Very impressive results - and a clever trick. Thanks for sharing.

John12 - If you have nothing constructive to add to the discussion, I and doubtless many others here would be grateful if you would keep your wild and gratuitous allegations, which are perilously close to actionable libel, to yourself! These juvenile antics impress no-one.

Well, I just placed my vote, and am glad to see that commonsesne is prevailing by a large majority! I hate sites that play around with my browser and change its normal functionality, however laudable the excuse. This change is a pointless minor inconvenience - and not just to the "thieves" (and if you consider downloading an image to my hard disk for further study or use as a wallpaper you can count me among them - though I don't consider that in any way theft and am perfectly happy for anyone to do likewise with any of my images without seeking my permission). All this measure will achieve is to irritate a large number of members while preventing no-one with an ounce of computer knowledge from continuing to take what they wish for whatever purpose. And sorry, odeathoflife, but your "almost foolpoof" method hardly needs rocket science to subvert - it is just as vulnerable to any screen capture utility as any other method of "protection". This is simplicity itself for anyone to implement, needing no knowledge of Java, caching or any other arcana. Anyone with an editor like Paint Shop Pro will already have the necessary tool, and those without can easily download one for free. I seriously believe there are only two effective methods of protection: One is to place a damn big visible watermark across the image, of such size and boldness that it would be very tedious and difficult to edit out with a graphics program. (And the day that form of grafitti becomes common practice will be the day I stop visiting the forum!) The other method is don't post.

Thanks for sharing your tips on how you produced some of the best Vue water ever.

Just checking out the latest messages and noticed an error in my last post. For 64% (which you may find a mysterious figure, as it was unintentionally based on 80%, not 70% quality), please read 49%. (Slaps wrist.)

Just a small addition. Yep, for best results, BMP or TIFF. Even at minimum compression (maximum quality with virtually no discernible quality drop) JPG will give quite a substantial saving in file size, if that is important. Do remember though that JPG compression is multiplicative. What I mean by that is that if you save a JPG at 70% quality, then open it for editing postwork and save it again at 70% quality, you will further downgrade the final quality to 70% of 70% - i.e. 64%, and this degradation will continue to accumulate each time you save the file. So I normally do all my editing using a lossless format like BMP or PSP, only converting to JPG when I'm sure I have the final version ready for the web. When setting the compression level, it's useful if you can preview the results so you can create an optimum balance between file size and quality of output. Paint Shop Pro, Fireworks and doubtless many others, do offer this facility, or failing that you can download utilities from the web to do it as a separate process.

Hi Mark, welcome to the forum. (Weather a bit cooler here in the NW today, at least.) I think part of the answer also is that the products you and Wabe mentioned are at the heavyweight end of the market - not only in price, but also in complexity, so the need for additional training publications is probably greater. If you follow Guitta's advice on the tutorials and also have a browse through the back threads of the forum, I'm sure you will find the answer to most problems you may come across. Failing that, just post a specific question here and someone will almost certainly have the answer. Of course there's always the manual as well... Yeah, I know that's the last thing that most people like to open, but the Vue manual really is quite good on explaining the basic tools, and also has a nice selection of tutorials at the back to get you going.

Hi Nish - I'm sure you'll find the book interesting and inspiring. Love that flamingo picture, by the way.

Not going to write at length on this as the last two posts from YL and Pmermino sum up my opinion exactly.

Nice analysis smallspace, and an area that many of us can benefit from. For anyone interested in pursuing these ideas of compositional theory further, may I recommend (as I have on other forums) a book that Deevee once pointed me to: "Drawing Scenery: Landscapes and Seascapes" by Jack Hamm, a paperback published by Perigree Books and still available from Amazon, priced $11.95 US. I have always regarded it as a few pounds very well spent. It has nothing to do with computers, being concerned entirely with drawing in natural media. However almost everything in it is immediately applicable to computer graphics work as well. Copiously illustrated with useful sketch figures rather than full-blown works of art, it is immensely practical and very readable. This is emphatically NOT a coffee-table book, nor an ivory-tower tome on abstract theories of composition. It is a hands-on work that teaches the fundamentals of compositional theory in a very straightforward and practical way - probably the next best thing to having a good art teacher sitting by your shoulder. I heartily recommend it to anyone wishing to improve their skills in composing a well balanced images that engage and hold the viewers' attention.

Thanks Thomas - some useful pointers there. Your disclaimer at the start is very modest, though - many of us would be very happy to achieve the degree of photorealism you do.

This point of Sharen's about accidental scrolling has come up a couple of times lately. I suspect it can easily happen (not to me for a couple of days yet, as I don't have a scroll wheel on this mouse). So to the administrators, could I suggest a minor change to the ranking form that would avoid the problem altogether. It's only simple HTML, and the present list-box for selecting the ranking could very easily be replaced by a single-choice check-box style of selection. It would make the form slightly larger, but I can't see that being a problem. A matter of only a couple of minutes work to implement, and a change that might avoid for others the sort of heart-ache that BillyGoat has gone through on this occasion, except where it really was a case of trolling activity.

Richie - Have you really read all the above posts? How much clearer do we need to make our collective feelings before you get the message? Quite independently of the truth or otherwise of anything that has personally passed between you and RDS, the kind of activity you as CursedBeauty/PlasticHeart/BleedingHeart and all the rest got up to is not welcome here. I'm sorry to speak so bluntly; I take no pleasure in it. But I hate to see someone spoiling for everyone else what should be, and normally is, a pleasurable experience. I don't know why you felt the need to do it - it's not as though you don't have talent. I wish you had not acted as you did, but having been found out you should at least have the good grace to face the consequences and leave quietly.

Hi David I agree - it is most likely that such spoilers are either not regular members... or possibly someone with an axe to grind and retribution in mind. But frankly, I don't care whether they care about a ban or not, just so long as we get rid of them ASAP and take whatever measures are technically possible to prevent them returning under a pseudonym. Incidentally, lest any new-ish members should find all this rather disturbing, perhaps it's as well to make clear that it is not just a problem on this forum - indeed it seems a rare occurrence here to me, this being one of the better behaved and more civilised places I have visited. I have seen similar activities elsewhere, and I suspect most forums of this nature on any subject tend to suffer the occasional fool who tries to spoil it for others for whatever motive. So for the good guys: hang together and don't vote with your feet. It is always sad when a giving and talented individual (you will know who I mean, and I hope you will reconsider) leaves a forum over such petty antics - the loss makes the impact the greater for the rest of us, and in a sense plays into the hands of the buffoon who caused the problem in the first place. There you go - my last words on the subject. (Well, for now.)

That looks very cool... and free too! Thank you for your continuing generosity.