Doing the same for yourself isn’t as difficult as you may think. Almost all digital cameras, even the inexpensive and old, are capable of taking great photos in the right hands. These five tips, tricks, and tactics for taking better pictures can help you improve your photography, build a portfolio of high quality images, and boost your visual artistic ability.

1. Understand Aperture.

Beyond focus, aperture is one of the most important factors in creating great photos. Described simply, the aperture setting of your camera will determine the focal depth (also known as “depth of field” of the shot. A shallow aperture results in a very thin range of focus, which is perfect for framing portrait photos and separating foreground from background. A deep aperture brings almost the entire frame into focus, giving you the ability to photograph large landscapes and environments without risk of blurring or poor focus.

Balancing the two is essential for good photos. Photos with a defined point of focus – photos of people, moving events, or specific objects – benefit from a shallow depth of field, while landscape photos and scenic photography is best done with a large range of focus.

2. Take More Photos.

To an extent, photography is a numbers game. Professional photographers don’t just go out to take a couple of photos and call it a day – they capture everything they can find from every possible angle. Just like design gets better with experience, photography gets better with quantity. More photos means more choice during editing, and a greater range of captures gives you more room to crop photos to your preferences, edit them for use in designs, and apply filters and effects.

3. Always have a camera ready.

For all the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs that are out there, millions of utterly amazing photos have gone unpublished. Why? Because the could-be photographers with an opportunity to take them didn’t have a camera with them.

Whether it’s your cellphone, a point-and-shoot style camera, or a bulky dSLR, always keep a camera on you. The most interesting and exciting events tend to happen at the most unexpected times, and without a camera somewhere in your bag it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to capture them. A simple phone camera or small $100 point-and-shoot is more than enough for ensuring you’re ready to shoot wherever you are.

4. Use a camera with manual focus, zoom, and aperture controls.

That ultra-cheap digital camera is only going to last you so long. After years of taking pictures with a point-and-shoot camera, it’s very likely that you’ll outgrow your equipment, or at least hit a plateau with regards to the quality and composition of your photos. Cheap cameras give poor results, both in image size, scale, and clarity. Just like great designers reward themselves with ultra-flash working set-ups, great photographers should reward and enable themselves with better gear.

Stepping up from a point-and-shoot, the best thing to look for is a mid-level dSLR camera. They’re not particularly aesthetically pleasing or compact, but they’re virtually unbeatable when it comes to image quality and clarity. If you’re worried about having to carry a large camera with you everywhere, a digital rangefinder or 4/3 camera could be a better pick. Both offer full manual controls and a range of other photographer-friendly options.

5. Edit every photo you take.

Editing isn’t about applying tacky effects and pushing every filter you can find on top of your photos. While Photoshop may have enabled thousands of wannabe photographers to make ugly HDR shots and terrible filtered landscapes, it’s also given professional photographers the ability to vastly improve their photographs before publishing.

The first edit that any photographer should start with is the levels of their image. Adjust the levels so that exposure is relatively constant and the image is neither too light nor too dark. Then, using the sliding options in Photoshop, feel free to adjust color intensity and saturation, definition and image highlights, and the entire image’s light and gradient profile.

Other creative editing ideas can add interest and life to a picture. Most editing programs offer a range of black and white features, each slightly different from the other. Over-saturation, creative cropping, and different framing options and image sizes can all change photographs drastically. Being too liberal with effects can result in some Photoshop disasters, but a subtle touch can bring life and flair to an otherwise boring photo.

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For a small boutique provider, it can seem nearly impossible to get a foot in the door. The big guns are looking for companies like them – large, powerful, and very experienced – but in order to become one and gain access to their contracts, you need to become one yourself. For some small businesses, that means acquiring additional overheads and growing in size, even if its just perceived size for some of your clients and customers.

These five tips can help you transform your business’s image from small and micro-focused to large and powerful. With a few small additions, new strategies, and client interaction changes, these tips could land you ultra-valuable clients and customer contacts, long-term contracts, and the experience required to market yourself to the biggest companies in the world. Apply one, two, or all five, and watch your business’s value grow in front of you.

1. Use a virtual assistant for emails and task management.

When you run a business that operates entirely online, in-person employees for administrative tasks just result in higher overheads and greater workloads. A virtual assistant and remote employees can save your business money – virtual assistants are typically paid per-task or on contract – and at the same time dramatically increase productivity.

On the image side, employing a virtual assistant can be a major asset for your business. Clients are wowed by size, and having a personal assistant or extra employee can result in some real authority when searching for large clients. Want to make your business seem bigger and more powerful for client acquisition? Have your virtual assistant handle an individual email address (sales@company or support@company are good choices) and demonstrate your business’s size to prospective clients.

2. If you list a phone number, add an auto-directory.

Almost all phone companies offer navigation and directory systems for a small fee. For those that don’t know, that’s the “press one for…” system that pops up whenever you call a major company or well-known business. While some consumers hate dealing with automated calling directories on the phone, most businesses see them as a sign of authority and competence.

If you’re not a fan of your own voice, most phone providers will be able to provide a simple recording for your phone system. Even if you’re only routing callers to sales, technical support, or your independent phone line, a simple split-option phone system can make your business appear more professional and valuable than it otherwise would.

3. Tell your clients that you’re working with other employees.

The smartest thing any business can do is tell you that they don’t work to promote you, their team does. Large clients value the type of organization that’s present in their companies – teams, interlinked divisions, and groups of people working towards a relatively common goal. By telling your clients that you’re working with a team on their projects, you increase support and boost trust levels.

Better yet, build a team that gives your clients amazing service. Whether it’s a simple team of contractors for micro-orders and small overflow work, or a large team for corporate clients and top-ranked business in your area, building a valuable team can boost your per-project income and help you gain more big clients in the future.

4. Expand your web presence.

Say you’re a web design company that’s also offering basic SEO services and internet marketing strategies for clients. Seems smart to list them through the same website, right? While it might be best for your rankings and client acquisition goals to list them all through one website, it can actually be a poor strategy for hooking major clients and long-term corporate partners.

Why? Because with one website, you’re limited to marketing as a small business. However, with a small network of business websites, each one offering a slightly different service and promoting a different aspect of your service business, you’ll be able to market yourself to companies and prospective clients as a major provider, not just a small fish.

5. Become an expert in your niche.

Posting on blogs, business publications, and local newsletters gives you one of the most important things in business: authority. When looking for large clients and long-term partners, authority is one of the most important things available to your business. It fuels negotiation, allows you to command high prices, and makes it possible to get your foot – or in this case, your email – in the door with major companies.

So get out there and write, be interviewed, and provide content. There’s no way to become an expert but to put in the time and effort, promote yourself, and become one on your own. Contact bloggers in your niche, get in touch with major websites and offer your services, and make yourself known. Become an expert and your business becomes a brand, your clients become more valuable, and your total business income skyrockets.

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We’ve identified the six most common mistakes that newbie designers, entrepreneurs, and online businesspeople make when they start their own online businesses. If you’re just starting out online yourself, use this article as a template of what not to do in your business. The best business lessons are often learned from other people’s failures, and these six should give you a good foundation for creating a long-term online business.

1. Expanding Too Fast.

You started a business, saw a relatively large amount of success, and thought that the bigger you grew, the bigger the money would get. Unfortunately, the infinite growth model rarely works for online businesses, particularly service businesses which require a lot of manual upkeep and client-based attention.

Whenever your business has the potential to expand, think through the situation as a whole. Boosting your client count or product’s reach could bring in new income, but it could also create new expenses and a lot of new headaches. Business success is about weighing the ups and downs – sometimes expansion brings in more of one than the other. Plan accordingly.

2. Overestimating Their Influence.

Control is an important factor in business. Meetings tend to move according to the most influential person – the guiding presence in the meeting and the most important factor in negotiation. As a new entrepreneur it’s easy to overestimate your influence amongst clients, business partners, and potential collaborators.

It’s not so much ego as it is a misunderstanding. Business requires a certain degree of pushiness, but too much ends up poisoning negotiations and potentially alienating clients and customers. Whenever you’re reaching out to another businessperson, client, or prospective customer, treat them like a guest and remember that you’re asking them for something, not the other way around.

3. Taking on Too Much Work at Once.

This error is most common amongst designers, but results-based business of all forms are susceptible to it. In an effort to boost revenue and increase per-client profits, many service businesses simply bite off more than they can chew. Employees are pushed to the limit, deadlines are stretched, and many clients end up unhappy.

It’s hard to suggest anything other than this behaviour, as risk like this is important for a successful company. However, whenever possible it’s best to be in control of your risk. Rather than giving hundreds of clients or customers second-class treatment, aim for top-level treatment with a smaller sample of people. Position yourself as a premium provider and you’ll end up with a more fluid, controllable, and well-rounded business.

4. Pricing Themselves Too Low, or Too High.

Charge people too much and you’ll fail to gain clients. Charge too little and you’ll end up overwhelmed with low-paying work and unable to cope with the quantity. Setting prices as a service business is a balancing act, and it’s one that can take quite a lot of time to adjust to. Whenever possible, look at your business as a premium product. Price yourself above competitors to ensure that your work is profitable and worthwhile, but don’t price yourself in a range where you’re unable to gain valuable client referrals and long-term projects.

5. Ignoring Professionalism.

Online businesses are great in that they allow entrepreneurs to work from their living rooms, and limiting in that they insulate people from the corporate world. As a designer, service provider, or B2B business, you’re bound to work with some major companies and multinational corporations. Pitching, contacting, and keeping in touch with clients requires a fine touch, and a level of professionalism that’s often lacking amongst online businesses.

Invest in what’s required to get your foot in the door. If that’s nice clothes for a business meeting, it could be worth it. If it’s a customer and client support employee for providing the impression of a big company, take it. If there’s a way for you to appear more professional and experienced, do almost anything possible to achieve it.

6. Worrying Too Much.

Let’s face it, as a newbie designer or businessperson, the natural reaction is to respond to things with caution and temperance. Sometimes business opportunities come in, and rather than reacting to them with potential planning and long-term thinking, newbie designers think that all which could go wrong because of them.

This type of thinking is good for running a low-risk business, but ineffective for running an ultra-successful business. Risk is a very important part of business, and letting it control your thinking leaves you stuck at a standstill. Sometimes it’s best to apologize for mistakes – whether to clients, customers, or business partners – than to beg for the opportunity to do something.

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With somewhat similar concepts to the all-famous button, background, and favicon generators, today we present you with 10 Useful and Time-Saving CSS Grid-Layout Generators that will save you mass amounts of time and help you eliminate some repetitive coding.

Blueprint Grid CSS Generator

This tool will help you generate more flexible versions of Blueprint’s grid.css and compressed.css and grid.png files. Whether you prefer 8, 10,16 or 24 columns in your design, this generator now enables you that flexibility with Blueprint.

Grid Layout Generator by netProtozo

The Grid Layout Generator by netProtozo is very easy to use. You can use the form to build a grid, then be able to grab the generated CSS to use in building your layout. Also, use a snap shot of the grid in photoshop to help you tighten up your design. By doing so, you’ll find that you’ll be able to pretty much match your design using the CSS provided.

Grid System Generator

The grid system generator will create fixed grid systems in valid CSS/XHMTL form for rapid prototyping, development, and production environments. It also creates a background file that you can use in Frameworks, Illustrator, Photoshop, and more to aid in prototyping and design.

YUI: CSS Grid Builder

Yahoo’s grid builder is one of the easiest to interact with. The side panel to the left lets you edit the width of the grid, create columns, rows, and set fixed sizes. The changes you make take place in HTML format and you can hit the Show Code button and copy/paste it wherever you’d like.

Variable Grid System

The variable grid system is a quick way to generate an underlying CSS grid for your site. The CSS generated file is based on the 960 Grid System.

YAML Builder

The YAML Builder is a tool for visually creating YAML-based CSS layouts. It allows for the setting of basic layout characteristics like the number and positioning of the content columns, as well as the dynamic creation of grid-based layouts by dragging and dropping subtemplates. Not quite WYSIWYG, but close!

Grid Designer

You can get started generating grids by Filling in the number of columns, total width, gutters and margin widths, all specified in pixels – then press the design button. You can even use the Typography tab to adjust and calculate basic typographic settings for your design. Finally, on the Export tab, you can generate copy-and-paste ready CSS, and a sample XHTML template.

CSS Layout Generator by CSSPortal

This generator will create a fluid or fixed width column layout, with up to 3 columns and with header, footer and menu. Values can be specified in either pixels or percentages.

Firdamatic

Firdamatic™ is an online tableless layout generator that allows you to create and customise layouts easily only by completing forms, making creating skins for your Firdamatic-based layout a breeze. This tool is available for free for personal/non-commercial use only and comes with no technical support.

CSSCreator.com

This generator will create a fluid or fixed width floated column layout, with up to 3 columns and with header and footer. Values can be specified in either pixels, ems or percentages. To create your layout select the structural elements your site requires (header, footer, columns). Then specify a size in the field provided and choose a background color from the color chooser below.

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Here we have 15 Free and Useful Typography Tools for Web Designers that’ll help you in a variety of ways. Alright, now lets begin exploring these tools.

FontStructor

FontStuctor is an easy to use free web-based typography tool that allows you to create your own fonts. It has a beautiful interface that is simple to interact with.

CSS Type Set

CSS Type Set is a wonderful tool that lets you visually and actively style your text that it can generate efficient CSS.

WhatTheFont

WhatTheFont lets you interactively scan a URL or upload an image that has a font(s) and it will then tell you what the font is. It’s a great way to find out what fonts other designers are using to create amazing designs.

Font Burner

Font Burner allows you a simple and efficient block of code so that you can embed in your webpages giving the option to convert your headlines to whatever possible font you choose.

PXtoEM

PXtoEM is a calculator that does conversions of pixels, em’s, points, and percentages.

Typetester

Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. As the new fonts are bundled into operating systems, the list of the common fonts will be updated.

Font Tester

Font Tester is a free online font comparison tool. It allows you to easily preview and compare different fonts side by side with various CSS font styles applied to them. It is very useful for web developers who are looking for just the right font/style/color to use in their pages.

TypeNavigator

TypeNavigator is the world’s first interactive visual font search system.

Typechart

Typechart allows you to navigate through, preview and compare web typography and then grab the CSS and embed it into your web designs.

Flipping Typical

Flipping Typical is a smart way to explore the popular typefaces you have on your computer.

CSS-Typoset Matrix

CSS-Typoset Matrix actively displays font sizes, line-heights, and margins for a variety of base font sizes. It can also output the CSS code depending on the data you insert.

Linotype Font Finder

Answer a few simple questions and the artificial intelligence of the FontIdentifier will help you find your font.

Identifont

The Identifont expert system enables you to identify a typeface from a sample by answering a series of questions about key characteristics.

Serif Font Identification Guide

Serif Font Identification Guide is an incredible visual font identification application that displays various images allowing you to choose from whichever match the font you’re trying to recognize the closest.

Font Picker

Font Picker lets you browse all the fonts available on your computer. You’re able to quickly view a font that you may want to use in a design, or a project. It’s quite useful.

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