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How to Get Better Printing Results

Better Printing Results

 

One of the only disadvantages to digital photography compared to film is the fact that you don’t automatically get a print.

If you want to share your photos with someone, hang a picture on the wall or carry one in your wallet, you must print your photos out.

There are a variety of factors to consider when printing out your photos.

How Should You Print Them?

Are these prints going to be keepsakes or are they going to be used for a homework project?

What should I back up?

Recently, you have heard me talk a great deal about flash memory drives and there usefulness for backup. One of our listeners/newsletter readers, recently asked what files are important to backup.

So, tip number one in backup is to backup only those files that you create. These include but are not limited to:

  • Financial program data (Quicken, Money, etc) 
  • Email and other address books 
  • Saved email messages
  • Important word processing documents, spreadsheets and/or databases you have created 
  • Calendar/appointment information 
  • Digital pictures (from digital cameras AND scanners) 
  • Internet favorites or bookmarks 
  • Genealogy research 
  • Downloaded programs or utilities (backup the original installation file) 

You get the picture. Anything important to you that you have created and don’t want to lose, should be backed up.

Programs (with the exception of downloaded programs as noted above), do not need to be backed up because you can rebuild them with original installation CD’s and disks.

For even more information about backup use our site search engine to search for backup for even more specifics about backing up your important data.

Saving Pictures from Email II

With scanners built into sub $100 printers and the onslaught of digital cameras, more pictures are being sent via email than ever before. Search through our archives on the most efficient ways to send your digital photos and ways to resize photos that were sent to you too large.

Today’s tip, however, focuses on the recommended method of saving those precious photos from getting lost. One thing I do not recommend doing is saving old email with attachments just so you don’t lose your photos. I don’t recommend this for two reasons; 1) Most emailers don’t back up their email and 2) it takes much longer to look for and view your photos if they are still attached to an email.

Resize an emailed photo for printing

Have you ever been frustrated when trying to view or print a picture that you received via email?

Today’s tip will solve this annoying problem for you quickly and almost effortlessly.

1. When you receive one of these large pictures, save it to your hard drive (and remember where it is).
2. Start Microsoft Word (Word Perfect and newer versions of Works will work as well).
3. Click on Insert –> Picture –> from file from the menus
4. Click in the “Look in” box and navigate to where you saved the photo
5. Double-click on your photo
6. Word automatically resizes the photo to fit in the document.

The efficient way to email your digital photos

I often get emails from family or friends who have recently been on vacation or been involved in some other event and they want to share a handful of photos with everyone in their address book. Some of the email works out great, but other email doesn’t quite make it through the way sender intended.

Emailing photos can be one of the most troublesome things you can do with your email for several reasons.

1. Non-resized photos can take a long time to upload to send through email on a dialup line.
2. Non-resized photos can take a long time to download for everyone you send the email to. Nothing is more aggravating than waiting 20 minutes for a photo to download so you can read your email, only to find out that the photo is of a funny position that the cat fell asleep in.

The efficient way to email your digital photos

by Adam Cochran

I often get emails from family or friends who have recently been on vacation or been involved in some other event and they want to share a handful of photos with everyone in their address book. Some of the email works out great, but other email doesn’t quite make it through the way sender intended.

Emailing photos can be one of the most troublesome things you can do with your email for several reasons.

  1. Non-resized photos can take a long time to upload to send through email on a dialup line.

  2. Non-resized photos can take a long time to download for everyone you send the email to. Nothing is more aggravating than waiting 20 minutes for a photo to download so you can read your email, only to find out that the photo is of a funny position that the cat fell asleep in.

Windows XP User Picture

Windows XP reached its first birthday last month. Yet, as with all other versions of Windows, learning all the tricks takes a lot of time OR just listening to my show and reading the Tip of the Week!

If you use Windows XP and use the default ‘two column’ Start menu, then you see your Windows user name and picture at the top of the menu. The stock pictures that come with Windows XP include a frog, cat eye, butterfly, space ship and more. They are nice enough pictures, but hardly representative of our individual personalities. Follow the steps below to change your user name and the user picture at the top of the Windows XP Start menu:

Take Advantage of Window’s Folder Views

Viewing files and their attributes works great in all version of Windows IF you know hot to take advantage of the different folder views. It makes managing and searching through your files much easier.

In all versions of Windows, you can view files in List, Icon, Tile, or Details view. With Windows XP, you can view files in Thumbnail view or Filmstrip view for pictures.

  • Tile view shows an icon representing the program used to create or open the file, type of document and size of document

Organize Files with Windows XP Move function

Organize Files with Windows XP Move function

Use this tip to quickly and easily move your files (documents, music, pictures) from one folder to another on your computer. Once you master this tip, you will be able to organize your digital files with confidence. You can also use the tip to copy digital photos from a memory card or CD to your hard drive.

  1. Open the folder or drive containing the files (pictures, music, documents, etc) you would like to move.

  2. Select the file or files to move. Remember that you can use the Ctrl + Click method to select (highlight) multiple files or Ctrl + A to Select All files in a given folder

Make Windows XP Thumbnails Larger

Windows XP brought many new and useful features to computer users. Digital photographers benefited greatly with the roll out of Windows XP nearly three years ago. One of my favorite features is the ‘thumbnail’ view in my photo folders.

Thumbnails allow you to see mini pictures instead of just file names. Windows Me had this feature albeit not as elegantly implemented as in XP. To view your photos in thumbnail view, do the following:

  1. Open a folder containing your photos

  2. Click View from the menus