laptopsandspares

I have a contact at the IT Factory - Andrew 0845 465 4555 who thinks he can help, i sent him a copy of your post. They are bournemouth based but might be worth a call and a chat. They do have field engineers but he seemed to think most of what you are looking to cover can be done remotely with someone who "knows a bit". As "Net Man" I think that's probably you Hope this helps D

lol, you'd better learn now as you'll be too tired to remember anything when the bubba arrives!!! Good luck

Certainly this will give you access to the controls you need much more easily and will deff do the job. If you don't mind used or refurb, check out misfuds as I think they had a nikon D200 for £200 the other day. Very good camera for the money if a little old but less than a new entry level unit. nikkior do a 50mm f1.8 for about £100 new, check out warehouse express, jessops etc which is an ace lens for the money. Amazing actually and perfect for portraits. (i'm speaking as a nikon user, Canon is of course as good) good luck and happy snapping. just sorry none of us managed to solve your issue for you. D

oh, looks like you found the manual while i was typing :D P 27 for your menu options. I'll get my coat...

Hi Chris, It took some digging but I eventually found a manual (in English too!) It does suggest you can have control of all the settings mentioned above as there is a "user setting" under "Scene mode" in the camera set up menu (second button down on the back) but it doesn't elaborate on how. There's also a "Program AE" setting which is an aperture priority mode but I think on this model it's an automatic option. If you pm me your e.mail I'll send you the manual. P27 shows you where in the menu to find this stuff. when you have the manula open, read the below: The settings you need to try and achieve are lowest iso possible for image quality, 80 on this camera, this will also (as mentioned above) force the camera to open up the aperture (make the f number smaller) there's an auto, turn it off by selecting 80 the lowest f number (aperture) you can get f2.9 is the lowest you can get on this model at min zoom, f5.2 at the long end of the zoom, I'd suggest midway for portraits. you'll need to experiment with the different scene modes to see which gives you most control. in the "user settings" mode i'd thik the rocker on the back of the camera might control the f number and shutter speed, and there should be a gauge somewhere which will need to be in the middle to get the right exposure. set the camera to mid zoom and then use your feet to compose the shot. get as close as you can once the camera is set as this will help with your blurry back ground. then take some pics and see how it turns out. one thing you could try, put your subject in front of a plain background ( a whiteboard? a wall?). if you put some distance between them and the background, say a couple of meters, and are within a couple of feet, the background should be fairly out of focus and won't have any detail anyway. Or if this is for personal stuff, keep as much distance as possible between the subject and it's surroundings. you'll be a bit limited with the controls available to you but the manual should help you find the settings to help. I'll await your e.mail address D

distance from the subject will have an impact too which might be the way to go if you have limited control on the camera.

oooh this is my field. let me know which model it is and I'll see if I can google a manual and see what settings you have available. Are you after head and shoulders, full body or just head shots?

looks good doesn't it? alas the area i was living in back then isn't included serves me right for being a country bumpkin I guess. Good Spot, thanks for sharing.

i seem to remember you can create a .gif animation in photoshop (or similar, if you have it) which you might be able to embed on your home page. It's been a while since i did it but i'm sure i did a few years ago. there'll be tutorials on the web i'm sure. it would mean recreating it if you wanted to change any of the images but from (distant) memory, it's not a tough or lengthy process. that said, there's probably much more appropriate technology out there now D

You've got a couple of issues here I think. First, the image size you are working with may not (probably doesn't) match the aspect ratio of the crop size you are trying to fit the image too. There's probably some maths teachers out here that can remind us how to work out the relevant aspect ratios but I'm a part time photographer, not genius. trying to fit the wrong size image into a different ratio "frame" can lead to distortion of the image. This I think is what's happening on your batch process tool. The second problem you have is that most basic photo editing packages have to resample images when you scale them. Some will do this the second you release the crop handles which is probably why you are seeing the pixelation. E.G. If you shrink an A4 image to A5, it'll look ok, but try and resize it back to A4 and it'll be all pixelated and wrong. (You can get round this in CS3/4/5 by making it a "smart object" but i don't know if elements has this. You mention the size you are trying to fit which isn't huge, but are the images big enough? 3.7cm x 4.8cm = approx 1.48"x1.92" At 72dpi (screen res), that equates to 106.5 * 138 pixels. Check in elements the image size of the original photo's. I'd be surprised if they weren't but if they have been compressed they may not fit. Thinking your problem through, What might be happening, is that when you create your exact size canvasses in elements, it's creating the document at 240dpi or 300dpi. If the image is 72dpi, which it probably will be is there may not enough pixels to fill the canvass. (1.48"x1.92" at 300dpi is 444x576 pixels) I can give you a walk through in photoshop, but I don't know elements enough to offer you one using this package. Tell me, when you select the crop tool, in the task bar for the tool controls, do you have the option to set the dpi and crop size? Also how many images are we talking about? David

If you don't mind looking outside the "broadliners" you could try Taran Microsystems. 01256 817 007. I'm not sure but I think there is a guy Called Jason Holmes there that looks after education. (Don't quote me on that). It's only fair to say I know a couple of the guys that work/ed there however, they have some really big name clients so they must do something right. They can build to spec or quote with the big brands depending on your preference. Hope this helps

Thanks Robert, I've spoken to a few councils and schools up that way who have mentioned PECOS. A really helpful guy called Tony at Stirling Council tried to explain to me how it worked and mentioned they were trying to get the schools under their remit to adopt it. I got the bones of the concept but wanted to read a bit more to understand it. I'm registered with Welcome - Scotland Excel too but the public contracts sctoland web-site really seems to be aimed at much bigger value tenders than I'm involved in. Thanks for the link.

Hi Guys, does anyone know anything about the PCOS system they are in the process of integrating in Scotland? (Might be PECOS) PS Don't Google PCOS, it's certainly not relevant!! Regards

Might sound like a "teaching granny to suck eggs" answer but if you havn't already, I'd try a re-install. I had some similar issues a year or so ago when I moved from PS7 to CS3. I upgraded and I don't think it went on properly so after 2 weeks of cursing I did a fresh install and it sorted itself out. If it doesn't work have a look on the Adobe forums, someone will have had the same issue. Sorry I can't be more constructive David