Even more so for designers who design for a living. Perhaps one of the hardest things about doing any type of design work is understanding someone else’s vision, and producing a design they will enjoy.

Let’s admit it; whether you are a design professional or a beginner such as myself, there will always be a situation where it’s hard to find the right color theme for a project. This is where Adobe Kuler comes in. Kuler not only provides a huge number of color themes, it’s also built on an active community, which creates and publishes the color palettes.

You can use Adobe Kuler to explore and experiment with colors, but after registering for a FREE account, you will have access to download the Adobe Swatch Exchange files, which contain the color themes. If you already have a Adobe ID for another project, it will work for Kuler, too.

With Kuler, you can browse themes created by the community, create themes from scratch, or even create a theme from a photographic image.

Designers could also ask their clients to find or create colors and themes at Kuler and save it. The designer could then refer to those colors when designing their clients project.

That’s all I will say. I’ll let you explore the rest for yourself.

http://kuler.adobe.com/

However, a lot of times there’s just one slight problem with online software, especially photo editing programs, and that is you’ll sacrifice features that is commonly found in desktop versions of the software. So used to, if you needed to do advanced editing beyond basic photo resizing and cropping, you would have to use a desktop program.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon Pixlr. This online photo-editing program bears a striking resemblance to Photoshop Elements.

Unlike thousands of other online editing software, Pixlr provides all the tools an intermediate user needs; allowing you to work with layers, apply effects much more.

But notice I said intermediate. For those who are Photoshop or Gimp gurus, they can simply dive right in and get started. However, features such as working with layers, applying filters and effects can be somewhat overwhelming to the novice.

Or maybe you’re an advanced user who just needs to do some basic editing such as resizing and cropping your image or just make a few minor corrections. After all, advanced options often get in the way of simple tasks. In that case, you’ll want to check out Pixlr’s Photo Express. It’s easy to understand for the novice, and prefect for performing those basic tasks too.

Forum regulars – I’m thinking that that the Photo Express version would be the perfect alternative for those members who need the basic editing tools offered on the Enhanced Uploader. Instead of using the Enhanced Uploader, users could easily edit their images with this tool, Save it, then use the Basic or Standard uploaders instead.

Furthermore, an advanced thief could simply take a screen shot of the page, and any no-right click scripts or image overlays wouldn’t block it.

While there are no sure fire ways to keep your images from being stolen right off your web page or online auction, there are a few techniques that will discourage many casual “thieves”, such as the average Joe. But again, there is ways around them if you really want the image.

There are 5 different ways to grab an image that I know of from a web site.

1. “Save Image As” with the right click mouse action.
2. Directly linking to where the image is stored on the server.
3. Open the image from browser cache located in the Temporary Internet Folder.
4. Screen capture programs and PrintScreen.
5. Saving the page in IE grabs all images on the page including backgrounds.

Perhaps one of the best methods of protecting your images is by water-marking. Water-marking can be a text overlay with your eBay ID, with a © icon, or even your company logo. While water-marking will by no means stop theft, it greatly discourages image theft because your name is on it. Just like clothing department stores will place ink tags on their clothes to “ruin” the item if it is stolen, water-marking will “ruin” the image for others because of someone else’s name on it.

Water-marking is the method that I use when I worry about protecting my images. Water-marking can be done with a lot of online tools or by using an image editor.

Here is one online tool to watermark your images:
http://www.birddogsgarage.com/bdg_2/modules.php?name=bdgwatermark

If you are still interested in other methods, there is a No-Right-Click script for image protection that won’t interfere with eBay navigation. Concho_softie’s script can be added to the bottom of your auction to protect images hosted on eBay or on your own image host.

http://www.isdntek.com/tagbot/copynot.htm

You might also be interested in a tool called NoClick, which prevents causal photo theft. The tool creates a table for your image and covers it with a transparent gif or watermark image. Viewers save the dummy gif, instead of your photo, with the right-click or when dragging to desktop.

http://www.isdntek.com/noclick.htm

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