Tip 7: Understanding colour

Understanding colour

Colour can be quite tricky, every device, due to how it’s designed and what components have been used, records and represents colour slightly differently. Colour representation is also very objective, most monitor and printer manufacturers all invest a lot of resources on getting their colour representation to “look nice”, moving away from a more accurate reproduction. We all prefer a nice looking image to an accurate image.

Common problems when taking and printing digital photos:

White balance:

If your camera is unable to properly select the right “white balance profile” images come out with a yellow or orange or blue tint.

You can try and choose a white balance profile in the camera’s settings yourself, or try correct the photos in Photoshop.

Blow out:

Print is toner dots on white paper. If there is a pure white area in an image no dots are placed, only the white paper is left, looking naked and crisp. You can fade smoothly between 100% dots and 10% dots, but between 1% dots and 0% dots you will always see the difference very clearly. For this reason it’s very important that there are no 100% white (blown out) areas in your photos. They don’t look nice at all. Many digital cameras have an option to highlight blown out areas when you preview the photo on screen after taking it.

Bad skin tones:

Skin tones are often very tricky as people are quite sensitive to be too dark, too red or too pale. There are many software packages available to correct skin tones. Correcting by hand can be troublesome for amateurs.

So what do we do now?

We here at RapidStudio put our priority into colour accuracy as opposed to “niceness” – this is best for photographers who have their devices calibrated and have expectations as to how their colour is going to come out and people with medium to high end digital cameras who don’t do colour touch-ups on their PCs. For the most part camera screens are pretty accurate, especially higher end cameras, while computer monitors, home inkjets and lab prints are usually not accurate but adjusted to “look good”.

Our advice:

• Avoid at all costs blown-out areas in your photos.

• If a photo looks too red or too dark on your camera’s screen, try do some touching up on your computer, just remember your monitor is probably not calibrated. You’ll probably notice the colour difference between your camera screen and monitor.

• Never save or use a CMYK jpg.

• Only use RGB files in your album (Never CMYK or Pantone).

• Trust your camera screen more than your monitor, printer or lab.

• If you touch up colour on your PC, make sure the monitor is on it’s default settings, try looking at it on other monitors to see if there’s a difference.

• Make sure you have the newest software

For the more technical - The main differences are due to the following.

Colour balance:

Different lighting conditions (sunlight, fluorescent or incandescent) produce a very differently tinted light. Our brain automatically compensate for these different tints, and in a similar way, the small computer in your digital camera analyses the image and selects from a set of predefined light filters that make the image look how it thinks is most correct. Look for grey balance, neutral balance and white balance on your digital camera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance

Colour temperature:

Colour can be shifted to look “warm” or “cool”. Often people will use this colour temperature setting on their monitor to change the image according to their preference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

Gamut:

Gamut is basically all the possible colours that the device can accurately reproduce. The larder the gamut, the more accurate the device will be able to display the colour, the smaller the gamut, the more likely it is that other devices will accurately reproduce the colour. As every device (your camera, your monitor or your printer and our press – even different batches of ink or toner and different papers each have a unique gamut.) has a different gamut, the colour will look different. This is obviously something we have no control over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut

NB! Colour mode:

While most digital devices work on RGB (Red Green Blue), printers use CMYK (Cyan, magenta, Yellow, Black). This means that the colour has to be converted from one mode to another whenever you print, meaning the colour will change. Home printers have a small computer built into them that converts the colour. Each printer will have it’s own conversion software meaning each will convert slightly differently. The fact that there is a conversion means the colour will never be rendered exactly the same. For this reason most printing companies ask for their files to be supplied in CMYK mode, this means the customer has seen the CMYK image and have a more accurate expectation of what they’re going to receive. JPG image files are natively an RGB format. You shouldn’t really ever save a CMYK JPG file, while some software allows you to do this, it’s not at all good practise – if you need a CMYK file, save as a TIFF or a PDF. RapidStudio’s Photo software however only works with RGB JPG files. If you have CMYK jpg files the colour will not be accurately reproduced at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

Backlight:

Your monitor has a backlight, rendering colours with a much higher luminosity than they could ever appear on paper. As your monitor ages the colour will also change.

Tip 6: Understanding Bleed

We get books returned to us on occasion because the customer is dissatisfied with some or other aspect of the quality of the book.
Often times these problems are simple misunderstandings. I'm going to try and explain some of the most simple issues in the next few blogs, starting this week with the print area.

Understanding Bleed

I'm sure you've noticed on your home inkjet printer that the print can't go all the way over the edge of the page. while some fancy home printers have recently added boarderless printing, the majority can't achieve this, and it's the same with our large printing presses, there is an area around the edge of the page where the printer actually grips the paper in order to move it through the press, this area can't be printed on, therefore the images of your photobook pages are printed on a larder sheet, and then cut down to size in order to achieve a neat uniform block of borderless prints that will become the pages of your book.

I'm sure too, if you've ever done some crafts, that it's extremely difficult to cut preciseley on the edge of an image. it's always better to either cut the image with a small white boarder, or cut off a small margin of the image in order to have a boarderless print.

In print, we call this small margin that is cut off "Bleed" - it's 3mm of print area that is cut off of the printed image in order to achieve a boarderless page.
Why 3mm you ask? in a block of shiny slippery UV varnished pages, 3mm is a safe margin of cut error, so if any of the pages in the block move slightly during cutting no white border shows. It's obviously very important not to have any important detail in this bleed area as it'll definately be cut off the page.
Now, if I cutt 3mm out on the right hand side of the page, this means that I'm going to cut 3mm extra in on the left. to demonstrate this dangerous area that could inadvertantly become bleed we use a "safe area" drawn on the screen page with a dotted line.

In this image you can see the edge of the page, with the dotted safe area line just inside that. Your bleed area is OUTSIDE the edge of the page. If you want your images to bleed off the page of your book you should drage them beyond the edge of the page area so that they can bleed even if the cut isn't exactly where it's exprected. The page on the left will dleed off while the page on the right will have a white boarder.

In the image below i've outlined the image areas in red to bemonstrate bleed and the optimal way of positioning images. Both if you want a boarder or if you want the images to bleed. Please note that it is very very likely that the top of the orange will be cut off when the book block is cut. The black line is the edge of the page while the dotted line is the safe area line.


It's also important to know that in non-lay flat books (like our hard covers and square backs) the print in the spine of the book will also need to bleed - so some image are is lost. Please don't put important image detail outside the safe area of the spine.

On the cover of hard cover books you will see that the safe area is quite large. This is to accommodate the area of the print that needs to wrap around to the inside of the cover. It's important to keep important cover detail well within the safe area.

NB! If you're working on Mac (iPhoto), bleed is not sent trough in your PDF file so assume that 3mm inside your page will be bleed, and only 3mm inside that area will be "safe" - so that's a full 6mm from the edge of the page where the safe area starts.

Tip 5: Burning CDs or DVDs

On a regular basis we receive CDs that we can't use. Either the wrong files are on the disk or the disk is blank, or we can see that there's something on the disk, but we can't read anything off it. As frustrating as it is for the customer who sent the CD, waiting for weeks for us to receive it only to find it's useless, it's equally scary for us to call that customer back and try explain that we can't use their CD. Here's a quick guide to making and testing a CD that will work reliably.

Burning and Testing Discs

First off. you need to know you have a CD or DVD burner. The easiest way to tell this is by getting down on your hands and knees in front of the computer box on the floor next to you and reading what is printed on the front of the drive.

The drives are "backwards compatible" so if it can write then it can also read, and if it can do DVDs it can also do CDs.

ROM - means it can read only, not write

R or RW - means it can write too.

Next we need to get the right media or discs. 

How big are the files you need to put on disc? If they are less than 700MB you can use a CD. If they are between 700MB and 4GB you can use a DVD. more then 4GB - you can get fancy DVDs, but I would advise that you rather use a flash disk because whoever you're giving the disc to might not have a compatible reader.

To Burn DVDs your drive must say "DVD R" or "DVD RW" to burn CDs it must say "DVD R", "DVD RW", "Compact Disc Writable" or "Compact Disc ReWritable" .

Now that we've bought our media and we have our files - we need to burn them to disc.

If you're using Windows XP or similar, you can write CDs straight from within windows, but NOT DVDs. To write DVDs from XP you are going to need special software. 

There are many many software packages for burning discs, here I am going to cover what I believe to be the most popular, and user friendly, Nero, it comes free with most CD or DVD drives, but if you didn't get it and you want it, you're going to have to buy it. www.nero.com

If you're using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can burn DVDs and CDs straight from within windows (It's better to choose the "Mastered" format rather than the windows live format). Other software like Nero might make things easier, but it's pretty simple to do it using the standard windows tools. Just remember to check your disc before sending it!

• How to burn a CD using XP
  
• How to burn a CD or DVD using windows Vista 
  
• How to burn a CD or DVD using windows 7
  

If you're using Nero: 

Open Nero StartSmart from your start menu.

At the top of the screen click the "Data" icon, and then choose "Make a Data CD" or "Make a Data DVD".

Next the empty "Nero Essentials" window will open, either click "Add Files" and find the files you want to burn to CD, or just drag the files onto this blank window from windows explorer.

Click "Next"

Choose a Name for the CD. Select the quantity of copies you want to burn.

• NB! Please make sure "verify" is selected, and that "multisession" is not selected. Multisession can make things confusing. Cds are very cheap, it better to use a new one than recycle. It's also always important to verify the data after burning so you're confident nothing is corrupt or unreadable.

Click burn and put the disc in the drive when asked.

And you're done.

NB! You should always check your disc on another computer to make sure you can see the files in order to minimize the chances of frustration.

RS Tip 4: Backing up

Over the weekend my laptop broke. These days much of our lives depend on our computers. Business, social communication and entertainment are now all served up on a digital platform and we tend, foolishly, to put all our documents, data, pictures, music, video, mail, chat, contacts so much of our lives in one digital basket. Laptops and even desktops are perceived as high value products (Even when they're old and slow) and are often the target of theft. they are also highly sensitive electronic devices and can easily be damaged by power surges or outages.
This said - It's important to make backups!

Making Backups

There are many different options and services when choosing how to back up your data:
You can manually copy files you want to back up to external media (USB hard drive, flash disk, CD or DVD)
You can sign up for free (or paid) online storage and manually upload your important files to them.
You can sign up with an online backup provider like www.mozy.com who manage the whole procedure for you.

In order to be a backup, it has to be an ADDITIONAL copy saved in a DIFFERENT LOCATION. you need to know that these copies are independent of each other. For example, copying files from your documents folder to your D drive is not a proper backup, your PC breaks or is stolen, you loose both copies. Saving a second copy to a flash disk is better, but not if you keep your flash disk in the same bag as your laptop. If it's stolen, you loose both copies.

My personal favorite is the online solution. There are many providers, I chose Mozy because of their price and service.

There are a two important things to consider before choosing a backup method:
How big is my important data?
The speed and pricing of your internet connection.

If you have cheap bandwidth (lots of megs for little bucks) then backing up online is an option. If you use 3G or another expensive access account then you're probably not going to want to backup online unless you have very little data to back up (a few documents, not images or music)
The nice thing about having your stuff backed up online is that you can access it from anywhere you have an internet connection. So even if you don't need to "restore" a file, you can still download it wherever you are in the world. It's also automated, so your files are always backed up, you don't need to remember (I am the type who forgets) to continually check and see that you have an up-to-date copy on your hard drive or flash disk.
The drawback of backing up online is that it can take a long time to upload big files, and you usually need to pay the monthly subscription (usually by credit card) to your backup provider.

I've sent my laptop in for repair, but despite this, Monday morning when I walked into the office I borrowed an old mac that was unused in another department, I'm not a fan of mac, I am dreading the days till I get my laptop back, but I was able to quickly download the files I was busy working on from mozy, and within a half an hour I was back up and running on the loaned mac.

If they aren't able to repair my laptop, or they loose it, or some other tragedy transpires, I am confident that after insurance pays out I'll get a new one, and after downloading ALL my files from the backup guys (it'll probably take a few days to download everything) Everything will be back to normal. And until then, I have access to any of the files on my laptop that I need.

RapidStudio Tip Number 3: The Taming of the Passwords.

These days it seems every site wants you to register and log in, every password has different rules, and every username is based on some other of my personal information, I can't even remember my new cell number, how am I supposed to remember the myriad of login credentials that are demanded of me each time I venture onto the internet?

The Taming of the Passwords.

Usernames and passwords protect our online identity, they are the face and voice by which we are recognised by the many different sites we visit and interact with. As I am sure you can imagine, it's important to keep this information secure, not hand it out freely to anyone you encounter on the internet. keeping in mine - that each and every time we type it - we are giving it to someone.

here are some rules (explained) to guide you to a safer and easier online experience:

Keep your most important passwords private.
If you register with a website, often times you give them your email address as part of the registration. If your password for that website is the same as the password you use to log into your email, you have just given them (if their database is not encoded, their employees / developers can easily see your password) the ability to access to your email account.
For this reason it's very good to have different passwords for important, reputable sites (email), and for less reputable / community / social / small e-commerse sites.

Make your most important passwords difficult-to-guess
It's probably unlikely that someone is stalking or conning you, but still, when it comes to online banking, other financial sites and your email, your password is all that keeps anyone but you out. If you use things like your maiden name, kids / lover's names or date of birth as your password, this information can often be gleaned from social sites like Facebook (even if you are not a member, your family members or friends might inadvertently expose when talking about birthday celebrations or other social matters.
It's also very important to remember that most "forgotten password" buttons will email you your password, so if someone does gain access to your email account, they can retrieve passwords from most of your other online accounts.

So how do I get this right?
There are a few options when it comes to managing your passwords, each with it's own drawbacks.

My personal favourite - I save them all in a 256bit one-way encoded database (very secure) on a flashdisk that I keep in my wallet (so I have it with me most places). I copy a backup on my PC and on my Gmail in case I loose the disk or it breaks. I use a small free easy-to-use program called KeePass that encodes and decodes the database whenever I need to see my passwords. This is all a lot easier than it sounds, and a great way to keep safe and still never forget a password. it's quick and east to use ans very secure. It also generates secure passwords for you.
The drawbacks: if someone were to figure out how to crack the 256bit hash it would be possible for them to get the passwords. You need one main password to protect the whole database which needs to obviously be a secure password. If you don't back-up your database, and loose it - all your passwords are lost.
KeePass.info

Another option is to create a set of 3 or 4 passwords, a complex one for financial information, a second one for your email, and a third one for social / community / e-commerce sites. You really should not write the first two down.If you choose passwords that nobody can guess, and you can remember, this is 10 out of 10 - the best and most secure of all options. The key is, you need to remember them one way is to try and choose a combination of letters and numbers that are memorable to you. An example might be your ID number with the number "0"s swapped for letter "o"s and "1"s for "i"s or "L"s. Don't use the example - cos I and anyone else reading this will guess it - just follow it as a guide.
The drawback of using numbers you will remember is that it's easy for other people to guess - you also have to remember these complicated numbers by heart.

Other options - making songs or stories to help you remember them, or make the password something related to the account / website or writing them down somewhere private. I'm sure you realise writing them down is one of the least-secure options - not at all recommended.

The main things to remember:

1. Don't ever ever use the same password for for your account at www.some-porn-site.co.za or www.some-social-site.co.za as for your email or bank account


2. Don't use passwords that are easy to guess - or write them down near your computer where people can see them


3. Do make sure you have a sure-fast way of remembering your passwords with confidence


4. Do make sure you have a way of remembering them that will not leave you feeling confused or intimidated

My personal suggestion (for those of us who struggle to remember) use KeePass. KeePass.info

RapidStudio Tip Number 2: Keeping up-to-date

RapidStudio Tip Number 2: Keeping up-to-date

In the fast changing world of the internet demands we keep up with the latest software updates to ensure we have the best surfing experience and keep safe on the internet.

Keeping up-to-date

Our web browser is our vehicle with which we navigate the internet, browsers come in many shapes and sizes, most free. Internet Explorer is Windows default browser, but Firefox, Chrome and Safari are preferred by many web users. Many new advances in technology make web pages faster, easier to navigate and more content-rich. Developers are able to use a variety of new ways to allow users to interact with their websites in real time. Unfortunately these advances also open up new vulnerabilities in our browsers that can be exploited by skelms to gain access to our browsing habits, or even install unwanted and dangerous programs on our PCs.
In order to - 1. Protect ourselves from the perils of the internet and 2. Have the most enjoyable, hassle-free experience online - we need to keep our web browsers and other add-ons to our browsers like your "Java Runtime Environment" and "Adobe Flash Player" up to date. A nice fun demonstration of what is currently possible to do in a web browser can be seen here: www.seesoccercity.co.za (you need a webcam and a printer to use this)

While most web browsers (Firefox, Chrome or Safari) automatically update, Internet Explorer is updated by windows, and many users ignore or even disable the messages prompting them to upgrade to the newest version.
You can easily upgrade it by visiting www.microsoft.com/upgrade. Even if you primarily use another web browser that you keep updated, it's very important to keep Internet Explorer up to date for security reasons as it is part of windows and and the updates fix vulnerabilities in it that can be exploited even if you are primarily using another browser.

As with web browsers it's also important to keep other software up to date in order to ensure you have the best possible hassle-free experience.
Updates give you new-improved ways of doing things while helping to protect your privacy.

In addition to keeping up-to-date it's important to have a good anti-virus solution. A good free antivirus is AVG, free for home-users. free.avg.com

Here are a few important links to keep you up-to-date

Web Browsers:
Internet Explorer: www.microsoft.com/upgrade
Firefox: www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox
Chrome: chrome.google.com


Add-Ons:
Java Runtime Environment: www.java.com/en/download
Adobe Flash Player: get.adobe.com/flashplayer

Other:
RapidStudio: www.rapidstudio.co.za
AVG Free Antivirus: free.avg.com

RapidStudio Test Tip: Shopping Carts

RapidStudio Test Tip: Shopping Carts


Being in the RapidStudio support team gives me first hand insight into the needs of the new up-and-coming South African internet users.
I often feel that our business is pulling South African computer users kicking and screaming into the world of e-commerce, and need to be responsible in assuring, educating and helping them in as many ways as possible.
Being on support duty every Sunday from 10 till 3, I've finally decided to use some of that time to work on a few "tips" for new internet users to both help them stay safe online, and have the best possible online experience. These are written by me personally, RapidStudio support can't explain, take responsibility for, or support any of the things I've put up here for you. I am sure other internet users besides RapidStudio-ers will find them useful too!
So here's the first tip, a test tip to see if this helps anyone and if I should consider doing one a week:

The Shopping Cart

When shopping online, most e-commerce stores use some kind of "shopping cart" to hold all the items you are about to purchase, keeping track of the quantities, totalling up the prices and discounts and providing you with delivery options for and physical items that need to be delivered to you .


Just like in a regular store, you need to "check out" the items in your shopping cart, and pay for them, before they become yours. Generally, when checking out you'll be diverted to a third party payment page, where a secure "payment provider" verifies that you've paid, and makes sure the both the shopper and the shop do not land up victims of fraud. These secure payment providers are responsible for keeping your financial information safe. Some stores with a large enough volume of transactions can afford to be their own payment providers, but usually the payment provider is a third party. Once the payment is verified, they divert you back to the store's site to complete the check-out process


When checking out it's important to check the the delivery details and quantities you've provided, as well as the total price you are paying are correct.


It's also important to try and do the whole check-out process in one sitting. You can usually add many items to your cart over the series of a few days, but when it comes to checking out, it's good to do it start to finish without interruption in order to avoid mistakes, confusion and possible duplicate payments. There is usually a confirmation at the end of the checkout process from the store itself, It's important to know the that process is complete before leaving, as sometimes there are a few options that come after payment, for instance, sometimes delivery options, uploading or downloading of files or invoicing can happen after the payment has been verified by the provider and you have been diverted back to the stores site.


In all the tips are simply:

1. Check and double check all the changeable options and items in the cart
2. Make sure the deliver options are correct
3. You will probably be diverted to a third party to verify payment
4. Be patient and make sure you've completed all the necessary steps of the process

Good Luck
- Steven


Below are a quick list of some of the third party payment providers I have encountered in this country:
PayFast
PayPal
Mygate
Paygate
Setcom
Easypay