However, luckily this is easily fixed by installing one package called Ubuntu-Restricted-Extras. Installing this package will install Microsoft Fonts, Java Runtime Environment, Flash, LAME, MP3 and audio encoding and decoding as well as DVD playback.

To install them first you have to allow the extra repositories in Ubuntu, these are where the software are downloaded from and also will help keep your software updated in the future. To do this on the top panel in Ubuntu click on System > Administration > Software Sources. As shown below make sure the boxes are ticked, and choose your country from the "Download from:" box.

(a screenshot of the sources window)

Next click on the Third Party Sources tab and make sure all the boxes are selected, then click close and from the dialog box click refresh, which will refresh the list all the available packages and programs now available to download and install.

Finally, click on System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. As shown below you need to search for ubuntu-restricted-extras and selected it, then click apply and it should download and install. Now you can listen to you MP3 files, watch DVD's and video files, and view flash flash files.

(A screenshot of the package manager)

As a final note, Kubuntu users should search for kubuntu-restricted-extras and Xubuntu users should search for xubuntu-restricted-extras

There are many websites with collections of themes created by other users. If you are using gnome as the window manager (which you will be using unless you have changed it) one of the best websites is gnome-look.org, which offers hundreds of themes, icons and other items such as login screens, but the section for gnome themes is the GTK 2.X section.

Once you have the found a theme you like and downloaded it, from the top panel click on System > Preference > Appearance. A window similar to the following should open.

From this window you can either click on the Install button and then browse and select the downloaded file (probably with the extension tar.gz) or you can drag the downloaded file onto the appearance window.

A message box saying the new theme has been installed should appear, so from this box click Apply New Theme and then enjoy!

Making Your PC Take Care of Itself - the Easy Way!

However, the methods described in that article weren't completely free, as it involved buying Iobit's Advanced SystemCare software license. So, here's a guide for those who are willing to dig deeper into the settings of their operating system to get an optimized Vista-PC to work with, for free!

This guide is divided into several steps to make it easier to continue following it after some necessary computer reboots. The steps are as follows:

1. Comfortability - Clean up the User Interface!
2. Updates - Keep your Vista up-to-date
   
3. Security - Make sure you're safe against viruses!
   
4. Drivers - Keep your hardware running!
5. Programs & Features - Save disk space!
   
6. Services - Don't have anything useless eating your resources!
7. Disk Cleanup - get rid of the trashes!
   
8. Registry - Don't let it get messy!
9. Defragment - Get it all nicely together!
10. Schedule - Deja Vu for your PC!

So, let's get started!

Step 1. Comfortability

The first thing that hurts my eyes when I start a freshly installed Vista-PC is the amount of useless stuff it forces on to the screen:

Welcome Center: Never has anything useful or interesting in it, so just un-check the box at the bottom left corner that says "Run at startup", and close it. It won't bother you anymore.

Sidebar: A nuisance with nothing to offer. You have the clock in its own place  at the end of the taskbar, you don't need it in the other corner too. Neither do you need your computer loading you pictures to the sidebar constantly, and you're damn lucky if you ever find anything really useful for the sidebar anyway. Let's close it permanently! You should be able to find the sidebar-icon in the taskbar; it shouldn't be hard to find, as it has a screen with a bunch of useless stuff coming out from it, just like the taskbar makes your screen look! So, right click that icon and choose "Exit". In the resulting dialog, un-check the box that says "Start Sidebar when Windows starts" and click "Exit Sidebar". Ahh... better...

Quick Launch for Desktop and Flip 3D: Seriously, whose great idea was this? Or flip 3d, for that matter... Quick Launch should be dedicated for shortcuts to the programs you use the most, so that they're easy to access. If you do this right, you'll never have to look at your desktop while working! So, let's drag&drop these two shortcuts to the Recycle Bin.

From now on, when you have a program you use a lot, make a quick launch shortcut for it by right clicking its icon on the desktop or the start menu and choosing "Add to Quick Launch". Then delete the icon from the desktop, as you won't be needing it anymore.

The next thing to do would be doubling the taskbar, to get more room for your quick launch and open applications. To do this, right click on the task bar and un-check "Lock the Taskbar". Now grab the upper edge of the taskbar with your mouse, and drag it up until the size of the taskbar doubles. Now just right click the task bar again and lock it.

Now, let's customize the taskbar and start menu. Right click on the taskbar and select "Properties". This opens a dialog where you can customize what is shown in the taskbar and the start menu.By default, you should be viewing the Taskbar-tab now. I like to keep most of these on their defaults, but I just un-check the checkbox that says "Group similar taskbar buttons", just to get an easy access to every window I have open. When you're done with these, go to the Start Menu-tab. Here you can choose between the classic start menu and the new Vista start menu, as well as choose whether or not to display recently opened files and programs in the start menu. Explore these settings by clicking the "Customize" button and modify them as you wish.

For example, I choose to show the Control Panel, Computer and Personal Folder as a menu and hide the Games Explorer and music-, pictures- and documents-folder. This makes the Start menu a lot more compact and more comfortable to use. When you've made your changes, click "OK".

Now go to the Notification Area-tab. Here you can choose which items to show in the notification area. I like to keep it all visible there, so I simply un-check the box that says "Hide inactive icons". Now let's go to the Toolbars-tab. One thing I really love in Vista is the "Windows Media Player"-toolbar, because it makes it very convenient to listen to music with your Vista PC, as it makes the media player go to the end of the taskbar when minimized, instead of staying among the other applications, where you might unintentionally click it. So I just check the box next to it and the "Quick Launch" and then press "Apply" and "OK".

That's pretty much it for the User Interface-cleaning. The last thing you might want to do, though, is to disable User Account Control, just to get rid of all those annoying permission dialogs. To do this, just go to

Start Menu -> Control Panel -> User Accounts

Click the text that says "Turn User Account Control on or off", now click "Continue" on the last annoying dialog you'll see. Now all you have to do is to un-check the box that says "Use User Account Control... blah blah.." and click "OK". This change will Require you to restart your computer. Do that now, and then get back here and jump right into Step 2!

Step 2. Updates

Now that you restarted your computer, you probably noticed a notification warning about the UAC-settings. To get rid of this, you can either turn off the Security Center notifications only, or completely disable display of its notification area icon. If you wish to do this, click on the notification to open Security Center. On the left there should be text saying "Change the way Security Center alerts me". Click on it and choose the option that best suits you. I choose to disable both the notifications and the icon.

Now that you're already in the Security Center, you can easily get to Windows Update by clicking on its link on top of the list on the left. If you're not in the Security Center, you can find Windows Update in Start Menu, in the "All Programs"-list.

When having the Windows Update open, click the text on the left that says "Check for updates" to find the newest updates for your Windows Vista. After the search has finished, you can view the available updates by clicking the text on the right that says "View available updates". The important updates should already be selected, but you might want to also include hardware drivers in the installation. Choose the drivers you want to have included in the installation. Note: the drivers in Windows Update aren't always the newest ones available, especially for video cards!

When you've made your choices, click the "Install" button and wait for Windows Update to download and install the updates. This may take a while, depending on the file size of the updates, as well as your connection speed, so you might want to do something else for a moment now. I'd recommend making a cup of coffee and a bowl of noodles and watching an episode or two of the Simpsons, Family Guy or American Dad.

When the Updates are installed, it will most probably tell you to restart your computer again. Do that, and get back here to continue to Step 3!

Step 3. Security

Now what you need is security for internet browsing. The best, free way to get it is to download and install Avast! Home Edition. You can get it here.

While downloading the installer, you should register your copy to get the license key for it. The registration is completely free and you can do it here. The license key is then e-mailed to you.

After registering and downloading the installer, install the program with "Typical" settings. After installing, it will tell you to restart the computer again. Do that and get back here.

After restarting, you should see the "Welcome to avast! Home Edition!" dialog. Click "OK" to that.

You should see two new icons in the notification area of the taskbar. A sphere with a "i" on it and a sphere with an "a" on it. The one with the "i" is the icon of the Virus Recovery Database and the one with the "a" is the icon of the main antivirus application. We'll just get rid of the one  with "i", just because we don't need to have two icons for basically the same program. Right click the one with the "i" and choose "Merge with main avast! icon".

Now you should only have the sphere with the "a" there. Right click on it and choose "About avast!...". This will open a dialog with your license information. Click the button that says "License key...", check your e-mail for your key and enter it to the registration-dialog. Press "OK" to activate your license and "OK" again to close the "About avast!..." screen.

Now, right click on the "a"-icon again and choose "Program Settings..." to open the "avast! settings..." dialog. Set the settings as follows: (if something's not mentioned here, leave it as default)

Appearance:

     un-check "Animate tray icon when scanning", so it won't draw too much attention at any point.

Sounds:

     check "Disable avast! sounds", for the same reason as above.

Update (Basic):

     set both options to "Automatic"

Troubleshooting:

     check "Check for full screen applications (e.g. games) before displaying popups".

Now click "OK".

You might also want to remove the "avast! Antivirus" shortcut from the desktop.

Congratulations! You now have a working antivirus!

Step 4. Drivers

This step is exactly the same as the Step 2 in my previous article

The next thing you need to do, is to download RadarSync, the free driver updater. Just go to RadarSync

website and click the button that says "Start Download". When the download has finished, start the installer.

On the first screen, click "Accept" to install RadarSync, but in the next screens when it asks about PC Confidential and Registry Power Cleaner, just click "Decline", because you really don't need these once you get Iobit's Software up and running. Also, uncheck the checkboxes in the last screen, or it will change your browser's starting page and add some screensaver advertising shortcuts to your desktop.

After unchecking those, just click "Accept" and wait for the installer to download and install RadarSync. When it says it's done, click "Finish". The program will start automatically and show a small window with the RadarSync's logo and a "Continue" button. Click that button, and it will show the main program window.

Here, you just need to click the big "Start Now!" button, and the program will scan your computer and find any needed driver updates for it. After the scan, the program will show you a list of available driver updates. Just click the button that says "Download all items" and then go to watch some movie or something, as this will probably take some time, depending on your internet connection speed. I would recommend the movie "K-PAX", a great story about a man who makes his psychiatrist doubt his own mind, and should make each one of us ask "what if?"

When the downloads have finished, click on the text "ready for install" next to each to remove it from the list and start the installer. Follow the steps of each of the installers. Each installer will probably tell you to restart your computer, but I'd say you don't have to do that until you've installed every one of them. Do that then, and then get back here and we'll move on!

Step 5. Programs & Features

Also this step is the same as one found in my previous article, but it's still necessary, so I've included it here too.

Go to:

Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features

Here you can uninstall all the programs you don't need to have on your computer. Taking care of this now will save you from a lot of trouble later, when you really want or need to get something new installed. Just browse through the list of installed programs and when you spot a program you never need, select it and click on the "Uninstall" button on top of the list. Then just follow the uninstaller instructions.

You might also want to look at the windows features and turn some of them off. You can do this by clicking the text on the left that says "Turn Windows features on or off". This will open a new window with a list of currently installed and available Windows features. Move your mouse over these features to see a short description of each, and decide whether or not you necessarily need them. If you don't just un-check the box next to it. When you're done, just press "OK" and wait for the changes to be made. Sometimes, this may require you to reboot your computer. If so, do it, and then get back here to follow the rest of the guide!

Step 6. Services

Now it's time to get rid of useless services running on the background. To do this, open the service manager by holding the Windows-key and pressing R, then writing "services.msc" and pressing ENTER.

You can also do this by entering "services.msc" to the start menu search box.

Now, you can disable a service by double-clicking it and changing its startup type to "disabled".

Disable the following services:

• DFS Replication
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
• IPsec Policy Agent
• KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator
• Offline Files
• Remote Registry
• Tablet PC Input Service (Unless you're using a tablet PC, like I am)
  
• Windows Error Reporting Service

Also, take a look at the rest of the services and determine by their descriptions whether or not you need them running. If you're sure you don't need it, disable it.

Step 7. Disk Cleanup

Now open the run command again (Win+R) or go to the start menu search and write "cleanmgr /sageset:1" and press ENTER.

This will open the Disk Cleanup Settings. Choose what you want your disk cleanup to clean; I choose them all. Then press "OK"

Now go to the run command or the search box again, write "cleanmgr /sagerun:1" and press ENTER to start the cleanup. The first time will take a few moments because of the old file compression, but later on, this should be a very fast process and it will be scheduled to happen automatically.

Step 8. Registry

Now you need to download Wise Registry Cleaner free edition. To do this, click this link.

Install the program without creating those useless shortcuts it asks about in the end and remember to remove the mark from the checkbox where it says "Download Wise Disk Cleaner now", while leaving the one where it says "Launch Wise Registry Cleaner". Press "Finish", and the program will start. It will ask you about the language you wish to use, and for this tutorial I recommend you choose English.

When the program starts, it will ask you about upgrading to PRO-version. Click "no". In the next dialog check the box where it says "Don't show this window again" and press "yes". It will now create a restore point and report to you when it's done. Press "OK".

Now go to:

Options -> Options

In the General-tab un-check the following

• Create Log
• Show balloon hints
• Auto get promote message

and choose "No Hints (Fastest)"

In the Auto Run-tab choose "Automatic" and "Only safe entries" and un-check "Show log when the program exits".

Click "OK" to close the Options-dialog and press "Scan" in the upper left corner to scan and fix the registry, after which the program will automatically close. Time to move on.

Step 9. Defragment

This step is also in my earlier guide. You need to download Iobit's SmartDefrag, the free, automated defragmenter with set-it-aand-forget-it functionality. Just go to Iobit website and scroll down until you see the button that says "Download freeware now". This will take you to CNET's download.com page, where you just click "Download Now" to start the download.

When the download finishes, install the defragmenter and start it.

In the program's main window, click the button that says "Options". Check all the boxes that have the word "(Recommended)" after them, as well as the one that says "Automatically check for updates".

Now click the button on the left that says "Schedule". This will take you to the schedule configuration. Check the boxes next to each of the hard drives listed, as well as the one where it says "Enable schedule" and from the drop-down menu choose "Defrag and Optimize". This will schedule automatic defragmenting to be performed once every two weeks, which should be just fine.

Now click the button on the left that says "Auto Defrag", which takes you to a screen where you can configure the automatic defragging performed on the background all the time when the computer is on. Just click the button that says "Recommended", and it should set everything just as it is best for your computer.

The last thing in this step would be a full defragment and optimization of all disks. For this, go to the main screen by clicking the button that says "Defrag Now". Check the boxes next to all drives listed and choose "Defrag and Optimize" from the drop-down menu. Now just click "Start" and it will start defragmenting.

Now, this also may take some time, so perhaps it's time for another movie? My recommendation this time would be "Wanted", a story of an anxious office worker who learns that he's really the son of the world's best assassin and possesses super-human killing and fighting abilities. Not really a good movie story-wise, but a perfect choice when you just want to enjoy some action.

When the defragmenting finishes, you'll see a report window, and you can just close it and also the program itself (it will keep running on the background, keeping your files in shape!), and we can move on to the last step.

Step 10. Schedule

Now we'll schedule the disk and registry cleaning to be made daily.

Go to the run command (Win+R) or the start menu search box and write "taskschd.msc /s" and press ENTER to start the Task Scheduler. On the left, click "Creat Basic Task..."

This will open the Task Wizard. In the first screen, write a name for your task, for example "Daily Disk Clean" and then press "Next".

In the next screen choose "Daily" and press "Next". Set the time you wish your task to take place in and press "Next" again.

Now choose "Start a Program" as the action and press "Next". Set the following:

Program: C:WindowsSystem32cleanmgr.exe /sagerun:1

and press "Next". Now press "Finish" and that's it! Your computer is now scheduled to clean the disk every day!

Now make another task and in the program set this:
C:Program FilesWise Registry Cleaner 3WiseRegistryCleaner.exe

Congratulations, your PC is now configured to stay in shape, for free!

To capture a packet, first you need to select the program you wish to capture the packet from. You select the program in the top left corner, where it says target program. When you click on that button, a list of programs appears. Simply click on any of the programs to start capturing packets from it. After you selected the program, click on the play button that is bellow target program. By doing that, you start capturing packets from the program you selected. After you did what you wanted to be captured, return to WPE Pro and click on the red stop button. A list of packets will appear.

Modifying packets is a little more difficult. To modify them, you first need to recognize which one is the packet that you want to modify. To do this, you must repeat the action you want to capture several times, but in different circumstances. The first 4 digits of the packet of a same action will always be the same. That helps to recognize the packet you are looking for. Once you recognized the packet, you can create a filter, send it repeatedly times, or modify it without a filter and send it as you wish.

To create a filter, double click on the filter you wish to create (filter 1, filter 2, filter 3, etc.). A screen with lots of squares will appear, one row saying "Search" and the other saying "Modify". What filters do is that they search for the numbers that you put in the search row and change them into the ones that you have in the modify row. So, if you captured an action that says 00 97 54 86, and then another that says 00 97 43 38, and you want to change the first one so that when you do it, it appears as if you had done the second one, you put 00 97 54 86 in the search row and 00 97 43 38 in the modify row.

To send it repeatedly times, just right-click the packet and select "send". Another window will appear, and there click on the white circle that says "continuously". You can change the time there so it sends faster. What that will do is that your action will be done tons of times continuously. That is useful if you need to do something of fast clicking.

You can also modify packets without using a filter. To do that, you need to right-click the packet and click on "send". There, you can click on any of the values on the packet and modify them. You can also change the values that are letters on the right of that window. That helps if you don't know exactly what each value means. Those modified packets can also be sent continuously or only 1 time.

I'd like to state that I'm not encouraging you to break any rules. This could get you banned from whatever network you're on and get you suspended. But knowledge IS power. As long as it's understood that I'm not going to be responsible if you do something absolutely dumb. Also, not all of these are going to work the best. Just don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

First and foremost, BACK UP ANYTHING YOU WISH TO SAVE!

This is a crucial step that many people forget about, yet it is absolutely vital if you have any files of value. There are a few options you have when backing up your data, and I'll go over a couple of them here. If you have a CD or DVD burner, you can burn your files to disc, if you have an external hard drive, you can just move your files on to it, if you're on a network, you can copy your data to another machine in your workgroup, or you could also use free online storage space (I personally recommend ADrive.com since you get a reasonable 50 gigs for free).

Some things I would suggest backing up would be your music, movies, pictures, word documents, saved passwords, your installers (you have been saving them, right?), save games, and configuration files are all good things to save. ***If you are formatting a Windows XP computer, you should back up your drivers as well, just to save you the hassle of finding them later. To do so, run a quick Google search for free driver backup program+win xp***

Once you've backed all your files up by whatever method you choose, you'll be ready to proceed with the installation. Pop the installer CD in your drive and reboot your machine. As it is booting up, you'll see a message telling you to press any key to boot from CD, go ahead and push anything, but do so quickly since it will only display the message for a few seconds. **Please note that if you do not see this message, you may have to access your BIOS setup and set your boot order to have the CD/DVD drive on the top position.**

After a couple moments a prompt will appear on the screen asking you to pick a location to install to. It looks something like this:

Go ahead and pick the location you want to install to, if there is only one option, that'll be the one you want. Once you have selected where you want to install XP, you're going to need to pick which filesystem to use.

Odds on, you want to pick NTFS instead of FAT, in this day and age, there is a very low chance you actually need a FAT partition. You can pick a quick format or a regular format, it depends mostly on how thorough you feel like being. A standard format will take longer, but you will be guaranteed a nice clean, speedy filesystem, but if you already have the same system in place (i.e. Picking NTFS partition to be overwritten is NTFS as well) you could just do a quick format since the basic filesystem structure is already there. Once you pick your location, if you need to delete the partition and re-create a new one, the installer will ask for confirmation, just in case.

Once the format is all done, it starts copying all the required files for installation onto your freshly created partition. Well that is going on, you might as well go make a sandwich or something, it takes a little bit depending on the speed of your disc drive.

After it finishes copying, it will automatically restart itself and load into the next stage of the wizard. It will take a bit of time as it installs most of the files you need to run Windows XP, but after a few minutes, it will ask for your Windows serial code. I'm not sure where you put it, but a good place to check would be the box or envelope your CD was in.

Once you've entered in your product key so setup can continue with the install, you're almost done. All that is left now is the final configuration of your OS. As it proceeds through the next few pages of the setup, you'll be customizing your computer to meet your own settings and preferences.

Conratulations, you've now finished installing Windows XP on your computer, and it took less then an hour to finish. Bet you can hardly wait to start using your nice, squeaky clean install. Have fun and as always, drop a comment if you need a hand, I'll be more then happy to help you out.

For starters, let me explain port forwarding in nice plain english, that you might understand the concept of what we are going to be doing here. Port forwarding is the process of opening a hole in your router to allow internet traffic to pass through it and to your computer with no interfence. When you are connected to the internet directly (modem to computer) you are fully exposed to the glory - and wrath - of the online world. If you are part of a network, your router will not only act as a buffer between your computer and that dangerous thing that we are so addicted to, but it will also allow you to pass files and information back and forth between other machines on the same router.

Now that you have an idea of what port forwarding is, why should you use it? Many programs these days will automatically set themselves up to play nicely with your router, but they won't tell you why. On most networks, all machines connected to the router will use the same IP address to connect to the internet. This is call Network Address Translation, and there are a number of reasons this is useful, but at the same time, it can confuse a lot of internet traffic. Now for example, let's say your using Limewire and you're trying to download a song. When you start downloading the song you want, the various sources the song is coming from will attempt to connect to your computer to give you your requested file. As I explained above though, if you have more then one computer on your network, you all use the same IP address, and that could make it hard for Limewire to know which computer to pass the song to. So we use port forwarding to tell it that certain programs go to certain places on the internal network. By doing so, Limewire will connect to your IP address, which will redirect to your router, which in turn consults your port forwarding to see which internal machine to redirect to.

If you are reading this on a computer running Windows XP or newer, you probably don't need to do any manual port forwarding, since Microsoft introduced uPnP, applications can access your router and make changes automatically. If you are not using a newer version of Windows, or the application you are running does not support uPnP, then it is time to roll up your sleeves and poke around inside your router a little. I cannot give you exact instructions, as most routers are different, but I can give you a great website to help you with the specifics beyond what I can explain here. Just pick the model of your router off this list http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm and follow the instructions it gives you. Make sure you note what it tells you your IP address is, up near the top of the page.

If you are unsure as to what the model of router you own, take a look at it. 9 times out of 10, somewhere on the router, there will be the manufacturer, model, serial number, and quite often the MAC address as well. We don't need all that right now, but it's a good thing to know should it come up later down the road. If you do not have physical access to your router, talk with your network admin, as they will probably set up port forwarding for you.

Thats it. A quick and painless explanation of what port forwarding is and why to use it. If you still have a hard time figuring anything out, drop a comment and I'll try and help.

But what if you can't find exactly what you are looking for? Maybe you found something, but you know you can do it better. Becoming a podcast publisher is perfect for you!

Creating your very own podcast may seem like a daunting and highly technical task at first, but once you learn the basics and download the right (and many times free) software, you'll have the first episode of your very own podcast up in a day!

First, you need to decide if you will be publishing an audio or video podcast. Both have very similar processes. Audio podcasts aren't as media rich, but video podcasts require more advanced equipment and come with a more detailed editing process. For the purposes of this article we will assume you are starting with an audio podcast.

You will need to begin with a program that captures the audio recording and converts it into the standard .mp3 format that is recognized by podcasts. The most basic program to use with the best functionality is Audacity.

Once you have your audio file recorded you need a place to store and publish you audio file. More advanced users can upload the file to their own web page along with an RSS feed. This feed is what the listeners subscribe to and use to find the audio files. An easier alternative is to use a free online service called Poderator. Poderator will store your .mp3 files, automatically create your RSS feed based on your preferences, and promote your podcast. All you have to do is tell iTunes the location of your podcast so it can be placed in the official iTunes Store Podcast Directory for searching.

Please bear in mind that this is a very basic podcast tutorial. There is a world of software and hardware out there to aid you in creating the perfect podcast. For a more detailed tutorial on each aspect of publishing your podcast, look for the other articles posted below. They contain a wealth of information the help you along your way.

The last important element of creating a podcast is networking. It is difficult to get your initial fan base up, especially if nobody has ever heard of your podcast. Once your podcast is published, tell everyone you know about it! Ask owners of other podcasts and websites if they would be willing to link back to you. Be creative!

Remember to start small and work you way up. Your podcast may not become a huge hit at first, but with commitment, practice, and the right content your podcast can easily become one of the top podcasts on the net. The possibilities are endless!

DRI stands as the title says for Dynamic Range Increase. Normally a digital camera can't capture the whole contrast spectrum of a scene like our eyes. Depending on how well it's sensor is made it can capture more or less contrast, but it's always less than our eyes can. Even my DSLR for 700€ can't capture the whole contrast like my eyes, but it can at least capture more contrast than my small compact camera.

Making a DRI Photo means to put multiple exposures of the same photo together and only use the well exposed part of each. On this way you can get beyond the contrast of every digital camera. Of course, the more contrast your camera can capture the less work you have.

Photos Suited for DRI

Photos for DRI should be taken with a tripod so they match 100% exactly onto each other. You can also use freehand photos, like I did in this guide because I didn't had no better ones, but then you should use a panorama align tool like Hugin to match them over each other. This is also the reason why my photos are looking a bit uncommon.

Other things you should be aware of is that your photos must not contain any movement because if you lay them over each other the movement doesn't match, except your camera can take all different exposures at once. Even the wind can mess a picture up if you have trees or grass or other wind sensitive objects in your photo. I had luck with my ones, it was a silent day. Moving clouds can also be trouble.

Needed Software

I would suggest you GIMP because I'm used to it but I think every image software that supports layers and partial transparency for these will do. Don't wonder why my GIMP looks a bit different than the normal version, I've used GIMP Photo based on GIMP 2.4.3 but don't worry, I'm not using any thing that isn't included in the normal GIMP 2+ versions.

If you want to use freehand photos I would suggest you also Hugin so you can align them to each other. Normally it's made for aligning panorama parts together but it does a good job for DRI aligning too.

Making the DRI

Now let's get started, for this DRI guide I will only use 2 different exposures. You can use more but I'm not done with learning how to do that the correct way, most of my DRI's with more than 2 parts are not really good and only most of my 2 part DRI's turn out well.

Loading the Photos

First load your photos into GIMP. The easiest way is to open the underexposure and load the other exposure(s) with "File > Open as layers (Ctrl + Alt + O)". Alternatively you can just drag them onto the opened darkest photo, they will get loaded as layers that way too.

Correct Order

The order is important for this guide, you need to order the exposures starting with the lightest on top going down to the darkest at the bottom. To do that you can Shift + Click the eye on the left of a layer to only show this layer. Then find out if its the darkest, the lightest or something between and drag it either on top of all other or below all others or where ever it should be. As you can see on this screen shot: I'm dragging with the left mouse button the layer that got the eye, which shows it's the only visible, below the other layer cause the one I'm dragging is the dark one. The other one is the lighter one. The black line shows where the layer will land when I release the left mouse button.

This screen shot shows the 2 layers,on the left the lower and darker one, on the right the upper lighter one. I cut the half away from the lighter one so I can show you that they match together. You don't need to cut your photos yet.

Getting it DRI

Now that you have correctly ordered your photos we can make the unneeded parts transparent. To do this, right click the lighter layer and click on "Add layer mask".

Then the "Add layer mask" window will appear where you select "Greyscale copy of layer" and check the "Invert mask" checkbox.

This is also the reason why the lightest photo needs to be on top, the inverted greyscale copy will make all parts of the picture transparent depending on their luminance. This means that the lighter parts will be full to nearly full transparent while the darker parts will be nearly to full non-transparent.

This is where the simple DRI guide ends. Of course you can get even more out by optimizing the layer mask and using more than only 2 exposures but these are things I have to learn my self first. But compared to the base photos the result isn't bad. It's a simple but still nice DRI photo.

I hope this guide will help you to make some nice DRI photos too.

The last page shows the final DRI and the split screen from before so you can compare them.

Thanks for reading.