How to Master Photography Using PhotoShop and PhotoShop Tutorials

Those who are into digital photography are almost certainly experts when it comes to PhotoShop. This software is essential in editing normal photos in order to achieve perfect and artistic photographs using different kinds of effects such as the appropriate color saturation.

However, not all individuals have the knowledge when it comes to PhotoShop and a lot of people want to know how to transform a simple photograph into an artistic piece. If you want to learn the tricks of PhotoShop, you just have to use certain books and PhotoShop tutorials. Most people rely in PhotoShop tutorials especially in learning new things because with PhotoShop tutorials, they do not need to go through different books and seek advice from their friends.


PhotoShop tutorials are designed to help everyone be familiar with the software. You can find these free tutorials on the Internet, which are usually divided into numerous categories for you to be able to use them faster and easier. Categories include photography tutorials, the basics category, special effects, texturing category and web design tutorials. There are other websites providing different versions of the program where you can learn the entire set of lessons made for the type of PhotoShop you use. With PhotoShop tutorials, you can easily learn tricks and techniques in video, graphics, films and special effects.


There are countless websites that offer PhotoShop tutorials. If you are just starting to learn the basics, there are tutorials that are developed for those needs. You can easily learn how to make simple changes such as how to remove red eyes, change hair color, know the importance of layers, retouching pictures and knowing information about different tools necessary for photograph modifications.


If you are in need of comprehensive instructions on how to use PhotoShop, the Internet can provide you countless websites such as www.tutorialsite.org, which can help you, learn how to manipulate and improve your digital photographs. Most tutorial sites offer downloadable files and instructions where you can get useful information.


The first thing you need to learn before starting to create a new file is to know how to navigate the software. With PhotoShop tutorials , you will easily learn the different actions and icons found in the menu bar, palette, toolbox and status bar. Another important section of the tutorial is the part where you can learn how to work with your photos and existing documents. In this part, you will be able to learn how to enhance or improve your document and pictures in your personal computer. You can open, crop, resize, view and save documents with ease. In addition, you can learn different ways on how to edit photographs.


One of the most interesting elements in PhotoShop tutorials is the part about the different tools essential in enhancing, creating and retouching photographs. In this section, you will be able to learn how to have fun with colors as well as know more complex tools including the lasso section tools, the wand, layering tools and eyedropper.


In addition, Website owners can also benefit from PhotoShop tutorials especially in advanced tutorials where they can learn ways on how on create a hosting server using PhotoShop, make introduction pages and navigation bars easily. You can choose from a wide range of tutorials that are not restricted to PhotoShop enthusiasts only but also for everyone who are in need of useful PhotoShop information.


Though there are hundreds of tutorials on the internet, it is recommended to focus on a the basic tutorial sites if you are really interested in learning something in particular and eventually search for more advanced tutorials. This way, you will be able to learn everything slowly. With free PhotoShop tutorials, it won't be difficult for you to learn new things everyday. Learning about PhotoShop is essential especially with the technological advancement. You may not dream of becoming a world-class graphic artist but having enough knowledge on PhotoShop can give you the edge in your career. 

by: Jeyanth Watson 

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5 Helpful Tips When Hiring Freelance IT Help

I recently finished creating my latest website, and since I am a designer, not a coder, I often find the need to seek the services of a freelance IT professional. There are several good sites out there that can easily help you find the help your looking for. There are quality professionals available that provide everything from logo creation to website design, to marketing and advertising. There are people that can help you from beginning to end during your entire website creation process.

There are literally thousands of IT professionals and not-so-professionals out there ready to take on your project. I have had wonderful experiences and slightly less than wonderful experiences in these situations, and want to give you some help in finding IT professionals that can save you money, but sometimes more importantly, lots of time.

1-Get Several Quotes- After you post your project on the boards, you will probably receive a couple quotes within an hour or so. Check each quote carefully; make sure it encompasses EVERYTHING you described in your job posting. Cheaper is NOT synonymous with better so make sure you get are getting quality help at a reasonable price. Don't be afraid to pay what the job is worth. These people have to make a living and if you take care of them they will take care of you. If you go looking for the cheapest bid available often you will find yourself wasting lots of time and sometimes money, and probably having to hire somebody else to go back and re-do what should have be done, or done right, the first time. With that being said..

2- Check Their Qualifications - Once you receive several quotes and have a good idea what your budget is probably going to be, check their qualifications. All Freelancers will have a profile page available when they submit a quote for your project. MAKE SURE THEY ARE QUALIFIED TO PERFORM THE PARTICULAR TYPE OF WORK YOU NEED. More than likely you will receive lots of bids on every project you post. And most of the time you will receive quotes from people that are not completely qualified to perform the work you need. One thing to keep in mind, ANYBODY CAN BE A FREELANCER, and lots of people will say they have the skills required to perform the task but may only have a little knowledge about a particular skill and assume they can "figure it out" as they go. And they quite possibly may be able to do that in some situations. The problem with that is: guess what you're doing while they are "figuring it out"?......waiting. And sometimes time can be more valuable than money. I have given freelancers days and sometimes a week or so to complete a task that would have taken a QUALIFIED person 2 days to complete. A higher skill level is more valuable so sometimes you may have to pay a little extra to acquire the more qualified person. I have even awarded a project to an unqualified person, waited a week for a 2 day project, only to find out they were unable to complete the project and had to hire someone else. With that being said....

3-Check Their Feedback-On their profile pages they will have a feedback page. Check their feedback and actually read some of the comments posted. Find out if they are professional, timely and responsive on their projects. See if all work was completed and if they would be hired again on future projects. Make sure you check any negative comments left. But don't let a negative comment sway you from a professional if they have 98% positive feedback and had one bad experience with someone. Sometimes people can expect too much work for their money or aren't descriptive enough in their job post and fail to sufficiently let the IT pro know the full scope of the work needed, and then get upset when they don't receive 15hrs. of work for their $200 bucks. And on the other end, when your project is complete, don't forget to go back and leave feedback for your IT pro. It will help others like yourself find quality, professional help, and it's just simply good business practice.

4-Be Descriptive In Your Job Post-I can't stress this one enough. One key to making sure your project runs smoothly is making sure both sides understand exactly what the job at hand is. Don't leave anything out of your post. If you know something is going to be a challenge or if there are other situations attached to the current problem, make sure you let them know up front what they are getting into. Like I said in tip #3 if your post is not descriptive enough and the IT pro ends up "opening a can of worms" on your project, you will only get the amount of work your budget allots, often leaving your project unfinished or poorly completed, or they will be forced to request additional funds, or they may refuse the project all together leaving you to post the project again, go through the whole process of finding someone, again, and wasting lots of time that wasn't necessary in the first place.

5-Find Good Help and Stick With It.-When someone does a professional, quality job on one of your projects, reward them by using them again in the future (if it doesn't conflict with tip #2). You can build professional relationships and fore go all the "weeding out" processes on future projects and save yourself some time if you have quality pros that you can consistently rely on. And they may feel inclined to put in a little extra effort on your next project and can add to the overall quality of the job.

Hopefully these tips will help save you time and money and most importantly will allow you to achieve your ultimate goal, which is finishing your project in a timely and professional manner with the highest quality possible. Guru.Com, ODesk.com, & Elance.com are a few good places to start when beginning your search. Freelance work can be a great solution to your IT needs and is most effective when the process is carefully monitored and a few guidelines are followed.
 
by: John Chilton 

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Blog Optimization


Search engine optimization is the process done to generate traffic through search engines. It became a need for websites because 80%-90% of visitors come from major search engines. Higher rankings mean greater number of visitors. The same concept applies to blogs. However, many blog owners are not aware of their chances of being more visible on the web. They just update it once in a while and that's it. Considering the great number of blogs on the net today, from personal to corporate blogs, all their efforts will just go to waste if they do not optimize it.

Yes, blogs can be optimized, too. It should be done for the benefit both of your readers and search engine spiders. Although the process is quite similar with the standard website search engine optimization, it is a bit different. Here are some tips that you can do to start:

Consider the Design

It is not advisable to use the default template being offered by blog publishing sites. You wouldn't want to bump into a girl in a party wearing the same dress, do you? Same thing goes to blogs. You can hire a designer to do the work for you. If running a tight budget, you can always look for free templates offered by web design companies and you can customize it a little to make it unique. 

Optimize the Tags

Use the most substantial phrase for your blog in the hard code of the title tag. Also, you have to double check that each entry's title appears on the tile tag. This is sometimes overlooked.

Keywords

You should always use your keywords in the blog post titles and categories. You can also use many categories in one entry if appropriate.

RSS Feed

It is best that you have RSS subscription button available on your blog. This would be more convenient to your readers because it will publish your recently updated work. If your blog publisher don't have RSS automatically available, there are RSS feed button creation tool on the net. But make sure that you place it where the readers can easily see them. You can put it in your sidebar. It is already on the blog owner's prerogative if he/she wants to full or partial RSS.

Use Email

Because there are some people who are not familiar with RSS feeds, go the extra mile and offer them something else with the same benefits. I'm talking about You can have your blog post via email. Free tools are also available online to do this.

Compelling Introduction

Introduction about the blog post is sent out via RSS feed. Make sure that it is compelling to enough to make your readers want to have more of it so that they would click the “more” button and read the entire article. Therefore, it should be interesting.

Check you CSS

It is common that blogs come with overwhelming amount of CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. The solution to this is to place it in an external CSS file to avoid clutter in the main template and for the main entry not to go further down.

Keywords-rich Anchor Texts

In placing links in other sites/blogs and even in putting internal links, make sure that you are using keyword-rich anchor text. Remember that it is always better to use your keywords than “click here” or “more”. It would benefit you when search engine spiders crawl your blog.

Keep Your Posts Bonded

If your blog post is somehow connected to your previous posts, link them to each other. The idea is that if your reader is interested in this particular topic, then he/she probably can also be entertained of a different story with the same subject matter. You can use Related Posts Plugin for this.

Do the same in other blogs. If you see a blog entry or an article on the same issue, make them knowledgeable of your existence by placing a link going to your post.

Purchase a Domain

We all know that blog hosting companies will only be around for such a time. Once they close their business, they will be closing your blog as well. If that happens, where will your loyal followers find you? Or there are change in the domain of your blog host, it will surely affect your rankings.

In case you have limited resources and can only settle to free hosting companies, look for those who offer to display your own domain rather than displaying their own like Wordpress and Blogger.

Proper URL Naming Convention

It is always a bad idea to use dynamic URLs whether on websites or blogs. You should always take advantage of any chance you have to use keywords, without keyword stuffing, including this one. Meaning, instead of using “www.xyzblog.com/?246”, you can consider “www.xyzblog.com/blog-post-keywords-here”. When you cannot do anything about it, use mod rewrite.

Good Navigation

If your blog is just a part of a website, it is not ebough that you a have a link going to your blog's main page. Use the sidebar to syndicate your new posts because the visitors of the website might get interested in your articles if they see the titles.

Fast Page Load

The amount of time involved for a page to load all depends on your host. There are some blogs that takes about half a minute just from the snippet of RSS feed to the full article. You can lose a lot of readers just because of this reason alone.

Moderated Trackbacks and Comments

Spammers are everywhere. They always find a way to abuse your blog by putting non-sense comments with links going to their website. It is annoying and it can also affect your rankings. There are numerous tools available online which you can use to moderate and avoid comment and trackbak spam.

Don't just create a blog to share great information or to prove that you know a lot about the field you are into. Do not settle on the number of followers your blog has. Start to optimize now and see the great changes on the next few months.

 by: Victoria Phee

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About Me

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Realistic, full consideration and the principle holds. They try to live life with a high ideal standard. Harbored anger as weakness and try to muffle. They follow strict standards of behavior and / or trying to make the world a l. .. ebih good. # Advantages: holding the ethical, dependable, productive, wise, idealistic, fair, honest, orderly, and self-discipline. # Ugliness: judgmental, inflexible, dogmatic, obsessive-compulsive disorder, like criticizing someone else, too seriously, mastering, anxiety, and envy. # How to get along with me: Do what becomes your responsibility, so I do not have to do the whole job. Acknowledge my achievements. I'm hard on myself. Make sure again that I am fine. Say that you appreciate my advice. Fair and full perhatianlah, like me. Apologize if you're careless. That will help me to forgive. Gently persuade me to relax and laugh at myself if I am uptight, but hear my worries first.