By: Kenneth C. Hoffman

Everybody who likes to take pictures would love to have some of them enlarged and framed for their walls. Its very presence would give you instant satisfaction and the confidence that you, do have an artistic bone in your body after all. A casual perusal of you snapshots, however, might lead you to believe that not one of these snapshots are good enough for the wall. Now, just for a moment, make believe that you could change anything you don’t like about a picture of yours and that you could match that image to the image in your mind. You can – with the help of a scanner and a photo enhancement program. Of course, if you have a digital camera, you don’t even need a scanner.

There are four basic levels of photo software. Freebee programs meant only to crop, change the color balance, and fix red eye in your pictures. A middle quality program uses a macro to change shapes, improve sharpness, and offer some filters for creating a few special effects, like crude oil paintings or black and white charcoal effects. The next step up often will cost $30.00 to $50.00, but will include all the basic tools you need to create a proud-to-display masterpiece. Micrografx (now Corel) Picture Publisher presents six sizes of paint brushes, an air brush, pastel chalks and colored pencils. You can change the size of your picture, crop it any way you want, and take advantage of dozens of filters which simulate real art textures like water color on parchment paper, palette knife paintings, etc. Turn white skies into blue skies with fleecy clouds, soften some of Grandma’s wrinkles or remove a garbage can from an otherwise perfect picture. A cloning tool permits the addition of outside elements, skin retouching, background cleaning and the filling in of empty spaces. A magic cropping knife can isolate a subject, move it onto another background and let you move the objects in your picture around at will, like decoppage, creating a whole new world of graphic manipulation.

The top of the line is Adobe Photoshop and its competitors. This program is considered professional software, costing $300 to $700. The basic tools are the same, but many more levels of manipulation are offered. The dozens of filter you used with Picture Publisher have multiplied but keep in mind that dozens of filters and effects can still be utilized by both programs through plug-in filter software. A two week course is recommended in order to learn how to use the Adobe program effectively while the Picture Publisher help boxes are considered sufficient instruction for most people.

Your finished artistic creations can be saved in computer albums against the time you need a nice graphic for decorating an article or for an artistic card. They can be put on tee shires, mugs, calendars, Holiday Cards, stationary, post cards and business cards. Wall enlargements up to 13 x 19 are easily produce with a Hewlett Packard 1220 Deskjet printer or an Epson printer. Both are available with archival inks lasting over 60 years without fading. But the most of the enjoyment comes from the creating!

As a retiree, I can take any pictures I want.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenneth_C._Hoffman

Today’s technology for the recording musician has been getting better and better with each passing month it seems. Software and computer interfaces are getting much less sophisticated and more user friendly for the average Joe. And,let’s not forget, less expensive.

Software like Acid Pro 4.0 is what I use to create and upload music to the web. I’ve been using products from Sonic Foundry Sony) for 4 years now. Their software products are superb to say the least. I highly recommend this software to build your music creations.

Acidplanet is where I upload my music and Video for the whole world to see and hear. As a member, you can upload music and video files for free.

Software like Vegas Video (also made by Sonic Foundry-Sony), it is what I use to create music videos.

Now, don’t get me wrong… this is the software I use and recommend. There are many reliable programs out there to choose from.

I’ve been doing some online music collaborations as of late myself. This has been a great experience for me. However, as with anything else, there is a learning curve.

So… I thought I’d pass some simple tips that will help anchor you to a basic format you can start with.

These are common sense tips that I’m giving here and they work well if you follow this basic format everytime.

First, you need you find a website that has musicians who have the same interest you do. Yes, “online music collaborations.”

“Musician Forum Boards are a great place to start. Here are just a few that will help get you started.”

Guitar Noise Forums has recently created a page called, appropriately enough, Online Jams and Collaborations. It’s pretty much a bulletin board where you can hook up with others who are interested in putting together an online jam, hosted by another site. You can join in on a jam or announce one of your own.

GuitarDuel.com is a site for guitarists of all ability levels to display their work. The best part is that it’s free to join, but we’ll have weekly contests with real prize money,” says site creator, Don Harrold.

The appeal of GarageBand.com is the unique way in which it uses the Internet to find talented new groups.

Artistopia is committed to building the ultimate end-all solution for music artists, musicians, songwriters, and industry professionals to develop and do business in one spot. Armed with comprehensive membership plans, industry experts, expert technologist, business management, and solid online presence, Artistopia is leading the frontier in online artist development.

Whenever a site such as these have a Forum Board, use them to find other artist that have the same taste as you. I usually introduce myself right away after signing up. It doesn’t take long until you find some really cool musicians that are more than willing for an online collaboration. Acidplanet.com is where I upload my tunes.

Once I get on the Forum Board, I’ll look for topics of discussions. Songwriting Topics, Recording Topics etc. This is where you’ll find folks to collaborate with.

A great why to start is by taking a consensus. Throw the idea out there with some guidelines established. Remember, it’s all in the approach. Then, folks need to hear what you are working on first, just to find out if it’s something they can get into…

My first “collabs” were done by posting backing tracks for others to download and do their own thing with..

Some of the top players on AP really had a good time with that, and it grew into something way beyond what I intended. Very cool…

You can do the same thing by building the backing track, and listing the lyrics you want in the song description.

You’ll probably get a lot more folks involved if you let them post the songs on their own pages too…

To collaborate with others takes time. Just being vague and asking for a collaboration will probably not get very many responses. Having your ideas laid out before hand would probably get more responses. Most good musicians I know are looking to be challenged a little when it comes to making music. Remember, it’s got be worth while I’m sure.

Any “collaboration” is a community effort between people, with equal input and participation throughout the project.

A great approach would be to post a subject idea for a group project, discuss ideas posted by participating members on that subject, and come to a consensus on:

1. What the outline of the song should be (genre, instrumentation, time signature, tempo, key, section layout of verses/choruses/bridges/solos).

2. Which people will contribute what parts and instruments

3. Where the finished parts of each collaborator will be uploaded to

4. Who is responsible for collecting/mixing/mastering the parts

5. A timeline for when parts need to be done to keep the project moving smoothly

6. What profile the song will be uploaded to

7. A “project head” to oversee the entire process and make sure things are running smoothly, communication is consistent and informative, and every participant is included equally in the project.

“Hope these tips and guidelines help you get you on the right track.”

Internet Jams By Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas
Managing Editor
Guitarz Forever.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Thomas

By: Jason Cole

With the falling price of digital video cameras and the rise of PC video editing software, producing your own music video is definitely something most every musician can afford to do these days. All you need is a DV (Digital Video) camera, DV tapes, a location to shoot at, a PC, editing software (ala Adobe Premiere), and well, a band! Here’s some info and tips regarding the important pieces of equipment you’ll need.

1. Camera – You’ll be better off buying a DV (Digital Video) camera, they’re best for digital editing, later on. Decent DV cameras go for anything between $400 and $1200, and the tapes are around $8 a piece. One camera that I have used personally is the Canon GL2 MiniDV Digital Camcorder. I had nothing but good experiences with this camera. There are preset settings for the novice user, and at the same time it was very fine tuneable, for the experts out there. Make sure that your camera will shoot in progressive scan mode. Progressive scan is a particular method for displaying images, in which the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence. This will reduce the amount of flickering and increases resolution of the video you are recording. Most cameras come with microphones attached to them, but you probably don’t want to use the audio that will be recorded by the on-board mic as it will be pretty low quality. I suggest picking up a minidisc recorder, run all your instruments into a mixer that is plugged into said mindisc recorder.

2. Shooting – You can shoot your video anywhere, and hopefully you will take advantage of that fact! When editing your video, you will be telling a story. So varied locations would be excellent. If you can, storyboard your video out before you begin scouting locations or shooting. It makes thing 1,000,000 times easier, trust me. One other thing I would recommend would be to make sure that you have adequate lighting. Normal indoor lighting is not picked up by the camera the same way your eye picks it up. I would suggest picking up a book about the basics of video lighting, if you can. But if that is not a possibility, remember one thing, more is better.

3. Editing – You’re going to need to pull your video footage off of your camera onto your computer. Most DV cameras come with a USB cord which will allow you to do just that. You can use the proprietary software that comes with your computer to do that, or you can buy editing software which will do the same thing. Most PCs that have Window XP installed come with Windows Movie Maker. This is a great program for beginners, it allows you to pull footage off of your camera, and then edit said footage. But it doesn’t come with very many editing features. So the more advanced editors might want to plunk down some cash and buy Adobe Premiere, which is a super flexible video editing program with a very steep learning curve. The advanced Mac users out there might want to check out Final Cut Pro.

Now that you have your edited footage, you’ll want to output it onto tape or disc. The easiest thing to do is to burn it to DVD, which most editing programs will have a feature to do this. Once you have your video on DVD, the possibilities are limitless! I hope this article helped understand that music videos are now not just for the pros, anyone can do it yourself!

Jason Cole and DiskFaktory Jams offer free MP3 downloads and music lyrics. Get the information you are seeking now by visiting DFJams.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Cole