Vibrance Adjustment in Photoshop CS4

Photoshop CS4 has a new adjustment called Vibrance. It is not found even in PS CS3. This is something exclusive to PS CS4. The Vibrance adds vibrance just as its name says to areas in your photos without affecting the rest of the image.

This a free stock photo to which I will add a Vibrance adjustment. I will make the eyes and lips look more vibrant, while keeping the other color information in the photo unchanged.

The Vibrance adjustment has been added to the eyes and lips. Compare it with the photo above and you can see the difference.

The tutorial is here.

Other Photoshop tutorials are here for all versions. Click here.

The Advantages of Help Desk Support Software

by: Kent Pinkerton

Help desk support software is a must-have for any new or existing online business. Even if the majority of your business is off-line, many people prefer online product and service support. Customers want their questions answered quickly and personnel need a way to effectively manage their work. Help desk software is an affordable, easy-to-use and useful tool for the growth of your business.

Some of the benefits of help desk support software may include an increase in customer satisfaction, few calls to call centers, more productivity of personnel, and the ability to determine and better manage issues with your service or products. Consistent feedback can help the growth of your company by keeping you informed on what works and was does not.

Both customers and personnel will benefit from a productive help desk program. Most help desk support software programs allow the end-user to compile a list of FAQ’s to better serve the client base. In cases such as this, many companies choose to automate their help desks. This can save the company both time and money by letting customers find the answers to their own questions. Of course there will be occasions when the FAQ’s do not cover every conceivable troubleshooting issue. Although help desks can be automated, this type of software also allows for more advanced technical support to be offered. Customers can simply submit an inquiry to the appropriate department and expect a timely response. With help desk support software packages, customer and technical support staff are better able to manage and track trouble tickets.

Purchasing a help desk software package can increase your customers’ satisfaction and their desire to continue business with you. Without such a management program, staff can be easily overwhelmed with support calls and emails. Customer support should be the top priority on any business’ agenda. Without a loyal customer base, a company simply will not thrive

About the author:
Help Desk Software Info provides detailed information on help desk software solutions, including IT help desk software, web-based help desk software, free help desk software, help desk tracking, help desk support software, and reviews of help desk software programs. Help Desk Software Info is the sister site of Recruiting Software Web.

The Benefits of Web-Based Help Desk Software

by: Kent Pinkerton

Web-based help desk software has become the most popular way to manage technical inquiries and issues. The ability to access your help desk from any PC in the world is a very convenient tool. These programs offer flexibility and accessibility that was unavailable in former product versions.

Like other help desk software products, web based products offer the ability for customers to create their own trouble tickets. Effectively managing trouble tickets can save your business both time and money. In some cases, having an informative F.A.Q. menu allows the customer to troubleshoot his or her problem without contacting the technical support department. Customers enjoy finding the answers to their problems quickly, without the traditional wait times.

Companies waste valuable resources when they do not effectively manage their customer issues. Web-based help desk software is much more productive than having multiple email addresses for customer messages. By offering a web based help desk, companies can manage their tickets by directing them to the appropriately trained personnel. Using this type of product can save thousands of dollars every month and prevent employees from becoming overworked and burnt out. Many companies also praise the flexibility of working with a web-based system. Customer and technical support can be managed from anywhere in the world. The web-based option overall is much more flexible than stationary help desk programs.

When researching your options for web based help desk software, please be aware that some companies may have hidden charges. Constant updates can become troublesome and costly – it is wise to know what updates are expected and how frequently prior to purchasing a software package. Some software providers require additional purchases of database software components, web-servers and/or middleware. Know exactly what you are buying and what the future expectations are to ensure your satisfaction with your software.

About the author:
Help Desk Software Info provides detailed information on help desk software solutions, including IT help desk software, web-based help desk software, free help desk software, help desk tracking, help desk support software, and reviews of help desk software programs. Help Desk Software Info is the sister site of Recruiting Software Web.

Smoke Brushes

May be you have wondered sometimes how to create smoke in Photoshop and found it to be beyond you. Don't bother. I will how you how to make realistic smoke for use in your photos and none will be able to tell the difference.

I have used this free stock photo.

And here is the smoke. You will be able to do it too. You don't need to be an expert.

See the tutorial here.

Other photoshop tutorials are here.

Why Do We Need Data Warehousing?

By Brian May

If you want to get information on all the techniques of designing, maintaining, building and retrieving data, Data warehousing is the ideal method. A data warehouse is premeditated and generated for supporting the decision making process within an organization. When the production databases are copied in the warehouse, it becomes easier to answer all the queries without hampering the consistency of the production system.

A data warehouse is actually a set of new concepts and important tools evolved into a technology. With the help of data warehousing, it becomes easy for an organization to counter all the problems faced during providing key information to concerned people.

Over the last two decades, a number of experiences and technologies incorporated together to evolve the new field of Data warehousing. You can say it as a well organized and resourceful method of managing & reporting data non uniform and scattered sourced throughout an organization.

Because of hundreds of gigabytes of transactions, it is necessary for a data warehouse to be vast. Therefore, "data marts" are often designed for individual department or a product line. A data warehouse system is an influential and necessary platform for merging data from old and new applications. You can transfer rules to a warehouse without making much efforts. The prime features of a data warehouse is that it records, collects, filters and provides basic data to different systems at higher levels.

Here are some of the benefits of a data warehouse:

• With data warehousing, you can provide a common data model for different interest areas regardless of data's source. In this way, it becomes easier to report and analyze information.

• Many inconsistencies are identified and resolved before loading of information in data warehousing. This makes the reporting and analyzing process simpler.

• The best part of data warehousing is that the information is under the control of users, so that in case the system gets purged over time, information can be easily and safely stored for longer time period.

• Because of being different from operational systems, a data warehouse helps in retrieving data without slowing down the operational system.

• Data warehousing enhances the value of operational business applications and customer relationship management systems.

• Data warehousing also leads to proper functioning of support system applications like trend reports, exception reports and the actual performance analyzing reports.

Precisely, a data warehouse system proves to be helpful in providing collective information to all its users. It is mainly created to support different analysis, queries that need extensive searching on a larger scale.

This article was written by Brian May of who has worked with companies that offer Data Warehousing consulting. He truly understands the value that a Data Warehousing consultant can offer. To find out more about us visit us at http://www.datawarehousingconsultants.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_May

The Secret to Getting Automatic Driver Updates For Your Computer

By Jeff Farley

A computer is one of the items in your work desk that will always need upgrading. We all know that everyday new and better hardware and software are being introduced into the market. This does not mean you have to go out and buy a new computer every 6 months. All you will need is to download the latest drivers.

Computer drivers will make sure that your hardware and all your applications are updated. You need this so that you will always be working at optimum speed and capacity. An old software, relatively speaking, might not be compatible with your latest download, so to keep things all working in sync, you will only need to get the latest computer drivers.

The problem with the drivers that you were given when you bought your hardware (or software) is that it becomes obsolete after a while. This could eventually work against you because it could slow down your computer when you acquire new software.

It's really easy to get new computer drivers, and the best thing about it is that you do not have to do anything at all. If you use a reliable software program like Drivercure, you can get driver updates automatically. You can try to find which drivers need to be replaced on your own, but this can be very confusing, and you could end up downloading the wrong one. A good software program has a huge database of all of the drivers out there, and it will quickly scan your computer to see which ones need to be replaced.

Click here for a FREE SCAN to see which drivers on your computer need to be updated, and how to get them quickly and easily

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Farley

Median Filter - Smoothen Skin in Photoshop

Sometimes the skin shows up as rough in a photograph. The best to smoothen rough skin in Photoshop is to use the Median Filter which does not blur out edges.

Here is a free stock image that I have opened in Photoshop.

A closeup showing the rough skin smoothened in Photoshop.

The tutorial is here.

Other photoshop tutorial are here.

Red Eye Removal with Photoshop CS

Sometimes a photo taken with a flash can be perfect, yet a red eye mars the effect. It is a common enough problem. This can be easily removed in a couple of steps only in Photoshop CS.

A photo with a red eye.

The same photo with the red eye removed.

The tutorial is here.

Other Photoshop tutorials are here.

3D in a jiffy in Photoshop

You can easily make a 3D effect with Photoshop with two ordinary images. It is very easy to do and can be done in any version of Photoshop.

I have taken this image of a laptop.

And this photo of a boy running.

And this is my 3D image! You too can do it.

The tutorial is here.

Other photoshop tutorials are here.

Liquify Filter in Photoshop

The Liquify Filter is an amazing Tool in Photoshop. You can literally do cosmetic surgery with it. You can shed pounds from a figure and add more curves at will.

This is a photo I have opened up in Photoshop.
The same photo after cosmetic surgery with the Liquify Tool -- the waist is thinner, the thighs are slimmer and the bust is more attractive.

The Photoshop tutorial is here.

Other Photoshop tutorials are here.

Blurring out Background Radial Blur

Sometimes the photo of your subject may be excellent, while the background is poor. What do you do? Use the Radial Blur in Photoshop and a Layer Mask to get rid of the background.

I took this photo of a kitten with my mobile camera. The background spoils the photo.

The background has been blurred out and the focus is now entirely on the kitten. It is very easily done.

The Photoshop tutorial is here.

Other Photoshop tutorials are here:

Sunglass Reflection Pen Tool Paths

If you are lucky you can photograph a reflection appearing in a sunglass. But it depends on luck and your camera. You can easily create this effect artifically in any version of Photoshop.

I have taken this free stock photo.

And this one.

And created this. You can too very easily.

The Photoshop tutorial is here.

Other Photoshop tutorials are here.