Fun with Photos

We all have funny photos we want to share with others. This can be done by printing the photos out and viewing them in a photo album as has been done since the invention of photography. However, with modern technology we can do more.

There are many ways for you to have fun with your photos without needing to become a photography expert or a computer wizard.

It's surprising the amount of people who just take photos and don't use them creatively.

Below are some of the basic uses for your photos.

Fun with Photos

Have fun with photos you have taken by viewing them as a slide show on you computer. You can sit back and use your PC monitor as a giant photo frame to show off your latest set of holiday snaps!

It is possible that you have seen slide show displays like this at your local bank or travel agent as they try to interest you in their latest product. It is very visually appealing.

Click on the video below to see how easy this is.

Setting your PC Wallpaper

Your PC wallpaper is the picture that appears when you start your computer. It is sometimes called your "desktop background" or your "desktop wallpaper".

It is very nice to see a familiar face or place when you are working on your computer and it is very easy to set this up. You have probably seen this on a friends PC and wondered how he/she did it. Well, wonder no more.

Click the video below to see how to set your desktop wallpaper

Photo sharing to send pictures through email

Photo sharing to send pictures with email is an excellent way to get the most out of your recently taken pictures.

A digital photo is typically 1-3mb in size so you do not want to email too many of these at one time. If you don't know what that means there is no need to worry. When you email a photo the size of the photo dictates how fast it is sent and also how quickly it is received by the person you have emailed. 

CD Burning

CD burning allows you to create your own photo CDs for sending to loved ones. You can share a small number of photos by email but if you want to share large amounts of photos at full quality you will need to burn the photos to a blank CD. This can then be mailed through the normal postal system.

This is a simple process and windows XP and Vista have all the necessary software already on your PC.

Of course, this process of burning or writing to a CD works for all types of files: documents, photos, videos, presentations and anything that can be stored on a computer in digital form. The same process applies for creating a data DVD.

Click the video below to see the tutorial.

Facemorpher

Download Facemorpher

Download FaceMorpher and get using this program which allows you to blend two or more photos together and have them morph from one to the next. This is a fun exercise. If you use family photos it will reveal resemblances between parents or siblings which you may not have noticed!

Below is a simple example of what the morphing program can do. If this catches your eye then you will want to view the tutorials below

This tutorial will show you how to download facemorpher lite, a freeware version of the program which is yours to use indefinitely.

Facemorpher Free Download

This facemorpher free download tutorial will bring you through the process of finding the program on the internet and downloading it. The installation process is very straightforward.

Click the video below to to see the tutorial on how to get a facemorpher download, to get your own copy.

This link will bring you directly to the download page if you think you wont need the tutorial

Click here to download Facemorpher lite

FaceMorpher Download Done? Now watch the Tutorial

You have your Facemorpher download and installation complete so we move on to the FaceMorpher tutorial. Before you go using the program you should have a look through your "my pictures" folder and select the photos you plan to "morph" into each other. When you have done this you will be ready to go.

Click on the video below to view a tutorial on facemorpher 

Photo Story 3

Download Photo Story 3 and get making movies with your photos

Download Photo Story 3 and follow these  tutorials to learn about this program which allows you to create a movie from a series of related photos. This is particularly effective for topics like a holiday you have been on or an event you have attended.

It is also useful for children who want to make a movie where they act out the scenes, photograph them and then weave the pictures together using this powerful, and free, program.

Microsoft Photo Story

Free Download

This page will show you how to get your own copy of Microsoft Photo Story for use on your PC. It is a free program and is a wonderful way to arrange your photos for viewing.

Click the video below to learn how to get your own copy of Photo Story

Microsoft Photo Story 3 basics

Microsoft Photo Story 3 basics covers the importing of photos into the program and putting them into the correct order. This will form the foundation of your video/movie.

Click on the video below to get started using Photo Story 3

Add text to a project 

This  tutorial will bring you through text for projects in Photo Story 3 for Windows, the next stage of the process of building your movie. Text on your photos will bring them to life for the viewer who may not be familiar with the location or event associated with the picture.

Click on the video below to see the tutorial - text for Photo Story 3 

Add motion to your project

This tutorial for Windows  Photo Story 3 will bring you through the next stage of building your project - adding motion. This will allow you to customise the way the "camera" views your photos, zooming in or out, or simply panning across the photos.

Click on the video below to see a tutorial on adding motion for Photo Story 3 

add transitions

This free Photo Story tutorial on transitions will bring you through the next stage of your project building. Transitions are the process the program uses to change from one photo to another. Fading in and out is the usual method but there are many more.

Click on the video below to see the tutorial on adding transitions to your Photo Story free project

adding music

This Photo Story tutorial on adding music will help you finish your project and produce an impressive video made up of your own photos. The audio you add to your project can be your own voice, recorded music or any one of the many audio tracks that Photo Story offer. The style, tempo and speed of these tracks can be customised to your own taste.

Click on the video below below to see the tutorial on adding music and audio to a photo story 3 project

MS Word Poster, Calendars, Invitations and Cards

Microsoft Word Tutorials

Create a poster in MS Word

The next step of our Microsoft Word tutorials is learning how to create a poster in MS Word now that you have mastered the insertion of photos and images into an MS Word document.

The video below will give you an idea of the vast array of possibilities which MS Word offers when producing documents with images. You can make a yearbook page with all your classmates, personalised certificates and pretty much anything that involves images in a document.

Click the video to start learning. It's in two parts. When the first video ends, click the one below to continue the tutorial.

Microsoft Word help with photo  resizing to fit a frame

You need to be accurate when printing a photo to fit a photo frame. Can Microsoft Word help? Of course, it can. If you are using expensive photo paper you cannot afford to have a number of failed printouts before you get it right.

The video below will bring you through the process so that your first printout is perfect and ready for the picture frame

Creating a photo calendar

A personalised photo calendar is a visually stunning item. When you create your own calendar with holiday photos, pictures of your children or any other digital images which would personalise the calendar for you.

Click on the video below to see a tutorial on how to create your own picture calendar.

Advanced photo calendars

To create advanced photo calendars we have to be a little more careful about the shape of the digital photos so that they fit better in the space available. The difference between the amateur version and what you can produce with a little more care will be worth the extra effort.

Click the video below to see a tutorial on how to create excellent calendars with your own digital images

Photo Invitations

Basic photo invitations are easy to produce and are visually very pleasing. Your own imagination is the only limit to what you can produce.

Click the video below to see a tutorial

Photo Wedding Invitations

Make your own photo wedding invitations rather than ordering from a small selection of template options. Be in full control of the process from start to finish.

Click the video to start learning

The finished product!

The greeting inside

Experiment with different colour paper

The cover will print out like this and you must feed it back into the printer as below to get the reverse side printed.

Feed the cover page in as shown below for printing on the reverse side.

Photo Christmas Cards

Being able to create your own personalised photo Christmas cards is a very enjoyable skill. Those expensive cards that are sent at Christmastime are usually thrown out when the season is over. However, your home made cards will be kept as they are unique.

The photos below show the finished product and what the A4 page print out should look like. Click on the video to see a the tutorial on how to make your own photo Christmas cards. You'll never buy another box of cards again and you'll get asked countless times "How did you do that?"

Lets get started!

This is what the printout should look like before you fold it.

When folded and on display

The greeting inside

MS Word 2003 Tutorials

Microsoft Word 2003 Tutorials

Learning to work with images in word is very useful these Microsoft Word free tutorials are based on a program in almost universal use. It is an excellent desktop publishing package and can produce excellent results when working with digital images.

Microsoft Word templates with the correct toolbars

Make your own Microsoft Word templates with the correct toolbars. You need to set up your toolbars in word before you insert images into documents. This will mean you have all the tools ready to hand for working with images in word.

Click on the tutorial video to learn how to set up your toolbars

Insert an image in Word, just like using Microsoft Word clipart

Most people can use Microsoft Word clipart. Now learn how to insert your own photos and images in word by clicking the video below.

Microsoft Word tutorial - Wordwrap images

This Microsoft Word tutorial will show you how to get you images to stay where you put them! Click below to learn how to wordwrap your images in MS Word.

  

Microsoft Word Borders

Click below to learn how to work Microsoft Word  borders and greyscale 

Finding images on the Net

Search Engine Images Sourcing

You can use the search engine images sourcing to find millions of images on the internet. From time to time you will want to find photos of specific items or people.

You may want a photo of your favourite film star to have as your desktop background. Or maybe you will be doing a project on cats and you want to find a variety of images for inclusion in your project. You don't need to buy a poster of your sporting or movie heroes, make one yourself instead!

There is an immense wealth of images on the internet just waiting for you. View the tutorials on the links below and open up a whole new world of images!

Use a Search Engine for Images

Using a search engine for images sourcing is a basic skill in putting projects together. Internet digital images searches are very common today. No matter what kind of project you are doing you will want to spruce it up with relevant images and photos.

Here I show you how to source digital pictures on the internet using a search engine. You will also want to filter through the images based on their size in kilobytes (kb) so that you get the best quality for printing or inserting into a presentation.

Click the video below for a demonstration of how to find internet digital images.

The Images Search Engine offer -search mistakes to avoid

Don't accept the first images search engine offer. There are some common image search mistakes to avoid when sourcing photos or digital images on the internet.

It is very common for people who are searching for images on the net to try and save the thumbnail version of the photo. There are many versions of the same photos available on the internet. Make sure you get the best quality picture when you are downloading.

Click on the video below to see a demonstration of the errors to avoid when searching for images on the net

Photo errors to avoid

Digital Photography Course -

common photo errors to avoid

Follow this digital photography course to spot basic photo errors. Here are examples of the common photo errors to avoid when taking a digital picture.

While the modern digital camera is designed to be simple to use and generally is just "point and shoot", the photographer is still responsible for the lighting and arrangement of the subject.

A common mistake in amateur photography is to put the subject of the picture in front of the light source. This causes the camera to focus on the bright light thus darkening the actual subject of the photo

The following two photos, taken one after the other, highlight how a strong light source behind the subject can ruin the light for the photo

By retaking the photo with a flash, you can see how the results differ

This beautiful sunset is a lovely photo on its own

But when you introduce a subject in front of it the light behind darkens the foreground

Many example, all to show the same rule: don't have a strong light source behind your subject.

Here is a newspaper photo showing the upcoming horseracing event in Galway. Two pretty models pose for the picture.

The angle of the photo suggests the "1st" is actually part of the models hat!

Here are the same models from a different angle. The effect is clear.

Try to avoid having background items appear to "grow" out of the heads or body of your subjects

Instead, arrange the subject so that such background is not directly behind your subject.

Photo Tips and Advice

Digital Photography Tips

We can all do with extra digital photography tips. While you may fancy yourself as a photography expert you may be making basic errors. In this section I show you the recognised and accepted rules for good photography and give examples of the simple errors we all make when taking photos.

It is very important to centralise the subject of your photograph correctly. You also need to know how to centralise multiple subjects. Close ups on people's faces follow the rule of thirds.

Having a light source behind the subject of your photo will cause the subject to not have adequate light. The background of your photo may have trees or poles. These need to be angled such that they do not appear to "grow" out of the subjects body or head.

Photo Tips

The following photo tips will help keep you on the right track when taking that "perfect photo".

The first thing that must be done is to centralise the subject of the photo. If that is a single subject it might look like this. You can see that there is equal space all sides of the subject and your focus is drawn to the centre.

If you have multiple subjects in your photo it may be like this. As you can see, it is impossible to focus on any individual so by having equal space around the subjects, the focus is spread evenly.

If you are taking a close up photo, the rule of thirds should be used. Look at this photo

Now imagine that you divide the photo into thirds from left to right and from top to bottom. The head of the subject should be in the middle third in both directions.

For an extreme facial close up the eyes should appear in the middle third. Subject should be simply centralised from left to right, no thirds in this case.

The grid lines below show how the eyes should be in the middle third

When you are having a person in your photo but you also want to highlight a physical feature close by, you leave space in the direction the subject is looking. The focus is on the impressive landscape but also the person in the photo.

Here is another example. Both the subject and the bridge get equal focus and attention from the viewer.

These are some of the basic photo tips to work by. You should also check out the mistakes to avoid page which will give you a few more pointers on how to improve your photography.

Create a digital photo album

You must create a digital photo album before you even consider importing a photograph on your computer hard disk. You must have a plan for how you will store your photographs. Just as you keep your "normal" photos in some sort of order in a photo album, you must arrange your digital photos and images into a folders on your computer's hard disc.
You can arrange your photos by subject, eg. baby photos, Christmas photos, family photos and so on. I find it far better to arrange my photos according to date or event, eg. 2007 photos, trip to Spain 2007, school tour 2007. Arranged like this it will be easier to locate a photo in future based on when it was taken.

Set up your digital photo albums

So you are ready to set up your digital photo albums.
 You can click on the video and you will see a visual demonstration of how to set up your files for storing your digital photos (ie your digital photo albums).




Download digital photos into your pre-set up folders

It's time to download digital photos and see what kind of a photographer you are, now that your folders are set up and ready! So we have come to the exciting bit.

You can follow the tutorial in text form by scrolling down the page or you can just click on the video and watch it that way.



First you need to connect your camera to the computer so that it can read the memory card. This is where the photos are stored, quite like the film in the "old style" camera. A cable came with your camera to download digital photos.
Alternatively, you can remove the digital camera memory card from the camera and insert it into a card reader. Digital memory card readers are available quite cheaply and most laptops come with one built in. The advantage to using a digital memory card reader is that the computer powers it and so it is not running down the batteries of your camera while importing digital photos.
The picture here shows one of the many types of card on the market today.

Don't worry if your memory card doesn't look like this. They come in all shapes and sizes, but do the same thing. They are all designed to store photographs taken by your digital camera. Here are a few more examples of memory cards.
        
So, if you are using a digital memory card reader, put the card into your card reader, as shown below to start to download digital photos.

Perhaps, you are putting the digital memory card into the card reader slot on your laptop. Or maybe you are just connecting your camera directly to your computer by means of the USB cable. This is the symbol to look for when locating any port or cable using USB connectivity.

Once you plug in the cable, your computer will recognise that a camera or memory card reader has been connected and will display this window, assuming you wish to start to download digital photos.

Creating Desktop Shortcuts

Everybody needs desktop shortcuts. How many you have will depend on how many different programs you use on a regular basis. Some programs make a shortcut for you when you install the program. For others you must create it yourself.
This is a fairly simple operation and although it only needs to be done once for each program you regularly use, you will need to use it each time you install a program you intend to use regularly.
Click on the video to view the tutorial

Digital Camera Basics

Get to know the digital camera basics, digital camera tips

So it's time for lesson one, digital camera basics and digital camera tips. Most people will only need to visit this page once. When you have explored all the links on this page and ,camera in hand, gone through all the instructions, you wont need to come back here again. Except, of course, to show your friend who needs the same information as you!

Here we will get familiar with the digital memory card. Every digital camera has its own memory card. This is the equivalent of the film in a traditional camera. You will need to know how to find this card on your camera, learn how to remove it and re insert it.

We will also look at the basic features of your camera. These include the digital and optical zoom. As you stand a distance from the subject of your photo, you will sometimes need to zoom in and "get closer" without having to actually, physically moving closer.

Every digital camera has a flash. Many people do not explore the different settings that are offered by the camera. These will give you better photos when used correctly and will also save on battery consumption.

We will look at the playback and record button on your camera. This is a very basic function but there are people who simply point and shoot and then hand over the camera to the person in their family who takes care of the rest.

Digital camera flash

On a camera you have a number of digital camera flash settings which will dictate how your camera will light the subject when you take a photo. Ensure that the camera is set to record (ready to take photos), not playback.

         

First you need to locate the digital camera flash button on your camera. The universal symbol for flash is shown on the right of this paragraph. The location of this button varies from camera. Above are two examples.

When you find this button on your camera press, it repeatedly and watch the display screen. The symbols below will appear in rotation. They will usually retreat to the corner of the display after a few seconds. The icon in the corner indicates the current flash setting. You may not have all of these options or you may even have more than these ones.

The main settings are:
Auto flash                         
This setting tell the camera to use its inbuilt technology to decide if it should flash or not, depending on the surrounding light. This is the best setting for the novice camera user.
Red eye reduction         
This setting tells the camera that the subject is in a darkened area and that the iris of the eye is likely to be wide open. A flash will reflect off the eye giving the red eye effect. To avoid this the camera will give a multiple burst of light which will cause the iris to close thus reducing or eliminating the red eye effect. Be careful to warn your subjects to wait until all the flashing is finished. Otherwise, they may turn away after the initial flash and not be facing the camera for the flash which coincides with the taking of the photo.

Forced Flash

        
This is where the camera will flash every time, regardless of light. This is useful in areas of medium to poor light
no flash                      
This is where regardless of lighting the camera will not flash. It is useful in places where flash photography is not allowed

Digital camera playback and record functions

 

Digital camera playback and digital camera record are the two basic functions of any digital camera. When you turn on your digital camera it will be ready to do one of two things
1. Playback. This is where the camera displays on its screen the photos you have taken.
2. Record. This is where the camera is ready to take photos and on the screen is the image it "sees" through the camera lens. If you move the camera and the image on screen moves also, then you are in record/shooting mode.
Locate these functions on your camera and try them out. They may appear on the dial of your camera like below
   
or they may have their own stand alone button

It is important to be comfortable swapping between these mode as different menu options are available in each mode.

 Your digital camera zoom function

Digital and optical camera zoom functions are offered on most cameras, except the very low end budget type. This allows you to use the digital camera zoom to get closer to the subject without having to physically move closer. Sports photographers use zoom to get closer to the action while remaining on the sidelines.
Your camera has a zoom option if you see this symbol on the camera
There are three main locations where this function can be found, depending on your brand of camera.
1. At the button you use for taking photos as below

2. On the toggle wheel or buttons at the rear of the camera as below

3. Your camera may have a dedicated button for zooming in and out as below

Look out for the letters "W" and "T" which are also indicators of a zoom function. They stand for "wide angle" and "telephoto" and basically mean "zoom in" and zoom out". You may also see these symbols
wide angle telephoto