Dublicator

By Zo Nicholas

Does Copyright protect your creation?

Does Copyright protect your creation  from having your work copied and distributed without his permission? One would hope so, but that is not always the case. The unscrupulous will always copy. You could say this is a compliment, someone liked your work enough to want to pass it on to others, but on  the other hand you also want to get paid for the work you do.

Copyright

“Copyright is the set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work” Wikipedia.

The whole subject of Copyright is indeed very complex as it involves different laws and standards in different countries. This is explained very well  in Wikipedia.  Anything you create, your original work is your intellectual property. A good rule for anyone, is if you create an original piece of work in whatever medium make sure you keep the draft and original article prior to publication. Should a case arise you have the proof.

Creating a Copyright notice

Creating a Copyright and Watermark for your photos can be easily done in Photoshop by creating an Action that can be applied to your work time and time again.  See the example above.

Creating a Copyright notice may deter the unscrupulous but it is definitely not a foolproof method to protect your work.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

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By Zo Nicholas

Digital Photography Practice

The Ycademy Digital Photography Seminar is over and I have come away with so much information, know-how, photography tips and recordings its time to start putting this new found knowledge into practice.

Reading the manual that is included with the camera you buy is one thing, but applying that to taking pictures is another. Truly understanding the workings and the different features of your camera will certainly give you insight into how to take better pictures.

Click on images to enlarge

Practicing Digital Photography

Over the weekend I was given a beautiful bouquet of Snowball Lily’s. If you know anything about Lilies, you probably know they produce magnificent large flower heads often used in stylish and elegant arrangements. There are many varieties of lilies in stunning colours. The Snowball is a large white flower-head with green filaments and red stamens. A beautiful flower to practice my photographic skill on with my Nikon Coolpix P90.

The Nikon P90 is a point, shoot and zoom camera but definitely not a pocket camera. The body of the camera is quite a chunky object but fits well in your hand like a traditional SLR camera, and works very much like an SLR but without all the lens changes. Using the various settings on the camera and remembering where to find each setting takes practice – the more you practice, the faster you become. 

As the saying goes ‘practice makes perfect’.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

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By Zo Nicholas

Digital Photography Portraits

Following the Ycademy Digital Photography Workshop I have been using portrait enhancement software during the session on an old photograph in my possessin, not exactly a portrait but good enough for the purpose. You can see the results below.

Professional Portrait

A truly professional portrait is a creation, a composed image of a person to show the likeness and personality of that person. It often takes time for the painter, sculptor, photographer or other artiste to capture the moment of the message the artist is trying to convey.

Portrait Enhancement Software

Not everyone is interested in a professional portrait however when we do have our photos taken we do like to look our very best. Not all photos that our taken come out looking the way we like. Using Portrait Enhancement Software even amateurs can re-touch portraits or photos in easy to follow steps that allow anyone to achieve professional looking results in minutes.

Can you spot the difference?

Why not join the Ycademy Training sessions, it’s amazing what you can learn.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

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By Zo Nicholas

Digital Photography Workshop exercise - Light and shadows

The Ycademy Workshops have been running every day last week covering different chapters relating to Digital Photography. The latest exercise  following up on the Ycademy Digital Photography Workshop is the study of Light and shadows, where light falls there is always the formation of shadow.

Natural Light

Where natural light falls the length of shadow depends on the  time of day, the season – the height of the sun in the sky.

Artificial light

Shows from artificial light depend on the closeness of the light source, the intensity and direction of light.

Multiple Light Sources

Where there are multiple light sources there are multiple shadows, with overlapping parts darker or lighter, or creating a combination of colors.

Light and Shadow Exercise

With photography focusing on the play of light and shadow it is possible to achieve some stunning results with your digital camera. The above photos were taken with my Nikon Coolpix P90 during a family get together this weekend and taken not necessarily at the best time of day.

With the original you still see the child’s face and features of the woman and parrot. With a little post editing in Lightroom by cutting down the exposure and increasing the contrast you get a more dramatic silhouette effect.  

 The original photo is not perfect as the parrot swung round in the breeze and I lost the top of the wing but did not want to lose the moment with the child. It takes time and a lot patience to capture the moment and get exactly what you want to achieve especially when working with children and animals.  The dog too was busy hunting whatever but created a good shadow. I will focus on  inanimate objects to capture the play between light and shadow in the next photo shoots.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

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By Zo Nicholas

Digital Photography – Preparing Photos

Now that the showcase/gallery site is completed and up and running it is time to prepare the photos that are to be used on the site.

Visual Expression

We live in a very visual environment, everywhere in everyday life we are surrounded by images and photos are just one of the powerful forms of visual expression, thus a photograph needs to tell a story, create a mood, passion or disgust to do its job correctly.

Preparing Photos

Click to enlarge view

Any image that is to be used on any website needs some preparation beforehand. In order to use our photos we need to choose the best format and compression to provide the end user with the best quality and correct file size for fast loading.

Image formats

There are different formats available for images however not all suit digital photopgraphy. The most common formats used are:

.gif – is used more for graphics with few colours and have clearly defined shapes like a logo

.png – not widely used and although compresesses well is not recognised by all browsers

.jpg – is the best format for photos as it supports colour and subtle tones and textures however there is image deterioration  over time.

Preparing  my Digital Photos

To prepare my digital photos I need to optimise them for best results. I need to consider all the image dimensions.

Resizing Images

When I transfer my photos from my Nikon Coolpix to my computer it comes as a very large file 4000×3000.jpg usually on average around 5.00MB. If I used this photo as it is now my readers would spend ages waiting for it to load and it would slow down the site almost to a halt. Not to be recommended.

To use my image on on my website I need to resize my image to a more reasonable size, one that is required on the site in this instance 800×600pixels. My photo  also has a resolution of 300dpi this needs changing as its too high for use on the web. 72dpi or 96dpi is quite sufficient.

All this I can do in my Photoshop, or any other photo editor like Gimp or Paint.NET that permits this function. I have used both of the free image management editors in the past and they are both sufficient for the purpose.

To have a fast loading image on any site I also need to decrease the file size, the best file size to use on the web is around 100KB or below. For this I use Photoshop to debloat the image. Once the photo is resized, then choose Save for Web & Devices, here you have the options to choose the file format, .jpg which is best for photos, change the quality till you see around 100K choose bicubicsharper and save.

Now my image/photo is ready to be used on my site, as you see on the image above, or any site that requires this size.  These have been the very basic steps to prepare a photo however there is much more editing that can be done to create a smashing photo that is ready for the web or printing.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography
• Digital Photography Portraits
• My Essex
• Digital Photography
• Adding Frames in Photoshop
• Right Place, Right Time
• A Little Bit of Blur
• Digital Photography Practice
• Flash Website – My Essex

Copyright © 2010 Bianca Gubalke. Visit the original article at http://biancagubalke.com/digital-photography/image-editing-with-lightroom/.

Image Editing with Lightroom

Yesterday’s Ycademy Workshop on Digital Photography 2010 introduced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for professional Image Editing and Picture Organization, Workflow and Management.

Image Editing with Lightroom

As an absolute believer in Adobe Photoshop CS4 – and looking forward to the smashing newly launched CS5 with fantastic Media and extremely practical workflow features… all of which clearly points in the direction not only the Internet is taking but also confirms that we are absolutely on the right track as a Team – I wondered what this addition – Lightroom – would add to my arsenal?

I followed the exercise, experimented, discovered and am looking for many more answers. Learning Lightroom in depth will take time and experience, but with the fantastic presets we could add, everybody will be able to present good results based on fairly good digital photos of course.

Peacock at Clovelly Golf Club

Yesterday, I took the picture of a Peacock at Clovelly Golf Club as you may have seen in the post. Here is the first result, meaning the first ‘manipulation’! You can see the exercise in my Digital Photography 2010 Flashsite HERE.

What fascinated me on the original landscape picture – besides the beauty and sharpness of the peacock obviously – was the movement in the background – the almost abstract line of houses on the mountain slopes all across the valley. Interestingly, in some other versions that I will show as well, this took the attention – especially, once colour no longer accentuated the peacock in the foreground, which then appeared like camouflaged by shadow and light, in other words texture.

For this version, I wanted to give the picture a slightly surreal and nocturnal ambience that would pick up the fine textures where the tree bark and feathers seem to reflect one another, with the challenge to get more depth into the background, keep a sweeping flow of greens and have light, color and definition on and around the peacock in the foreground. A bit of drama… like walking through the night and discovering this magic being in all its serenity, bathed in energy and light and definitely touching our soul!

Our exercises so far are rather confined to playing with the values on the right panel in Lightroom; I am looking forward to learning more about how to edit details… mask parts, work on others etc … although I did experiment with what I discovered so far.

Digital Photography 2010 Workshop 3

Join today’s Digital Photography 2010 Workshop 3 at 8 pm London time that will focus on the new Adobe Photoshop CS5 – unfortunately extremely costly especially for us here in Africa where we have to pay even more than in Europe… who pay much more than the guys in the US and the question is why? After which we will gather more insights regarding the operation of Lightroom and the work and exercises done so far. Fun!

To be continued . . .

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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By Zo Nicholas

Digital Photography

The beauty of Digital Photography is that once you have taken your photos it is so easy to transfer them to a computer straight from your camera and then distribute them to family friends and colleagues via email, social networks, web etc. all around the world. It has never been so easy as this before especially if like me you remember the days of the good old Kodak Brownie. Today with my Nikon Coolpix P90 I can go anywhere, take some shots and send them out to my friends almost immediately. Photos are the easy and visual way to communicate with your friends.

Digital Photo Editing

Like myself, I am sure there are many people out there who own a digital camera, love using it and taking photos of our families, places we visit, things we love etc but are really not so sure when it comes to editing our photos so that they don’t just look like snapshots but really  look more professional. Transfering photos from your camera to your laptop or desktop is very simple and many of the big camera companies like Nikon give you the use of their own photo management and editing software.This facilitates the user to make certain  adjustments and to edit the photos however this is often very limited and you rely mostly on the default features.

By using more professional tools like the Adobe Lightroom there is the possibility to do much more with your photos, and turn an image that is of poor quality and substandard resolution into a more perfect image. Knowing how to use Lightroom successfully requires a some learning hence my attendance at the next Ycademy Seminar.

Ycademy Seminar

The Course is for anyone taking digital photos and who would like to improve their photo shooting, editing and publishing skills. There is always something to learn. Learning digital photo editing is so much easier when you have a teacher at hand to explain things and give advice.

The Goal of the Digital Photography Seminar is to:

•Improve the quality of your photographs
•Improve your editing skills
•Improve your publishing skills

With this in mind there is some preparation to do before the actual seminar, the creation of a site as a showcase, Digital Photos,  that will display the work accomplished during the workshops.

Digital Photography has  certainly become the new way, the visual way to express yourself, to be creative and the smart way to communicate. Lots of fun too!

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography Portraits
• Right Place, Right Time
• Digital Photography Practice
• Digital Photography
• My Essex

Copyright © 2010 Bianca Gubalke. Visit the original article at http://biancagubalke.com/south-africa/digital-photography-2010-workshop-2/.

Digital Photography 2010 Workshop 2

At today’s Digital Photography 2010 Workshop 2 we will be looking into how post-editing raw, untouched pictures in Lightroom can give us better results with the Landscape and/or Portrait pictures we have been taking – in my case I took a quick landscape shot at lunch today: a peacock at Clovelly Golf Club near Noordhoek, South Africa.

We see the peacock in the foreground… behind it sweeping views across the really beautiful Golf Course… right across Fish Hoek a few kilometers away and up the mountains at the dizzy horizon. We were having heavy fog clouds rolling through the valley all morning, pierced now and then by magnificent light – all this is in the air… and I am looking forward to improving the background of this absolutely untouched picture.

Digital Photography 2010

Ycademy Workshops on Digital Photography 2010 provide students with a pool of knowledge that goes far beyond technical setups and practical orientation; they embed the activity of taking digital pictures within the bigger context.

Pictures have been emotion triggers since their existence, however, today – where everybody possesses a digital camera and technology has evolved to a point where everybody can take a reasonably good photo – images have become the preferred means of expression for the masses on the Internet.

Words are out – visuals are in… facilitating Communication, relationship building and ways of Expression irrespectively of most cultural backgrounds.

As such, pictures have become a new way of talking online – Internet hieroglyphics … I am tempted to call them Internet hieros . . . :)  – shaping the Media and forcing us to adapt to the fact that they are now an integral part of our online language, perhaps even ‘body-language’?… and definitely a form of pre-conditioning and ultimately of . . . mind control.

Every Picture Tells a Story

As we see on YouTube, there is a lot of popular interest in Digital Photography. Does it save us the inconvenience of having to … think? Do we translate what shoots through our minds faster by means of digital photography? I mentioned it a few days ago: a mental copy/paste?

“…Every Picture Tells a Story” – and yes… behind each picture there is a feeling, maybe a thought, a moment that wants to be expressed, a purpose, definitely something… more.

Pictures are a language and we have to find the right vocabulary to express ourselves in this language, and we have to hit the right Semantics… so that the message we send out is received and… understood. It’s an Art that is often intuitively expressed by creative people in the Fine Arts, Music, Dance, Fashion etc… or discovered in the streets…. and today? Yes today it’s happening on the Internet… on MySpace and YOuTube… where it will be discovered by spiffy marketers and then mastered in high-end Advertising where it lashes back to control us!!!

Ycademy Seminar on Digital Photography

The Ycademy Seminars on Digital Photography looks at the bigger picture, evaluates trends and teaches the right ‘language’ when it comes to online Publishing and Business Building. The next Seminar will be taking place on 24 and 25 April 2010, another step forward on the famous “Path to Profitability”.

To be continued . . .

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Read more...

• Digital Photography 2010 Workshop 1
• Digital Photography 2010
• Image Editing with Lightroom
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Copyright © 2010 Bianca Gubalke. Visit the original article at http://biancagubalke.com/digital-photography/presenting-photos-online/.

Presenting Photos Online

A new, exciting and highly dynamic way of Presenting Photos Online is with the recently created Semiomantics Evolution Script – as seen on the elegant Bookcovers Flash – presenting custom Bookcover Designs.

Presenting Photos Online

As discussed yesterday, for our Digital Photography 2010 Seminar with Ycademy at the end of the month of April 2010, we are setting up a sort of ‘Photo Album’ using the same script – primarily to experiment and compare results of different types of digital cameras targeting the same topics – landscape and portrait to start with -, but also to further use it for the purpose of presenting photos online – for those who do have this ambition!

For this exercise, I will focus on birds in my garden, on Noordhoek Beach, in the Cape mountains – brief, within the natural environment I am living in. They will teach me enough – from far and from close-up… one never needs to go far to find a good teacher :)

Editing Photos

Tonight’s Workshop at 8 pm London time will focus on Editing Photos and Managing Photos.

Most are already familiar with Photo Editing in Adobe Photoshop, however, there is a great professional photography software program we want to look  into: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. It’s been designed for professional photographers as an image management application database which helps in viewing, editing, and managing digital photos.

What’s exciting about Photoshop Lightroom is that it organizes the workflow and thus saves us time when using features like the Library, non-destructive RAW and JPEG file editing, Slideshow and automatic Gallery creation and upload to the web, correctly.

This and more will be topics at our upcoming Workshops as well as an integral part of the Ycademy Seminar end April 2010.

Author: Bianca Gubalke, Art, Media, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, YCADEMY and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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By Zo Nicholas

My Essex

My Essex Evolution Flash site that was started during the Ycademy seminar is slowly taking shape. Sometimes even with the very best of intentions things do not go according to plan. The new flash site is very much a project that will be developed over time. As  each image that is used has to be prepared it all takes real focus and concentration to do it right. Its not something I can do in fits and starts while minding my grandson. Time is a precious commodity at the moment so my project  is taking shape but more slowly than anticipated.

The County of Essex

I’ve often heard it said that Essex is a boring county, ’ its so flat and uninteresting ‘. With that sort of statement I have to disagree. On the contrary, I find Essex a very interesting county if you look beyond the main road, the A12, that leads to the ferry port of  Harwich. Essex is a large county whose western border hugs the London suburbia sprawl and then gradually gives way to a rural landscape, a complex of  small towns, villages and hamlets linked by criss crossing lanes and paths. On its eastern side lies the North Sea, to the south the Thames estuary.  It’s an ancient Saxon county full  of history and historical  monuments.

Having lived here for over 30 years now, and travelled throughout the county I have always found something of interest and  new to discover each time.

Digital Photography 

I am really looking forward to the next Ycademy Seminar when we take the next step to learning more about digital photography and the use of Abode Lightroom. There is Photoshop, however with Lightroom there are many more possibilities when it comes to editing photographs professionally.  With this new knowledge I will be able to take the next step to preparing photographs more professionally to use on my flash site ‘My Essex’ . More about this in future posts.  One is never too old to learn.

Author: Zo Nicholas, Media, Marketing, Publishing. Co-Founder of YORGOO, Ycademy,YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader or Subscribe by Email.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

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