Life Muses by Ro

A little break from January

Because there are so many of us shivering. Here's a little flower break from the snow, ice, and frost.

By the way, I got that shot of the sun above the roses by holding my camera in the rose bushes. (I didn't crawl down there and lie in the dirt!) I just pointed the camera up and snapped away, moving the camera around before each shot. I love that the sun looks like a big, shiny ball of fire.

Tips and Tricks for creating screenshots

I received a question about creating screen-shots so I thought I'd give you some tips and tricks I've discovered over the years.

It is important to understand that when you create a screen-shot, you are taking a snapshot of the window you are looking at or your computer screen (depending on the command you use). This snapshot then sits on your clipboard  until you either do something with it or replace it with another clipboard copy item.

After you have created your snapshot using the screen-shot option you have selected, you have to do something with it... insert it into some kind of document. You can insert it into graphic software - such as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. You can insert it into office software, such as Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. Inserting it into the file you have opened for this purpose is accomplished in the same way you paste anything from your clipboard. Just select Edit>Paste or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V.

You can create two different kind of screen-shots in Windows:

1. Capture your entire desktop (Ctrl+Print Screen)
2. Capture a window (Alt+Print Screen)

Desktop screen print

Window screen print

Screen print in MS Word

 
Screen print in Photoshop document

Other:

• Sometimes your computer will cooperate if you simply just hit your Print Screen key (Prt Sc). This will print out your entire desktop.Since I have had some unevenness with this command, I have developed the habit to include the Ctrl key as well.
• If you are using a laptop, you will have to add the FN (function) key as well. Your commands will be FN+Ctrl+Print Screen or FN+Alt+Print Screen.

Mac commands:

Key Combination	Result
Command+Shift+3	Capture entire screen and save as a file
Command+Control+Shift+3	Capture entire screen and copy to the clipboard
Command+Shift+4	Capture dragged area and save as a file
Command+Control+Shift+4	Capture dragged area and copy to the clipboard
Command+Shift+4 then Space bar	Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save as a file
Command+Control+Shift+4 then Space bar	Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to the clipboard

More:

There is software available that lets you get more specific with your screen-shots and save them as various file types. If you create a lot of tutorials, these software titles can be very helpful. I own SnagIt by Tech Smith and enjoy it quite a bit. But when I'm in a hurry, I always resort to the Print Screen key methods.

Screen print resolution and sizing tips:

• If you are going to use your screen-shots in a file you will print, you will want to put them in a graphics editor such as Photoshop and Photoshop Elements so that you can edit the image size. You can successfully change the resolution size to 300 dpi if you reduce your file height and width. (The default is 72 dpi.) A nice size is 3.75 wide.
• If you want to put your screen-shots in a blog (like I'm doing now), you want to keep the default resolution (72 dpi) and just resize the width and heighth to fit your blog.

Monitor Check - Is yours calibrated correctly?

Have you considered how your monitor is doing lately? Is it displaying the correct colors? Is is bright enough or too bright? Time for a check-up!

It's so easy to forget to think the correctness of your monitor's display. You log onto your computer everyday and because you are seeing what you saw the day before, you assume it is correct.

But is it?

I have discovered when I wander around in the computer sections of stores, that I can easily tell if a monitor is good or set correctly. I can also tell if my laptop's display has become messed up in a flash.

Want to know how?

I just wander out to the Scrap Girls forum and look at the colors.

Scrap Girls purple is pink-based. If your monitor is displaying a blue-based purple, it is off.

You are probably wondering how you will ever be able tell, right? That's easy, too, assuming you have a good photo printer. All you need to do is make a *screen-shot and print it out. You should then see the correct color of purple and you can adjust your monitor to match it. (Assuming, of course, that you have a photo printer that prints colors correctly.)

I discovered this little trick over three years ago. I was shipping out the Cd's at that time and I became frustrated because my Canon i9100 kept printing the labels with a pink-based purple. But I was seeing the blue-based purple on my laptop's screen and I assumed that was correct. One day, I printed the labels over and over again, trying get them to match. Because the printer wouldn't mind me, I decided to give up.

A few months later, my laptop started to give out and so I went to the computer store to buy a desktop. Flat-screen LCD monitors were relatively new at that time so I had never seen one. When I was shopping for the monitor, I decided to go out to ScrapGirls.com and see how it looks.

I was stunned!

I started yelling, "Oh, it's so PRETTY! It's so PRETTY!"

I was thrilled. The color matched the printer and I liked it much better than the blue-based purple I had been seeing for the past year. Of course, I purchased that monitor and soon noticed that my digital scrapbooking layouts were looking better. I was having an easier time getting the color right and was pleased that everything printed out exactly as they looked on the monitor.

I remembered that lesson and when it came time to buy my new laptop (this was a couple of years ago), I drove the sales guys crazy because I wouldn't consider anything that wouldn't allow me to get the purple right. A technician finally got an idea. He downloaded an updated driver for the NVIDIA driver on the laptop I have. I played around with the settings to make sure I could get the Scrap Girls purple right.

Who would think that purple could be such a telling color? And who would think that Scrap Girls website accidentally became a method of checking your monitor's calibration?

If you need to calibrate your monitor manually, you may need to adjust the brightness, digital vibrancy, gamma and hue. It can be tricky and all drivers won't allow  you to adjust these particular settings, but don't give up. It's worth it!

Digital scrapbooking is such a fun hobby. Don't let your monitor interfere with your results!

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P.S. If you really get stuck, perhaps your computer technician can help you.
P.P. S. To make a screen shot on a PC: Hit Alt+Print screen. Insert it into Photoshop Elements, Photoshop, or a Word document and then print out the document.

How to change your life in 30-day chunks. 30 Days to a NEW LIFE check-in (01/28/09)

How are you guys doing with this challenge? Did you try it yet? If not, I'd like to challenge you to try it again and then, if you'd like, share your goal with us. There is something about stating it in public that seems to be quite powerful. I'm amazed at how powerful it is, actually.

Midnight Inbox by cdevroe at flickr.com

So my report: I've been working on keeping my Inboxes clean for 18 days now. Every time I've been tempted to slip up, I think about you guys and that I need to report back to you. It's really helped a lot. I only have ONE email sitting in my Inbox right now. It's from Erica Hite. (I asked her the name of the luscious chocolate she sent me a couple of years ago and she sent back a link. Yummers.)

I've been making decisions about what to do with email and snail mail when I receive new items. I either put them on my to-do list, I delete them, or I archive them. I've also been making myself put due dates on my task list items - realistic ones. It has relieved a lot of pressure from me to realize that I don't have to do everything at once.

I'm excited to start my new habit. I would like to start it now, but since I am trying this 30 day thing and because I want to get my Inbox habit set in stone, I'm going to resist. I already know what I want to do next, but I'll tell you later.

As a review - here's how 30 Days to a NEW LIFE works:

• Pick one thing that you want to change or improve. Trying to change too much at once almost always dooms you to failure.
• Make the goal relatively small. Perhaps, you want to eat breakfast every morning. Perhaps, you want to make your bed consistently. Or perhaps, you want to keep your in-box clean!
• Make a plan and some rules achieving your goal. (Example: I pre-determined what actions I would take as my Inbox received new items. I don't have to think about the plan as I work.)
• Tell someone about your goal and share your plan. This increases the likelihood that you will be successful because you will feel accountable.

Talk to you later!

Quitting Time

The clock is ticking.
Molly is barking.
My stomach is growling.
My back is screaming.
The television is calling.
I should have quit when I took this photo and before I spent 30 minutes playing around with it in my Photoshop.com account.

Oh well... I'll quit now.

See ya tomorrow.