RootsChat.Com

      Today I installed updates for my windows xp. since then I haven't been able to access g mail. Everything else works fine, I can access any website I wish without a problem, yet as soon as I go to the g mail sign in page, internet explorer shuts down.
         
                               Any ideas please?
                                              Denn

I'm currently doing a restoration for a friend and am unable to contact her until next week. However I wondered in the meantime if anyone could identify her fathers uniform?

                                                    Denn

Although this place is primarily concerned with restoration, I am sure most of us have an interest in taking decent pics as well. there are many websites that are of interest in this field. but my favourite and one that covers the aspects of photography that may interest the average Joe Blow, is the NYI site......
this months magazine http://www.nyip.com/sub_idx_pgs/tipsidx/tips_idx.php

      It is a site that explains things in a simple no nonsense way and can be understood by anyone - expert or not. coverage includes, how to articles, camera and equipment reviews, reports on world wide competitions and up to date news on what is happening in the world of photography. this months articles include. Photographing flowers, sport photography, off camera flash and how the judges analyse photographs.
       Remember, NYI is a comercial organisation but the site is free to all with no obligation to subscribe to any of thier courses.
       Have a look, you will be pleasantly surprised.


                                                  Denn

       For all the new photo’ manipulators this may serve as an example of the size and complexity of work that can be undertaken. For the more experienced there may be a couple of pointers that may be worth thinking about if you tackle anything similar.
       The past week has seen me busy on a photo’ compilation for my youngest daughters 21st birthday.  The pic' consisted of a 1metre x .75metre background made up of five layers. On top of this I overplayed some 35 picture layers plus 32 text layers making a total of 82 layers which varied from 350mb to almost 500mb (that is a thousand times the size of what we are allowed to post here on roots chat).
         Now the thing is, my computer is nothing special so I soon found that while working with these huge files my machine would slow down to the point where I would have to go and make dinner while waiting for it to complete a process - or it would freeze completely, leaving me with no alternative but to shut down the computer and then start the whole process over again.
         So! Here is what I learned.
 
1.   Create a folder  specifically for all images used
2.   Create a background of several images and save as such.
3.   Make a copy of the same background, and then flatten your copy. Use that flattened copy for your template while positioning the rest of the image layers.(this flattened layer is only to reduce file size while positioning and will not be used in the final product)
4.   after all the images have been positioned save each layer as a separate image
5.   Now open the first of your top images and do any work needed and add a text layer if needed, do not flatten in case the text needs changing later.
6.   Save the reworked image and open the next. And so on until all layers are complete.
7.   To check that all these layers come together would take a huge toll on your computers recourses. So to help this we go to irfan view and make a reduced copy of every layer whilst leaving the original.
8.   Now we open all our reduced copies and check that they are all as we want them.
9.   If any adjustments are needed, we then open the relevant full sized layer and do whatever needed doing.
10.   When we are absolutely sure that all is well, we open up the layers in groups of maybe ten at a time and flatten the group. This way if there is a problem it is only with a part of the whole.
11.   once we are happy that each group is fine then we fatten the whole


       I know that all this seems a lot of messing around, but when a weeks work is at stake, it’s all worth while. And of course we don’t need all those layers open at the same time, just to work on one of them. By opening one at a time we are working on files of 5 to 50mb instead of 500mb.