for designers of all kinds. New tools have been created to be more flexible with other programs and with other mediums. The sleekest logos and advertising designs start in Photoshop, and help with Adobe Photoshop can be the starting block for many different types of design projects from web to business cards. Whatever your ambitions are, from just improving or organizing your pictures to improving your design projects, you can benefit from Photoshop.

Digital photography, everyone is getting in on it. It’s almost impossible to be into photography these days and not use a digital camera. If you are someone who disagrees with the proceeding statement, then it is time that you got yourself into digital photography. You are not alone or helpless either. There are some very helpful digital photography lessons that can get you up to speed in a hurry. If you are like most people and just have basic ambitions when it comes to photography, then there are just a handful of important concepts to grasp.

Video Professor has an excellent 3-CD tutorial that can help you out of the dark ages and into the much more flexible world of digital photography. Basics are covered in the beginning, and you will be amazed at how quickly you will feel comfortable enough to move on to some more advanced features with these digital photography lessons.

Video Professor’s digital photography lessons start out by explaining some of the technical aspects of digital photography basics. Resolution, storage, display options, cost, batteries and more will be explored in the first lesson. Everything you need to know to get started is covered on the first disc. Like all Video Professor tutorials, these digital photography lessons play on top of the computer program you use, so you can watch the tutorial on digital photography basics and transfer your pictures at the same time.

Getting your photos onto your computer is the biggest advantage of learning digital photography. From that point, you can adjust and enhance them, e-mail them, print them, use them on a web site, and so much more. Learn with Video Professor’s digital photography lessons, and you receive a step-by-step explanation of how to transfer images onto your computer from your camera, memory card or scanner.

When you are away from your computer, you will still have some options for storing your photos. Digital photography lessons will show you a plethora of options for storing your pictures. Laptops, portable storage devices and your mp3 player are just a few of the options. These options provide many avenues to make sure your important photos are never lost.

One of the best aspects of the digital revolution is what you can do with the photos you have already taken. You don’t have to live with a photo that isn’t zoomed in enough or has poor color balance. There are many programs, such as PhotoshopÒ, that will allow you to fully change or slightly improve your photos. Digital photography lessons explore all the options you have for editing your pictures.

Add text, texture, borders, and so much more to your photos. Filters can be used to accent your photos or design a unique new creation. Adjust the color balance to make your picture more natural or just more attractive to your eye.

Take advantage of the flexibility offered to you by the world of digital photography and learn everything you can accomplish through digital photography lessons.

I have found Adobe® Photoshop® to be one of the hardest programs to really learn. Sure, I enjoy messing around in the program and creating cool images out of pictures that I have taken, but I see what can actually be created with the program when one knows how to use it properly, I get a little jealous. I want that knowledge. So I decided to seek out some Adobe Photoshop help. There is a plethora of it, help that is, on the Internet and through methods like Video Professor’s Learn Photoshop lesson. After doing a little reading up, I found these tips on www.photoshop-help.com.

Adobe Photoshop Help: Three Frequent Problems

Make sure that you are working in the selection area because the tool will work only inside the selection. If there is no selection then Photoshop can be applied anywhere. To check if there is an active selection, go to the menu and choose Select to see if Deselect option is active.

The selection border may be hidden. Choose Select and note if Hide Edges is outlined.

 If the image has layers, then the selection can only be applied to the highlighted layer. Brushes, tools and filters will not always work as intended or will work on a layer that is not intended to be worked on.

Adobe Photoshop Help: Photoshop Painting and Editing Techniques

Press shift while dragging with any paint or edit tool to draw a straight line.

Always note the opacity in the Option palette while painting to avert mistakes.

Press a number key to change the setting of the Opacity, Pressure or Exposure slider bar in 10 percent increments.

Consider making a new blank layer and paint there. Paint separate pieces or objects. This will allow you to make opacity adjustment in the Layers palette. It’s also easier to erase unwanted areas.

Always note what your foreground and background colors are. Check the tool box near the bottom for the two large squares. Click inside one of them to access the Color Picker. Play with it awhile and get familiar how the colors can change.

You should never feel bad about getting Adobe Photoshop help because it is a very complex program with many facets. So do some research or take the Video Professor lesson, and maximize you experience with some Adobe Photoshop help from the people who are experienced in the program.

There are several different Photoshop programs and chances are, there is one that works for what you want to accomplish with a photo editing program. Photoshop classes are available for any of the programs and they are available in many different forms. A lot of people just want to make minor alterations to their pictures and find an easy way to organize and archive their pictures. Some people want to make significant changes to their pictures or want to go into a career that involves design and learning the more advanced Photoshop programs. No matter what Photoshop program you want to use, there are Photoshop classes, whether they are on the Photoshop web site or tutorials from Video Professor.

 Photoshop Classes for Elements

Elements is one of the more basic Photoshop programs and it is ideal for beginners. Photoshop classes are available for this program in order to help you with the basics of organizing, editing and sharing your pictures. With this program you can tag and label your photos and build your own creative photo album to share with your family. Photoshop classes can help you navigate more efficiently once you get all your pictures stored on your computer. Labeling, tagging and familiarizing yourself with the search features will allow you to view the photos you want and save time.

The reason you take as many photos as you do is so you can view them for years to come and share them with your friends and family. Luckily, Photoshop classes give tips revealing several creative ways for you to display and share you pictures. Photo books, slide shows, CD/DVD covers, cards, and customized layouts are all available through Photoshop classes.

Photoshop Classes for CS3

CS3 is a more advanced version of Photoshop designed for professional photographers or very advanced amateurs, and there are plenty of Photoshop classes for this version. There are incredible amounts of tasks and alterations that you can perform with this program.

The best picture editing tools are available with this program. Color balancing, drawing and painting tools, cloning, and healing tools are all useful resources to change and improve your photos. Learning these features is hard to do on your own, and ill advised when there are plenty of ways to access Photoshop classes.

If you have a series of similar photos, you can combine these into the one perfect photo using different layers. Through the use of layers, a lot is possible, so find Photoshop classes and learn how to effectively manipulate your layers. Mastering layers will open the door to learning more advanced features and avoid repeating steps.

Photoshop classes help you create improved pictures without making them look grainy, pulled or stretched. Photoshop will also help you learn about the customizable work environments that will anticipate your needs so you can create the best possible images

There is too much to learn about with any Photoshop program to not seek out some Photoshop classes. Make sure you are doing everything properly and that you are not wasting your time and taking too many steps.

I had no idea that selling pictures online was such a large market. There are several web sites where people can become members and sell their pictures. This seems like a strange concept. I remember when people bought and sold pictures, real pictures that you can hold in your hand. Now you can buy and sell digital pictures online. It seems strange that you can spend $20 or more on a picture file. But it does give you a much wider selection than you could ever hope for from any photo store, and it is all available on your computer. The selection really is incredible. There is an entire section on one site for office-related pictures, which is the third smallest category on the site and it contains 806 pictures. You can buy a picture of network cables connecting to the back of a modem. This picture has been viewed almost 1,500 times. Yeah, the selling pictures online phenomenon is much larger than I thought. On this same site, you can purchase a picture of a binder clip. That’s it, a picture of a binder clip and nothing more. The cost of this groundbreaking picture, a cool $25 for the largest version.

One site has an entire section dedicated to the sky, and it contains 24,000 pictures. On this same site there is also a category titled “red.” I’m serious, and it contains 21,000 pictures. These sites offer 85 percent of the sale price to the seller, and you could sell a picture as many times as possible. Shutterpoint.com offers membership starting at 5 cents a day for 50 MB of storage, with more storage costing more money. Anyone who wants to buy one of your pictures can do so and you get paid through PayPalÒ. Seems like a good deal, unless no one wants to buy your pictures, then you’re just giving money away. This site also pays commission for referring new photographers and photo buyers to the site. Some sites offer you unlimited storage space and differing lengths on how long you can post pictures on the site.

This isn’t something that takes up a lot of your time, but could net a nice chunk of change if you have good pictures. If you are a professional photographer, this is an easy way to expand your customer base and make some more money. It can help you reach far more customers than any store ever could. This is just one of the many luxuries afforded to us by the digital revolution. You surely wouldn’t be able to easily load pictures onto the Internet from film or negatives.

If you are a decent photographer and you have nothing to do with some quality shots, then it might be an advantageous idea to try and sell your pictures online. You might find a small fortune, especially if you specialize in “red” or “sky” photography.

Digital photography, it’s just better than film photography. For most people, the advantages of digital cameras are huge, and with all the advancements of technology, you can get the same quality pictures with digital cameras that you got with film, but with much more convenience. There are some key differences and other aspects of digital photography that you need to keep in mind, so you might want to seek out a digital photography guide to help you make the transition and take full advantage of everything digital photography offers.

A digital photography guide can get you up to speed with all the settings on your camera and what to do with your pictures in terms of saving and archiving them. You also have the choice between three different types of digital cameras. The most common type is a point and shoot camera, which is what you probably think of when you think of digital cameras. This is a pretty basic form of camera with a basic lens, zoom and features. Another option is a fixed lens camera. A more detailed digital photography guide can explain the differences in greater detail, but the basic difference is that fixed lens cameras have more powerful zooms. The third choice is a Single-lens Reflex (SLR) camera. Again, a more thorough digital photography guide, like the one offered by Video Professor, can explain these cameras in more detail, but the biggest advantage of these cameras are that they allow you to change lenses and they have a much quicker shutter speed. Manipulation of shutter speed is one aspect most missed by people with basic digital cameras who all experience the delay between when they press the button and when the camera actually takes the picture.

For a detailed explanation of pixels, a major factor to consider, take a look at an excerpt taken from Bob Atkins’ digital photography guide on photo.net:

A pixel is a contraction if the term PIcture ELement. Digital images are made up of small squares, just like a tile mosaic on your kitchen or bathroom wall. Though a digital photograph looks smooth and continuous just like a regular photograph, it’s actually composed of millions of tiny squares. One of the main ways that manufacturers categorize their digital cameras is in terms of pixel count. What this is is the number of individual pixels that go into making each image. Today this number varies between 1 million (1 Megapixel) to around 14 million (14 Megapixels). A million pixels is abbreviated to MP, so a 1MP camera has 1 million pixels and a 3MP camera has 3 million pixels. Currently most popular consumer digital cameras have between 2MP and 5MP. A 3MP camera can make excellent 4″x6″ prints and very good 5″x7″ prints. If you intend to make lots of 8″x10″ prints, then perhaps a 4MP or 5MP camera would be a better choice. Sometimes two numbers are given, total pixels and effective pixels.

For a very thorough explanation of how to use your digital camera, you can work with Video Professor’s digital photography guide (by John W Scherer) available as a CD or online tutorial.

If you have your own business or other project that you want to gain attention for, then you could use some Publisher assistance. No one knows your business or other venture better than you, so make sure your promotional materials look the way you want them to. Publisher has plenty of tools that can help you create customized promotional materials. Create something that is very beneficial for your company and specifically tailored to your business. With Publisher assistance, you can learn all the features that are at your disposal to design what you need.

What you need to make your business successful is to make it identifiable. Designing a sleek and professional logo can help give you a business identity or brand that is recognizable to people. Publisher offers templates or customizable designs for creating your own logo including contact information and your company name. With Publisher assistance, you will be able to create something that represents your business and stands out among the crowd.

Publisher has a wide array of customizable design templates for almost any kind of document you want to create. Publisher assistance can show you templates for designing e-mails, web sites, flyers, brochures, business cards, postcards and more. Spread the word for your business through as many ways as possible, and you can create them all in the same place with Publisher.

If you are running your own business, you want to save as much time as possible. There are surely a thousand tasks that need your attention at any given time so make sure you learn time saving tools from John W Scherer’s Publisher assistance. With the Content Store feature, you can store frequently used text, graphics and other design elements in a place where they are easily accessible to use for other publications. This will help streamline your design process and create a uniform look for all of your marketing materials. This will go a long way towards making your materials and designs more recognizable and memorable. If you want to create a design or color scheme that is easily associated with your business, there is no easier way to do so than saving your design elements in the Content Store. Rather than trying to recreate an original design, you can easily access the exact colors, text or graphics and Publisher assistance can show you how.

Business cards are still a huge part of networking and making sure people remember you. Even in this digital age, a quality business card can make a lasting impression. Publisher assistance can show you how to access the hundreds of templates that you can use to create a business card. You can also create your own customized business card and incorporate the same color schemes and logo you use on all your other promotional materials. Having an impressive looking business card readily available can make a huge difference because you never know when you are going to run into someone who can be very beneficial for your business. It’s not what you know, but who you know, so make sure you never miss an opportunity to network with influential people. Publisher assistance can help people remember you.

We all know too well how quickly technology changes. It has to be one of the, if not the most, frustrating parts of buying any new gadget. Nowhere is that more true than when purchasing a new desktop or laptop computer. So, how can one avoid buying a computer that will be out of date a week after it’s purchased? Hopefully, this article will shed some light on the subject.

I’m the proud owner of a 2000 Sony Vaio laptop. What am I doing with an eight-year-old laptop, you ask. That’s a brilliant question. I ask myself the same thing every time I impatiently wait for it to start up. The short answer is that it still kind of works, and I hate buying computers so much that I’m willing to postpone the experience as long as possible. However, I know the time is coming.

As I’ve poured over laptop guide after laptop guide, one thing has become abundantly clear– to stay slightly ahead of technology, you have to spend a lot of money. That’s not good, because just behind buying a new laptop, spending money is one of my least favorite things to do. But, as I sit here, wanting to throw my current laptop out the window, I know that it’s something I need to do. But, before I did anything, I had to decide if I was going to go for a PC or Apple.

Both make great laptops. Both types of laptops have their pros and cons. The guides have good and bad things to say about each. But after carefully researching the guides, I’ve decided to go with an Apple. Why? Quite simply, I’m tired of the bugs, add-on anti-virus software and near endless required updates that PCs require. My wife has an Apple laptop, and I love the thing. It’s intuitive, it’s easy to use and, most important, it hardly ever crashes and not once has it had a virus. Find me a PC laptop that can do the same and maybe I’ll consider it. Until then, my laptop of choice is the MacBook.

Patrick C.