Flaunt Your Photos on Canvas

Photos on canvas can make any room look good. They can add a personal touch to your home and maybe even make you remember good times. By putting your photos on canvas, you are saving them from a life hidden in the back of old closet and becoming full of dust.

There are a multitude of companies on the internet advertising the fact that they have the ability to put photos on canvas. There are also a lot of companies advertising massive discounts to put your photos on canvas for you.

So many people today take a digital camera with them everywhere they go. They take some really great photos have a quick look at them at the time, then later in the course of the day, they may go back and relook at them or show some friends then completely forget all about them. If the photos are really lucky they may make it from the SD card all the way to be stored on the computer and then filed away not to be seen again.

By putting your photos on canvas you have the chance to relive that special fun day over and over again. Every time you look as you walk passed it, it will surely bring back not only the memories, but it may bring a smile to your face again. Memories can bring back a wealth of emotions, why not cherish these emotions and memories and hang them throughout your house.

Because canvas prints do not weigh as much as traditionally framed photo prints, they are easier to put up and easier to move around. It also means that you can move them around a lot easier if you have to move house.

If you are stuck when it comes to picking a gift for someone who is close to you and or your family, you really should consider a printed canvas as the gift. Not only are they relatively a low cost option, they are said to be long lasting and almost guaranteed to be hit. Your gift will definitely be unique and totally original if you chose a personal photo to have printed. This would be the best personalized gift you can buy for someone that they can share with everyone else.

You can still order a printed canvas if you are running low on time to come up with the perfect gift. Many of the printers are able to do an order for you in just a couple of days.

I love scrapbooking. I enjoy cutting, pasting, designing and writing tags on my photos. My scrapbook defines me, each and every pages reflects my bubbly personality. Another great idea of keeping photos aside from scrapbooking is photos on canvas. I had a friend who converted her photos on canvas and the results are awesome.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chynee_Diaz

Professional Negative Scanning Service to Digitize Old Photos

Photos are very good examples of reviewing the good times and events of the past life. Sometime these old photos get deteriorated due various reasons. Digitizing the old photos is a very good way to preserve them for a very long time. This can be done by scanning the negatives of these old photos and converting them into beautiful pictures. There are two ways to scan negatives. Either you do it at home or take the help of professional negative scanning service.

Scanning negatives at home can save some money but it will consume a lot of time and there is no guarantee for quality. The best way to get your memories digitized is hiring a professional scanning service to make sure that you get the best results without spending a lot.

Scanning the negatives of your old photos is a very easy way to convert them into digital ones in a very cost effective way without any hassles. Normally, if you scan negatives at home it takes a very long time as your scanner will be of basic model which consumes a lot of time making it a very frustrating job.

If ever you want to scan the negatives at home, the scanner should have the adaptor to scan negatives, and this will definitely increase the price of the scanner. Hiring the service of a professional scanning service will definitely saves a lot of your effort, energy as well as your money.

A professional scanning service takes care of everything and provides the best quality images, much better than you might get if you scan them at home. The professionals will have installed machineries and equipments of very latest and high technologies to provide optimum quality images from the negatives. The outcomes of these equipments are in best quality with very high resolution and format.

Specialists at the negative scanning service use a lot of sophisticated alternatives while scanning the negatives. They use the latest tools in scanning, editing and retouching your pictures which cannot be possible when you scan at home.

There are some people who think hiring professional scanning service as waste of time and money. While few of them try to scan the negatives using the basic function scanners, few other use digital cameras and try to take the pictures of the negatives. What this people do not understand is the difference between a negative and a slide. Never try taking the pictures of negatives as the result is nothing bur disaster.

The best and the most hassle free, cost effective and effortless way to scan negatives is to hire a professional scanning service. You can contact someone at the photo studio or search the internet for local negative scanning professional as they will have all the required devices and equipments to give you the best quality images.

The prices for the negative scanning service of your precious memories may vary depending on the quantity and quality of negatives, but it is by far the most valuable way to get the best out of the negatives of old photos for a reasonable price.

Canvas Printers - Turning Ordinary Photos Into Extraordinary Art

Even if you're not the interior decorating type, you probably notice when a home has starkly naked walls. It fees impersonal, as though the home is not lived in. If you feel like your home's walls are too bare, then you should consider utilizing your local canvas printers. These professionals take digital snapshots and print them on real canvas, ready to hang in your living room. Here are some tips for getting you started.

Size does matter

Canvas prints can be pricey, so you want to make sure that you are getting exactly what you want. It is important to measure the space in which you want to hang your new piece of art. The last thing you want is for it to be too big or too small for the space. Once you know how much room you have to work with, you have to decided what proportions are going to look nice in that space. To get an idea of the size that you should choose, make different sized rectangles with painter's tape on your wall.

A picture is worth 1000 words

The whole point of going to canvas printers to turn your photos into art is to make a decorative statement. So, you want to make absolute certain that the statement you are making is a good one. If you are placing your canvas print in the living room, you probably don't want to put up the picture of your cousin's boxing fight. However, that picture might be just the ticket for your game room. You want to choose a picture that says something about the room it's hanging in, as well as something about who you are as a person.

Consider your current decor

Biggest mistake you can make when choosing wall art is to ignore the feeling and decor that you already have in a room. Again, because canvas prints can be expensive, you don't want to have to re-carpet your living room because your wall hanging totally clashes. For example, If your bathroom has a tropical theme, put up the gorgeous Hawaii sunset you saw last time you were there, not the one of your dog eating. There are endless possibilities to canvas prints, but you don't want to choose the one that is not going to fit with your room.

Find a printer you can trust

This one is incredibly important. You must do your research before picking one out of the many canvas printers. Make sure you are getting someone who is experienced in this type of photo printing, and that they will be using up-to-date technology. Also, you want to make sure that you are getting a quality product. The canvas should be "gallery wrapped" meaning it's attached to a wood frame. Also, it should have some kind of protective coating on it, to prevent fading and cracking.

Canvas printers can help you turn your house into a home by giving you amazing works of art for your walls. Just make sure you follow the above tips to get the perfect print.

Printing Photos on Canvas

When it comes to pictures, we all have certain images and moments that we want to cherish forever. In most cases, people choose to save their pictures in a digital format on their cameras or download them onto their desktop computer or laptop. From here, the images can then be printed on photo paper and framed or put into an album. While this method is ideal and convenient, there are some drawbacks. For example, over the years even the best quality pictures can become victim to wear and tear, such as yellowing edges. If you really want to guarantee the preservation of your favorite moments in photo form in the years to come, why not have custom canvas prints made?

As the name implies, canvas printing involves the practice of putting your cherished pictures onto high quality canvas, just like the kind traditional paintings appear on. This new and innovative approach to capturing memories is not only a creative way to display your images, it ensures that they will stand the test of time, which makes it possible to pass on family portraits, wedding, birthday and anniversary pictures from generation to generation.

The safety of your photos on canvas is easy to guarantee because of the quality materials used to make the canvas the pictures are printed on. Even if you have never been to an art museum, chances are you've seen fine art on this type of canvas before in a store or on a website. Just as a painter trusts the canvas to hold his/her painted masterpiece in place and maintain its appearance and condition, the same is also true for photos that are printed onto the same surface material. Look at the famous works of artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Monet and Picasso. Their artwork has survived on canvas for hundreds of years.

In addition to the superb results using this method, canvas printers have the ability to produce custom shapes, sizes and designs to make your pictures stand out. You can choose from square prints, rectangular prints, wall display styles, panoramic prints and even multi-panel photo splits. Any of these special printing designs is sure to make your images the center of attention, whether you choose to display your canvas photos in your home, office or other area that receives a lot of foot traffic.

The ordering process is easy to do and you'll have a variety of options to choose from, in terms of size, style and color. Additionally, there are friendly and helpful customer service representatives available to answer your questions and concerns to make sure your order is exactly what you want.

Capturing your life's special moments by printing photos on canvas is a great way to not only preserve your images, these products also make for the perfect gift or occasion. From weddings, birthdays and anniversaries to house warmings, holidays, births and baptismal, giving a custom made canvas print is sure to be a hit.

Instead of turning to traditional photo printing, having special images put onto canvas is a method that guarantees quality and the ability to avoid damage from wear and tear and the passing years. The ordering process is streamlined to make everything quick, easy and convenient for you. To place your order or find out more about the products available, visit:
http://www.canvasprinters.com.au/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Frank_A_Wall

Photoshop Techniques - Improve Your Photos With Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves Adjustments

Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves adjustments are both post processing techniques that can be used to enhance a photo quickly and easily. Both techniques can be applied in both Photoshop Elements as well as the full Photoshop CS versions. Most other image editing programs such as Paint Shop Pro also have similar tools available to achieve the same effects.

The Keyboard shortcuts mentioned in this article are based on the Windows version of Photoshop. If you using a Mac, where a keyboard shortcut uses the Ctrl key, use the Cmd key instead.

Local Contrast Enhancement

Local Contrast Enhancement (LCE) works by darkening or brightening areas where a transition between a dark and light tone occurs. It is a good way to add contrast to an image without darkening larger dark areas or brightening larger light areas too much.

To apply LCE to an image, start by duplicating the current image - there are a few different ways you can do this:
Select the current image layer and press Ctrl + J, orClick the layer and drag it down to the 'New layer' icon, orPress Ctrl + A to select all. Press Ctrl + Shift + C to copy merged. Now press Ctrl + V to paste, you may need to adjust the positioning of the pasted image slightly using the move tool to ensure it is exactly aligned with the original image (or you can use Ctrl + Shift + V to paste in the same position if you are using Photoshop CS5). Use this option if you want to apply the effect to a document made from multiple layers.

Now with your new layer selected, on the menu go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Choose a radius of 100 pixels for the High pass filter, then click OK.

Change the blending mode for the Highpass layer to Overlay, and reduce the effect by lowering the layer's opacity. Typically an opacity of 15-30 percent works well, though you can of course use a higher opacity for a stronger effect.

Curves adjustment

A curves adjustment is an easy way to change specific tones in an image. Although it can be used to darken or brighten a whole image, usually we will use it to increase the contrast by darkening the dark tones, and brightening the light tones.

Photoshop Elements doesn't include a real curves adjustment ability, so doing a curves adjustment isn't as easy as it is in Photoshop CS. Still, it is possible to perform curves adjustments in Photoshop Elements, you will need to start by downloading and installing the Smart Curve Curves Adjustment for Photoshop Elements.

Although Photoshop Elements does include a rudimentary curves adjustment that can be accessed via Enhance > Adjust Color > Adjust Color Curves, I would recommend installing the curves plugin for the greater control that it gives you.

The Smart Curve doesn't work as an adjustment layer, so you will first need to make a copy your image to apply the adjustment to (see the section above for how to create a copy layer). For this image I used the copy merged method as I have more than 1 layer making up the image.

With the copied layer selected, go to Filter > easy.Filter > SmartCurve. The SmartCurve window opens, and on the left you can see a box with a diagonal line going from the bottom left to top right. This represents the tones in the image, from black in the bottom left corner, to white in the top right corner.

For my image, I want to keep the bright tones roughly the same, so I click on the curve around one third in from the left edge. I want to darken the dark tones, so I click on the curve around one third in from the left edge, and then drag this point down a bit.

You can add as many points to the curve as you want, and move each point up or down, usually though you will only want to add one or two points.

In Photoshop CS, to access curves you click the adjustment layer icon, and then choose 'Curves'. In the adjustment panel you can then adjust the curve.

Local Contrast Enhancement and Curves adjustments are very useful basic Photoshop techniques to know for enhancing digital photos. Remember that with both techniques you can adjust the opacity of the layer to change how strong the effect is. Sometimes you'll want to use both techniques together, sometimes you might just want to use one of the techniques.

The benefit of these simple Photoshop techniques is that they're quick and easy to apply, so you can apply the effect, then undo it if it doesn't suit the image. Local Contrast Enhancement is particularly suited to images with a lot of low contrast texture you want to bring out. Curves adjustments are more useful for globally increasing contrast, for example for a photo shot through a dirty window.

Tips on How to Take Good Photos

Taking photos is easy, but taking good photos requires more than just having a camera. If you think you are not capable of taking good pictures, you may have considered taking photography courses. Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney residents have a lot of options to choose from when they want to learn photography from a professional, but you don't have to spend a lot of money just to improve the way you take photos.

There are several key factors to consider when taking photos. Keep these in mind - these basics will become the foundation of your future in photography, even if you decide to turn the hobby into a profession once you improve your skills.

Perspective

Changing the way you take your pictures can drastically change the way your photo looks, and the perspective of your photos play a huge part in this. Instead of shooting photos in the eye level, try shooting from the hip, for a change (although this can create a little bit of problem when establishing the setup of your photograph).

This can create variety; it's amazing what an unusual or creative angle can do for a photo, and if you're shooting a set of photos for an exhibit, experimenting with different angles and perspectives can create a collective sense of unity in a group of photos, emphasizing certain aspects of the exhibit, and helping you get your message (if you have any) across more effectively.

Subject-Viewer Connection

When you take pictures of a person looking directly to the lens, it can create a connection between the viewer of, and the subject within, the photo. But photos should be taken in different angles, styles and lighting.

Eye contact - or the lack of it - can create illusions that will engage the viewer to ask questions, creating a sort of dialogue between the subject and the viewer. For example: try to make the person focus on other environmental objects within the shoot's set. If the subject is looking at a vase, for example, it can draw attention to the vase, leading the viewer to ask what it is about the vase you should focus on.

If you are taking a picture of two people, you can have them look at each other, in order to establish the theme of your picture.

What if you're taking the photo of an inanimate object? This is where focus and lighting comes into play.

Lighting

Experimenting with different kinds of lighting can be easy and fun to do. Changing the lighting of a photo can improve it to a huge extent, creating artistic, otherworldly, or even remotely unusual effects.

Take the example of a Hawaiian Tropic ad that ran in print media several years ago. The photo features three ladies at the beach, looking out over the sea to the setting sun. This was taken late in the afternoon, so there was plenty of natural lighting to make it a decent enough photo. But the photographer went the extra mile and secured several strobe flash units and placed them strategically behind the models.

The end result was a photograph that looked like it was hand-painted. The bright strobe lighting illuminated the models to the level of sunlight, eliminating any and all shadows created by the models' silhouettes against the sun. Of course, there was a little bit of tweaking done with the camera's white balance settings, but the basic idea here was that proper, strategic lighting helped in making an otherwise normal photo breathtaking.

Lighting is a pretty technical tool to work with, though. You can start experimenting with natural lighting from indoor and outdoor lights, but when you're ready to learn more about the more technical aspects, you can take photography courses in Melbourne, or wherever you may be based in, to improve your skills in manipulating light to your advantage.

Focus

The kind of camera you use doesn't matter all the time, unless you rely on your trusty cam to make a living. To take good pictures, one of the more important aspects you need to learn is to properly create a focus for each photo. Sometimes, creating a blur effect naturally by decreasing the shutter speed of your camera (something that you can't do with traditional point and shoots, unfortunately) can actually end up emphasizing the subject of the photo. It really depends.

There's a branch of photography called lomography that champions shooting from the hip; this school of thought regards the presence of blurry and uncertain focus as a necessary element of their craft. In this sense, being out of focus is actually a method of focusing, and is a completely acceptable practice in some circles.

Have Patience

This is, perhaps, the most important lesson you'd learn when taking photos. People who want to take good pictures should be patient. Patience really goes a long way and the lack of it can be the cause of horribly-looking photos. You should not rush. Wait for the right moment before pressing that shutter button. If you hastily take pictures, you may have ended up wasting the opportunity to take an otherwise decent shot.

These are the key tenets for good photography, keep these in mind every time you shoot and you are bound to improve the quality of your photos.

A Way To Preserve Your Photos

By and large, after 12 years, photographs printed in color onto paper start to degrade in color and fade due to various types of reasons. Light is notorious for doing this to photos, and yet even negatives and 35mm slides that are kept in a dark room are bound to degrade in quality as they incur some yellowing and fading over time. The fact is, you really can't hide anything from light because few places are completely dark all the time.

It may occur to you that the obvious answer to this problem is to scan your photos, and yet scanning only serves to digitize imagines in their existing state, and if your images have already faded or yellowed, they will have to be fixed.

To be able to remove any red eye errors, tiny scratches, as well as improve faded or changed color, consider a scanning service that will be able to do all of these for your slides, negatives, or photos.

These services will work by scanning and restoring your images, then burning them in JPG format into a DVD, and this, including your photographs, will all be sent to your home. There are also some scanning services that will allow you to see your photos on the internet, and these will allow you to classify your images and store them in folders. You will also be able to share the photos, as well as purchase some prints of enlarged copies, or versions of the restored prints.

It is true that you can just as well use a scanner to create digital copies of your own photos, negatives or slides, scanning does take a really long time, especially if you have a lot of photos to scan, and a negative scanner and flatbed slide can both cost a pretty penny.

Restoring images can also take a long while, especially if you're inexperienced, and if they have to be repaired for scratches and their colors need to be restored, it will be essential to have the correct software for this, as well as some know-how in using this software.

The bottom line is that seeking the help of a scanning service means fewer hassles when it is all said and done.

Memories are frozen in time with photographs, and it is simply heartbreaking to lose them. The best way to ensure that that your photos are safeguarded and viewable by your grandkids is to scan them.

How To Frame Your Wedding Photos

Your wedding photos are the most expensive and the most special photos you will ever own. There is a lot of money and effort put into getting wedding photos that truly capture the special moments of your big day. The photos are likely to include those people in your life who you love the most and are closest to you. This means you will want to take your time when choosing which photos to display and how to display them. You will want them to be a part of your home decor and add a personal look to your space. It is also important to make sure the photos are noticed. If you are going to the effort of spending the money on professional photos and then having them framed, it is important to make sure they are protected and look great. You also want to highlight them once they are on the walls with an LED picture light or art light. This will draw attention to the photo and add a museum-quality to the display in your home.

To create an interesting display of photos, choose bold frames in a variety of sizes. The photos will stand out if you create a collection or collage and display the photos in different sizes. You can have different sized prints or have the photos matted if they are all the same size. Even a smaller photo like a 4X6 or 5X7 is striking and eye-catching if matted and framed in a bold manner. A collection of photos is a great way to draw attention to the event, so while you can scatter wedding photos throughout your home; choose a single spot to hang a collage of several wedding photos.

When choosing your frames, pick colors that not only complement your home decor, but also the photos themselves. When you snap pictures, there will likely be a mix of colors and most frames will look fine with most photos taken by a novice. However, when you have professional wedding photos taken, color is going to be an important part of the photo. You will have spent months planning your wedding color scheme and your photographer will spend a great deal of time making sure your surroundings go well with the photos. When framing, do your best to maintain the integrity of the work.

Your wedding photos were likely expensive and it is important to keep them protected. Choose well-made frames that will keep the photos protected from scratches and fading. Professional framing will ensure you get a high-quality framing job, another important part of protecting your photos.

Finally, make sure the scale of your photos and frames matches that of your room. If you have a large room with oversized furniture, miniature photo frames will be lost. For small, intimate spaces, a huge photo and frame will overwhelm the space. Though it is perfectly fine to choose a variety of sizes, choose all of the in relation to the scale of your space.

Protect Your Old Photos

A typical household has thousands of photos prints and slides taken before the digital photographic age. They capture some of the greatest memories of your life, your relatives, and your family and friends. If you are lucky enough, you also have photos of ancestors going far back in time. Would you be upset if you lost these photos for good? Interested in sharing them with others or building up a family tree on-line? Want to tag them so that the names are recorded with the photo itself? If you answer "Yes" to any of these questions, then it's time to take action. Scan your photos and slides today!

If you only need to scan a small number of photos, then you can do this yourself or use scanning services provided by most local photo print retail outlets. For all other situations, I would recommend using a professional scanning company. They typically scan at higher resolutions (600 dots-per-inch for photos), handle other formats such as slides or negatives, and provide additional services such as image enhancement, and photo restoration. The improvement in final image quality is noticeable!

Why Scan?

Scanning your photo and slide collection offers several valuable benefits. Once scanned, you can:

Protect your photo prints and slides: We all worry that photo prints or slides can be misplaced, damaged beyond repair, or destroyed in a catastrophic event. By having a digital archive of your originals, you have the comfort of knowing your scanned images can be reprinted at any time.Restore them back to their former beauty: All photo prints fade over time and images get washed out. Slides and negatives decay. Loose photos get scratched, bent, or ripped through years of mishandling. Have a close look at some of your older photo prints and you will notice these changes. Professional tools such as Photoshop? can reverse the years of decay and damage in your originals and make them look as clear and vibrant as the day they were taken.Share them with friends and family: If you own a digital camera, you can make your pictures readily accessible through you phones, computers, and televisions. You can also email pictures to friends and family, post them to internet websites, make presents in the form of personalized photo albums, and much, much more. Now you can do the same with your scanned collection!

Scanning Options

Once you decide to scan your photo prints and slides, the next question is "How do I go about scanning them?" You have several options:
Do it yourself: If you have a scanner or an all-in-one printer, then you can scan your photos yourself. I'd only suggest this option if you have less than 50 photos, and final scan quality is not that importantUse Scanning Services at Photo Print Outlets: Most retail photo print outlets or pharmacy stores offer basic photo scanning services. Typically, only loose print photos are accepted and no image enhancement or restoration services are offered. Their sheet-feed scanners can easily damage old and delicate photos. I'd only suggest this option if you have less than 100 photos, your photos are in good condition, and final scan quality is not that important. The main benefit in using print services is the time saved in having someone else do the scanning.Use an internet scanning company: If you search the internet, you will find a number of professional scanning companies. They can handle a large number of photos, and most handle non-standard originals such as slides, negatives, or albums. Scan quality is usually good. Most offer image enhancement and restoration services. What starts to separate the offerings are 1) price, 2) whether the photos are processed locally or sent abroad, 3) turnaround time, which can be days or weeks, 4) ability to tag photos, and 5) ability to handle non-standard content such as newspaper clippings, old documents, mementos, or scrapbooks.This article has been viewed 21 time(s).
Article Submitted On: March 21, 2011

Photography Tips for Getting Amazing Black and White Photos

In this post, we will check out a number of important photography tips regarding shooting in black and white. Black and white pictures generally are represented as a spectacular photography form as they are inclined to share feelings which could not be realized in a color picture. As you'll observe in this article, a lot of the photography tips for creating effective back and white photos focus on subtlety, and how to makes use of the strength of light and dark areas to bring out the details of your subject.

Utilizing Natural Illumination

Considering that black and white pictures are in reality grey, black, and white, we actually end up with a good variety of distinct tones with which we can work. Natural illumination is actually an effective method of obtaining expressive make up in the photograph. As an example, employing decreased light in the evenings may possibly cast a more somber, brooding scene as compared to making use of the gentle, misty warm tones of a morning sunrise or the harsh, sterile and clean lighting connected with the midday direct sun light.

These kinds of distinct lighting situations may be especially powerful whenever combined with monochrome landscape images. For example, common trees which might not necessarily amount to an extremely intricate arrangement in color can be captured early in the day or maybe late evening hours to create shadows and silhouettes that make for a considerably more fascinating scene.

Taking photos of Silhouettes

Maybe you have seen photographs of silhouettes that employed intriguing angles to generate a more intricate and interesting composition. The basic splendor of photographing silhouettes is that often it distills the form of one's subject to a simpleness that achieves a particular degree of feeling. Consequently one of the extremely vital photography tips pertaining to recording silhouettes would be to continually focus on the shape and form associated with your own subject matter.

Catching Emotional Images

Tonality is a major element in capturing emotionally charged black and white pictures. When you have mastered the capability to manipulate the available lighting and dark areas, you will start to notice ways to impart varying degrees of tone in to your photos to create the desired effect. One of the principal and most exciting circumstances of this in black and white pictures is the usage of incredibly stark contrasting concerning well-lit portions of the composition which are near to the white-colored end of the tonality range and darker components which usually show up closer to black. By developing these solid contrasts, you will frequently capture an aspect of dimension and depth of field helping to make the subject seems to be 3-D.

In this particular age of unnaturally over-saturated effects in color pictures, black and white digital photography can be quite a refreshing technique to offer splendid contrast to your shots. It can be a terrific way to draw the attention onto the discreet details and emotion of the subject. Once you master these kinds of black and white photography tips, you'll capture rewarding photographs packed with tonality that you may not be able to create with color photographs.