Click Basic      to learn About Photo Enhancing $9.95

 Click Artistic   to Learn About Object Isolating and Enhancing $19.95

Click Premium  to Learn About Merging 2 to 3 or More Photos  $29.95

 Click Compare  To See Which Services are included in each package        Click Examples to Learn How You Can Make Neat Stuff            Click Free Stuff Tab to Learn How to Get and Use FREE Templates

Click Any Box to LEARN MORE!

STEP 1           TAKE YOUR PHOTO

Digital Cameras have revolutionized the art of photography.  In the past we took snapshots with conventional cameras and, except for photography hobbyists were constrained to “hard copy prints” that we purchased.  Today we have been relieved of these limitations, and have a rich capability to create our own photo art, photo enhanced business advertising products, and photo gifts.

Now, with photo editing techniques, the finished photo is not subject to lighting limitations, exposure mistakes, or other distracting influences such as unwanted objects, people, or subject flaws. In the past, we sometimes said, “this would be a fantastic picture if only ...”. No longer do we need to say this, we now say ... how can this picture be improved to eliminate the “only”.

The basis for your enhanced photo is the quality of your cameras resolution. While some amount of sharpening, and correction can be made for lower resolution photos, it is to your advantage to take your photos at your camera’s highest resolution setting. The resolution of the camera is expressed in the number of picture elements that compose each picture.  Pixels are tiny portions of a computer file which are individually provided by the camera with certain attributes, such as color, intensity, hue etc.  There are typically more than 2 million of these pixels. Many cameras today generate more than 5 million of them in each photograph taken. Generally, the camera is said to be capable of some number of  “mega-pixels” such as 3.2 Mega-Pixels .   Creative Photo Stuff will digitally enhance photos you upload to us using digital photo enhancement techniques which manipulate the individual pixels in the digital photo file that your camera generates. You can get more information from our Camera Tutorial

What ... No Digital Camera?  NO PROBLEM!!

Today it is easy to convert a hard copy photograph taken by a conventional film camera to a digital image. All that is required is a home printer that has a scanner built into it.  Most of the common printers on the market today have this capability. Consult your printer manual to get instructions on scanning. You can get more information from our Scanning Tutorial.

What ... Don’t Have A Scanner or don’t want to fuss with scanning?   NO PROBLEM!!

Just take your hard copy photograph taken by a conventional film camera to your neighborhood office supply store or to Wal Mart.  These outlets can scan your photo or photos and put them onto a disk for you. You then copy the photos onto your computer. See the Scanning Tutorial for more information.

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STEP 2           TRANSFER YOUR PHOTOS TO YOUR COMPUTER

If you have a digital camera you probably have installed some software that came with the camera on your home computer.  This software usually has some capability to download the pictures from the camera to your computer.  To download your photos from the camera follow the instructions that came with your camera.  If you don’t have this software you can use program that comes with every copy of the Microsoft computer operating system. You can get more information on this process from our information in the Transferring Your Photos Tutorial.

In order to use our service the photos to be enhanced must be on your computer.  It is not necessary to put them into a special directory or folder, however, if you do make a special folder for the upload process it may make it more convenient for you to remember where they are located.  During the process of uploading the photo to us, it will be necessary for you to navigate to the storage location of the photo on the hard drive of your computer.

Your camera automatically generates a computer photo file with its own serialized file name such as  00026.JPG or something similar. Ususally, this camera generated filename is not very descriptive of the subject of the photograph.  Therefore, may be easier for you to copy the photo file from your camera into a separate folder, and rename the file as something you will easily remember. Remember to append the file extension used by the camera.  Most cameras append the file extension JPG to each photo taken.  The resulting file name is usually  <serialnumber>.JPG you can rename the file anything you wish as long as the file extension .JPG is appended. For example, say you took a great picture at the lake, and the camera automatically called it 00026.JPG you might rename the file (using your camera’s software program, or Windows Explorer) to Great Picture At The Lake.JPG

We can accept a wide range of file formats that your camera generates, however, most cameras are standardized to create a file format called JPG.  When you transfer the photo to us, the file format is known by the filename extension appended to the picture  ( such as filename.JPG). As a safety procedure to edit digital photos we retain the original copy of your file that you transmitted to us in your personal folder in our computer while we are working on the photo enhancement.  In the example above we would receive the file named Great Picture At The Lake.JPG   We would use this name during our processing. The photo that we would return to you would be named with the same name you gave it with a number appended such as <filename-1>.JPG. For the example above the enhanced photo file would be named Great Picture At The Lake -1.JPG .  If we revised the photo and put the new copy in your Personal Gallery it would be labled <filename-2>.JPG, <filename-3>.JPG  etc.

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STEP 3   CONNECT TO OUR WEB SITE AND LOG IN

To use our services it is necessary to connect to the Internet.  Since you are viewing this web page, we can assume that you know how to do this fundamental process.

Once you are at our site, you must “log in”. To preserve your privacy, even when using our free services and/or our free trial offer, we believe that it is in your interest to have a somewhat secure connection. Thus we require that you register as a USER and use a password. A site user does not have to spend any money and the site registration is FREE.  There is no obligation to purchase any of our services to avail yourself of some of our FREE  services.  The following information is required.

• Your REAL NAME - This information WILL NOT BE SHARED, RENTED, SOLD, or anything.
• Your REAL Mailing Address - This information WILL NOT BE SHARED, RENTED, SOLD, or anything.
• Your E-Mail Address - This information WILL NOT BE SHARED, RENTED, SOLD, or anything, unless you choose to make it available on one or more of our forums.
• A “Site User NAME” - This name is used for logging in purposes and as your “handle” for use on one or more of our forums.  Choose a name that is unique and easily remembered. My “handle” is “The Artist” for example.
• A “Password” that you will use to access the Main User Page, and your Photo Gallery

To create your registration, simply click on the Create a New Photo Now! button or on the “Click Here for Free Trial” icon and follow instructions. We require some information in order to complete your registration. This information is necessary to be able to enhance your pictures and is used to conduct a business transaction with you. We NEVER sell, transfer, share, or rent your information to ANYONE else. This information is kept in the strictest confidentiality. <It may take a few minutes for your registration to be accepted.???  When this process is complete you can log in and tour our services.

If you have previously created a registration you are a returning user,  just type into your World Wide Web access window the following address (URL)   www.creativephotostuff.com and the opening page will appear.  On this page are two buttons for you to click on “Returning? Log In Here” and “View Completed Photos Here” click on either one any you will be transferred to our “Log In Page”.   There you simply put in your “Site User NAME” and “Password”.  These will be checked against your registration then after verification you will be transferred automatically to the Main User Page where you can choose from a wide variety of options.

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STEP 4   CHOOSE SERVICE - PICK DETAILS - UPLOAD PHOTO

If you desire to enhance a photo you will choose the option “Create a New Photo” from the list of available options that are offered to you on the Main User Page. You will first choose which Service Option that you wish to use.  There are three flat rate options.

• Basic Create-A-Photo                           Click Here for Details     Use your Back Button to Return
• Artistic Create-A-Photo                        Click Here for Details   Use your Back Button to Return
• Premium Create-A-Photo                     Click Here for Details   Use your Back Button to Return

Once you have chosen your Service Option you will be asked via a series of menus about the details that you wish to have performed for your photo enhancement.  You will be guided automatically through a series of menus where you will choose from various options or be asked to provide written instructions. It is not necessary to chose from all of the menus, for example if you do not want to add text to the photo, just click on “Next” to move on.  If you don’t see exactly what you want, don’t worry, at the end you will be asked for any comments, or special instructions you wish to add.  For more information please see the Create-A-Photo Details Tutorial.  If you have chosen the Basic Create-A-Photo service you will be guided through its set of menus.  If you chose the Artistic Service you will be first guided through the details available for the Basic service then the Artistic set. Finally, if you choose the Premium Service you will be guided through both Basic and Artistic before being offered the Premium menu set.  Don’t worry about choices too much, since you will be given an opportunity to change any or all of your selections. Indeed, if part way through you decide to upgrade to the next higher service option, just click the upgrade button at any time.

Once you have made your choices just click on “Finish”.  This will signify that you are done, and the selections will be recorded in our database for the photo <filename>.JPG and you will be asked if you want to review your choices. You will then be asked to click on the “Submit” button.  This action will transfer you to the “Check Out” page where you will be asked to enter payment details. After entering the details you will be transferred to Pay Pal for payment functions. After a successful checkout you will be returned to the UploadPhoto page.

This page will provide you with the Order Number, FileName, and other details. The page will direct you in steps through the upload process.  You will be asked to browse, using your mouse, to the location of the photo file on your computer’s hard drive.  After locating the file you will click on “open” and the file will be listed on the upload page.  Simply click on the “Upload” button and the file will automatically be transmitted to us, along with the associated service option choices, instructions and other information. That’s all there is to it. For more information please read the Upload-A-Photo Tutorial to learn more.

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STEP 5   CONNECT TO OUR WEB SITE AND LOG IN

After one or two days, (we will send you an E-Mail notice that your finished photo is ready for reviewing) you again log in to www.creativephotostuff.com.  Once you are at our site, you again must “log in” , using your User NAME and Password, this is to preserve your your privacy when reviewing your photo.  Only registered users may view their private gallery. 

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STEP 6   VIEW YOUR FINISHED PHOTO AND REVISE IF NEEDED

Once you have logged in. you will be viewing the Main Services Page. One of the options will be to view your finished photos in your private gallery. Your private gallery is displayed as follows.  In the Main Services Page first click on “View My Gallery” which will bring up your private web page. This page will display a thumb nail representation of your finished photo and the original you submitted.  There may be several photos to choose from, since we retain all of your photos for 45 days after they have been posted in your gallery.  Click the thumbnail of your choice and a full screen view of your finished photo will appear. You will be asked to select one of two options, either Download Results or Revise Results.  Choosing Revise Results, will bring up a form to fill out telling us what you want done. As long as the requests are within reason, and do not exceed the specifications that you originally submitted we will modify the results, and give the resulting photo enhancement a second (or third if necessary) filename. This resulting new photo will be posted in your personal gallery for you to view along side of the original photo and the prior enhanced photo. Since it would be easy for you to simply “save the image” to your hard drive without downloading it, the words DRAFT are added to the Finished Photo.

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STEP 7   DOWNLOAD YOUR FINISHED PHOTO

When you are satisfied with the finished photo, click on Download to obtain the photo. You will be guided through the download process by our download page. During the download you will be asked where to store the finished photo. You can select the location for the finished photo, either the same location the original came from, or you can create a new folder to store the image file in.  Please read the Download-A-Photo Tutorial to learn more.

Completing the Download will terminate activity on that photo’s order number, and no more revisions will be accepted.  When the photo has finished downloading, you will be notified of a successful download, and transferred back to the Main User Services Page. There you can submit another photo, download FREE Templates, join a forum or read the latest newsletter.

CREATIVE PHOTO STUFF PROVIDES PHOTO EDITING SERVICES

Our photo retouching and photo editing service are really the same thing. These photograph retouching services are performed by photo manipulation of the digital properties of each picture element (called pixels).  These picture elements or pixels are stored in a computer file which was automatically named by your camera at the time you took the photo. These are the files which you downloaded from your camera to your home computer. After you downloaded the picture from your camera to your computer, you may have renamed the file. In any case we guide you through the process of selecting the services that you desire then uploading the picture to us via the internet.  After sending the photo computer file to us through the internet, we use various programs to photo edit by enhancing, retouching, and modifying the pixels in the photo. The software that we use to edit photo properties will not change your original photo since you retain the original on your computer, we are only using a copy.  We perform the services that you select for a flat rate fee, if the result is not what you expected, we at no charge, will digitally edit picture (revise the new photo) until you are satisfied.  The resulting image editing by Creative Photo Stuff is saved in your dedicated folder on our computer (not available to internet users) in  various versions then finally the resulting new photo is then renamed and downloaded to your computer for your own use.  We can accept a wide range of file formats that your camera generates, however, most cameras are standardized to create a file format called JPG.  When you transfer the photo to us, the file format is known by the filename extension appended to the picture  ( such as filename.JPG). As a safety procedure to edit digital photos we retain the original copy of your file that you transmitted to us in your personal folder in our computer. We normally return the photo to you with the same filename that you submitted with a -1 appended to it in the same format (such as filename-1.JPG). If you need file conversion to use in a specific computer program we can return the photo to you with most common formats if you need the conversion done by us. After you download the edited photo we retain the original and the enhanced photo for a period of 45 days,  we then delete the computer file in our computer(s) and remove the photo from your personal gallery.