CD Rom Software

Most magazines now accept digital images. The question is will they accept mine!

I won’t answer that question I’ll leave that to you to answer once you have finished reading this article.

It’s only just recently that magazines have decided to accept digital images this is due to the image quality of early digital camera were not man enough for the job i.e. did not produce images with enough resolution and level of detail to reproduce well in magazines. Most Picture Editors on magazines prefer either slides or prints as this is mainly at present habit but is currently changing due to more professional photographers using digital cameras. A good reason your images may not be accepted is if you supply your images already printed, it’s OK to do this for your Granny, family or friends it’s a no no when submitting to a publication. Why, have a close look at your printed image the picture is made up of tiny dots and lines. When scanned by the repro department they have to blur your image to try to get rid of these dots and lines otherwise your image has a moiré effect so you end up with an image that looks bad. Your best option is to supply your images to the magazine on CD-ROMs again don’t use cheap ones they go wrong! You can get approx. 31 images onto a CD of 700mbs if each image is 22mbs in size.

Increase the resolution.

Digital photography and getting your pictures into print is supplying an image to the correct pixel size and resolution in a format that can be easily opened by another computers operating systems. What does that mean, well not everyone uses Microsoft Windows many publishers use Apple Macs some even use Linux if your image can’t be viewed IT WILL NOT BE USED!

Many magazines now included brief information on submitting digital photographs in the content section. Have a look at http://www.photographymonthly.com/reqs_details.cfm. To see how to submit images to Photography Monthly. If in doubt, ask. Did you notice they want your image resolution at 300dpi, your camera only takes a picture at 72dpi, how do I know what size my image needs to be at 300dpi. Help is at hand here’s a link to a little tool, which will help with image sizes, pixels, colour depth and file size.

http://www.searchhuts.co.uk/portal/version/cpi.asp it free. Its called Commercial Printing Information, there does not seem to be anything thing like this software anywhere else on the internet! Using this software to see what size your image can go to and then you can resize your image accordingly in your normal photo editing software.

Size matters!

The pictures pixel dimensions can be read with the above tool so dimensions of say 3200×2400pixels we would be looking for a file size of about 21mbs this would be OK for a full page. The above program can help you decide what size your image will be OK up to.

Why JPG?

Another problem magazine picture editors come up against is images supplied in a unusual format. To save problems later ALWAYS save images in JPG format. JPG format is optimised for compressing full-colour or grey-scale photographic-type digital images. The reason for using this format is that any computer system can open JPG images. Remember, not everybody uses Microsoft’s Windows, many magazine publishers’ use Apple Macs and some people are using Linux systems. Regardless of the system used all will read JPEG files.

Submitting work.

When submitting work remember to include your name & address with a brief synopsis of what is on the CD together with a high quality printout of your images and the file names of the images, this can be easily done in PhotoShop by going to File > Automate > contact sheet. Find the folder your images are in pick your paper size and number of images on each sheet of paper. Please remember someone has to look at these images so small images get a thumbs down as does too many. Don’t forget to stick a DO NOT BEND label on the envelope as CDs don’t like being bent.

New words we have learnt

Moiré effect – A moiré pattern is the combination of two or more patterns viewed at the same time.

DPI stands for dots per inch and is used with resolution

JPG or JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group is the name of the committee that designed the photographic image-compression standard.

Do’s and Don’ts of submitting your Digital Pictures

Do’s

Do Make sure your images are to the correct pixel size and resolution.

Do Make sure you send a contact sheet of the images on the CD together with file names.

Do save in JPG format.

Do clearly name image files on CD-ROM.

Do use high quality ink and photo paper for contact sheets.

Do turn off time/date stamp, as it’s difficult to remove and takes time.

Do enclose return postage if you require your bits back

Do e-mail if you are unsure of what is required or how files should be submitted

Don’t

Don’t e-mail huge unsolicited images

Don’t over sharpen images

Don’t send hundreds of images – be selective, send only pictures to do with that publication (*see below).

Don’t send pictures of different subject matter unless requested

Don’t use cheap blank CD-ROM’s, paper or ink.

Don’t send expensive storage media i.e. the card from your camera

Don’t use long file names remember, not everybody uses Microsoft’s Windows.

Don’t use 3rd party software on your CD’s to try to display your images when viewed.

*If the magazine is say an aircraft magazine don’t send irrelevant images of an say landscapes, animals etc… Stick to the magazine subject.

At some point during the course of your computer’s use, you will find yourself in the unenviable position of having to reinstall Windows. There are many reasons for this. Perhaps important system files got corrupted or disk errors or viruses caused your system to become unstable.

This is all a result of wear and tear on your PC. When that time comes, you will have to not only know how to reinstall windows, but how to reinstall windows without losing data. Here we refer to a fresh install of Windows and not simply an attempt to repair a few files.

1. Your Vendor’s Restore CD

The first step in knowing how to reinstall windows is to locate your vendor’s restore CD–otherwise known appropriately enough as a rescue or boot disk. Windows comes with its own rescue CD as well. If that’s the only one you have at your disposal then locate your operating system’s instructions below.

Rescue CDs are not all alike. Some give you rescue functions as well as important software drivers for your computer. Others are more basic, only allowing you the ability to reformat your hard drive. Don’t reformat your hard drive without backing up your personal files to another medium first! Your personal files are those located under ‘My Documents’ in Windows. The exact location of your personal files and folders varies from one operating system to another.

In Windows XP, for example, you will backup everything in C:Documents and Settings. In Windows 98 and ME, you will backup C:My Documents. More instructions follow below for your particular system. If you have any other folders where you’ve stored personal stuff back those up as well.

2. Windows 98 and ME CDs

With Windows 98 and ME you don’t want to just reinstall windows without backing up important system information. This information can be found in your Windows folders.

First create a new folder on your C: drive and name it oldWindows. Then use Windows explorer to navigate to your Windows folder. Once there, locate the following subfolders: All Users, Application Data, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, Profiles, SendTo, and Start Menu. Copy these folders to the oldWindows folder you created.

Now it’s time to reboot. Restart Windows with your boot disk Upon startup select Start computer with CD-ROM support. Drivers will begin loading so go ahead and insert your Windows CD-ROM.

To reinstall windows properly you will need to delete your directory tree so type c:windowscommanddeltree /y c:windows and press the Enter key. After that you need to invoke the Windows setup installation procedure located on your Windows CD. Type your CD drive letter and then type setup.

Next get into the DOS prompt from Windows and type

xcopy c:oldWindows*.* c:windows /s /h /r /c.

This will restore all important system information.

3. Windows 2000 and XP CDs

If you have Windows 2000 and XP you need to know how to reinstall windows properly as well. Insert your Windows CD and boot your computer. Upon startup you will see Press any key to boot from CD.

After clicking you will come to the welcome screen. Press Enter, then press Escape to start a restore. From the menu options select C as your current partition and then l to delete the Windows folder. Enter temp as your user name when prompted. Reboot and you will be logged in as temp.

Next you will restore your personal files. Windows 2000 users should login as temp, then Administrator and then back to temp again. Then navigate to C:Documents and Settings and you will see an Administrator folder and one with Administrator: computername.

From DOS type cd documents and settings and then press Enter. Type xcopy administrator*.* administrator.computername /s /h /r /c, substituting for computername your folder that was appended to Administrator earlier. Your personal files will be restored.

4. For Both Windows XP and 2000

Windows XP and 2000 users need one extra step to know how to reinstall windows correctly. Create a new folder on your C: drive and label it oldData. Then go to My Documents and Settings and copy all of the folders for each username to oldData.

In Control Panel go to User Accounts and create a new account for each of these users–use their names as spelled out under their Documents and Settings folders. If you’re using XP ensure that at least one account has Administrator privileges.

For each user on your computer, log off and log in with that user’s name. Then login as Temp and drop down into the DOS command prompt interpreter. Now type

xcopy c:oldData*.* “c:documents and settings” /s /h /r /c

Then press Enter. Go ahead and confirm that you want to overwrite files. When you’re done, log off and then login as each user. Each user’s Documents and Settings should be restored.

5. Finishing Up

After you install windows you need to install other software too, like drivers and Windows Updates from Microsoft’s web site. Check for any graphics drivers that you may need to install from a vendor CD.

Look for all of your old personal files and make sure that they are all there. If not, check the C:oldData folder and move the files to the correct location. Once you are absolutely sure that you have everything you can delete both the oldData folder and the Administrator folder.

Conclusion

It may have come as a surprise to you to learn that you can reinstall windows without having to wipe out your hard drive. With a fresh install of Windows you can restore to your computer the speed and efficiency which it had when you first bought it.

A fresh install will do wonders for your computer’s performance and will be better for your system than a simple repair. In order to save your personal files you simply need to create temporary folders as we outlined in this article and restore them back into the new installation.