Charged Coupled Device. It is the light sensitive chip that records the picture in digital cameras and scanners.

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One million pixels. A pixel is a sensor that registers light. These sensors are arrayed on the CCD. Naturally, the more pixels a CCD has, the greater is its potential to resolve small details.

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One million bytes. A byte is a measure of computer memory. One byte is about equal to one character in a word. So one page of text is about 500-1000 bytes. A high resolution digital pictures from a 2 mega pixel camera makes a picture about 5 megabytes in size.

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Yes. But the download rate is generally slower than using a card reader. Plus, with a card reader you can be downloading one card while shooting with another.

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We don't recommend it. Laser printers use a lot of heat and heat can damage some ink jet coatings.

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"Photo Weight" is somewhat subjective even in photographic paper. Generally if the paper is at least 260gsm, 160lbs, or 9 mil thick it can be called a "Photo Weight" paper.

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There are two factors here. First, what is the memory capacity (a.k.a. "size") of your memory card? The second is what is the resolution of your images.

It is important to note that your camera's advertised resolution is not necessarily the resolution you are shooting at. Your camera probably has several image quality settings. Lower image quality translates into lower resolution which means a smaller image size, thus the more images you can store on your card.

Important Tip: Use the highest resolution possible for any given shooting situation. If that means you need more or larger camera cards, then it is worth the investment. You can never really increase the resolution of a low quality image. If the detail isn't there, it can't be invented.

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For word processing, this paper is an economic choice. But by using photograph-quality inkjet paper you get a lot more than a sharper image. These papers have somewhere from eight to fourteen layers that make up the emulsion and control everything from dot grain to archival stability. Colors are brighter, the image is sharper, and your print lasts longer.

Many printer manufacturers advertise 75 to 100 year print life. To realize this benefit you must use photograph quality inkjet papers.

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If you are using disposable batteries, then switch to rechargeable. Alkaline batteries, in all their forms, do not have nearly enough energy to run the lens, the LCD viewfinder and to charge the CCD for very long. But on a single charge, a rechargeable battery last as much as 20 times longer than a regular battery.

If you are using rechargeable batteries and you have noticed a sudden drop in the time between charges, you may be experiencing one of two problems. Either you have been using your batteries for a while and they have finally exhausted, in which case you need to replace them. Or, your camera has developed a short, which is one of the most common malfunctions in digital cameras. Shorts can be repaired by a reputable shop or by the manufacturer.

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The best way to preserve your print's original vibrancy and color balance is to use the highest quality paper possible. Also be sure that your printer uses either a pigment or a pigment/dye hybrid ink set. Here are some other tips:

Be sure to keep your prints away from direct sunlight.

Be sure to use acrylic, which blocks more UV than glass.

Be sure to mat your print and use acid free, archival quality mount and mat boards.

If storing your prints, use archival boxes or acid free albums and portfolios.

Like with a silver-gelatin print, use lint-free cotton gloves when handling the prints.

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WHITE BALANCE is an adjustment that ensures correct reproduction of colors, under different lighting conditions.

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I have listed a few of the inkjet papers and coloring mediums that are compatible with them. In my book "Creative Digital Printmaking", published by Amphoto, there is a chapter in the back that is more detailed with an extensive list of papers and coloring mediums that are compatible with inkjet papers. Remember when hand coloring with water (water color, gouache etc.) you must be printing with an archival or pigmented ink set. And even then, be judicial in the amount of water that you do use. The standard inks in printers will run and mix with coloring mediums using water. For this reason, I have listed here only the papers that are using dry mediums such as pastels or pastel pencils. You also did not state what medium you wished to color with.

If you do wish to use oils on inkjet prints... after printing the image, coat the surface with a clear gesso (sold at art stores). Winsor Newton makes a good one. You can use this on most watercolor papers after making the print, and then paint the image with oils. The gesso will prevent the acids in the oils from deteriorating the paper fibers. Some inkjet coated papers will take the gesso as well, but there are some that the liquid will dissolve the inkjet coating. Make sure you test it first on a corner. Hope this helps.

Suggested Papers for Hand Color With Pastels Inkjet Coated papers: Lumijet:

Flaxen Weave, a rough textured paper resembling a cold pressed watercolor paper. It has great D-Max and gives the image good contrast. This paper receives pastels extremely well and allows blending of the colors beautifully. This one is my favorite.

Museum Parchment, a lovely surface, on which pastels can be applied, but it tends to be fragile and the coating can be rubbed off if color is applied and worked too hard. I usually use this paper for images that need just an area accentuated for color, but not coloring the entire image.

Hahnemuhle:

Japan A translucent oriental-type paper that has straw-like vegetable fibers throughout. Almost fabric- like in its feel.

William Turner, Slightly textured with a soft finish, but hard enough to take coloring.

Arkona, Resembles a rough watercolor paper, great for hand coloring

Structure, White finish, softly rippled textured surface.

Albrecht Durer, rough textured paper with good contrast. I like this one very much.

Non Coated Papers: Arches

Bright White a paper intended to be used with inkjet printers. It is not an inkjet coated paper, but the whiter surface gives better color to the inkjet prints. Cold press is more textured than the hot press (smooth). Both HP and CP are sized internally, so there is no "right" side. There is a smoother side to both papers and you can choose which side you prefer to work on.

Arches' regular Watercolor cold pressed (textured) and hot pressed (smooth). Both work well with pastels. This paper is warmer than the Bright White and will not produce the range of color from the inkjet printers as will the Bright White. But if you intend to color the entire image, that is not a consideration.

Canvas

Many of the inkjet companies make an inkjet coated canvas. The inkjet coated canvas is much more expensive than the regular artist gesso-ed canvas that you buy at the art stores, as the coating allows a better reception of the inkjet inks and gives you a crisp clean printed image. I buy and use these when I want the look of a painting on canvas, but do not intend to color on it.

I buy the regular Fredrix gesso-ed canvas when I wish to print out an image as a sketch to do an oil painting or a pastel rendering on canvas (completely covering the entire image with paints or pastels). The artist canvas will not give you a great crisp digital print, but it is good enough to use as a sketch for creating a painting.

Both of these types of canvas (inkjet coated and artist's gesso-ed canvas) will take Conte pastel penciling very well.

DPI or dots per inch, indicates the resolution of images. A 'dot' is a very small amount of ink applied to a surface. The more dots per inch, the higher the resolution of the image and the better the final image. A common resolution for laser printers is 600 dots per inch. This means 600 dots across and 600 dots down, so there are 360,000 dots per square inch.

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Pixels per inch (PPI) or pixel density is a measurement of the resolution of a computer display, related to the size of the display in inches and the total number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions. This measurement is often referred to as dots per inch, though that measurement more accurately refers to the resolution of a computer printer.

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• Flatbed scanners, also called desktop scanners, are the most versatile and commonly used scanners.
• Sheet-fed scanners are similar to flatbed scanners except the document is moved and the scan head is immobile. A sheet-fed scanner looks a lot like a small portable printer.
• Negative scanners are scanners designed and optimized to scan film. Depending on the scanner, negatives, positives, black and White or Color film can be scanned. The real test for a film scanner is how well it can produce an image from color negative film, due to the film's inherent latitude and the differences between the densities and contrast of the cyan, magenta, and yellow layers.
• Drum scanners are used by the publishing industry to capture incredibly detailed images. They use a technology called a photomultiplier tube (PMT). In PMT, the document to be scanned is mounted on a glass cylinder. At the center of the cylinder there is a sensor that splits light bounced from the document into three beams. Each beam is sent through a color filter into a photomultiplier tube where the light is changed into an electrical signal.

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Your monitor may not be properly calibrated, or you may be using the wrong ICC Profiles used for your printer. To properly calibrate your monitor, try using a calibration utility like Adobe Gamma. Check to se if your printer has ICC Profiles you can use.

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The three prominent categories of ink on the market today are "Dye-Based," "Pigment-Based" and hybrid inks (sometimes called "pigmented" inks.) Each has advantages and disadvantages. With Dye-Based inks their coloration is dissolved in a liquid. This allows the ink to be fairly thin and flow easily into a paper's receiving layer. Pigment-based inks have an insoluble powder pigment suspended (not dissolved) in an liquid vehicle. Thus, the color is more stable and resists fading much longer than dye-based ink. The most recent advancement in inkjet printers is the hybrid (or pigmented) inks which combines the vibrancy of dye inks and longevity of pigment inks. The result is great color and respectable longevity -- up to 75 years, which is equivalent to what the best color photographic papers offer.

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JPG - Joint Photographic Experts Group
This type of File Format is not the best for image editing, because it uses a "Lossy" compression algorithm that discards at least some information every time you resave it. It is better known for it small and ubiquitous file size footprint.

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
TIFF is a very portable format as it is supported by a wide variety of photographic and publishing applications. An image captured as a TIFF is much larger than the same image captured as JPEG, but will only marginal added benefit.

RAW
A camera raw image file contains the unprocessed data from the image sensor of a digital camera. Also called RAW (although it is not an acronym) or CCD-RAW (even for CMOS sensors), its format is proprietary and differs from one manufacturer to another, and sometimes between cameras made by one manufacturer. The image must be processed and converted to an RGB format such as TIFF or JPEG before it can be manipulated by a bitmap graphics editor, printed, or displayed by a typical web browser.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
GIF is a bitmap image format for pictures that use 256 (or fewer) distinct colors (though there is a workaround for this limitation) and animations that use 256 (or fewer) distinct colors per frame. GIFs are compressed files, and are employed specifically to reduce the amount of time it takes to transfer images over a network connection.

DNG - Digital Negative
The Digital Negative (DNG), is a publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.

EPS - Encapsulated Post Script
What makes an EPS special is that is has the capability to contain vectored art. Vectored art means that it does not contain a resolution. It can be shrunk and/or expanded to any size without having to worry about it becoming blurry. That doesn't mean that all EPS files are or can be vectored! Only line art can be vectored art and it must be CREATED as vectored art. You cannot vector a photograph, any other types of images or an existing non-vectored line art. Only line art, logos and things of that nature can be vectored and only when they are originally created.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics
The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format was designed to replace the older and simpler GIF format and, to some extent, the much more complex TIFF format. For the Web, PNG really has three main advantages over GIF: alpha channels (variable transparency), gamma correction (cross-platform control of image brightness), and two-dimensional interlacing (a method of progressive display). For image editing, either professional or otherwise, PNG provides a useful format for the storage of intermediate stages of editing. Since PNG's compression is fully lossless--and since it supports up to 48-bit true color or 16-bit grayscale--saving, restoring and re-saving an image will not degrade its quality, unlike standard JPEG (even at its highest quality settings).

PICT
PICT is an old file format that was developed by Apple Computer in 1984 as the native format for Macintosh graphics. PICT files are encoded in QuickDraw commands. The PICT format is a meta-format that can be used for both bitmap images and vector images. Apple has replaced the PICT format with PDF.

PSD - Photo Shop Document
This file can only be opened in Adobe Photoshop®. This is a popular program to create backgrounds and complicated graphics. The most noteable feature of a Photoshop® file is that it supports layers. A layered file is essential when attempting to re-arrange art that has been created by someone else (like when using one package's art to create another package). With a layered file, you can move parts of an file around to fit your needs.

QXD - Quark XPress document
Quark XPress is a layout program. It allows the designer to put graphic elements and typed text together and easily manipulate their position, size, etc. However, a Quark file is only a container that displays the fonts and images in the manner that you tell it. For example, when you insert an image, it does not embed the image into itself (like in Word), it only creates a window for the image to be displayed in and links it to the Quark file. Therefore, you must have that image when passing this Quark file along to someone else or for printing.

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