Resources for our Photoshop & Photoshop Elements Friends

At our site we have links to resources for all digital scrapbooking software & realize that many of you are using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop. And periodically I will come across things that look like good resources that I want to share.

This is a list of shortcuts for Photoshop that looked handy.

101 Hidden Tips & Secrets For Photoshop

and if you look at their top articles on the right, I saw this one -

How to create a transparent favicon in Photoshop

So you can make it in Photoshop & then use my instructions for getting it in your address bar.

This is the list of tutorials on our site for other programs.

In my last post I had a layout using an Out of Bounds Frame. I bought mine because it’s just easier. But if you’re interested in making your own, my friend ‘Quirky’, shared some great tutorials with me. They are made for Photoshop but I was able to translate them over to ACDSee Photo Editor, so they are very well done.

The Wonderful World of Out of Bounds, an Intro. and Frame Warping

Also the girls over at Scrapbookgraphics put out a tutorial recently too on Out of Bounds.

We also have information on disabling Organizer & minimizing slow down in PSE & PS.

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ACDSee photo editor

Ok here it is…My opinion on their easy to use, neat,
almost the same as PSP, photo editor!!

A couple of weeks ago I had installed some brushes in
my PSP X and after that I didn´t work anymore…
well it does, but it takes like forever to load them and
then all of the sudden, it´s gone!

Then I remembered I still had a download for ACDSee
photo editor and decided to use it right away! With
the little help from a couple of tuts from digiscrapinfo,
I figured it out pretty fast! It was so easy!! It does
the same things my psp does only so much faster!!
Since it doesn´t take a lot of working space! Now
with ACDSee photo manager & photo editor it
really saves me more then half the time!
And I love it!!!!

Things I like about it:
- it makes layers easy
- assigning things in groups; as exsample with
alpha´s, you can all resize/move them at once. This
also works when you have a couple of photos that
you all want in the same sizes!
- text on paths; is has a awsome feature that after
you´ve put your text in there, you can easily put them
on a path/curve. And it only took me like 1 minute!!
- It´s very simple to make vignettes
- And best of all is that it doesn’t require a huge
amount of RAM

Well, I know there are a lot more, but since I´m only
using it for a two weeks, I still have to figure it out!!
But already loving this editor!!

Here are two of my pages, using ACDSee´s photo
editor…

Here´s my Fiancé and his new & first glasses. He
needed them or a while now and finally got a pair last
month. I think he looks great with them! As you can
see I used the text on a path feature and it was a
piece of cake! Credits can be found here

This is my colleague’s little boy Ruben…he goes
to my group at daycare and he’s such an cutie and
always an happy little boy! Credits can be found here

This program is really easy to use for beginners or
advanced scrappers. And one thing I also like is that
Connie & Heidi have made some great tutorials to
help you out!! Like for using a template, photo
extractions, basic scrapbook functions and I know
there are more in the making!
You can check those out over here

If you have some more questions about it, please
ask!! Thanks for reading, Petra

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Spice up your address bar with a Favicon made in ACDSee Photo Editor

I don’t feel good today - so I’m here to entertain you!

My sister had requested that I make a favicon for our site… (Can’t sisters just be demanding?!) So my first question was WHAT! is a favicon? I didn’t ask her because as a librarian, I Google all the time (or let’s say - pretend to know things but rely on the net heavily? maybe!).

Wikipedia says - A favicon (short for “favorites icon”), also known as a page icon or an urlicon, is an icon associated with a particular website or webpage. A web designer can create such an icon, and many recent web browsers can then make use of them. Browsers that support favicons may display them in the browser’s URL bar, next to the site’s name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page’s title in a tabbed document interface.

And for those of us that use Firefox & LOVE our colored tabbed browsing, we see favicons all the time - we just didn’t know what they were called! I use that icon all the time when I bookmark by dragging it into the toolbar just below the address bar. Here’s a screenshot of my browser for those of you that like visuals:

Making a flavicon is VERY easy!! Now everyone has to realize that I do NOT have PS. I scrap in ACDSee Photo Editor and am quite happy with being able to get things done. And on a side note, on the weekend I made my first blinkie, but I had to have a friend animate it because I am PS challenged. I digress, sorry… (we’ll save the blinkie making instr’s for another time).

So the first thing you need to do is decide what flavor of icon you want? (I love plays on words - and doesn’t favicon just look like flavor?) It’s not very big - so it has to be simple and specific. We decided on a question mark. Then there was the color … because it needed to match with our website. So once I knew that I wanted a red question mark with a blue circle & red border it was easy. In ACDSee Photo Editor I made a 2″ square and filled that space with the circle & question mark and saved it as a png.

Now for the fun part! There’s a site that makes favicons from your image. (I saw a site where you could pay to have them made, but… we’re on low ‘no’ budget). So once you have your image, go here to FavIcon from Pics

• browse to your image
• click on ‘Generate Favicon’ It will show you a preview & you can test it in the browser.
• Then if you like it, you can download it as a zip. When you unzip it there will be a Read Me file giving instructions on how to place the code in your webpages. (My sister did this. As I’ve said before, she’s the brains of this operation.)

So, if you make one, add a comment & link us to it! I want to see what flavor you choose for your favicon & how it personalizes your site!

I just found this:
Adding Custom Favicon to Your Blogger Blog

http://how2make.blogspot.com/2007/02/adding-custom-favicon-to-your-blog

My sister, the techie, adds this suggestion –
As you starting installing favicons, they might not show up right way.

In firefox, Tools | Options | Advanced Tab | Network Tab | Cache Clear Now Button.

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An Organization Solution for Disks

I’ve seen a number of people comment that they burn disks for backups or image storage, but then have trouble with them getting scratched, misplaced, etc. So the question is - how to keep track of them all?

There are many items available for disk storage - but my favorite is this Hanging File Disk Storage. We have 5 at my house.

This hold CD’s & DVD’s in double sided hanging file folder type sleeves & maximizes space. Each box holds 120 disks! There’s a push button to open each drawer. And the units stack nicely. The dimensions are 6.75″ (h) x 13.4″ (w) x 7.7″ (d). They can be purchased here at J & R Music World (a great source for blank disks too!).

If you enjoy our tips, sign up to receive them by email on the top right of our blog.

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WOWSERS! talk about a high speed memory card deal!

Ok - this may be a lot of enabling, but I will add in some education with it about choosing a memory card for your camera. Before Christmas I purchased a new camera that can take 3.5 photos per minute and I learned that not all memory cards are equal. Did you know that they have different writing speeds? In other words some are better for continuous shooting (which I LOVE! but that’s for another time).

I just found this at Amazon: A 2 gig memory card at a GREAT price and it’s a high speed one: Write/Read Performance: 9MB/sec, 10MB/sec (the others only write/read at 3 MB/sec). And this one also has allows avoids the need for a card reader. Check this out: This ground-breaking card gives you the capability to connect your SD card directly into a USB port by transforming into a USB adapter, via our unique hinged cover, eliminating the need for any readers to offload content to a PC.

SanDisk 2 GB Ultra II SD Plus USB Card $36.99 & FREE Shipping

SanDisk’s Ultra II is the high-performance digital memory solution for the serious photographers. This family of outstanding flash cards provides the durability and high-speed quality needed for advanced amateur photographers and photo enthusiasts. SanDisk’s newest addition is the innovative Ultra II SD Plus USB, which combines USB and SD functionality in a single card. The ubiquity of this new format eliminates the need for a reader or PC card adapter, as it transforms from an SD card to a USB adapter with our unique hinged cover. The superior value for providing two products in one makes this the most unique SD card in the market.

(I may just need to get one!)

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Maximizing the speed of Photoshop Elements

Many digiscrappers that use ACDSee Photo Manager for organizing have mentioned about PSE sometimes bogging down & that they would like to adjust the settings. So I thought I would highlight this article that has some tips for overcoming performance problems.

The full article is here - Revving Up Photoshop Elements 3 (& applies to other versions too) & covers the following:

Tip 1 - Reset Elements settings

Tip 2 - Disable the Photo Downloader

Tip 3 - Reclaim your System Resources - the biggest cause of slowness

Tip 4 - Take Back your CD-ROM Drive & Remote Drives

Tip 5 - Keep the Editor up to Speed - clear the thumbnail caches (causes slowness in all versions of Elements & PS)

Tip 6 - Keep Your Catalog’s File Size Under Control - do it once a month

Tip 7 - Disable the Organizer - if you’re using ACDSee or another program for organizing your files, this portion isn’t necessary

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Digital Scrapbookers need to track of so many things … & this is free!

As a digiscrapper I keep track of so many things! ACDSee keeps the kits organized that I buy, but before they are bought there is so much to keep track of:

- kits that I like

- coupon codes

- chat dates

- things to do (especially if you’re on a CT - sometimes notes are good)

- special upcoming events at forums

Cheryl - ‘lcbannon’- told me about Evernote.com

It’s a free resource that is really very cool! You can copy & paste notes into it & it just keeps adding new notes. Deleting old ones is easy. The coolest thing that I think is that you can drag the icon to the left of an html address into Evernote & it creates a clickable link! And you can also do THAT with images!! When you do it with images, it adds all of the site information making a clickable link so you can go back later & read more, or buy it. This software is so intuitive with it’s click & drag responsiveness!

Here’s an example of an image of a product at DigiShopTalk.com that I dragged into Evernote. And it created a clickable link on the bottom right. Cool eh?! You can download it here.

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Thunderbird - The ultimate solution for digital scrapbookers to manage multiple email accounts.

Everyone is using Firefox & loving it as a browser! but did you know that there is also an email client (it used to be Netscape)? And it does one fantastic job of arranging all of your emails into a file tree. The email can be coming in from a variety of addresses and when you send out - it appears as if it’s coming from that address. So for example, I have both a DigiScrapInfo.com email address and a gmail address coming in. The first has a signature & the gmail doesn’t - so they act independently. You can create folders & sort your mail in whichever way suits you! And one day I realized that I can drag email from one account to the other.

It’s free! and there are two things involved:

1) Install Thunderbird from here (and we also recommend the Firefox browser too)
2) and to change Gmail into a pop account - meaning that Thunderbird (the email client) reads it and when it’s sent out - it appears to be sent from Gmail too. (if you have Yahoo - you can pay to do the same - but I chose to not send them money… no way). Other email services may work - especially from websites. (I have instructions that are easy to follow).

It only takes about 15 minutes to set up. Tonite I helped someone add a 2nd account that wasn’t gmail and I can post those instructions if you’d like them? And this is a personal issue I have - but as a recipient, it makes me so irritated …to have to scroll down to read replies - please change your preference to put your reply above the quote;

1) in Thunderbird - go to Tools | Account Settings
Composition & Addressing — change the pull down to: ‘Start my reply ABOVE the quote’
There is also a blog reader that can be added. This is a huge timesaver if you love reading digiscrapping blogs! You can subscribe to them & see when they’re updated.

And finally, someone had wanted Thunderbird to sort their email as it came in into folders. So here are those instr’s.

Enjoy!

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Vista - to upgrade or not? that is the question

Vista has caused me to spend some time thinking about it… and talking with Heidi about it. And we had agreed to hold off on posting anything, but I think it’s time! We have a new ACDSee 9 user that just started out with Vista too. (ACDSee will soon release their Vista compatible version.) And I know of another digiscrapper that is using Vista.

With that I think it’s time to start a conversation about it. My laptop has a little sticker ‘Designed for Windows XP - Windows Vista Capable’. I bought it last August because I wanted a laptop. Now my sister bought hers in December to make sure that she got XP. Her stance is that she plans to wait until they get the bugs out of Vista before dealing with it. So I’ve been talking to people about it. And I when I read the following article, I thought that it had a lot of facts in it and maybe things worth considering. I have heard that Vista gobbles up 1 gig of RAM to run. WOW! I enjoy my 2 gig of RAM and I don’t intend to share half with my OS (and I don’t even scrap in PS).
So I’d like to hear your opinions - are you using Vista, do you like it? did you have to upgrade your hardware? or is happy on your existing computer?
From the Rockbridge Weekly Online

VISTA: Better Check Before You Buy
Microsoft Windows Vista Operating System Released To The World
By Kevin Parker
Staff Writer

If you live in the civilized world, there is no doubt you have heard of the recent release of Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows Vista. The newest, although late, operating system developed by Redmond Washington’s Microsoft Corporation has finally hit stores and been made available for purchase throughout the world. If you are considering an upgrade on your PC to Vista, there are certainly things that need to be considered before you drop the $199 - $399 (depending on the version you desire), for the operating system.

Vista has outrageous hardware requirements, driver compatibility issues, and some inconsistent operation of its applets (like Windows Search). Microsoft’s claim is that Vista is the most secure operating system developed to date by the software giant. Of course, this claim was also made in 2000 when Microsoft turned Windows XP loose on the public. Finally, after a slew of fixes, security updates, as well as service packs, Windows XP finally became the most secure Microsoft operating system to date.

Although Vista has a very “cool” look to it, you have to consider whether the looks are worth giving up the solid operation that has become Windows XP.

Vista’s Aero visual environment includes a flip 3-D feature, which allows a user to cycle through a stack of open windows to find their desired application. Vista also offers “gadgets,” small programs that resemble MAC “widgets.” Networking computers is virtually automatic, as it was supposed to be but never quite has been with Windows XP. The Photo Gallery is a great built-in organizer to manage digital pictures; it even includes basic photo correction tools. There are other ways in which Vista shows off its new 3D capabilities though, apart from the transparency and glass effects. There is now an alternative to the old Alt-Tab method of switching between applications called Flip 3D. Hit the Windows key and Tab and instead of flat, anonymous icons, you get previews of all your currently open windows stacked in 3D. Hit Tab while holding down the Windows key and the stack smoothly cycles through each one, just like a virtual Rolodex. The “sidebar” is a nice touch also. This takes a similar but more attractive approach to Google’s Desktop sidebar. You can dock various ‘gadgets’ here, including a clock, sticky notes, an RSS news feeder, a photo slideshow, contact list and various other handy mini-applications. Vista also includes parental controls, which is likely to be a big selling point for those with children. Now personally, I have my doubts about any kind of parental control – once your kids have figured out how to hack into the administrator account (and they will), it won’t be of much use anyway – but it is a handy tool if you want to leave them unsupervised for a few minutes here and there. The tool enables you to create a log of computer activity for a set user account so you can see what they’ve been looking at while your back was turned, apply filters for which web sites they can look at, set time slots for when they can and can’t use the computer, and block specific programs altogether. But the biggest news on the security front, and a development that has sparked plenty of debate, is the introduction of UAC, or user access control, a change intended to help prevent unauthorized changes being made to your system. With Vista’s UAC switched on, most users run in a restricted mode, in which permissions can be elevated to Administrator level at any time. When a process that could compromise the security of your computer (driver or other software installation, for instance) begins, Vista generates an alert box asking for permission to proceed and locks down all other Windows tasks so you have to focus on allowing or denying it permission to continue.

Although Windows Vista does have a few very nice additions to it, the hardware requirements alone are something to consider.

First, let’s take a look at Microsoft’s recommended system requirements for Vista (these are minimum requirements):

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• 512 MB of system memory

• 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space

• Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory

• DVD-ROM drive

• Audio Output

• Internet access

These requirements don’t seem that bad. But before you click your heels and run off to place a pre-order for Vista Home Premium, hold on. This list, unsurprisingly, doesn’t tell the whole story. The above list, though not the barest of bare minimums, is what you need to run the most basic version of Microsoft’s new operating systems – Vista Basic – which is, very basic. Instead, what you really need to run Vista - Home Premium, Ultimate, Business and Enterprise Versions are:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• 1 GB of system memory

• 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space

• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:

• WDDM Driver (Windows Vista Display Driver Model)

• 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)

• Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware

• 32 bits per pixel

• DVD-ROM drive

• Audio Output

• Internet access

The key thing to pay attention to here is the memory requirement. Though even Vista Ultimate will get by on the minimum 512MB of RAM, you won’t be able to benefit from all of the interfaces included in the operating system. Some interface’s, including Flip 3D and the live Alt-Tab and taskbar previews are memory intensive and simply can’t be accessed if you don’t have enough memory installed.

It doesn’t stop there. Since so much in the Vista upgrade is focused on the visual experience, your display hardware is going to need to be up to spec too. Though you can run it on lower resolution displays, you will need at least 1,280 x 1,024 to take full advantage of all of that lovely eye candy. Your video card is going to have to have a bit more horsepower to spare than it did with XP as well – you’ll need at the very least 128MB of memory and it should support DirectX 9. So, before running out to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or placing an order online for newest Windows version in an attempt to boost the performance and look of your 2 year old PC, you should at least run a compatibility test on your PC to ensure that it can handle the robust requirements of Vista. You can find and run such a compatibility test on Microsoft’s Vista Website: test here to decide if buying or upgrading is best

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Yet ANOTHER way to speed up your computer! - Part 6 of the Extending the Life of your Computer Series

This is a simple, yet often overlooked part of taking care of your computer’s maintenance. It’s kind of like the question - how long do you go before changing the oil on your car? It just needs to be done regularly to keep your computer running at maximum performance (and it seems everyone wants that as fast as possible). My sister says that if you go too long without defragging, things get flaky & if you fill up your hard drive entirely, it won’t defrag. (A note about her description of the file folders — how does she know how my office is & that I pile folders on the floor?!!!). So extend the life of your computer & defrag it today, then get on a schedule of routinely doing it - the payoff is worth it. You won’t be buying a new one as soon!
Defrag? You hear about it but do you do it?

What is Defrag or defragment?

Defrag is your hard drive cleaning up. Imagine your files on your hard drive as a filing cabinet in an office. When you first move into your office (new computer) everything is nicely arranged. You work for a while and you are so busy, that you don’t return your files to the filing cabinet. Now the files are in piles, on the floor, and scattered around. You’re productivity slows down because it takes time to find things and it takes longer to find a place to work. Same goes for your computer. Over time, the files get stored where it’s convenient. Eventually everything is all over and your computer slows down in trying to find files or step on any files. Defrag, takes all thoses files and stores them neatly back into the file cabinet. Clean office — clean computer, you work faster because your computer is finding your information faster!

How often should I defrag?

Monthly is a good guide. Don’t remember when you did it last or just wondering if it needs defrag? When you start defrag, click on Analyze. If it says you don’t need to defrag, exit it. If it says you should, then defrag.

How do I defrag?

I am assuming you are running XP. (If you are running Win 98 or ME systems, you should download a defrag program. I have yet to hear the exact method on how to defrag Vista.)

1. First let’s do a little cleanup to make this even better.
   1. Clean up & delete any useless/junk mail and empty your trash bin in your mail program
   2. Delete all unnecessary or junk files
   3. Run Disk Cleanup
      1. How: Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.
      2. Disk Cleanup can do all this for you:

      3. •	Remove temporary Internet files.
         •	Remove downloaded program files. For example, ActiveX controls and Java applets that are downloaded from the Internet.
         •	Empty the Recycle Bin.
         •	Remove Windows temporary files.
         •	Remove optional Windows components that you are not using.
         •	Remove installed programs that you no longer use.

         Click on any boxes that you would like it to do: I would recommend Temporary Internet Files & Recycle Bin

      4. Note: Emptying the recycle bin is up to you. I usually take a quick run through the recycle bin (Windows Explorer & click on Recycle bin and look through the files listed) and make sure there is nothing that I really wanted. Once the recycle bin is emptied any files that you deleted that you might have wanted to retrieve are gone for good.
   4. If you use Firefox, empty your cache. In Firefox, go to Tools | Options | Advanced Tab and click on Clear Now in the cache section.
   5. Exit all applications
   6. Unplug your network connection, turn off your virus checker and firewall. (Steps 7 & 8 will make the defrag run faster and better.)
2. Go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Defragmenter
3. Click on Analyze. If it tells you: “You should defragment this volume” then continue on.
4. Click on Defragment and go take a break from your computer. It takes a while depending on your the size of your hard drive. (I would expect on an average computer at least 30 minutes, most likely an hour, and it could go for 2 hours.) This is a great thing to start and go to bed.
5. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for any EHD’s you have connected too!

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