Hi Folks,

Here are a few more articles from the stuff I subscribe to. 

Photography Jargon Buster

If you've recently bought a new digital camera or if you're planning on buying one in the near future, these technical terms will help keep you better equipped. The best buyer is one who is better informed and nothing is a better beginning than knowing what some of the terms mean when it comes to understanding the basic settings on your camera. Let's begin!

Pixel

The word "pixel" stands for picture element. What you see on the LCD viewfinder of your camera or on your PC monitor is a bunch of pixels. A general rule of thumb is that the greater the pixel count, the better and sharper the image. A greater pixel count means the image can be viewed at its native resolution. That is, the resolution it was captured at, with less loss in visual detail.

Megapixel

The megapixel (MP) rating of a camera represents the resolution (in millions of pixels) that the camera is capable of producing. A six megapixel camera's CCD sensor would be capable of capturing an image containing up to approximately six million pixels.

Sensor

The digital image on your digicam is produced by the camera's sensor. The sensor is basically a unit that measures the brightness of each pixel. The sensor unit consists of millions of tiny pixels in an array like fashion. Each pixel is tasked with capturing photons and each pixel can capture a certain number of them. The photons collected by each pixel are converted into an electrical charge via a photodiode. After this, the electrical charge needs to be amplified and then converted to a digital charge to a digital value. That is done by the ADC (Analogues to Digital Converter).

CCD and CMOS

There are two types of digital camera sensors. The most common are CCD (Charge Couples Device) sensors, used in nearly all cameras. CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensors are relatively faster and smaller than their CCD counterparts and they are found only on some select high-end cameras.

Optical and Digital Zoom

It's simple. Optical = good. Digital = not so good. Optical zoom uses the camera optics. That is, the lens, to bring the subject in for a closer focus. This is the actual way a zoom should work and even film cameras use this sort of zoom. Digital zoom is a "simulated" zoom, which means the sensor crops the image and then enlarges the cropped portion to the size of the original. This is called interpolation and it results in image quality loss. Therefore, digital zooming has nothing to do with camera optics.

Noise

Noise is nothing but unwanted pixels. It's like the presence of color speckles where there should be none. For example, instead of a blue sky, you notice faint pink, purple and other color speckles among the otherwise blue color. One of the major differences between a consumer digital camera and a digital Single Lens Reflex (dSLR) is that the former produces images with a lot of noise when using high ISOs and long exposure times and the latter is practically noise free.

Pixelation

This refers to the graininess you sometimes see in an image, which can be caused by either a weak pixel fill rate, improper geometry of the individual pixels or other factors, like color accuracy, noise and unnecessary storage of pixels. It's an unwanted element in digital photography.

The ISO Rating

This value represents the sensitivity of the image sensor to the light present in a scene. The higher this figure is (64, 100, 200, 400, 800 and higher), the better equipped the camera will be to take good photos in low light conditions.

White Balance

White balance is a camera setting that can be tuned to adjust the tone of the color in the resultant output. Its objective is to make the scene as neutral as possible, as far as, white goes. This way, the white actually appears white without hues. A camera will display a white object with different hues under yellow, fluorescent or natural light. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can spoil photographs with even the best cameras. It all happens if the white balance is not set correctly. Cameras have settings, such as Auto, Incandescent, Fluorescent and more for the white balance.

Hope this helps you out!

CD and DVD Space

Have you ever wondered how much space CDs and DVDs have on them? I mean, if you do a lot of CD or DVD burning, you need to know how much room you'll have, right? It's pretty much the most important piece of information you need to know before you start any burning projects. Well, I'm here today to give you all the scoop, so listen up!

I'm going to start with CDs, because I'm guessing more of you use CDs on a regular basis over DVDs. There are several different sizes of blank CDs that you can buy, including 21, 74, 80, 90 and 99 minutes long. The most popular though, as far as I know, is the 80 minute CD. This translates to approximately 700 MB of open space. If you were making a music CD (you know, throwing a bunch of your favorite songs all onto one CD), you could fit around 20 songs (give or take a few) on one 80 minute CD, depending on how long the songs are. Cool, huh?!

Now, on to DVDs. Most blank DVDs can hold up to 4.4 GB of data. Most of the package labels will say 4.7 GB, but that's pretty much just a marketing ploy. If you're burning a movie, pictures, etc. onto the DVD, by the time everything is actually said and done, you can only fit 4.4 GB of material on one single DVD. That's nothing to be upset about though. That sure adds up to a lot of information on one tiny little disk. So, now that you know how much space you have when you're working with CDs and DVDs, you can plan ahead to get the most out of your work!

Q:
I was looking around in my Add/Remove Programs area in the Control Panel and I found something on the side that said "Set Program Access and Defaults." What does this mean and should I even mess with it?

A:
It's interesting that you asked this question, because a co-worker of mine here at WorldStart actually pointed this out to me awhile back. I guess it must have slipped my mind though, because I never did anything about it. So, I guess it's time to redeem myself, because after researching this feature, I thought it might be something a lot of you would be interested in. So, let's check it out together!

First of all, this feature can only be found in Windows XP and you need to have Service Pack 1 or higher. If you're using anything lower than that, this will not work for you. Again, what we're talking about is called "Set Program Access and Defaults." You can use this feature to change the default programs you use for certain activities you do while on your computer. For example, such activities as simply surfing the Web, sending e-mails, playing CDs or using instant messaging programs.

Now, before I go into any more detail, I need to tell you that you must have Administrator rights to use this feature. Otherwise, you won't be able to change any of your default programs and that will just defeat the whole purpose of this tip. If you're not sure how to get Administrator rights, you can read this article for some help. Also, if you use a Windows XP Professional computer that is part of a network, you must be logged in as the Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group to be able to do this. The same goes for those of you who use Windows XP Professional or Home Edition computers that are not part of a network. You still need to be signed in as the computer's Administrator in order to change the default program settings.

Okay, once you're all set with that, go to Start, All Programs and then find the choice that says "Set Program Access and Defaults." (You can also get there by going to Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. On the left hand side, you'll see the choice for "Set Program Access and Defaults"). Once you're there, you have four options to choose from. They are:

1.) You can restore your program settings to what they were when established by the manufacturer of your computer. If you want to do that, click on the Computer Manufacturer choice. Now, this option is only available if the actual manufacturer put Service Pack 1 on your computer and set allowances for those settings. (If you're not sure on that, you may want to contact your manufacturer or look for some information about it in your computer's manual).

2.) If you want to set your program defaults to fit the needs of the activities you do on your computer (like the ones I mentioned above), click on the Microsoft Windows choice. With this option, you will be able to access both Microsoft and non-Microsoft programs from your Start menu, your desktop or any other location you may choose on your computer.

3.) Now, if you want to use non-Microsoft programs as your defaults, click the Non-Microsoft choice. You can then just select the options that you want. Now, keep in mind: This configuration does remove your available access to other specified Windows programs.

4.) The last choice is to combine the non-Microsoft and Microsoft Windows options. This one is under the name of Custom, so if you'd like to do this, click it. You can then select the options you want to set for your computer. By doing a custom setting, you can pretty much do a combination of all the above choices. That includes being able to access your programs from your Start menu, your desktop and any other location you choose.

Once you have all your settings in place, click the OK button and everything will be ready. In case you were wondering, my computer is set to Custom, because with that, I have the most control over the way my programs act on my computer. You can (and should) choose for yourself, but that's my opinion. Alright, now that you know what this feature is, go and get your programs to do what you want them to do, all in a few easy clicks!

~ Erin

Please feel free to forward this to anyone that you think might be interested in it.  If they wish to subscribe, they can click on the link below.

If this was forwarded to you and you wish to subscribe, please click here: Subscribe
If you wish to be deleted from the mailing list, please click here: Unsubscribe