I’ve posted my January Tricks of the Trade Challenge at SOTB!  This month has a new tutorial, so scroll down to get the link!  CLICK HERE

You can earn this lovely posting bonus!  Check out all the other challenges, and earn the whole megakit by doing all the challenges!

Look at what others are doing in the Tricks of the Trade Gallery HERE

You might have noticed the ShareThis button () at the bottom of our posts and pages. This allows you to quickly email a post OR submit a post to one of the social bookmark and networking sites like facebook, myspace, digg, stumbleupon, etc. Just give it a click and try it!
Why add it? Two reasons:

• It makes it easier for YOU to share a post or page with a friend and fellow digiscrapper

• It allows us a quick and easy tool to provide these links for you (it’s a bear to have to add the code for each site manually - this does it all in one!)

Please give it a try! Email a post to a friend or submit us to stumbleupon or digg or any other of your choice. (We like stumbleupon and digg. Don’t know what they are or what this whole social media stuff is about? Click here and here for some funny and simple video explanations.)

In my last post I touched briefly on optical zoom as being a more important consideration when looking for a new digital camera than resolution. After a few questions and comments, I thought I would discuss this important feature of your digital camera.

Okay - everybody knows what zoom is - the ability to enlarge what you are seeing in your digital camera to make it seem like you are closer to your subject. Whether you zoom in because you physically can’t get closer to your subject or you just don’t want to walk closer, zooms are great for digiscrappers to get a perfect shot - one that fills your picture with good detail of what you are photographing without having a lot of useless stuff to crop out.
Here’s the critical part - There are two ways to make a camera zoom. Build a lens (optical zoom) into the camera that increase the magnification (this adds cost and weight) or write software that crops the picture (digital zoom). Digital zoom takes an part of the picture and blows it up to the original size - thereby dropping the quality significantly. It can make the picture blurry and pixelated (blocky looking). It’s just like you taking a picture in Photoshop Elements or Photoshop and cropping it - but the camera does it behind your back!

Here’s an example: Jenn took this picture of my eye; first by moving close and just using the optical zoom and then moving further away and zooming to get the same picture. Look how bad the quality gets using that digital zoom:

The sad part is some digital camera manufacturers are playing a numbers game - combining the optical zoom and digital zoom to get a high zoom number. For example our old digital camera was a 12x zoom - that’s pretty good! However, it was 3x optical and 4x digital (3 x 4 to get the 12). It really only zoomed up 3x before the quality started dropping off a lot. Sometimes you have to really search the camera’s info to find these numbers too.

So how much should you get? A 3x optical zoom seems to be pretty standard on most cameras; 4x is better. Our current camera (Canon Powershot S3 IS) is a 12x optical 48x total zoom. And that 12x is nice! Remember too that it is always best to move closer to your subject if you can as the more you zoom the steadier you have to hold the camera.

Just remember to always look for the optical zoom number and you’ll get good, quality pictures to share with friends and family!

Happy Scrapping and A great holiday!

Stan, The DaddyKitty

With the holidays soon here a lot of people will be wishing for and getting a new digital camera. A question we get often in our classes is: How many megapixels do I need?

The answer might surprise you - not as many as you think.

When we talk about megapixels we are talking about the resolution of the camera - how fine a detail a camera can capture. A lot more goes into getting a good, clear picture for your layouts than just the resolution. Things like how good the lens is, proper exposure, no camera shake, being in focus - all help or hurt getting a good clear picture. Strangely enough, the more you enlarge a picture (go from an 8×10 print to a 16×20) the less resolution you need. As you look at bigger size prints you move further away - so you actually are too far away to see a lot of detail.

Here’s an eye opener: Have you admired those great plasma HDTV’s that every one raves looks so good? A 720i display is a one-megapixel display; a 1080i is about a two megapixel.

So you don’t need to spend the money on a high megapixel camera. In our experience a six megapixel model from a good manufacturer like Canon, Nikon, Fuji, or Kodak is great. Look instead for other features - how big a optical zoom, does it have image stabilization, different shooting modes, battery life - and you’ll keep a little more money in your pocket this holiday season!

Happy shopping and have a great Holiday!

Stan White is the DaddyKitty at ScrapKitty Design. He is a 27 year veteran of the photo industry and teaches digital imaging and Photoshop to our customers. Have a question? Contact Stan here or post a comment.

The mysteries of JPEG explained!! What does JPEG stand for? WHEN should I save as a .jpg file? What do those numbers mean in the little box? Can you save a file too many times?
CLICK HERE to read a little tutorial we wrote for our Photoshop Elements 101 class, and all will be revealed!

Have you ever found yourself while scrapping wanting a frame that you JUST CAN’T find to match the kit you are working with? But the kit has RIBBONS? Well, here is a way for you to make a mitered frame using ribbon, and it is really painless!

I’ve redone this tutorial, and you can get the .pdf version at the SOTB tutorials page HERE.