KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.
Today, you learn how to use CSS sprites to improve load times and decrease the number of HTTP requests that are made. As always, feel free to ask any questions in the comments area.
Due to the fact that @font-face can be a bit overly complicated, it hasn’t caught on quite as much as it should. Once you start reading about licensing, different font formats, browser consistencies, it can potentially become more trouble than it’s worth.
But – in five minutes, I’ll try to simplify the process of working with custom fonts as much as I possibly can. Services like Font Squirrel help to make the task a cinch!
Notice how we’re referencing both an .eot and .ttf font? This is because, of course, Internet Explorer only uses its own format, that has yet to truly catch on. As such, we must first import that .eot file, and then move on to the different formats for Firefox, Safari, etc. It’s essential that you load the .eot version first.
Next, we search for the font on the user’s computer by using the “local” attribute. If it’s unfound, only then do we pass a url that will load the font.
Why Doesn’t IE Try to Load the TTF Fonts?
This was definitely a concern. If Explorer can’t work with the truetype format, we don’t want to waste time trying to download the font. Luckily, because of all those local attributes, and the commas, IE won’t understand any of it. As such, it will simply skip the line all together, thus, only utilizing the .eot version.
This guide will show you how to get the most out of your SLR camera and give you confidence to take it out of auto mode in no time!
Left: Canon T2i. Right: Nikon D40.
To start, let’s put your camera in Aperture Priority mode or Shutter Priority mode. On a Canon, this is AV or TV. On a Nikon, this may be represented as A or S.
1. Aperture Priority
Let’s talk a little bit about Aperture. On both cameras above, the aperture is set to 5.6.
Photos taken with a low aperture let in more light, allowing you to take pictures in situations where there is not much light (like indoors and at night).
A low aperture will also give you a shallow depth of field. You know, the photos where one thing is in focus and the background is blurred?
Canon 50mm f/1.8
f/1.8
1/200 sec
ISO 800
In the photo above, the aperture was set to 1.8, a low aperture. One earring is in focus, the rest is blurred.
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8
f/16
1/60 sec
ISO 100
In this picture, the aperture was set to 16, a high aperture, allowing everything to be in focus. However, when you take pictures with a high aperture, you need to have a lot of light, like outside during the day. Note: Depending on what lens you have, you may not be able to set your aperture much lower than 3.5. And at 3.5, you may not be able to achieve much of a blurred background. If you like the blurred background look, you might consider purchasing a lens with a low aperture.
Now you try!
Turn the dial on your camera so that you are shooting in Aperture Priority mode. That means that you will be setting the Aperture, and the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed. The camera will attempt to give you a correct shutter speed so that your photo turns out just right- not too bright, not too dark.
Set your aperture. In most cases, you can change the aperture by turning that little black dial on top of the camera, but double-check your manual if you can’t find it.
Set it to a low aperture if you want a blurred background, or a high aperture if you want everything to be in focus.
Left: Canon XSi. Right: Nikon D40.
Look on the LCD screen of your camera for a grid that looks like the image above. That’s your exposure. The exposure determines if the picture is too bright or too dark. Usually when it’s set to 0, that’s just right. In Aperture Priority mode, it will always stay at 0 unless you specifically tell it to move. (Check your manual for setting the exposure compensation.) If you tell it to move higher (to the right of the 0) the picture will be brighter. If you tell it to move lower (to the left of the 0), the picture will be darker.
Try taking a few pictures in Aperture Priority mode with the exposure set to 0. If the pictures need to be brighter, move your exposure to the right a few notches, until it looks right to you. I like bright pictures, so my exposure is usually set above 0! :)
Note: Be sure to keep an eye on your shutter speed as you do this. See the number 125 in the picture above? That number represents the shutter speed. As a general rule of thumb, you don’t really want to let the shutter speed get below 50, unless you have an extremely steady hand. If the shutter speed gets below 50, the camera cannot take the picture fast enough to compensate for the shakiness in your hands, so the picture will be blurry. If the shutter speed is getting low, try using a tripod or table to steady the camera, or lean against a wall, door frame, or tree to steady yourself.
If you find it difficult to get a high enough shutter speed when trying to take pictures inside, you can try setting your ISO higher…
2. Let’s talk about ISO real quick
The lower your ISO (100-200), the smaller amount of light your camera will use. So if it’s a really bright sunny day and you’re taking pictures outside, set your ISO to 100. The higher you set your ISO, the more light your camera will use. So if you’re trying to take a picture inside without a flash, and need more light, you can try setting your ISO to 800 or higher to see if you can get a high enough shutter speed to hand hold your camera. The catch with using a high ISO is that it makes your pictures pretty grainy, and it shows up REALLY bad in reds and oranges, so I always try to use the lowest ISO possible.
3. Shutter Priority
Now turn the dial on your camera so that you are shooting in Shutter Priority mode. That means you will be setting the shutter speed, and the camera will be adjusting the aperture. Shutter speed is how fast the camera records the picture.
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8
f/8
1/4 sec
ISO 100
In the photo above, the shutter speed was set to 4. That’s a slow shutter speed, allowing me to capture the movement of the water. A tripod was used to take this photo.
Canon 70-200mm f/4L
f/8
1/640 sec
ISO 200
In this photo, the shutter speed was set to 640. That’s a fast shutter speed, allowing me to stop my boston terrier (and the water!) in his tracks!
To change your shutter speed, you will probably use the same little black dial you used to change your aperture. When set in Shutter Priority mode, the dial will control your shutter speed. Turn it to the left for a slower shutter speed and to the right for a faster one. I generally keep my shutter speed around 125 when taking portraits of something that’s going to be relatively still. If there’s movement, you might want to go higher.
Note: Be sure to keep an eye on your aperture as your change your shutter speed. If your aperture number starts flashing, that means that the shutter speed you selected is too high to or too low to correctly expose the picture.
If it’s too high, that means you don’t have enough light, and the aperture can’t go any lower to allow in more light and your image will be too dark. You need to lower your shutter speed until the aperture number stops flashing. That means the picture will be correctly exposed again. (You can also try increasing your ISO to compensate.)
In rare cases, your shutter speed may be too low (say you’re trying to take a picture of a waterfall in bright sunlight). That means you have too much light, and your image will be too bright. You need to set your shutter speed higher until the aperture number stops flashing for the picture to be correctly exposed. (You can also try decreasing your ISO to compensate.)
4. Focusing
Canon 85mm f/1.8
f/1.8
1/250 sec
ISO 400
If you’re having trouble getting your camera to focus on exactly what you want it to focus on, you might want to take a look at the AF Selection. If you’re shooting with a low aperture, this can sometimes be a real problem. Have you ever taken a picture and the camera focused on the background, and not the subject?
Check your manual on how to set the AF Area or Auto-Focus Area. If your camera is set to “auto selection“, your camera will attempt to “guess” what you’re trying to focus on, and automatically choose what it thinks you want. I get a lot of out-of-focus shots that way! Sometimes I like to change my camera to “Manual Point Selection“. That means the camera will always focus on one spot. I set mine to focus right in the middle, but you can change it to any point, whichever one you feel most comfortable with.
When set to Manual Point Selection, your camera will always focus in that one spot. If you press the shutter button halfway down and look through the viewfinder, the focus point you selected should highlight, and you will probably hear your lens focusing. That means your lens is focused on that one spot. Now sometimes, just because it’s focused in that one spot, doesn’t mean the picture is framed exactly how you want it. Just keep the shutter button pressed halfway down and move your camera until the picture is framed the way you want it. (Just don’t move any closer or further away from the subject! :)) Then press the shutter the rest of the way to take the pic. With practice you will be able to do this very quickly, and you’ll always know exactly what you’re focused on.
5. Manual Mode!
You’re almost there! Get a lot of practice shooting in Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority. Some people will say that Aperture Priority mode is better than Shutter Priority mode and you should never use Shutter Priority. I disagree- they are both there for a reason and can be very useful in their own ways in different situations. With practice, you’ll learn which situations call for which shooting modes. Is a nice background blur or having everything in focus more important? Use Aperture Priority. Is capturing speed more important? Use Shutter Priority.
After mastering Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority, it’s not that much of a leap to go to fully Manual Mode! To shoot in Manual mode, turn the dial on the top of your camera to M. Check your manual to see which buttons now control you shutter speed and aperture.
Left: Canon XSi. Right: Nikon D40.
After all your practice in Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority, you are probably familiar with what shutter speeds and apertures you prefer. Now you can put them together! When changing the shutter speed and aperture, be sure to keep an eye on your exposure. You normally want to keep your exposure right around 0. Again, most of the time, I keep mine between 0 and 1 because I like brighter pictures. :)
6. Recommendations
Any number of shutter speeds and apertures will get you a “correct” exposure of 0. Which one should you use? The book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson is a great resource. After you’ve mastered Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority modes, get this book and read it cover to cover. It gave me a deeper understanding of my camera and SLR photography, and explained everything in small words that I could understand! It also gives real life analogies that just made things I had previously heard, but not yet grasped, *click*. I noticed an overall improvement in my photography from day one.
One of my all-time favorite lenses is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. It’s a prime lens, which means it does not zoom in and out at all. This was hard for me to understand until I got my first prime lens. But it doesn’t move at all! :) If you want to zoom in or zoom out on your subject you have to move closer or further with your feet! :) It’s a great lens for taking pictures indoors, because the low aperture (1.8) will let in a lot of light. The low aperture will also give you a beautiful blurred background.
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8
f/8
1/500 sec
ISO 100
Hope this will help you to understand your DSLR Camera. Thanks :)
Hi Friends,I am sharing with you a set of 5 high-resolution old paper textures. These includes old envelope cover and paper textures that are perfect for your creative old paper feel on your websites or graphic designs.
The download includes JPG and PNG images of the textures that are large enough to help you in your design works. Download and let me know where you’d like to use them.
Hi Friends, today I am sharing with you a set of 7 high-resolution watercolor textures pack. This textures freebie is perfect for you to add splash of color to your next design project!
The download includes JPG images of the textures in 1740×1260 pixels each. I hope these are large enough to help you in your design works. Download and let me know where you’d like to use them.
A brief rambling explaining the three fundamentals of photography. APERTURE, SHUTTER SPEED and ISO or FILM SPEED. This is the first of a planned series of video tutorials about photography....
Hey you have bought new SLR camera but don’t know how to use it or want to know about professional photography. This tutorial will give you the basics photography knowledge of SLR camera.
To take beautiful photographs you do not need an expensive camera and equipment. What is important is the photographer’s ability to see his/her surrounding and use knowledge and personal feel for the subject.
My effort is to get people more interested in photography, awaken visualization and hopefully help people enjoy this hobby even more.
An introduction to Photography
The word “photography” is French but is based on Greek word and literarily means “drawing with light“. That’s what photography is all about, without light — no photograph. The art of photography is basically seeing and balancing the light.
First the light needs to go through the lens, which is a series of differently shaped pieces of glass. If the focus is good then the light will meet on the sensor. The aperture is placed inside the lens and is basically an opening that controls how much light reaches the sensor. On most modern cameras the shutter is placed inside the camera body. This piece of mechanics is what controls how long time the sensor is exposed to the light. The sensor is a very sensitive plate where the light is absorbed and transformed into pixels. As you can see on this illustration, the image the sensor picks up is actually upside down, just like our eyes sees the world, the processor inside the camera then flips it.
The aperture sits inside the lens and controls how much light passes through the lens and onto the sensor. A large aperture lets through very much light and vice versa. Knowing how the aperture affects the photograph is one of the most important parts of photography — it affects the amount of light, depth of field, lens speed, sharpness and vignetting among other things. I will talk more about these things in later parts of this series. F-numbers, a mathematical number that expresses the diameter of the aperture, are an important part of understanding how the aperture and exposure work. All f-numbers have a common notation, such as ƒ/5.6 for an f-number of 5.6. There are a set numbers of f-numbers that are used in photography, there are several different scales but the “standard” full-stop f-number scale is this: ƒ/# 1.4 2 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22 32 These are known as full-stop f-numbers. If you decrease the f-number with one full-stop, like ƒ/4 to ƒ/2.8, the amount of light that passes through will double. If you increase the f-number with one full-stop, like ƒ/5.6 to ƒ/8, only half the amount of light will reach the sensor. There can be several f-numbers between the ones above — depending on what scale is being used. The most common one is a 1/3 scale, which means that every third step is a full-stop, and thus giving you two settings between every full-stop. For example between ƒ/8 and ƒ/11 you will find ƒ/9 and ƒ/10. This can be rather confusing at first, so here’s a short reminder:
A higher f-number = a smaller aperture = less light A lower f-number = a larger aperture = more light
The shutter is what controls how long the sensor is exposed to the light. The longer the shutter is open the more light can be captured by the sensor. A fast shutter speed will result in “freezing” a moving object and a slow shutter speed will let you capture the motion of a moving object.
There is a scale of stops for the shutter speeds just like for the aperture, below are the full-stops.
1/1000 s 1/500 s 1/250 s 1/125 s 1/60 s 1/30 s 1/15 s 1/8 s 1/4 s 1/2 s 1 s
And just as with the aperture, the shutter speed is often on a 1/3 scale, giving your two steps in between every full-stop. For example between 1/60s and 1/125s you will find 1/80s and 1/100s.
The two primary factors which control exposure are shutter speed and aperture. We will cover these things in greater detail in other lessons.
ISO
The ISO speed (the name comes from the International Organization for Standardization) is a measure of the film speed, or its sensitivity to light. With digital cameras the ISO affects the sensor instead of the film, but the principal is the same. A low ISO speed requires a longer exposure and is referred to as slow, a high ISO speed requires less time to give the same exposure and is therefore referred to as fast. One step in the ISO equals one full-stop, so the ISO is not on a 1/3 scale — film can be found with 1/3 ISO speeds, but it’s uncommon in the digital world. These are the most common ISO speeds.
ISO 50 100 200 400 800 1600 3200
On 35mm film, a film with high ISO speed had much more grain than a slower film — but the modern sensors don’t create the same grain with high ISO speeds. Instead it creates noise. The digital noise is not as favorable as the film grain and can destroy a photo if it’s too visible (the same goes with the grain, but it’s effect was more subtle and often more liked).
If light is no problem, then always use a low ISO number but if you’re indoors with bad light or other conditions when you find the combination of aperture/shutter not to be enough the ISO speed can be a great asset. New digital sensors are constantly developed and the noise levels with high ISO speeds are decreasing with every new release.
Photoshop is an excellent tool for creating attractive and professional website designs. In this collection, you'll find 60 Very Detailed Tutorials on Creating High Quality Web Layouts Using Photoshop. These website design tutorials would help you to improve your photoshop skills and techniques.
In this Photoshop tutorial you're going to learn how to create a web 2.0 layout, As you go through the tutorial you'll deal with so many Photoshop techniques
In this tutorial, you will be creating a simple, easy to use and colorful web design layout in Photoshop that is primarily aimed at children. The simple navigation, bright colors and limited content is something that would really appeal to the youngsters.
Not only have watercolor brush strokes become a popular trend in modern web design, but so have advanced layers of transparency (or what I call, translucence). The new Envato design has received a lot of kudos for using this effect, and this tutorial will show you how to create a similar effect, while combining it with other popular web trends.
There is a certain style of button on the latest YouTube design (most easily found in the footer) where the default state of the button has a very subtle bevel to it, but on :hover and :focus states the button pops up, eager to be clicked.
I think this design works well in the context of YouTube's footer. 1) The default state is very subdued, meaning these buttons aren't competing for attention on a site where almost everything else is. 2) You still get the very rich/obvious experience of pushing a button 3) They imply a different functionality than the other links in the footer (press these, and something will happen, press a link, be taken away to another page). They make good on that implication as well, each of those buttons opens up a panel of settings right beneath.
View DemoDownload Files
Special thanks to Dennis Sa who sent me a JSbin of some Matte Buttons he was working on which made me think of the YouTube buttons and get started on all this.
In this Photoshop tutorial you're going to create a chocolate-looking website layout.
