Advanced Digital Photography and Monitor Color Compensation
by Michael McCord, Technical Director
 The purpose of this tech note is to advance the reader's understanding of digital as well as film/print photography. We will examine monitor/printer calibration, color compensation, fill-in flash, digital capture delay, adding motion to your shots, and protecting your lens.
Monitor Calibration
In our first issue on digital photography, I recommended use of the gamma calibration utility that is bundled with Adobe PhotoShop. At the entry level, it provides you with a good first step for setting your monitor's color profile so your prints will be reasonably close to the image you see on your screen. Although a good utility, many folks will not want to purchase Photoshop (a $600 program) just for the Gamma Calibrator. In fact, when image accuracy really counts (e.g., for sharing, posting, printing, and professional applications) you'll want to calibrate your monitor to the ICC* standard profile.
We use Pantone's ColorVision SpyderPro with OptiCal including their colorimeter spider which optically measures a test pattern the software displays on your monitor. This program is completely objective and yields consistent results. It can also be used to calibrate a group of monitors in your home or small office.
Another popular product on the market, Gretag MacBeth's Eye One, is used by many professional labs. Street price for SpyderPro with OptiCal is around $225 whereas Eye One is around $250. Both work well with CRT and LCD monitors and come with a USB-port colorimeter. Both offer more expensive packages that claim to calibrate your printers and scanners but be prepared to pay $1,000 to $1600.
Read the rest of this article to learn more about calibration and cameras.
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Sky Development Corporation
Real-Time Real Estate Multiple Listings For Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC
 We have just recently launched the Sky Development Corporation website. This full service real estate firm located in Waldorf, Maryland serves all of Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
Using a unique real-time multiple listing service database, buyers can easily search for residential and commercial properties just like a professional realtor.
This site features the company colors of teals, white, and red as well as a liquid design layout that resizes to fill any size browser screen. It also features a sophisticated search function powered by Atomz.
Check out this great new site at www.SkyDevelopment.us.
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Microsoft Security Issues Continue
Have You Downloaded Windows XP Service Pack 2?
 We have already downloaded and installed the XP Service Pack 2 that Microsoft recently issued to patch numerous security holes. If you have auto-update enabled, eventually Microsoft will serve up the service pack onto your online doorstep. If you do not have auto-update enabled, now is a good time to do so.
When you update with Service Pack 2 Microsoft installs a free IE 6.0 pop up blocker as a nice freebie feature. Just a note, we have had no difficulties or program incompatibilities since installing the pack unlike some who have posted nearly rabid comments on the Web.
Microsoft Is Recommending Turning Off JavaScript
The security risks and problems continue with Microsoft products. Recently Microsoft announced that it was recommending that users turn off JavaScript on their browsers to prevent malicious code from being installed on their computer that is launched by a JavaScript several rogue websites, this malicious code does not get blocked by your virus protection.
Well, unfortunately nearly every great website has JavaScript enabled in some way to make the site more interesting, interactive, or personalized. To turn off JavaScript means that you may not even be able to view and navigate some of your favorite sites or at least not in the way you are used to!
Sick Of Security Problems, Try Mozilla's New Firefox Browser
 If turning off JavaScript doesn't sit well with you, you may want to download and check out Mozilla's Firefox.
What a super great Internet Explorer clone with some nice features and no security problems. One of our biggest problems with alternative browsers have been our collective familiarity with the Internet Explorer interface and resistance to try something unfamiliar.
Knowing that, Firefox gives that Internet Explorer look and feel without the security headaches. We really like Opera as an alternative, but we were able to use Firefox right away without any downtime trying to learn new features or tools. Check it out for yourself with this free download link.
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Have You Thought About A Blog?
Blogs Can Be Your New Business Marketing Strategy
More and more people are expressing interest in doing a Blog. What exactly is a Blog? A Blog is short for weblog or like an online diary.
There are many genres of Blogs, some very casual, some personal in nature, but businesses are just now starting to tap this hot and growing market. There are several reasons for the huge amount of interest in Blogs.
- Blogs allow you to establish yourself as an online area expert.
- Blogs allow you to shape your message as you see fit.
- Blogs are more casual and informative in nature and so not threatening to potential clients, but yet are still marketing tools.
- Blogs create fresh content on your site that search engines love!
- Blogs allow you to establish syndication of your comments or editorials easily.
What Is The Key To A Successful Blog?
We have personally found that our site traffic increases when we publish our Blog on a daily basis. Yes it is hard to know if anyone is really reading your Blog, as it is not uncommon to receive no or very little feedback from viewers, but we can see that our readers news aggregators have visited our site to spider our content daily from our website statistics.
 So, consistency is key. You must get in the habit of updating your Blog daily or at least every other day to receive traffic benefits. Our Blog is usually just two or three paragraphs on a topic that has actually happened that day, like what to do when AOL blocks your mail, how we have handled a sticky problem, or a new resource or web tool that we have found and have checked out.
The next key is informality. Blogs by their nature, are casual in nature and written rather informally. You can check out our Blog as an example. The more you write a Blog the more your barriers come down and you really get into the flow, you'll understand that better when you actually do it yourself.
Last of all, make it interesting. Write about things that you know about and in an engaging style, and you are sure to have regular readers.
How Do I Set Up A Blog?
We use www.Blogger.com for our Blog utility, and then host the files and archives back within our own website. It is a little bit complicated for the newbie to set up a Blog as one needs FTP access and access to website server files, but not terribly difficult. However, once the Blog is set up, you simply log in and type your comments in a box, spell check them and push the publish button and voila, your Blog is updated!
We particularly like the feature allowing us to tie our Blog in with an Atom feed, which gives the added benefit of reaching readers using news aggregators and allowing for wider syndication.
Your Blog even gets spidered an indexed on the Web by the search engines adding to the freshness of your content. As your content changes frequently, the search engines spider your site more frequently; a nice hidden benefit.
If you want to know more about Blogs, check out our website for additional information, or contact us to set up a Blog for you today.
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