Happy New Year and welcome to the latest issue of the Digital Photos 101 Newsletter.

HOW SAFE ARE YOUR PHOTO AND DOCUMENT FILES?
It's hard to believe it's already the third week of January. Shows you how time flies when we are busy. If you think you are too busy now, can you image how much time it would take to try to recover your files if something happened to your computer--that is, if it was recoverable? This hit home with me when I had problems with my laptop--my screen went completely black. Fortunately, my files were still there, I just couldn't see them. It reminded me how important it is to back up my files.

Now, rather than later, is the best time to make sure our important photos and document files are backed up. We all know we're supposed to back up our data, but most of us probably don't get around to doing it very often, if ever. Ideally, you should back up your data monthly to rewritable CDs, writable DVDs, or an SD card. After my recent computer problems, I can't recommend this safeguard enough. It only takes a few minutes and CDs are inexpensive.

You can also try a hard drive back-up program like Symantec's Norton Ghost 9, which provides advanced backup and recovery for your PC. Protect your data by making a backup of your entire hard drive's contents. You can even schedule backups to run automatically and it quickly restore individual files, selected folders, or the entire hard drive.

Make sure you are running a current antivirus program such as McAfee or Norton Anti Virus. Both are highly rated.

Firewall protection is also very important. Windows has a decent one, but it would be better to supplement it. Norton Personal Firewall and ZoneAlarm Pro 5 are top rated.

Here are some resources for back-up, firewall and anti-virus protection software:

THE SOFTWARE STORE:

Norton AntiVirus 2005 - $20 Rebate Available

Norton Internet Security 2005 - $30 Rebate Available

Download McAfee VirusScan 9.0

BUY.COM:

Kingston 512MB SD Card $27.99 after rebate, and free shipping. Offers high storage capacity, fast data transfer rates, great flexibility and excellent security.

Symantec's Norton Ghost™ 9.0 - only $30.98 after rebate, and free shipping. Provides advance backup and recovery for your PC.

AMAZON.COM:

ZoneAlarm Pro 5

Norton Anti Virus 2005 - $20 special offer discount and free shipping

TIME TO GET YOUR PHOTOS ORGANIZED
With a new year comes the opportunity to start fresh and get organized, and that certainly applies to digital photos. Over time, many of us have accumulated an unwieldy assortment of digital photos on our computer and on various CDs, and it gets more and more difficult to find specific images. And if the image is called img00293.jpg you can just about forget it! The good news is, there are some easy, fast and inexpensive ways to get your photos sorted and categorized so you can find them in a flash--by date, subject and even color.

You may want to get some or all of your photos off your hard drive altogether, and store them on CDs or DVDs. That could free up a lot of hard drive space for you. If you have Photoshop Album 2 or Jasc Paint Shop Pro 5, you can even view and organize photos archived on CD. A nice advantage.

My favorite digital photo management program is Adobe Photoshop Album 2 because it gives you so many ways to categorize your pictures. You don't have to hassle with renaming all your images because Photoshop Album organizes your photos by date. You can also assign key words such as "Summer 2004 Disney World" and apply the same key word to a group of images at the same time. So you can use Calendar View and the sliding Timeline to see all the images taken during a certain period of time, or search by keyword. Even if you have images scattered in different folders or areas of your computer and on CD, Photoshop Album has a special album view so you can see all your images in one place, no matter where the actual files are located.

Jasc Paint Shop Album 5 Deluxe also has a customizable keyword system to organize and search for photos. You can switch between Album, Calendar, Keyword and Folder Tree views. LIke Photoshop Album, it creates thumbnails of all your images, so you can browse through your entire photo library, even those you offloaded onto CDs. It has a few features not offered by Photoshop Album, like the ability to resize or auto crop a group of photos, add text or frames/special borders to photos, create scrapbook pages and single or multi-month calendar pages. It also has a bit more sophisticated editing tools than Photoshop Album.

Both programs are great, and easy to use. Which one to use depends on what you are looking for. They both offer excellent organizing and photo management capabilities.

Resources:

SoftwareStore.com is a good resource. They have over 100,000 software titles available at very good prices.

Amazon is another good source. Rebates are available.

WORKSHOP: RID YOURSELF OF RED EYE
Red-eye is the scourge of photographers. You have an otherwise terrific shot of your kids or your friends or your pet, except for those nasty red "devil eyes." The first step in eliminating red eye is to make sure you use your camera's red eye reduction feature. Turn on more lights or change the angle of your photo. Try to photograph your subjects with their shoulders slightly turned, not directly head-on.

If you still end up with red eye, there are several options. Most of the time you can get rid of the red eye using the one-step red-eye fix tool that comes with your regular image editing program or the free program offered by your photo printing service, such as Ofoto or Snapfish. Magnify the image and center on the eye, then position the one-click red-eye tool over the eye and click. This usually takes care of it.

However, sometimes these tools don't work very well if you have an image with severe red eye or if you are dealing with a photo of your pet. Sometimes the pet's eyes appear yellow, green or blue. This is due to the difference in the eye structure of animals, such as dogs, versus humans. It can be particularly difficult to get a natural eye color in these instances. There are several techniques to fix it, some more complciated than others. This is what works for me. You will need a graphics program that uses layers.

• Make a duplicate of your background layer
• Magnify one of the eyes and using the elliptical Selection Tool, select the discolored area of the eye.
• Using the eyedropper, select a color from the iris. It should be a neutral color with a hint of the eye color.
• Now use the Paint Bush to paint the discolored part of the eye, being careful to stay within the border.
• Use Filters/Blur/Gaussian Blur set at 1 pixel to soften the edges.
• Use the Dodge tool to add or brighten the highlight of the eyes.
• If the eye seems too dark, you can adjust the opacity of the layer as needed.

Current Merchant Specials

CIRCUIT CITY: Save up to 12% - select digital cameras

OVERSTOCK.COM is featuring a Digital Camera Clearance - Save up to 70%

Digital Photo Services Sales and Discounts

SHUTTERFLY Save up to 25% off on prints. Develop your holiday pictures now and save during their January Print Sale. (New customers only, Expires 1/25/05).
Shutterfly's Print Sale: Save up to 25% off on prints and 15 FREE prints. Current Shutterfly members will save 15% on order of $10 or more. Log on to Shutterfly

SNAPFISH: Get 20% off gifts with coupon SWEETHEART until February 4, 2005 (excludes MemoryBooks, FlipBooks, calendars, photo stationery, CDs, posters, and prints). . Sign up with Snapfish

That's it for now. Best wishes for the New Year.

Valerie Goettsch
www.digitalphotos101.com

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