This article talks about a technology to help you preserve your precious photos.

This article talks about how photo restoration can make your old pictures look as good as new.

This article talks about things to avoid to make sure your photos surely stand the test of time.

This article discusses about how digital photo printing works.

With digital photography, even absolute beginners can now take digital photographs that could almost be mistaken for those taken by a professional. Images can be adjusted and recreated to give effects only available with incredibly high tech equipment a few short years ago. Very few areas of our life haven't felt the effects that digital photography has had during recent years.

“Out of the photo album and onto the wall” – latest digital technology provides innovative new way to turn photos into PHOTOART Where do most digital photos end up, anyway? It’s probably no surprise that the majority of the snapshots we all take are archived away on a CD or saved on our computer in a semi-organized way, making it difficult to even find them. Some are shared electronically and then deleted. Only a few percent are actually printed out and placed in photo albums or scrapbooks and an even tinier percentage enlarged and framed for the wall. Why are so few printed or enlarged? The most common reason is that most of the photos we take are just not good enough quality, photographically. A photo for an album or scrapbook can be a nice little memory and perfectly suitable for close-up viewing, but not “wall-worthy”. But there is hope. The latest digital imaging technologies can actually improve the photo quality and turn a borderline picture into a keeper, a picture worth enlarging and displaying on the wall to enjoy every day. This goes way beyond the 8X10 enlargements your dad used to have framed for the hallway. It’s called “PhotoArt canvas printing”, and here’s how it’s done. Pick a photo The first step, and most difficult for most people, is to pick a photo. “I can’t decide which picture to pick” is a common refrain we hear in our canvas printing business. My advice is to pick the photos that you have a strong emotional reaction to, regardless of the photo quality…maybe it’s a candid shot of your child at play, your dog running in the field, a favorite family shot with the grandparents, whatever just strikes your fancy. Then sort from among those, the one or two that are the best photographically. Just make sure they are in focus, that is critical. Just about everything else can be fixed digitally, but not fuzzy. “Fuzzy is Forever” we say. Pick a company You will need to find a photoart canvas printing company that can transform your digital images into a beautiful enlargement that is “canvas-worthy”. Google is a great way to find a good company that does in this type of printing. Use search words like “photoart on canvas” or “canvas photoart”. Look for a company that specializes in canvas printing, not a general digital printing company. You can order on-line and upload your digital images to their website. Making your photo “sing” When the photoart company gets your image their artists will use the latest digital imaging software to clean up any little problems with the picture like red-eye or date stamp, that, when magnified in the enlargement, would be very objectionable. At a minimum, the artist should also adjust the contrast, color saturation and color tones. In addition, a top-quality digital artist can correct facial tones, lessen shadows and even remove wrinkles or blemishes without it looking phony. It’s really amazing how an ordinary, everyday photo, can be turned into a real winner using this technology in the hands of a talented digital artist. The magic part Now the real magic begins. One of the more popular, and certainly most unique photo treatments available today is the transformation of the photo into a simulated oil painting. The artist uses special software and a digital stylus to “digitally paint” the image, mimicking brush strokes. It takes real talent to capture the twinkle in a child’s eye, the contours of a face or the special lighting, and the result is truly unique. The hard part is now done…ready to print! Printing and Finishing The images are printed directly on special, museum-quality canvas using a giant inkjet printer. These printers weigh up to 700 pounds and can print up to 5 feet wide…not your typical desktop inkjet printer, but the same basic principle. The special inks are matched to the canvas to provide a life of over 80 years. That’s about 4 times longer than a traditional photographic print will last under similar conditions. The printed canvas images are sprayed with a special protective overcoat to protect the image from light and water damage and then stretched over an internal wooden frame using a technique called gallery-wrapping. This simply means that the imaged canvas continues around the edges so that the finished stretched canvas can be hung right out of the box. This is how art galleries display canvas paintings, hence the name. Voila! You have a beautiful custom work-of-art, suitable for display in your home or as a special gift for someone else. Believe me; a gift like this will be talked about for years. The cost Photoart prints on canvas are surprisingly affordable. For the most common size, 16” X 20”, prices generally run between $80 - $100 for images that are digitally enhanced and gallery-wrapped using the highest quality materials, ready-to-hang. When you consider that a traditional photo enlargement, matted and framed, can easily run over $150, canvas photoart is a real bargain. Beware of companies that charge significantly less than the average…it’s unlikely that they are really spending the time to enhance your photo. And always get a 100% money-back guarantee! Bill Loeber is founder and president of www.ThePhotoArtPeople.com, a digital printing company that specializes in transforming everyday photos into canvas masterpieces. His company focuses exclusively on photo canvas printing, with customers all over the world.

If you haven't switched over to a digital camera, you are missing out and spending too much. Here's why.

The 6 most common mistakes made by amateur photographers…and the simple tips to help you avoid them   Many photos fail to capture the moment or the mood of the original experience for a few simple reasons.  Sometimes it’s the lighting, or the cropping, red-eye or a boring, uncreative pose.  How disappointing to see your photographs and wonder “what happened?”.   We see hundreds of everyday photos from our customers in our digital printing business (www.ThePhotoArtPeople.com) and have created this short guide to help the novice photographer take significantly  better photographs by paying attention to a few simple basics.   Mistake #1 – Trying to fit too much in each photo   No doubt about it, the most common mistake everyday photographers make is to try to include too much in each photo…the kids playing with the dog, the grassy field, the buildings in the background and the sunset just to make sure we haven’t missed anything .  The problem is that while our eyes can take it all in at once and capture all the ambiance and feeling of the moment, a camera cannot.  The main subject, the kids playing with the dog, is lost in all the other stuff in the photo.  So zoom in on the main subject and include just enough of the background to provide a reference for the  photo.  If you want to shoot some other pictures of the buildings, grassy field and sunset by all means do so, but for your “money shot” concentrate on your main subject.     Mistake #2 -  Improper lighting   Most inexperienced photographers are surprised when they get their photos back and see that the subject is too dark…not at all how they remember the scene.  The reason is that our eyes, a truly remarkable piece of “technology”, can see in deep shadows and bright sunlight simultaneously, and reveal all the colors and subtle detail with ease.  A camera cannot do this and must choose between the two extremes…either the shadow detail is properly exposed or the bright background, but not both.  So-called “automatic” cameras choose which part of the scene will be properly exposed, leaving the other parts often too dark or light.  So what to do?   When shooting outdoors try to avoid direct overhead sunlight as this casts deep shadows on your subject and can be quite unflattering.  But if you have no other choice use the Fill Flash feature on your camera.  The Fill Flash forces the camera’s flash to fire and “fills in” the subjects that are close in, compensating for the camera’s inability to properly expose for light and dark areas simultaneously.  It’s a good idea to always use Fill Flash when shooting people outdoors on sunny days.  Oh, and one more thing.  Never shoot into the sun.  Your foreground subjects will be lost in the shadows, and even the Fill Flash may not be able to help.   The same situation applies when shooting indoors.  A subject sitting in front of a brightly lit window will tend to be in the dark because the camera’s sensors are being bathed in bright light, thus underexposing the main subject (they will be too dark).  So once again the Fill Flash comes to the rescue as the subject is “filled in” with light.   Remember, a flash’s range is only 12-15 feet, so anything beyond that distance will not get any of the flash’s light.  A flash will not help you get a shot of Mick Jagger on stage from the top deck, sorry!   Mistake #3 -  Boring, repetitive compositions   Boring, posed photos. We all have them.  “ Here’s the family standing in front of a busy street somewhere, and here’s the family, again,  standing in front of some buildings somewhere, and here’s …”  This is where experience and an eye for the aesthetic can really help you take more interesting photos. Here are a few basics to get you started.   -  Minimize distracting backgrounds which don’t contribute to the photo...a busy street, ugly overhead telephone wires, billboards etc.  If you can’t change the setting, then try to change  your vantage point to remove them from the background.   -  Moving in closer  and focusing the camera on the subject will have the added effect of throwing the background out of sharp focus while keeping your subjects in focus.  You will be amazed at how much that alone will improve your portraits.   -  For scenery shots try to put something in the foreground to provide scale…a tree branch, a winding road leading to the distant mountain for example.   Experiment with moving your subject out of dead center in some of your photos.  Try having your subject looking off into the distance from one of the lower corners for example.  Mix it up and then pick the best one for the photo album.    Mistake #4 – The dreaded Red-eye   First of all, what causes red-eye?  The back of the human eye is saturated with red blood vessels. When your flash bathes these blood vessels in bright light, the resulting reflection is a bright red spot instead of the normally dark pupil.     Fortunately, today’s cameras make it very easy to eliminate red-eye.  Most cameras have a red-eye mode which bursts the flash a fraction of a second before the actual picture is taken.  The first flash shrinks the pupil, thus reducing the amount of red reflected from the back of the eye.  Just be sure to warn your subject to sit still until the second, and final, flash goes off.   Mistake #5 -  Not taking enough pictures   Back when we used film, you could forgive the photographer for not taking more shots of that special moment, or that gorgeous sunset.  After all, film cost money. But with film-less digital cameras there is really no excuse for being miserly.    Professional photographers will take dozens, if not hundreds, of photos at a portrait sitting or wedding.  I know a photographer that routinely takes over a thousand at a wedding!  Why?  Because you never can tell when someone will blink, or look away at the last moment and ruin what would otherwise be a great shot.  If you catch your kid doing something cute, shoot a dozen photos from different angles, just to make sure.  Chances are one or two will really standout.   Mistake #6 – Over posing – just say “no” to cheese  

Are you thinking about buying a camcorder, or did you recently get one and are trying to figure out how to use it? Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

An article that talks passionately about traditional photography and the place of digital photography in the new photographic era.

Photographs tell a lot of things. They capture the moment and it lasts for a lifetime. The historical photographs give a face to the history and the photographs of eminent personalities speak volumes about them. Photography has been long cherished as a hobby and it has become a business for many.

What are the differences between adobe photoshop and adobe illustrator? Produced by the same company, there are some that say the difference between the two programs is small. In actuality, adobe illustrator takes some key elements of adobe photoshop to the next level and beyond.