You may have heard some bad opinions of nude photography. After all, many people associate nudity with pornography and exploitative photo shoots. However, they’re missing the point - the human body isn’t an ugly thing.

Images of the body in its most natural state is one of the most interesting and captivating art forms out there, when they’re done by a skilled photographer with the experience to get it right. You shouldn’t let people who aren’t willing to take a look at what’s most attractive about the human form tell you that these images are wrong.

Nude photographs have the potential to be the ultimate expression of our individuality. In them, we allow nothing to come between ourselves and the world around us - not even clothes. Nude photos can turn out to be some of the most personal images around.

Nude photography is a way to tell a story, but it doesn’t have to use words. It tells us a lot about what we’re really like under our clothes, and about who lives in our bodies.

No one has to have a perfect body to take this kind of photograph, and the truth is that no one is ever perfect. The images we see in media are retouched to hide those unique imperfections - just like clothes, they hide the model’s true self from the world.

If you want to be sure you have an image that tells the entire story, you’ll need to think about nude photography. It doesn’t matter if it’s a series or just one image, or if you take photos along with someone special or just by yourself - this kind of imagery is powerful.

Nude photography offers us the chance to express our personality, existence as sensual beings and our natural beauty, without the interference of artificial things or with clothing covering us up. Nothing is hidden in these amazing photographs.

Of course, you’ll find that the experience involved in making this kind of personal image is also very special, so you’ll have to make sure you work with a photographer that you’re comfortable with. This is a personal, unique kind of session, and you should never feel pushed, rushed, or uncomfortable around your photographer.

Be sure you can find someone willing to work at the pace you need and in your comfort zones. They should only require you to show what you’re willing to, and should never push you without your permission.

It’s important to remember that just because there’s no clothing in the session, it’s not necessarily sexual. While it can be if you choose, your photographer should respect your boundaries. If you do want to have some help with shyness, talk to the photographer and others about the rules and what you want out of the session.

Nude photography can be an incredibly valuable experience, allowing us to open ourselves to the camera. It doesn’t matter what we look like or what our ages are - these are the most true and beautiful photos there are.

Celebrate your unique self by hiring an experienced photographer like Viva Photo or another similar company. You’ll experience something special.

I came across an in-depth article that details a lot of information regarding Adobe CS4, mostly things about Photoshop CS4, Bridge CS4 and the launch date of the latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite.

First of all, the launch is predicted to be around the time of Adobe Max, which takes place November 16th-19th in San Francisco. Typically Adobe Creative Suite product cycles are 18 months and since Adobe CS3 was released on April 16th, 2007 Adobe Max would mean 19 months since the last product release. Let’s look at some features that may or may not be included in Adobe CS4.

Adobe Photoshop CS4: Codename: Adobe Stonehenge CS4 Extended. Stonehenge is the splash screen. 1. The User-Interface is similar to CS3 however there are some minor polishes that complete the look. 2. Support for “Extensions” is listed under the “Window” menu 3. The extension manager is in every CS4 application 3. “Kuler” which is an Intranet color pallet collaboration tool for sharing color swatches with others on your team. 4. Support for Flash (more on this later)

Adobe Panel Configurator 1.0 (Alpha Version): 1. Allows you to create your own Photoshop toolboxes. 2. You can choose from over 860+ commands, tools and application features and from there create your own toolboxes that work in any CS4 application 3. Supports Actions and Scripts 4. Drag and drop text fields into toolboxes 5. Support for SWF and Quicktime video files in toolboxes 6. You can export the toolbar file and re-open it in any CS4 application.

CS4 Suite New Features: 1. Flash SWF support across all applications 2. You can open SWF files in any app and play them 3. A tool for developing flash content without any coding experience is coming

Adobe Bridge CS4: 1. New Interface (cleaner, more like Apple’s Leopard Finder) 2. Sidebar and search tool location are just like Mac OS Leopard 3. Folder navigation just like Windows Vista Explorer 4. Labels and star ratings are easier to access. 5. Filtered searches are now much faster even across thousands of images 6. List View in Bridge 7. Auto Photo Downloader to download photos from your camera is now easier and better than Bridge CS3 8. Improved slideshows. Spacebar starts slideshow (like quickview in leopard) 9. From Slideshow, just hit “r” and Adobe Camera Raw opens automatically. 10. Review Mode: (full screen review of photos) a. Just like a full screen version of Apple coverflow b. Loopt tool built in c. Open all photos and review photos and drop photos out of view that you don’t want and other stay in full screen d. Upon leaving review mode, photos you kept are now selected in bridge. Ones you dropped are still there but not selected. e. Ability to create photocollections from within review mode 11. Collections are just like Playlists in iTunes. Ability to group photos. Location of photo is not changed. 12. More sharing options a. Upload directly to FTP within Bridge b. Web gallery templates are easy and uses the same templates available in Lightroom 2 c. Ability to create flash galleries with a few clicks and upload instantly d. Uses the Opera engine to render galleries within Bridge e. Photoshop Web Gallery is going away and being replaced by Bridge Web Gallery 13. Bridge CS4 Menus (in order left to right) File - Edit - View - Sttacks - Label - Tools - Window - Help

Adobe CS4 Applications are exactly the same as CS3 but the text in the icons is black instead of white.

Photographs capture moments in time that we want to look back at later. Family photos are most valuable as the entire family is together at the same time. Getting the family ready for the event can be challenging if you have several young children. On location photography is a great service for the family with several young children. Imagine the following scene:

A couple with 3 children; the oldest being 4, wish to have professional photographs done. A large, family portrait would be nice to have hanging in the living room. They also plan to order a package of photos to hand out to family and friends. So, Mom makes an appointment with a local photo studio on a day that they will have plenty of time to get everyone dressed and looking their best for pictures.

The young couple scrambled to get everyone dressed and looking their best; the stress from the activity has given the 6-month old a nervous stomach; he keeps spitting up. Better take an extra outfit, just in case. On the way out to the car, the 2-1/2 year old trips and falls, getting grass stains on her dress. The oldest one is waiting by the car, actually, leaning on the car which should have been washed days ago! Dirt is smudged on his clothes. Oh well! Maybe the photographer can strategically pose everyone so the dirt doesn’t show in the pictures!

When everyone is settled into the car, they realize it has already been an exhausting ordeal! Then the young family shows up for their appointment; now everyone needs to get out of their coats, fix their hair, straighten their clothing and get into position. Of course, the baby must have his clothes changed; he’s also been crying, so his face is red and blotchy.

See the picture? This beautiful, happy family, with their nerves wearing thin, is about to have professional photographs taken. What they thought would be such a great idea has turned into a nightmare. It sure would have been nice to just get everyone ready, once, and then have the photographer show up at their home to take the photos. No one would be stressed out, trying to get ready and get to the studio; therefore, the baby would have a much happier morning as well. Everyone would be more relaxed and the children won’t have had the chance to get dirty on the way to the car.

The on location photographer can create natural looking family photos with your home as the background. Or, if you would prefer not to show your home in the photos, the photographer will supply special background material so that your photos are like those taken in a studio.

On location photography works very well for special events including weddings, graduation ceremonies, family reunions and more. The on site photographer is a very convenient service, saving you a trip to the photo studio. This is especially handy for the family with several young children, or the family who wants to include their pets in the photos.

Canon has published a statement in response to concerns raised about the EOS 5D Mk II. The announcement addresses the widely discussed ‘Black Dot’ and ‘Vertical Banding’ issues being reported by owners and potential owners who have been scrutinizing the camera’s output. The company says it is investigating both issues and will work on ‘measures to reduce or eliminate these phenomena.’

Canon statement:

To Owners of the EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR Camera

Thank you for using Canon products.

We have learned that some users of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR camera have identified two types of image quality phenomena that appear under certain shooting conditions.

1. “Black dot” phenomenon (the right side of point light sources becomes black) 2. Vertical banding noise

We are currently investigating and analysing the causes, and examining measures to reduce or eliminate these phenomena by providing correction firmware. An announcement will be made on www.canon-europe.com as soon as measures have been determined.

Details of the phenomena and shooting conditions under which they are likely to occur are as follows.

1. “Black dot” phenomenon (the right side of point light sources becomes black) When shooting night scenes, the right side of point light sources (such as lights from building windows) may become black. The phenomenon may become visible if the images are enlarged to 100% or above on a monitor or if extremely large prints of the images are made.

2. Vertical banding noise If the recording format is set to sRAW1, vertical banding noise may become visible depending on the camera settings, subject, and background. ? Vertical banding noise is not noticeable if the recording format is set to sRAW2. ? Vertical banding noise does not occur if the recording format is set to RAW or JPEG. ? Noise can be reduced if C.Fn II-3: Highlight tone priority is set to 0: Disable.

Canon apologizes for any inconvenience caused and thanks photographers for their patience.

It appears as Adobe are evolving they’re getting better and better. CS3 showed us new features such as non-destructive smart filters, quick selection, 3D compositing, enhanced RAW image processing and HDR support.

Adobe’s newest software creation, Creative Suite 4, was designed to meet special challenges such as effective collaborations between designers and developers, embracing new media, reinventing publishing and embracing the explosion of connected media. Chad Seigel, Group Manager for Creative Suite has said, “Adobe is trying to break barriers and integrate all products.”

Changes to Photoshop CS4 include an improved interface with the entire application enclosed in the frame which means dual monitor users can have more than one application running. The workspace switcher is for swapping between applications such as Camera RAW 5 and Bridge.

Other welcome enhancements include zoom ratio which is less likely to show jagged or pixelated lines and also possesses a flicker free zoom. Now you can rotate the canvas without jagged lines and the brush size can be previewed directly on the document. Now when the tool is placed over the image it can be moved in size and you can preview it before you use it.

The Dodge/Burn tool has been improved so when you’re adjusting the shadows, midtones or highlights the tool won’t impose on the other two. When adjusting the saturation on the sponge tool it won’t move out of acceptable gamma.

Adjustment has a dedicated window with all the tools found in the area such as levels, curves, brightness & contrast and exposure. The preview window is in the tab instead of a new window that overlaps the image. This means your picture can be viewed in its entirety and as an added bonus tools such as curves can be adjusted directly on the image for localised amendments.

The icons have been simplified for well-organized use; now you can see what you need to use much faster than before.

Another part of the CS3 features that has been improved is the clone tool. When your area is selected by stamping on it, a preview of the selected area will show on your brush. Therefore, if you’re cloning small detail items or subjects such as bricks you can now line them up easier.

The mask panel allows you to select an area which can be manipulated and even inverted which is good for selective color images.

One of the more amazing features is a content aware cropping facility. It works by first masking the areas you wish to retain in the picture. The image can then be resized and the parts that are protected won’t be cropped into. The program will start to remove areas in between which is an amazing feature to see and use.

An improved blend layer mode has been added and is great for techniques such as focus stacking. The program adjusts the exposure and color automatically so there’s no need to mess about first.

The images have to be loaded in as layers and highlighted. Once that is done, go Edit>Auto blend layers and the images will be composited together. This can take some time so be patient.

This process can also be useful if you want to create HDR images if you prefer the ones without the ethereal effect that most systems produce.

Bryan Hughes, Photoshop Product Manager, is adamant that this isn’t a HDR tool though, as it doesn’t give a full high dynamic range in all areas so the familiar ethereal look of a HDR image is absent. He did add that if need be, it could be described as a clipped version of HDR.

The Extended version of Photoshop CS4 also features support for 3D. Two dimensional images can be changed to 3D by giving them x, y and z co-ordinates and these images can also be wrapped around imported 3D images. Photoshop CS4 also works in conjunction with Google 3D warehouse where you can import thousands of 3D images. Merging a 2D image onto a 3D image is simple as the only command you need use is the Merge button. The 2D layer acquires all the 3D attributes such as decay detail, color and reflections. The 3D image can be manipulated as well and you can also enjoy features such as creating cut-outs, adding detail or changing colors to the interior of the cut-out.

As an added bonus, a feature has been added for help with people who are color blind. Colors in Photoshop CS4 can now be adjusted for true color blindness.

One thing missing is the quick tools from the image window bar. When you’ve opened an image, right clicking on the header bar will bring up five options of duplicate, image size, canvas size, file info for metadata and page set up. I often use these, especially file info, and to find it’s not there adds time to my workflow.

Regardless, at the press release for Photoshop CS4 I was incredibly excited when I saw the new features. The newest features including auto blend and content aware cropping are amazing. I also enjoy using the localized adjustments on Lightroom 2 so it’ll be really beneficial on Photoshop CS4.

Look at the noted upgrades box and see if you’ll use all those extra features. Add to that the efficient zooming and 89 percent less drag on the mouse making it move across the screen faster.

Bear in mind that the list is for the Extended version which supports the 3D applications. If you don’t need those then don’t bother with Extended but as far as I’m concerned this new version is the best one yet.

We all like to capture special moments with photographs to share with family and friends. The family photos are the best; the family is all together and you can cover them all in one package of photographs to pass out to the family. The difficult part is getting everyone ready, especially if you have pre-school aged children. This is a time that on location photography would provide a great service. Here’s why; consider this:

A young family is planning to have professional family photos made. They thought it would be nice to have a large family portrait to hang up, along with a nice package of photos to share with friends and relatives. So, they make an appointment with a local portrait studio on a day when there will be plenty of time to get 3 small children ready for the event.

Not as easy as it sounds. The hustle and bustle of scrambling to get everyone fed, dressed and looking good has Mom about to lose her mind and the baby, sensing al the tension, is in a bad mood. He keeps spitting up; better pack an extra outfit, just in case. Heading out to the car, the 2-1/2 year old manages to trip over her own feet and get a grass stain on her dress. The oldest child seems to be calmly waiting by the car for everyone; that’s good. Or is it? They car is so dirty and he’s leaning on it! His clothes are dirty too now. Dad cheerfully says “Maybe the photographer can pose us in such a way that the dirt is hidden.

As Mom gets the children buckled into the car and they’re heading out, she realizes how this has already been an exhausting ordeal! They show up for their appointment and she feels like she has to repeat all the morning’s work again, fixing the children’s hair, straightening clothing, getting them to stay still until the photographer comes in. Oh, and the baby did manage to stain his clothing pretty bad; he will need a new outfit. To make matters worse, his face is red and blotchy from crying all morning.

See the picture? This beautiful, happy family, with their nerves wearing thin, is about to have professional photographs taken. What they thought would be such a great idea has turned into a nightmare. It sure would have been nice to just get everyone ready, once, and then have the photographer show up at their home to take the photos. No one would be stressed out, trying to get ready and get to the studio; therefore, the baby would have a much happier morning as well. Everyone would be more relaxed and the children won’t have had the chance to get dirty on the way to the car.

The good news is that on location photography does exist. If you have a very nice home and would like a natural scene for your family photos, this can be done. Or, if you are in the process of remodeling, and prefer not to show this in the background, the on-site photographer has special background materials so that you get studio quality photos taken in your home.

On location photography works very well for special events including weddings, graduation ceremonies, family reunions and more. The on site photographer is a very convenient service, saving you a trip to the photo studio. This is especially handy for the family with several young children, or the family who wants to include their pets in the photos.

I came across a comprehensive article detailing a variety of information regarding Adobe CS4, mostly things about Photoshop CS4, Bridge CS4 and the launch date of the latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite.

To begin with, the launch of CS4 is estimated to be around the time of Adobe Max, which takes place November 16th-19th. Adobe Creative Suite product cycles are 18 months and since Adobe CS3 was released on April 16th, 2007 Adobe Max would mean 19 months since the last product release. Below are some features that may or may not be included in Adobe CS4.

Adobe Photoshop CS4: Codename: Adobe Stonehenge CS4 Extended. Stonehenge is the splash screen. 1. The User-Interface is similar to CS3 however there are some minor polishes that complete the look. 2. Support for “Extensions” is listed under the “Window” menu 3. The extension manager is in every CS4 application 3. “Kuler” which is an Intranet color pallet collaboration tool for sharing color swatches with others on your team. 4. Support for Flash (more on this later)

Adobe Panel Configurator 1.0 (Alpha Version): 1. It’s a way to create Photoshop toolboxes. 2. Choose from over 860+ commands, tools and application features and create your own toolboxes that work in any CS4 application 3. Supports Actions and Scripts too 4. Drag and drop text fields into these toolboxes 5. Support for SWF and Quicktime video files in toolboxes (not sure why) 6. Export the toolbar file and open it in any CS4 application.

CS4 Suite New Features: 1. Flash SWF support across all applications 2. You can play SWF files in any app 3. A tool is being developed for creating flash content without any coding experience

Adobe Bridge CS4: 1. New Interface (cleaner, more like Apple’s Leopard Finder) 2. Sidebar and search tool location are just like Mac OS Leopard 3. Folder navigation just like Windows Vista Explorer 4. Labels and star ratings are easier to access. 5. Filtered searches are now much faster even across thousands of images 6. List View in Bridge 7. Auto Photo Downloader to download photos from your camera is now easier and better than Bridge CS3 8. Improved slideshows. Spacebar starts slideshow (like quickview in leopard) 9. From Slideshow, just hit “r” and Adobe Camera Raw opens automatically. 10. Review Mode: (full screen review of photos) a. Just like a full screen version of Apple coverflow b. Loopt tool built in c. Open all photos and review photos and drop photos out of view that you don’t want and other stay in full screen d. Upon leaving review mode, photos you kept are now selected in bridge. Ones you dropped are still there but not selected. e. Ability to create photocollections from within review mode 11. Collections are just like Playlists in iTunes. Ability to group photos. Location of photo is not changed. 12. More sharing options a. Upload directly to FTP within Bridge b. Web gallery templates are easy and uses the same templates available in Lightroom 2 c. Ability to create flash galleries with a few clicks and upload instantly d. Uses the Opera engine to render galleries within Bridge e. Photoshop Web Gallery is going away and being replaced by Bridge Web Gallery 13. Bridge CS4 Menus (in order left to right) File - Edit - View - Sttacks - Label - Tools - Window - Help

Adobe CS4 Applications are exactly the same as CS3 but the text in the icons is black instead of white.

Digital cameras have reinvented photography. Based on “no film theory,” digital cameras have started a whole new era of photography where the information is stored as digital-bytes in the form of pixels, which we all know, are tiny colored dots represented by ones and zeros. And the camera keeps the pictures, you have taken, safe and ready to view/ store/print. As the captured pictures are stored in digital form, almost every computer and other electronic viewing and printing device can read them too.

Similar to the conventional cameras we have used for decades, digital cameras use a series of lenses that focus the light and create the image that you want to capture. Using an electronic system, digital cameras do away with film completely, even though it is still capturing the light as with a traditional camera.

CMOS sensors are less expensive and are easier to manufacture than CCD sensors. As such CMOS device is used in cheaper cameras and does the same work as a CCD. In comparatively expensive models, the system uses a CCD sensor. A Digital camera user can see the difference between images captured with a CMOS and CCD system. A model with over 6 megapixels will provide decent images as higher the resolution of the camera the better the photos that can be printed.

Since people don’t want to wait for film to be processed, the demand for digital cameras continues to grow. As there is no longer any need for mechanical parts to move the film cartridge the size of a digital camera is only determined by the size of the battery needed to power it. This feature has made it possible to manufacture easy to carry models and subsequently made them so popular.

Now a days Digital camera is available in various types such as Digital camera, Underwater Digital camera, Ip camera, Hidden or spy camera, Mini camera, Polaroid camera,Camera phones.

More and more models/systems with latest technology are coming to the market. Naturally people need a place where they can view latest models and that too at affordable price. To find them all at one place where information is updated every minute, and every item is available at the prices you desire/offer click here.

If you have images that you want to show off to the world, but do not have webspace to host the images yourself, then this is were the free image hosting websites are very usefull. They are very easy to use, its a one click upload and you recieve links to your phots to then give to others.

Do you belong to forums where you can insert images into them? If so, this is one of the reasons why free image hosting websites are so popular with forum posters. When you upload images to an image hosting website like Speeding.com, you will recieve different links to your photos, one of the links being that for the forum posting. It really is very simple to do.

Most image hosting websites operate through anonymous people uploading images. There are benefits to upgrading to a registered account though. When you register an account, all of the images you upload get put into your account, so if you need to post it somewhere again, you can without uploading the image again. Most free image hosts offer a slideshow option with their registered accounts. This allows you to setup a slideshow of any images, and share it with friends and family.

Many free image hosting sites allow you to join by paying a monthly fee, this in turn allows you to have unlimited uploads of photos and unlimited bandwidth. But what is the point in wasting your money, when there are sites like Speedimg.com, who will let you do all this for free.

So now you have decided you want to use a site like Speedimg.com, and want to know how to upload images from your computer, to the image hosting site. Its very simple to do. When you are at the site, click on the browse button, or whatever its called and locate the photos you want to upload, and then click on the upload button, and thats it. You will then be shown a list of links relating to the photo you have just uploaded, and with these links you can now show your photos of to the world.

If you have many images to upload, and want to save time doing this, then Speedimg.com is the free image hosting website that you should be using, as you can upload 5 different images at one time with them.

Often times people have older photographs in albums or frames that become damaged by the sun or wear and tear. It is easy to restore these cherished photographs thanks to the technology available through the computer and photo editing software, including Adobe Photoshop.

An easy to learn program is Photoshop Elements. This program contains options that can help restore your old photographs. One of these elements is the Dust and Scratch Filter which can be used to remove the marks, scratches and blots on your old photos. The Dust and Scratch Filter can be found on the Menu Bar and then clicking on the Filter Tab. A drop down menu will list your choices at which point you can choose the Noise tab and click on the Dust and Scratches.

After clicking on the Dust and Scratches menu, a pop up window opens that has two control sliders. The first slider option is called the Radius and the other one is called the Threshold. If the preview box is checked you may also have another window open. The main options we use when restoring photos are radius and threshold.

Adjusting the Radius slider removes any scratches. Please understand that overdoing it may make the edges blurred as well. If blurring does occur you can adjust the Threshold slider. This allows the details to return and makes the picture clearer. Also, be careful not to set the sliders too far or you will only create blotches on the picture.

To get rid of any marks on the photograph you will want to highlight only the part of the photo where the scratches are located, not the entire photograph. To highlight these areas you can use the Lasso tool.

Once you have fixed the areas you may want to use the feather tool to feather the edges of the selected area so that the fixed selection will not be obvious on the picture. To use the feather tool you click the Feather option and choose the Scratch and Dust Filter again. You might want to do the radius and threshold adjustment process again to get the correct texture and make sure all the scratches and marks are removed.

To finish the restoration process and make the photograph appear professional I recommend you crop the image to remove any cracks or torn edges. You can also use the canvas to equally crop the image.

You can also add drama to your picture by adding a drop shadow. Drop shadows make the photo appear as if it has been lifted off the page. You can remove color from the photo using tools Shift+Ctrl+U. Once it is black and white you can then add color by putting a little amount of Sepia. This is done on the Hue or Saturation tab. The contrast may be adjusted using the Levels option.

This is only one very easy way to remove blotches and marks on an old picture. It is also a good way to make the picture look new but still appear classical. It will be a pleasant and easy way to display pictures kept on old albums and cabinets for a long time.