Archive for April, 2007

digital image printing – Its All About the Image: From your digital camera to our digital printing process.

In an age where \’Image is Everything\’, there\’s an overflow of services that provide consumers with top quality, high resolution stock photos that can be used to promote your business. What happens when a designer needs images of the companys product? If your company is small to medium size with little or no budget to plan a professional photoshoot, you turn to your personal digital camera hoping to reach an outstanding image quality – not considering what it takes to convert that image and prepare it for offset printing. Even though digital images might look great on a personal monitor, often the quality is poor when these images are reproduced on an offset printing press. \n

BargainPrinting.com comes across many clients on a daily basis that followed that path and we have been working with them to educate them about what it takes to get a digital image from an \’1-shot\’ personal camera printed without compromizing quality, although we don\’t advocate that you follow this path. To ensure that your pics are print quality, follow these guidelines for selecting a digital camera, choosing the proper settings, and handling image files. Keep in mind that images of conventional film camera properly scanned yield the best quality printed material followed by a \’3-shot\’ professional digital cameras. \n

Choosing a Digital Camera \n

Newer multi-mega pixel cameras offer high enough resolution to preserve image quality in offset printing for most image sizes (except oversized posters). To take high quality photos for print, youll need at least a 2-megapixel camera. A 2-megapixel camera has an image resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. (By comparison, 35 mm film has an image resolution of about 3600 x 2500.) \n

Cameras with resolutions of only 1024 x 768 pixels or 1280 x 1024 pixels can be used, but such photos must be printed much smaller than images from higher resolution cameras. \n

Resolution Settings \n

Set your camera for the highest resolution possible. Many cameras have settings such as \’Standard,\’ \’Normal,\’ \’High Quality\’ or \’Super High Quality.\’ Check your manual to determine the specific resolutions these terms represent. Depending on your camera, the resolution settings could range from 72 dpi to 300 dpi. A 72 dpi image is fine for viewing on a computer monitor; 300 dpi is the resolution required if an image is headed for a printing press. \n

Another way to understand resolution is in its relationship to image size. If a 72 dpi image is 17.7 x 14.2 inches on your monitor, it will be just 4.3 x 3.4 inches when sized for printing at 300 dpi. So, if you submit a 72 dpi image to use in a publication, the largest size at which it can be printed will be about one-fourth of its original size. \n

Creative Tip: With digital photography its important to move in close to your subject. Trying to crop the important feature from an already small image further reduces the usability of the image. \n

Pre press Tip: Adjust your cameras setting prior to taking the picture, rather than trying to mend it afterwards. The wrong camera settings might result in a large image with very low dpi. \n

File Type and Compression \n

Although the preferred image type for offset printing is TIF, we have the ability to also accept uncompressed JPEG type images.Avoid saving images as JPEGs if possible. JPEG is a compressed image format. Saving an image as a JPEG reduces the size of the file, which is convenient in terms of storage space. However, compressing also degrades the image. The more times you open a JPEG, make changes, and resave it as a JPEG, the more the image deteriorates. If you must use the JPEG file type, take photos at the highest possible resolution and then don\’t open your images or manipulate them in any way. Simply copy them to your personal (or a disk or CD) and then forward the files to our prepress department along with your layout files. (If corrections are needed, get them all done at once.) \n

A TIF file can be edited without losing data. Uncompressed PICT files and EPS files also are acceptable. Certain kinds of graphics cannot be used in the editing, typesetting and graphic design programs used to create files for an offset press. These include PowerPoint, Harvard Graphics, WordPerfect Graphics, Corel Presentation, etc. Never embed graphics in a manuscript file, such as a WordPerfect or Word document.
\n\nSophie Charalambous\n

Sophie Charalambous is a Marketing Director at BargainPrinting.com (http://www.bargainprinting.com). BargainPrinting.com (http://www.bargainprinting.com) uses state-of-the-art equipment and an all digital workflow to provide professional quality printing, mailing and design solutions. Located in New York City, BargainPrinting.com (http://www.bargainprinting.com) offers print buyers nationwide competitive prices

new digital cameras – How to purchase Digital Cameras cheap and at a huge discount

There is a nice fluid market for both new and after market digital cameras on eBay. Digital Camera usage has grown enormously over the past few years. Technology has reduced the old film and developing almost to the archives. Quality cameras ranging in price from well under $500 to over $2000 are available. Professionals, amateur hobbyists and regular households all seem to be acquiring cameras, often more than one per household. The question becomes how can I acquire a digital camera at the ideal possible price? \n

With a big volume of most models being traded everyday, this is the ideal efficient market. One can study the dynamics of this micro-market and determine some useful buying rules. With a tiny more information than the rest of the marketplace, one can almost certainly make some intelligent buying opportunities. This article focuses on how to identify these gaps and often buy digital cameras for 20-40% below retail. \n

This article should be read together with my longer piece and a web site, which produces the information required to identify buying nuggets. Find the links and URLs to these two sites at the bottom of this article. The niche site focuses specifically and only on data from the digital camera market. \n

Most information on eBay focuses on the selling element, i.e. how to sell your stuff. I have tended to specialize on the buying end and trying to identify market opportunities and price in-efficiencies to really capture excellent deals. To do this we need to comprehend the dynamics of the eBay market place. Like any other market it is supply demand driven, and like a huge flee-market if a buyer has knowledge of how many items are for sale at what prices and how many other buyers are in the market, then that buyer can capture the upper hand. Lets focus a little more on supply. \n

The eBay supply dynamic is a tiny different in that supply of an item must be seen at a point in time. In other words, because auctions end at different times, one needs to grasp the number of auctions ending in close proximity for the same item. This gives you a feel for the supply of items or in our case cameras. What makes this interesting is that this day there could be a massive amount of auctions ending for a particular model, but next week there could be very few. This is one element driving the price. \n

The demand side is slightly more complex and hidden from the average eBay buyer. This is where that the internet site I refer to at the bottom has some useful data. Demand in eBay terms is measured (by sellers) as a number of factors – how many people view my auction, how many people ask questions, how many people place me on their watch page, and how many people actually bid. Obviously as we progress down this list the data become more reliable as an indication of demand. Page views are not easy to obtain, although some sellers place a publicly viewable counter on their auction pages. Questions and watchers are available to sellers, and the special web site mentioned below will expose this information. Number of bids is available for all to see. \n

Now if we happened to produce a graph as the auction progresses of the changes in the number of questions, watchers and bids one can easily see how the demand is changing as time progresses. Typically if questions are high and watchers are high, but bids are low, this may indicate some confusion and a possible purchase opportunity. If watchers are very high and climbing, but bids are low, this can point to a last minute bidding war, and a stay out indicator. \n

Armed with this information and also a quick summary of other similar auctions ending soon, plus a swift feel for the skill set of the seller and the current highest bidder, once can see a picture very different from the average eBay buyer. Soon the trained eye will observe some nice buying opportunities. For the professional or amateur photographer this will soon bring in a number of digital camera buys that are quite a bit cheaper that retail. For example it is quite possible to find gems at 20-40% of retail prices. Lets face it, most digital cameras perform perfectly years after acquisition. Digital electronics seldom degrade over time, so the aftermarket such as eBay is the idea place to buy cameras cheaply. \n

Resources; How to buy a digital camera Digital Camera bargains \n

Article by Malcolm Silberman and Education Specialist trained by eBay, for a more lengthily discussion of this topic visit http://bargainsfrom.us/how-to-buy-digital-cameras-at-a-discount-both-new-or-used and to see Camera auctions with this value added data visit http://digital-camera.bargainsfrom.us email him at digital-cameraATmacsilber.com
\n\nMac Silber\n

Article by Malcolm Silberman and Education Specialist trained by eBay, for a more lengthily discussion of this topic visit http://bargainsfrom.us/how-to-buy-digital-cameras-at-a-discount-both-new-or-used and to see Camera auctions with this value added data visit http://digital-camera.bargainsfrom.us email him at digital-cameraATmacsilber.com

new cameras – The Digital Photography Revolution Is Now Here

With digital cameras becoming the norm or even a fashion item more and more children want to know how to use and set up their new cameras. Digital cameras are simple to purchase but they come with a manual about an inch thick and like most kids, they put the manual aside and fumble through hoping for the ideal. \n

They can take photos with their mobile phones these days, so how hard could it be to use a digital camera? \n

Unfortunately thats the attitude and most miss out on how to change a few settings in their camera to get really great shots no matter what the lighting. Teachers are often at a loss to know how to take a class and instruct a new technology that they themselves know very tiny about. \n

Digital photography is becoming more integrated with university courses. Having a digital camera will soon be like owning a calculator for the average student. \n

It is so important for a student to become proficient at the use of their new digital camera, as many lecturers are setting assignments that must have pics included, its just part and parcel of the new multi media revolution that is taking place at an enormous pace before our very eyes. \n

Knowing how to use the camera is half the battle, the other half is teaching students how to take photos that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. \n

Most children learn superior by being shown how to do something rather than reading hard to comprehend photographic books. \n

As their photography teacher goes through step by step how to set up and use their digital cameras, they learn key skills that will help them in getting the most out of their cameras.
\n\nSydney Pix\n

Sydney Pix is a professional photographer who teaches an 8 week TAFE course covering all the settings that a student needs to use their camera correctly. This course is now a comprehensive two DVD training course. \n

For more information go to http://www.profotocourse.com/school-photography-lessons.html