Website Design + Photography

Sony Jumping Into The DSLR Market

2006-04-21T05:31:00.000+08:00

This turnout could be very interesting, but let's just wait and see until Sony launches their Alpha DSLRs in the market.Read the article here

Source: Dpreview.com

Rights Managed Stock vs Royalty Free Stock

2006-04-18T02:16:00.000+08:00

Rights Managed Stock vs Royalty Free Stock
Is RF the bargain they claim?

Definitely a good read. Now it's all up to you.

Source: No!Spec

Canon 30D In-depth Review: Get It While It's Hot!

2006-04-05T02:13:00.000+08:00

Dpreview.com has just posted it's in-depth review on the Canon EOS 30D. Canon lovers especially the 300D/Rebel and 350D/Rebel XT users should have a look at this. Read on here

Source: www.dpreview.com

New Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di-II

2006-03-31T22:47:00.000+08:00

The new SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical [IF] is a lightweight, compact, fast standard zoom lens designed exclusively for digital SLR cameras, expanding the product concept of the popular SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di zoom lens.
Two years after the SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di was launched as the standard for lightweight, compact, fast standard zoom lenses, it remains highly popular with advanced amateur and professional photographers alike. Now Tamron, moving with market trends, has unveiled a new design for fast standard zoom lenses used exclusively for digital SLR cameras that covers the easy to use angles of view: the focal length is equivalent to 26-78mm* when converted to a 35mm format. In particular, the wide-angle focal length is established at 17mm (26mm equivalent) to obtain a wider angle of view than ordinary standard zoom lenses, while maintaining the remarkably lightweight and compact size of the earlier full frame zoom lens model. Read full article here

What The Font?

2006-03-30T23:20:00.000+08:00

Ever had a time when you really liked a font of a certain logo or type face but you just don't know what font it is? Well, finally a solution is here to at least help us designers eliminate the hassle of going all through your thousand font library. Thanks to the guys at myfonts.com for a wonderful and helpful service to provides us with a font recognition system.

Source: WhatTheFont

New firmware for Canon EOS 5D, 30D and 1D Mark II N

2006-03-29T22:39:00.000+08:00

Canon has today released firmware updates for three of its newest digital SLR's. The EOS 30D gets firmware update 1.0.4 which fixes some Chinese language display problems, the EOS 5D gets update 1.0.5 which fixes a monochrome image bug and a problem with a combination of the EF 85 F1.2L and Speedlite 580EX, finally the EOS-1D Mark II N gets update 1.0.4 which also fixes a monochrome image bug and also an over-exposure problem when using Focusing Screen EC-S.

Canon EOS 30D Firmware Update page
Canon EOS 5D Firmware Update page
Canon EOS-1D Mark II N Firmware Update page

Source: Dpreview.com

Free Pixel Fonts for Mac and PC

2006-03-29T05:38:00.000+08:00

If you are looking for some high quality pixel fonts you can use for designing websites, fear not for you can download these pixel fonts at Dafont.com. You can even preview each character before you download it.

Choosing Effective Color Scheme

2006-03-29T03:54:00.000+08:00

A worth reading article on choosing a color scheme for your website. This could really be helpful if you're really lost on what color scheme you will be using in designing your website. Check it out here

Canon 5D Test

2006-03-28T03:38:00.000+08:00

I got to have a chance to test a Canon 5D and I am pretty impressed with the results. Attached lens was a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. Check out the sample shot I took with it.

Olympus E-330 EVOLT Review

2006-03-27T18:31:00.000+08:00

For those Olympus fans out there. Dpreview.com has just posted it's in-depth review on the Olympus E-330 EVOLT.

Source: Dpreview.com

iWeb Templates

2006-03-24T05:35:00.000+08:00

If you want to make your own customized iWeb templates or even download free iWeb templates, just point your browser at 11Mystics.

But of course you've got to have iWeb (read MacWorld's review on iWeb) installed on your Mac before you could use and play around with it. So for all Windows users, sad to say that this won't work for you.

World Press Photo of the Year 2006

2006-03-24T02:41:00.000+08:00

Winning Photo for the 2006 World Press Photo of the Year

The Winners Gallery

Canon DSLR Users Rejoice!

2006-03-24T02:27:00.000+08:00

A very good site for some good tips and techniques professional photographers use.

Lens Hoods for FREE!

2006-03-24T01:54:00.000+08:00

If you have recently lost your lens hood or haven't saved enough yet to buy the lens hood you've been wanting, well here is a sure-fire solution you can get that is ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Available for Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sigma, Tamron, Tokina lenses.

FREE LENS HOOD

Been Awhile

2006-03-24T01:38:00.000+08:00

It's been awhile since my last update on sharing some web designing tips & tricks. Well just to let everyone know that I'm back in business and I hope this blog can help you in any way.

Thanks!

Embedding Videos in HTML

2004-11-20T13:35:00.000+08:00

Here's something you must check out if you want to embed your favorite movie clips to your website, may it be your fave show captured from your tube, a sex scandal clip, a nice video of your getaway vacation trip to Boracay or whatever.

Check it out at http://cit.ucsf.edu/embedmedia/step1.php where you can generate HTML codes ready to be pasted on your website.

Handy Color Harmony Tool

2004-10-07T13:35:00.000+08:00

Great tool for deciding color schemes for both web and print jobs you're doing and intend to do. This tool is one of my favorites too. Available for both PC and Mac systems. Check it out at http://www.colorschemer.com/

Think You've Known It All?

2004-09-03T13:37:00.000+08:00

There are many myths associated with search engines and the ways that lead to being listed as number one when users do a search for certain topics.

The most common myth is that it is possible to design your site first and THEN focus on search engine listings.

Another common myth is that you can improve your listing with meta tags. This is straightforward NOT true, since search engines nowadays do not look at meta tags for any other purpose than to identify spammers (people that try to get to the top even on topics their sites don't really cover).

No matter which type of search engine we're speaking of, nothing happens until your site gets listed in the search engines database. Most engines have a link to "Submit URL" or "Submit your site". The link is usually either at the very top/bottom on the main page, on the "Advanced search" page or in the "Help" section.

Before submitting your site, you may benefit from learning some of the secrets behind search engines as well as things to incorporate in your design that will give you a better listing.

That's what the rest of this article is all about.

There are three basic types of search engines:

Robots

Human based

Meta engines

Robots are computers that will visit your site and scan the content for words, then rank your site for relevance without human interception. Some of the most well known robots are Google and Altavista.

Human based indexes are search engines that are based on human indexing of sites in different categories. Staff from the search engine will visit the sites and first judge whether the site is good enough to even get listed. If it is, they will list the site in the appropriate category using a handful of key words that are particularly relevant to the site. Some of the most well known human based indexes are Yahoo and Looksmart.

Meta engines search other search engines and then create a list of results based on which sites come up first across the engines searched. Some of the most well known meta engines are MetaCrawler and Mamma.

The only way to get your site listed first in meta engines is to get to the top of robots and human based engines. Therefore we will focus on these two in the rest of this article.

*Continuation of this article can be found here.

Source: EchoEcho.com

Speed Tips For A Fast Loading Website

2004-08-31T10:04:00.000+08:00

The speedy basics. The items that all designers should pay attention to. These tips don't "cost" anything except the web designer's time and attention to detail and pay dividends as every site page loads more quickly.

HEIGHT AND WIDTH ATTRIBUTES
Specify the height and width attributes of every image. Specify the height and width attributes of every table. These two precepts allow the visitor's browser to reserve the exact amount of space needed for each page, and to begin loading the images more quickly. The "boxes" for the images (with ALT tag messages) will appear immediately when the page is accessed.

REUSE IMAGES
Once an image is downloaded, it may be reused over and over without being reloaded. For instance, our logos are reused on every website page, but only require loading once.

JAVASCRIPT VS. ANIMATED GIF
Check the weight of any javascript effects. Sometimes the same effect may be created using an animated .gif, and take up less space.

IMAGES IN TABLE CELLS
4.xx-plus browsers, both Netscape and Internet Explorer allow the use of background images in table cells. If coding only for these browsers, you might consider using a background image, and placing text over it with HTML. This method allows faster loading than placing text on your GIF or JPEG images. This effect, however, is not visible to many earlier browser versions

Optimization is the process of reducing an image to the smallest file size possible at an acceptable image quality.

IMAGE FORMATS
The image file formats in common use on the Web are GIF (pronounced gift minus the t) and JPEG (pronounced jay-peg). Each has advantages for particular usage. Rule of thumb recommends JPEG's for photographic images, and GIF's for drawings, text, logos, cartoons and such. Both GIF and JPEG images may be optimized in several ways to reduce image filesize and speed image loading.

IMAGE RESOLUTION
Web graphics are displayed at a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch). If images are scanned and edited at a higher resolution, typically 100 - 300 dpi, be sure to reduce the resolution to 72 dpi before uploading to webpages. A resolution higher than 72 dpi increases the actual display size (and file size) of the image, but does not provide additional quality or clarity.

TRIM PHOTOS AND IMAGES
Size counts. Trim (crop) and/or resize images for display so that only the essential portions will be seen. This maximizes impact while also reducing filesize.

SLICE AND SPLICE IMAGES FOR NAVIGATION
Rather than a single large image map with many hotspots, divide the image into smaller image slices. Splice the image back together again using HTML tables. This improves the perceived loading time as smaller pieces load more quickly and the user's eye fills in the blanks, and also, as the image map changes from page to page, only the portion of the image which is different will require loading when the page is accessed, the 'already used' pieces will load from cache.

GIF TIPS
GIF formatted images use a maximum palette (number of colors) of 256 colors. By reducing the number of colors in the palette, file size can be significantly reduced. Most generally, the greatest reduction is experienced between 256 and 32 colors. Unless the image is constructed with a lesser number of colors, further reduction of color usually doesn't result in an acceptable trade-off between the file size and quality of the image.

For smallest file size save GIF's with the option: No Dither. Use interlaced GIF's whenever possible. This allows the image to load progressively, though the actual filesize is slightly larger. Visitors will quickly see a low quality version of the image which improves in quality until it is fully loaded. This pseudo speed satisfies the need to see "something" rather than a blank space on the page.

JPEG TIPS
JPEG is a compression technique for storage of images. Images are compressed into a fraction of their original size, and their palettes optimized smoothly. For photos scanned and displayed on a webpage, the optimum image format is a progressive JPEG. Like interlaced GIF files, the image appears first in low resolution and is transformed into its full scale color and resolution. The progressive file format in JPEG takes little extra file space, because each layer simply adds to the image already in place.

Most graphic editors allow settings for the export of JPEG images in several modes, or sizes. When exporting for the Web, try several settings, typically 30, 50 and 70, (not really percentages, but rather a simple scale of compression ratios) to see which offer the smallest file size vs. acceptable image quality.

Continuation of this article can be found here.

Source: Web Design Guide

iStockphoto.com = LOW Cost stock photos

2004-08-30T17:19:00.000+08:00

Why pay for a hefty amount for a stock photo when you can get it at a very low price. Check out istockphoto.com, you'll be surprised of how cheap the photos are but are of very good quality. Not only that, you can also download vector files as well as flash animations on the site at very low rates. Being a member also entitles you to get a free high-resolution image every week. This is probably the best stock photo site I've ever been. You can also view my portfolio here, maybe you'll find something that will interest you (",)

Can't Decide on Color Schemes??

2004-08-30T16:59:00.000+08:00

Can't decide which colors to use? Check on ColorMatch 5K, it's my favorite online tool to help me decide on what nice color scheme to use on my projects. It's one of my favorite and I would just wanna share it with you all. So check out their website at: http://www.colormatch.dk/

Ever wanted to have that Bookmark Icon?

2004-08-30T16:07:00.000+08:00

All you need to do is save a small icon, sized 16 x 16, in the root folder, and call it favicon.ico. You can also have a unique icon for individual pages. Just put this in the tag "head" of the particular file, and point the URL to the location of the *.ico file you want to use:

link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.example.com/anothericon.ico"

Originally, this was only supported by Internet Explorer 5.0 and above running on Windows, but it has since been picked up by browsers based on Mozilla 0.9.6 or higher on all platforms. This suggests Netscape 6.x will soon support them as well. Ironically, Mozilla’s support works better than Internet Explorer’s.

There are a number of tools out there for creating icons, but Favicon.com is dedicated to creating them—it even has an online icon-making tool.

Source: http://www.saila.com/usage/tips/defn.shtml?favicon

Practilcally the Do's and Dont's

2004-08-30T10:03:00.000+08:00

1 Don't use background music on your web pages!
Some web designers like the idea of a little background music to set the mood of the page. In special cases like say an MTV or Disney website, this can work. But for most websites this is just a bad idea for a few reasons:

• Music files are typically pretty ‘heavy', and take time to download. Most surfers will not think that it's worth the wait. Besides, many computers simply don't have sound capability, so it seems silly to force these people to download something they can't use.

• Unexpected music/sound spewing forth from ones PC can be very annoying and potentially cause problems.

If you want to have music on your web site, make it an option that the user can turn on and off. A good way to do this is with a Flash movie; most browsers come equipped with the Flash plug-in and the Flash supports compact MP3 files.

Of course, if you just want to give users the option to hear some piece of music, like your bands latest tune, or a sound clip from an interview, the easiest solution is to create an MP3 of the audio, and then create a link to it.

2 Don't use Internet Explorer's scrolling ‘marquee' tag.

Internet Explorer came out with the infamous ‘marquee' tag in version 3. This HTML tag (that only works in IE), allows you to create a stock quote like horizontal scrolling display of whatever text you put in-between the tags.

There are options in using the tag in terms of how the text is animated, but in a nutshell, you get animated text scrolling across your page. Some web designers like it, but most surfers don't. Scrolling marquees make your page look cheap and take away from the rest of the page.

Tickers like that make sense when the information it displays is constantly changing. Stock quotes are a great example of when you might use a marquee display. But for static text, it is just a bad idea for the most part.

3 Do keep the structure of your web pages consistent throughout your website.

Some web designers get bored with what they're doing and decide to create a different structures to their web pages within same web site. A classic example is found in the way navigation works on different pages; one page may have the navigation menu across the top of the page then on the next page it will along the right side and so on.

People like things consistent, so your web pages should be too. That's why all windows programs have the same look and feel; the same goes for the Mac programs.

4 Don't create automatic pop-up windows!

JavaScript pop-up windows are probably one of the most annoying things you can do to someone visiting your website. If you want to annoy your visitors go right ahead.

Pop-ups are typically used to present ads and other ‘non-core' material to users. If you use pop-up windows, you have to learn how to integrate those elements into your main pages and forget about pop-up windows.

5 Do use standard design styles for your navigation.

Sometimes as web designers we may be tempted to use some funky navigational system. Things like navigational links arranged in a circle, or some sort of freaky 3d cube that you have to rotate to find the web page links; this serves only to confuse people.

Big companies like Apple and Microsoft have spent a tone of cash to figure out what types of navigation works, and what they found is that left side navigation and top navigation is what people are used to.

6 Don't automatically resize a visitor's browser window.

Some designers will come up with a style is that looks best with a particular screen size, so they will use JavaScript that will resize the users window to fit that size. This is another surefire way to tick people off; people will typically set their browsers to the window size they are comfortable with.

If your style requires such precise window sizing to work, you need to change your style! There are many factors that can affect the screen real estate that visitors may be viewing your web pages with (window size, screen resolution, browser text size), as such you should strive to create fluid and flexible page layouts because it is not possible to control all those factors.

7 Do make you web pages viewable at 800 x 600 resolution.

Many web designers have computers that can display higher resolutions like 1024x768 and 1280 x 1024. They design there pages to fit in that resolution, when someone hits those pages with a computer that can display only a maximum of 800 x 600, the visitor has to scroll to see the page properly.

Scrolling web pages vertically (top to bottom) is ok, as long as it's not more than two and half pages or so. But scrolling horizontally (side to side) is really bad and annoying to visitors.

In a nutshell, you want to design all your pages these days for 800 x 600; they make up about 40% of the web audience!

more tips here...

Source: The Do's and Don'ts of Web Site Design: Part 2 by: Stefan Mischook

GIF, JPG? What are their differences?

2004-08-30T09:44:00.000+08:00

Most browsers recognize graphics in GIF and JPEG formats. Just use the .GIF, .JPG, or .JPEG file extension and the browser will know how to handle it. So when should you use GIF and when should you use JPEG?

Both GIF and JPEG files are compressed. GIF uses a lossless compression scheme which is optimized for images with regions of solid color. JPEG uses a lossy compression scheme which is optimized for images with many mixed colors (like photographs).

GIF files only require additional size when the color of horizontally adjacent pixels changes. In other words, a horizontal line of a single color takes the same amount of space no matter how long it is. This makes GIF format ideal for solid color images like logos, cartoons, and text stored as graphics.

JPEG files use a lossy compression technique (slightly adjusting the colors) to give a visually similar image that takes less space. You can choose how much compression (and color change) you want. For natural, photographic, or multi-color images, JPEG does a good job. For lots of detailed information about JPEG, check out The JPEG FAQ.

Choose GIF file format when you have a solid color image, and choose JPEG when you have a photographic image. When in doubt, try both formats and choose the one that gives the best image quality for the lowest file size.

Source: http://www.unplug.com/great/tips/tip07.htm

Definitely a No No!

2004-08-30T09:07:00.000+08:00

To start off, keep in mind that web development, like any other 'craft', is a subjective process, and that any one opinion may differ from the next. The idea is not to establish what is right or wrong, but to try to lay down some ground rules and to give you a place to start. Everything has its place, but try to use tools when they enhance what you're trying to get across, instead of just downloading things and throwing them in because they look neat.

Try to avoid things that have been done a million times before, and are getting a little tired. These might include:

page counters
javascript text scrolling
excessive animated .GIF's
under construction signs
page fade-ins, etc.

If you really need a page counter, make it hidden...if your site gets a lot of traffic, a counter comes off as being arrogant, and if your site doesn't, do you really want the whole world knowing? Javascript scrolling and page fading have been done so many times, that they serve nothing other than showing a lack of originality. As far as under construction signs go, isn't that the whole idea of web...that it is constantly changing and under construction?

If you see an image you like, try to make your own...if you see an interesting layout, try to use it as a reference. This way you'll have a fresh, original site instead of a page full of backgrounds, animations and javascript functions from an overused library...and your site will stand out from the rest.

Source: http://www.colin.mackenzie.org/webdesign/avoid.html