Why You Should Agree With Royalty Fees
Franchisees need to dismiss the notion that ‘royalty fees’ are an extra payment coming out of their pocket; they are a part of the process of partaking in the franchise system. It should be looked upon as the Franchiser share in profits derived from the consumer. The Franchisee gathers the royalty fee sum from the consumer along with the rest of the funds that keep the whole enterprise going.The royalty fee is another aspect of the business and no business would be in business if they were not making their money from the consumer. The consumer pays for the Franchisee’s overhead, costs of sales, salaries, and of course the profit. It all stems back

Are You Branded Yet?
One of the best ways to increase your chances of success, whether you work for someone else or have your own small business, is to find an effective way to tell people what you have to offer.You can do this by creating your own brand, according to author, consultant, movie producer and director, Tom Marcoux, who is known as America's Communication Coach. "In order to make your dreams come true you need to effectively tell the world what you offer.And, the essence of telling the world is to clearly and concisely express what you're best known for. This is your personal brand," Marcoux says. Corporations spend millions of dollars to keep their

All I Needed to Learn in Life I Learned From Betty Crocker
Some of you may be too kind to say it. But I can tell you’re thinking, “I don’t know what you know about life, but I think you’ve learned a bit too much about Betty Crocker.”Yes, I’ve learned a great deal about Betty Crocker over the past forty-some years. I’ve sat at her table many times. But as much as I’ve learned ABOUT her, I’ve learned more FROM her!You’re probably thinking, “Yup, I knew it, you’ve finally gone off your rocker. Jean’s been creative one too many times! All she’s learned from Betty Crocker is how to gain weight!”Well, you’re wrong. And I’ll tell you why.Consider the simple box of Betty Crocker cake mix.rreversible victory, turning history into oblivion.

Unless… Oh, yes, using magic technology, a perceptive eye and a steady hand can reinstate the photo-historical status-quo, eliminate or correct any side-effects, any signs or scars this battle of time has left-over. And the good thing is that there is no need for expensive technology, nor rocket science is needed: Any good old image editing application with a scanner will do - and in case you feel nostalgic about old storage media types, a printer with photo paper will complement the task. So let’s say, you have the photos, you have the technology… What next? How do you proceed, quickly and efficiently enough to restore any kind of printed images? Are there some tricks you should have in mind, which can help towards this goal?

Well, the answer is yes and no. Despite the power tools we have these days even in our home computers (with Adobe Photoshop on Windows and Mac, as well as Gimp on Linux as primary examples) capable of easily performing a huge number of impressive digital photo tasks, restoration of old photos is still closely related to a users aptitude and artistic eye, as much as in his good knowledge and effective use of the application tools.

For example, in Photoshop there are embedded filters, which automatically remove small dust and scratches: some clever image recognition algorithm works there, that recognises unwanted elements by identifying irregular fluctuations in the bitmap’s pixel colour depth mapping. But this works only relatively well, as the underlying algorithm is not lossless: the more strongly the filter is applied, the more the loss of the image quality in terms of sharpness and details. Furthermore, it is strongly dependent on the image contents. Dust, scratches and other elements are more easily removed from the photo’s uniform shaded areas, i.e. when photos are picturing elements like walls, surfaces, sky, clouds etc. than from, say, a landscape with lots of details, a patterned canvas or a photos that contains a number of people.

As for the use of tools like the powerful Adobe Photoshop’s Clone Stamp, or the newer Spot Healing Brush, which allows sampling and copying to pixel level, when it comes to heavy damaged images, the user’s intuition is the only serious tool to consider. For example, it could be the case that an image is so much damaged, that parts of it are literally missing – ok, if it is a landscape with flowers, sampling will work well, but when the damaged part contains elements of a particular form, like peoples faces or other body parts, interior design or architectural elements, then copying, sampling and spot healing is not enough. Sometimes the user would have to re-create these elements; identifying and copying similar details from somewhere else in the picture could be also possible, but most of the times angles and light shades would be different. And especially when the damaged areas are affecting elements like peoples faces, hands, animals etc. or even everyday objects like chairs, or clothes with special details like shoes etc., the restoring task is even more difficult: these objects that would need recreation, have aesthetics that are well integrated within our visual perception of ‘how things should look like’.

When the desired result is an image aesthetically correct and therefore usable in many ways, there is no magical recipe into which tools in what order and what functions the restorer should apply when working on the task. More so when the task is to put colour in black and white photos, especially with people on them which involves large areas of skin. A correct skin colour is something that all professional photographers and image editors are looking for, especially when images are going to

as Gimp on Linux as primary examples) capable of easily performing a huge number of impressive digital photo tasks, restoration of old photos is still closely related to a users aptitude and artistic eye, as much as in his good knowledge and effective use of the application tools.

For example, in Photoshop there are embedded filters, which automatically remove small dust and scratches: some clever image recognition algorithm works there, that recognises unwanted elements by identifying irregular fluctuations in the bitmap’s pixel colour depth mapping. But this works only relatively well, as the underlying algorithm is not lossless: the more strongly the filter is applied, the more the loss of the image quality in terms of sharpness and details. Furthermore, it is strongly dependent on the image contents. Dust, scratches and other elements are more easily removed from the photo’s uniform shaded areas, i.e. when photos are picturing elements like walls, surfaces, sky, clouds etc. than from, say, a landscape with lots of details, a patterned canvas or a photos that contains a number of people.

As for the use of tools like the powerful Adobe Photoshop’s Clone Stamp, or the newer Spot Healing Brush, which allows sampling and copying to pixel level, when it comes to heavy damaged images, the user’s intuition is the only serious tool to consider. For example, it could be the case that an image is so much damaged, that parts of it are literally missing – ok, if it is a landscape with flowers, sampling will work well, but when the damaged part contains elements of a particular form, like peoples faces or other body parts, interior design or architectural elements, then copying, sampling and spot healing is not enough. Sometimes the user would have to re-create these elements; identifying and copying similar details from somewhere else in the picture could be also possible, but most of the times angles and light shades would be different. And especially when the damaged areas are affecting elements like peoples faces, hands, animals etc. or even everyday objects like chairs, or clothes with special details like shoes etc., the restoring task is even more difficult: these objects that would need recreation, have aesthetics that are well integrated within our visual perception of ‘how things should look like’.

When the desired result is an image aesthetically correct and therefore usable in many ways, there is no magical recipe into which tools in what order and what functions the restorer should apply when working on the task. More so when the task is to put colour in black and white photos, especially with people on them which involves large areas of skin. A correct skin colour is something that all professional photographers and image editors are looking for, especially when images are going to

elements like walls, surfaces, sky, clouds etc. than from, say, a landscape with lots of details, a patterned canvas or a photos that contains a number of people.

As for the use of tools like the powerful Adobe Photoshop’s Clone Stamp, or the newer Spot Healing Brush, which allows sampling and copying to pixel level, when it comes to heavy damaged images, the user’s intuition is the only serious tool to consider. For example, it could be the case that an image is so much damaged, that parts of it are literally missing – ok, if it is a landscape with flowers, sampling will work well, but when the damaged part contains elements of a particular form, like peoples faces or other body parts, interior design or architectural elements, then copying, sampling and spot healing is not enough. Sometimes the user would have to re-create these elements; identifying and copying similar details from somewhere else in the picture could be also possible, but most of the times angles and light shades would be different. And especially when the damaged areas are affecting elements like peoples faces, hands, animals etc. or even everyday objects like chairs, or clothes with special details like shoes etc., the restoring task is even more difficult: these objects that would need recreation, have aesthetics that are well integrated within our visual perception of ‘how things should look like’.

When the desired result is an image aesthetically correct and therefore usable in many ways, there is no magical recipe into which tools in what order and what functions the restorer should apply when working on the task. More so when the task is to put colour in black and white photos, especially with people on them which involves large areas of skin. A correct skin colour is something that all professional photographers and image editors are looking for, especially when images are going to

ible, but most of the times angles and light shades would be different. And especially when the damaged areas are affecting elements like peoples faces, hands, animals etc. or even everyday objects like chairs, or clothes with special details like shoes etc., the restoring task is even more difficult: these objects that would need recreation, have aesthetics that are well integrated within our visual perception of ‘how things should look like’.

When the desired result is an image aesthetically correct and therefore usable in many ways, there is no magical recipe into which tools in what order and what functions the restorer should apply when working on the task. More so when the task is to put colour in black and white photos, especially with people on them which involves large areas of skin. A correct skin colour is something that all professional photographers and image editors are looking for, especially when images are going to be printed. Putting colour in a black & white image is one of the most difficult tasks a digital image restorer will have to perform. Imagination and creative intuition as well as experience and advanced knowledge of the tools available are strongly required in order to achieve sometimes a just-bearable result. As there is a very fine step easy to be crossed before a beautiful face pictured in black & white is turned to a pink, red or yellow dull alien one, such is the fine line that can differentiate a good photo restoration from inadequate attempts sold as expertise.