SMART Phone and Photo Blog

Camera phones are very prevalent.  But while they may have high megapixel counts (=resolution) they still have very small apertures and lower quality optics.  It’s physics.  Small aperture = very little light.  Good/expensive cameras have BIG apertures to let alot of light in.

If you are taking photos outdoors in bright sunlight, even your good Nikon SLR would close the aperture down very small.  Thus outdoors in good light, camera phones can take very good pictures.

If your camera phone has a flash, it’s probably nowhere near as good as a regular camera’s.

So indoors your camera phone is not very likely to take good photos.  No, your baby doesn’t have jaundice, that yellow is from the low light you took that i-phone photo in.

How to get your photos out?

1) you can send them to your email.  Most phones support MMS (multimedia messasing service) where photos can be sent to other phones or email addresses

2) you can connect to your computer with a data cable, or

3) if you have a removable memory card in your phone you can just take that out and insert it directly into a printer such as our Sony kiosk here in the store.

Stop by the store and we can show you how to use your camera phone and how to get images out.

We’ll put all your camera phone photos on a data DVD for just $4.95.  So if you have a bunch of photos in there, get them out where you can enjoy them!

Photoshop is sold in two versions:  Photoshop Elements (sometimes referred to as PSE) or Photoshop CS# (CS4 currently).  CS stands for Creative Suite.

The PSE version is $100 or less ($50 in some cases).  The CS4 version is $200+.  Unless you’re really sophisticated I think PSE is all most people need.

There are many tuturials on the internet for Photoshop (Google “photoshop video tutorial” and you’ll get plenty of choices).  The KEY logical of Photoshop to grasp is layers.  Imagine you’re looking down at your photo and you see all the visible layers top down.  You will pile layers upon layers and decide which are visible.

So for example you have a basic photo of some people in front of a non-descript background.  You create a duplicate layer of the original, on top of the original.  Then blur the layer on top.  Ok you have a blurred photo.  Now on the top layer, ERASE the people in the middle of the photo you want to highlight.  Now you’ll have a photo with a blurred background but the people showing clear from the layer on the bottom.  If you can grasp this basic concept of layers you can get photoshop.

Stop by the store if you want us to show you what’s explained above.  We’re not a Photoshop training center, there are classes that others give for that.  But we are photo enthusiasts and will show you this layering effect.  2 minutes from us can save you hours of trying to figure this out on your own.

Or if you have photoshop on your laptop, you’re welcome to sit at our table here in the store and we’ll give you tips and pointers when it’s not busy.

If you want a free, Photoshop-lite product, try Picasa from Google.  It’s more limited than PSE, but the price is right, and Picasa does alot of neat things in and of itself.

If you go to http://picasa.google.com/ you can download Google’s Picasa software FOR FREE.  Picasa is like IPhoto on the Mac substantially.  Picasa is also a Photoshop-lite type product.  It doesn’t layer photos like Photoshop does, but it is a very good editing tool for basic stuff.

Picasa is also the easiest way to straighten a crooked photo.  If you scan photos on a flat scanner, they don’t scan to the edge.  If you need to scan something to the edge you need to place it out in the middle of the scanner glass and it could come out crooked.  If this happens, Picasa’s straighten tool is for you.

If you can bring in your laptop to the store, we’ll show you how to download and run Picasa, for free.  If you come by at the right time, we might even have fresh popcorn for you!

On our website there’s a number of tips for taking better pictures.  http://www.smartphonephoto.com/PhotoVideoTips/PhotoVideos.html

One of best tips though is a fill flash.  If you have a person standing in front of a bright background, the camera’s light meter usually is faked out and under exposes the picture relative to the person in front you’re interested in.  To get light on the person without over exposing and washing out the background, use the fill flash.

With many cameras you have to switch into manual mode, and switch to “always on” on the flash.  That will make the flash go off on all shots.

Most close up photos of people in outdoor environments will benefit from a fill flash.  Note a flash’s effective distance is only about 5 – 10 feet, so don’t bother at the ballgame etc.  But most any photo of a person outside can benefit from fill flash.

Stop by the store and we can show you how this works for your camera.

4:3, 3:2, 7:5, 5:4, 16:9 who cares?  Those are critical ratios any good photographer should understand.

From the “old” tv standards, most cameras today take pictures in a 4:3 ratio. 

Most prints made are 4×6, which is a 3:2 ratio.  When does that matter?  If you take a landscape (sideways) photo with a tall person in the middle, that guy’s (me usually…..) head will get chopped off if you send that out for a standard 4×6 print.

5×7’s are slightly different and of course 8×10’s (4:5) are different again.  16:9 is the HD tv standard.

So what to do?

1) when you take photos DON’T crop too close.  Get close to your subject, but leave area around your subject for future cropping.  Leave your original in its original shape while editing it (light etc.) and then crop just before you print.

2) be involved in your printing.  If you make 4×6 prints here in the store on our Sony kiosk, you can adjust the crop on your 4×6’s before you print them.  If you send them out for wholesale printing, you lose control of what is cropped out.  If you print them yourself on our instant kiosk, you’ll know exactly what you’re going to get before it comes off the printer.

Stop by the store and we can walk you through this in more detail.

Some LG phones lose the ability for you to hear the audio.  This can happen because the phone “thinks” a wired headset is plugged in.  However plugging and unplugging a wired headset often does not solve the problem.  Before you give up on the phone try to things:  1) blow out the charger hole – sometimes there’s debris in the charger hole which shorts out that connection, and 2) with the phone on stick a paper clip end into the wired headset hole and jiggle it around a bit – often there’s a short in this connector and the paper clip can solve the problem.

If you have an LG phone with this type of problem, feel free to bring it to the store if you want us to try this paper clip type fix.  Again, we’re not a service center, but we’re good at these shortcut type fixes that often save the trip to the repair shop!

Who do I contact if my device malfunctions while under warranty?

If your device malfunctions after 30 days, but still within the first year after purchase, please call Verizon Wireless at 866 406 5154 from a landline phone and they will diagnose the issue with you right over the phone.  If they can not address the problem while you’re on the line and the problem is caused by a manufacturing defect, they will send you a refurbished replacement device (either a like unit or one of comparable quality) right to your door at no cost to you.

If you one year warranty has expired, but the device is less than 24 months old, they will still replace it, but a $50 fee will apply.  They will also replace devices with a cracked or bleeding display for $50.  Devices with physical or liquid damage are excluded.  If you need to replace a data device (PDA, smartphone or PC card) call 800 922 0204 and select option 3.

If you bought your phone from us, we’re happy to walk you through the process.  Stop by the store with any questions.

Here’s what you need to know about Verizon’s insurance program:  http://support.vzw.com/features/calling_features/equipment_protection.html

To make an insurance claim you must go to a service center (i.e. the corporate Verizon store) or better yet, call (888) 881-2622

They will send you a replacement and you will send back the old one.

If you got your original phone from SMART Phone and Photo we can move the contacts, photos and more (depending on device) from the old one to the new one, PROVIDED that the old one still comes alive.  If you didn’t get your phone from us we can do that for $10 for most any phones from any carriers.

Insurance is a good idea for kids who might lose or destroy their phones.

You can take insurance OFF a phone but can not add it after 30 days from purchase.  So if you do take the insurance and keep your phone for 3-4 years, take the insurance off after a couple years.

There is a “three strikes you’re out” clause to insurance.  Once you have 3 claims on an account, you can not get more insurance, you’re high risk!

Stop by the store if you want to discuss phone insurance further.  We’ve seen alot of phones in our day and can tell you if it’s “really broken” or something that could be easily fixed.

The data and voice portions of a Blackberry travel on different wireless networks.  Thus the phone part of your Blackberry might work fine but sometimes your data isn’t working (can’t browse, no browser ball on the home screen, no email).  You can pull the battery on per the other post, and you can do *228, but often this doesn’t fix the problem.

To reset the data services with the network, do the following:

options==>Advanced Options==>Host Routing Table.  Then hit the “menu” key and “register now”

This generally registers all the data services.  Often this doesn’t fix the problem right away – it can still take a couple hours for all the data services to kick in.

This kind of problem occurs often when you switch your service from one blackberry to a new one.  Or if you’ve roamed off the Verizon network (say you drove up skiing….) and came back into town – in that scenario the data services might need to be reset.

If you got your Blackberry from us, stop by any time and we’ll work these fixes for you.  We’re much nicer than the Verizon store!

Just like your computer, a wireless phone needs to be rebooted once in a while to clear its memory and give it a fresh restart from its Operating System.  The ONLY way to reboot a phone is to pull the battery out with the phone ON.  This will NOT lose your data, but will reset the phone Operating System and give you a fresh start.

The other simple trick to improve your phone’s performance is to reprogram is to the Verizon network.  To do that hit *228 and then SEND.  At the prompt hit 1.  This will reprogram your phone to the network.

Pulling out the battery (with the phone ON) and *228 will fix many common phone problems.

Stop by the store and we can show you how to do all this.  This is a simple thing that everyone should know how to do.