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| Introduction | |
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| Why a Book for Dummies? | |
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| What's in This Book? | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Conventions Used in This Book | |
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| What Do I Read First? | |
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| Peering through the Digital Viewfinder | |
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| Filmless Fun, Facts, and Fiction | |
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| Film? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Film! | |
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| Fine, but Why Do I Want Digital Images? | |
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| But Can't I Do All This with a Scanner? | |
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| Now Tell Me the Downside | |
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| Just Tell Me Where to Send the Check | |
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| Cameras | |
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| Memory cards | |
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| Hardware, software, and other accessories | |
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| Mr. Science Explains It All | |
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| From Your Eyes to the Camera's Memory | |
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| The Secret to Living Color | |
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| Resolution Rules | |
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| Pixels: Building blocks of digital photos | |
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| Pixels and print quality | |
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| Pixels and screen images | |
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| Pixels and file size | |
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| How many pixels are enough? | |
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| Can't I add pixels later? | |
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| More mind-boggling resolution stuff | |
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| What all this resolution stuff means to you | |
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| Lights, Camera, Exposure! | |
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| Aperture, f-stops, and shutter speeds: The traditional way | |
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| Aperture, shutter speed, and f-stops: The digital way | |
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| ISO ratings and chip sensitivity | |
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| RGB, CMYK, and Other Colorful Acronyms | |
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| In Search of the Perfect Camera | |
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| Mac or Windows - Does It Matter? | |
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| Picture Quality Options | |
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| You say you want a resolution | |
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| File format flexibility | |
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| Memory Matters | |
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| Monitor, Viewfinder, or Both? | |
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| SLR or Point-and-Shoot? | |
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| Hybrid Cameras | |
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| Flash Fundamentals | |
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| Through a Lens, Clearly | |
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| Fun facts about focal length | |
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| Optical versus digital zoom | |
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| Focusing aids | |
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| Lens adaptability | |
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| Exposure Exposed | |
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| Still More Features to Consider | |
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| Now playing, on your big-screen TV | |
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| Self-timer and remote control | |
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| There's a computer in that camera! | |
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| Action-oriented options | |
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| Little things that mean a lot | |
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| Sources for More Shopping Guidance | |
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| Extra Goodies for Extra Fun | |
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| Memory Cards and Other Camera Media | |
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| Memory shopping tips | |
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| Care and feeding of memory cards | |
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| Download Devices | |
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| Storing Your Picture Files | |
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| On-the-Go Storage and Viewing | |
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| Software Solution | |
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| Image-editing software | |
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| Specialty software | |
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| Camera Accessories | |
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| Mouse Replacement Therapy: The Drawing Tablet | |
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| Ready, Set, Shoot! | |
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| Choosing the Right Camera Settings | |
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| Getting Started: Basic Camera Settings | |
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| Selecting a File Format | |
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| JPEG | |
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| TIFF | |
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| Camera Raw | |
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| Setting the Pixel Count (Resolution) | |
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| Balancing Your Whites and Colors | |
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| Tweaking Picture "Processing" | |
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| Controlling Exposure and Focus | |
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| Setting Light Sensitivity: ISO | |
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| Automatic Exposure: Making It Work | |
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| Choosing an autoexposure metering mode | |
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| Going semi-automatic | |
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| Applying exposure compensation (EV) | |
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| Taking Flash Photos | |
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| Fill flash (or force flash) | |
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| No flash | |
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| Flash with red-eye reduction | |
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| Slow-sync flash | |
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| External flash | |
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| Switching on Additional Lights | |
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| Lighting Shiny Objects | |
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| Compensating for Backlighting | |
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| Focus on Focus | |
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| Working with fixed-focus cameras | |
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| Taking advantage of autofocus | |
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| Focusing manually | |
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| Shifting Depth of Field | |
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| Taking Advantage of Scene Modes | |
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| Take Your Best Shot | |
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| Composition 101 | |
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| A Parallax! A Parallax! | |
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| Composing for Compositing | |
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| Zooming In without Losing Out | |
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| Shooting with an optical (real) zoom | |
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| Using a digital zoom | |
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| Catching a Moving Target | |
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| Shooting Pieces of a Panoramic Quilt | |
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| Avoiding the Digital Measles | |
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| From Camera to Computer and Beyond | |
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| Building Your Image Warehouse | |
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| Downloading Your Images | |
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| A trio of downloading options | |
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| Using a card reader or adapter | |
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| Cable transfer how-tos | |
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| Take the bullet TWAIN | |
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| Camera as hard drive | |
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| Tips for trouble-free downloads | |
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| Translating Camera Raw Files | |
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| Converting Proprietary Camera Files | |
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| Photo Organization Tools | |
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| Can I Get a Hard Copy, Please? | |
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| Fast and Easy: Prints from a Lab | |
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| Buying a Photo Printer | |
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| Inkjet printers | |
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| Laser printers | |
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| Dye-sub (thermal dye) printers | |
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| Thermo-Autochrome printers | |
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| How Long Will They Last? | |
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| So Which Printer Should You Buy? | |
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| Comparison Shopping | |
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| Does the Paper Really Matter? | |
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| Setting Print Size and Resolution | |
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| Sending Your Image to the Dance | |
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| Getting better results from your printer | |
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| These colors don't match! | |
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| Preparing a TIFF Copy for Publication | |
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| On-Screen, Mr. Sulu! | |
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| Step into the Screening Room | |
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| That's About the Size of It | |
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| Understanding monitor resolution and picture size | |
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| Sizing images for the screen | |
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| Sizing screen images in inches | |
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| Nothing but Net: Photos on the Web | |
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| Basic rules for Web pictures | |
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| JPEG: The photographer's friend | |
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| Drop Me a Picture Sometime, Won't You? | |
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| Viewing Your Photos on a TV | |
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| Tricks of the Digital Trade | |
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| Making Your Image Look Presentable | |
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| What Software Do You Need? | |
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| Opening Your Photos | |
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| Editing Rules for All Seasons | |
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| Save now! Save often! | |
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| Editing safety nets | |
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| Straightening a Tilting Horizon | |
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| Cream of the Crop | |
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| Fixing Exposure and Contrast | |
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| Basic brightness/contrast controls | |
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| Brightness adjustments at higher Levels | |
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| Using the Shadows/Highlights filter | |
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| Give Your Colors More Oomph | |
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| Help for Unbalanced Colors | |
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| Focus Adjustments (Sharpen and Blur) | |
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| Applying sharpening filters | |
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| Blur to sharpen? | |
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| Out, Out, Darned Spots! | |
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| Cut, Paste, and Cover Up | |
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| Why (And When) Do I Select Stuff? | |
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| What selection tools should I use? | |
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| Working with Elements tools | |
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| Brushing on a selection outline | |
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| Selecting (and deselecting) everything | |
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| Reversing a selection outline | |
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| Refining your selection outline | |
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| Selection Moves, Copies, and Pastes | |
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| Cut, Copy, Paste: The old reliables | |
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| Adjusting a pasted object | |
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| Deleting Selected Areas | |
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| Pasting Good Pixels Over Bad | |
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| Enlarging the Image Canvas | |
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| Amazing Stuff Even You Can Do | |
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| Giving Your Image a Paint Job | |
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| What's in your paint box? | |
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| Setting the paint color | |
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| Exploring Brush and Pencil options | |
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| Painting away red-eye | |
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| Painting large areas | |
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| Smudging Paint | |
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| Spinning Pixels around the Color Wheel | |
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| Creating a Tinted or Grayscale Photo | |
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| Uncovering Layers of Possibility | |
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| Working with Elements layers | |
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| Building a multilayered collage | |
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| Turning Garbage into Art | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Ten Ways to Improve Your Digital Images | |
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| Remember the Resolution! | |
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| Don't Overcompress Your Images | |
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| Look for the Unexpected Angle | |
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| Turn Down the Noise | |
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| Press the Shutter Button Correctly | |
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| Turn Off Digital Zoom | |
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| Take Advantage of Your Photo Editor | |
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| Print Your Images on Good Paper | |
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| Practice, Practice, Practice! | |
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| Read the Manual (Gasp!) | |
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| Ten Great Uses for Digital Images | |
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| Creating Online Photo Albums | |
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| Putting Together a Screen Saver | |
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| Hanging Photo Wallpaper | |
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| Giving Photos an Artistic Twist | |
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| Putting Your Mug on a Mug | |
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| Printing Photo Calendars and Cards | |
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| Including Visual Information in Databases | |
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| Putting a Name with the Face | |
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| Exchanging a Picture for a Thousand Words | |
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| Hanging a Masterpiece on Your Wall | |
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| Ten Great Online Resources for Digital Photographers | |
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| Digital Photography Review | |
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| Imaging Resource | |
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| Megapixel.net | |
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| PCPhoto Magazine | |
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| PCPhotoREVIEW.com | |
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| Shutterbug | |
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| Digital Photography Newsgroup | |
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| Printing Newsgroup | |
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| Manufacturer Web Sites | |
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| This Book's Companion Site | |
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| Glossary | |