Lifelong dog lovers, we’ve been raising and showing purebred Maltese and Toy Poodles for almost twenty years. We discovered the joy of the Maltipoo blend in 2000, and new owners have been thrilled with these delightful puppies ever since. All our Maltipoos are first generation. Breeding Maltipoo to Maltipoo would dilute the lineage and defeat the purpose.

Phantom

While phantom colored poodles are not allowed by the AKC to show in the conformation ring, they are allowed to compete in obedience and agility and have a devoted following. A rarity in the dog world, many of our puppies exhibit these doberman-like markings. They will usually have a dark base coat with light spots on their ears, feet, tails and eyebrows.

Parti-Colored

Black & white or Parti-colored Maltipoos have as many different patterns as there are puppies.  They generally are about a 50-50 mix of solid black and white and can sometimes have some grey areas. The unusual combination of black, white and brown is called a Tri-Colored.

Tuxedo

These elegant looking pups are mostly black with white markings on their chests and maybe on the chin or feet.

Sable

Sometimes called “brindle” in the poodle world, these puppies are brown and creme with darker points. Very Pretty.

Whichever color you prefer, you will get a lifetime of love and devotion. Because they do not shed, they will need groomed periodically, but these energetic little guys make great pets. They weigh from 6 to 10 pounds and will live 12 to 14 years and require a moderate amount of exercise. To get one of your very own click on this link or copy and paste the URL below into your browser.: http://view.admission.net/admission/classified/viewer/viewad.htm?account=mactive/fortmyer&adid=0001406826-01&partnerlogo=

Print in the Mix: Research Summary – Does Web Advertising Work? Memory for Print vs. Online Media.

The Radius slider controls how large an area the effect covers. The larger the radius the less the sharpening impact visually. In most cases, you’ll want to keep it under 2 pixels. The Threshold slider controls the size of the objects to be acted upon. If you see that you are sharpening noise or specs of dust in an image, increase the Threshold.

To start with I will generally turn up the Amount higher than needed to better see the effect of moves I make with the Radius and Threshold sliders. Next I’ll adjust the Radius to what looks good for this particular image. Lots of edges close together, grass, hair etc, will need a smaller Radius setting than would images that contain large objects. The next step is to adjust the Threshold to sharpen only the image and not enhance the grain of the film or the pores on a person’s face. Finally go back to Amount and bring it down to a level that looks good and click OK. The amount of sharpening an image needs depends on the quality and contrast of the image to begin with but any scanned images and most digital images are improved with a little sharpening.

a sharp rose

The rose on the left was sharpened 50% while the one on the right was sharpened 150%, Radius and Threshold set to 1 for both. You can see that by increasing the Amount you bring out the veins in the petals but at the same time accentuate the halo effect around the petal edges. A light hand is generally needed here – you are enhancing the image, not applying a special effect.

For people pictures, a lot of times I will sharpen only the Black channel. This will allow you to sharpen hair and glasses quite a bit without accentuating colored clothing too much. Use caution as this technique will often enhance “five-o-clock shadow” on a man’s face.

Remember, once you close the image, the sharpening cannot be undone. You should always work on a copy of your original image as different sizes may require different amounts of sharpening.

First go to Filters >> Noise >> Dust & Scratches…

Choose a Radius of between 1 and 3 pixels, enough to get rid of the dust marks without blurring the image too much.

Leave the threshold at 0 levels and click OK.

Then go to the History Palette. Check the small box in front of  your latest operation, which is Dust & Scratches… and then go back to your pictures previous state. The picture will look unchanged but the Dusted version will be where the History Brush gets it’s info.

Then select the history brush (y) and set the mode to Darken and select a big soft brush. The Darken mode will only affect areas less than 50% colored, it will allow the history brush to fill in the light areas on the image and leave the darker areas untouched. The bigger the brush, the larger area you can do at a swipe and naturally, you will need a bigger brush for images at higher resolutions.  You’ll also want to soften the edges of the brush to avoid any rough transitions.

This is a great tool for brushing over a dark suit eliminating the white specs and leaving the cloth texture of the suit untouched. Avoid brushing over eyes and shiny objects as this brush will eliminate catchlights and small reflections and generally dull the appearance, which is why you didn’t want to just apply the Dust & Scratches filter to the entire image to begin with.

A word of caution here; be careful when using this brush over a face or shiny surface because it will eliminate a lot of the small spectral highlights that contribute to the sharpness of an image. In other words, it will take the twinkle out of a person’s eyes, use carefully.

Setting the mode to Lighten will eliminate the black dust marks that appear in transparency scans.

It’s a great way to take the trash out of light skies. In Normal mode, you’ll be able to apply the Dust & Scratches full affect to areas you brush over.

The History Brush is a great tool for cleaning up images quickly. I keep this brush and the healing tool handy and can blast through dirty images in no time.

For other Photoshop tips visit our help pages here.

First, start a price book. Nothing fancy, just a notebook with items that you buy regularly and what you paid for them. It helps to know the regular price to determine how good a sale price is and this is especially helpful for things that are purchased infrequently.

Planning is essential. Make a list of what you need and then look for sales and coupons. Many stores will post their weekly sale flyer online and even allow you to print out coupons. E-bay is a great source for coupons. I recently got 10 -$1 off coupons for Thomas’ Bagels for less than $2, shipping included, and when Publix put them on sale as a buy-one-get-one-free, I bought 5 packages, got 5 free and used all 10 coupons. Make sure you are bidding on manufacturers printed coupons and stick to sellers with high positive feedback, check expiration dates, shipping costs and be sure you have storage room. For online purchases, check for internet coupons and savings codes at sites such as retailmenot.com.

Loyalty cards are another easy way to reduce costs and are offered by many supermarkets, drugstores, restaurants and other retailers. You can usually just supply them with your phone number and you won’t need to carry around a wallet full of cards. The best ones give you instant savings on things you normally buy. Additionally, some of these programs will send out e-mails offering exclusive savings to members. Pet Supermarket, for example, sends out a $5 off coupon at the beginning of every month to it’s VIP members.

Great savings are available online, but you have to take into account the shipping costs. These can be reduced by buying in bulk or some retailers, such as Wal-Mart or Staples, will ship it to a local store for pick-up free. A great many services are now being offered online too. Best Printing Online offers free templates for laying out brochures, folders, postcards etc. You can get an instant price quote, upload your files, proof them, and have them mailed without ever having to leave your house. Isn’t technology wonderful!

That’s it for the tips and shameless plugs, but they really do work. On a recent trip to the store I found that my savings amounted to more than what I paid for the groceries. Any time I can save 50%, I’ll take it.

Going to Image>Adjustment and either Curves or Levels, you’ll see three small buttons with eyedroppers on them. The black pointed eyedropper is to set the shadows and the white one is to set the highlights, but we select the grey one in the middle. This one set the grey point. The trick is to click somewhere in the picture that is a known neutral grey color – Grey hair or the shadow on a white shirt for example. It looks like we have an abundance of grey in this picture but you have to remember that chrome reflects and will pick up the color of the item reflected in it’s surface. I’ll click just inside the pan above the nugget trays and see what we get.

As you can see we have a vastly different image with one click but the chrome in the background is starting to look a little blue. This brings me to my second favorite trick – the Fade. Immediately after applying an effect or adjustment to an image go to the file menu and select Fade Effect or Adjustment, in this case it said Fade Curves. The Fade command will bring up a slider that gives you a before, all the way to the left, and an after, all the way to the right, look at your image. The cool thing is you can adjust it anywhere along the slider.

In our nuggets image I decided that 75% would bring back enough of the original warmth to make these tidbits look their most appetizing.

Set grey point used with the fade will make quick work of color correcting lots of images in a short time and I hope you’ll find them useful additions to your Photoshop arsenal. Once you’ve gotten you image perfect depend on BestPrintingOnline to faithfully reproduce it in all it’s splendor. Please visit our website and get an instant quote for all your digital and offset printing needs.

Stud is easy to learn and requires a little more memory skills than hold ‘em, but as mixed games gain popularity, it’s important for an all around poker player to know it and it’s variations such as Razz and Stud High/Low eight or better. See what the pros have to say about it in this How to Play 7 Card Stud video

After No-Limit Hold ‘em it looks like the next most popular game is Pot-Limit Omaha. Rapidly gaining popularity, this game looks a lot like Hold ‘em with a couple of key differences, you are dealt four hole cards and you must use exactly two of them to make your hand. After the deal, the flop, turn and river are dealt the same as Hold ‘em and the betting is the same as Pot-Limit Hold ‘em but having four cards in your mitt makes this a very different game.

With so many cards, the winning hand is usually much better in Omaha than in Hold ‘em and draws are played much more aggressively. This is definitely a game for the action junkie. As in Hold ‘em, you want to start with a good hand – four cards that are coordinated – and position is very important. Most new players to the game tend to play too many hands and hang with them too long because with 9 cards on the board instead of 7 you can see a lot of good hands, but in Omaha, you usually need the nuts to drag the pot.

There’s a great video on YouTube called How to Play Pot Limit Omaha. Check it out and see for yourself the future of poker.

FSC is the Forest Stewardship Council, an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. It sets forth principles, criteria, and standards that span economic, social, and environmental concerns. The FSC standards represent the world’s strongest system for guiding forest management toward sustainable outcomes.

Forest managers worldwide have to be certified before they can use the FSC logo on their products. This means following certain best practices for harvesting wood products, sustainability, and biodiversity. Traders and manufacturers need FSC chain of custody certification in order to make FSC certified paper and wood products.

Printers and publishers are important links in the chain and so either the printer or the publisher is required to have FSC chain of custody certification to use the FSC trademarks on printed publications. Intech Printing & Direct Mail, Inc. is one of an elite group of printers in the United States that has made a commitment to being environmentally conscious.

As we celebrate Earthday, know that steps are being taken to insure the sustainable use of our forests and that you can be a part of it. Make sure to ask your customer service representative about printing the FSC logo on your certified print project and help promote healthy forests.