As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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I shot a lot of photos yesterday at my sister-in-law's vow renewal and some of them really didn't come out as I'd hoped. I'm still getting used to my Panasonic Lumix and it's nowhere near as good as my old Sony for some things like indoor shots. It doesn't like low light on the automatic setting, so I used manual and a high shutter speed with flash to get the photos, which was fine - they came Ok in terms of sharpness, but the colour was very dull.
I'm now using Windows 10 and that's got Windows Photo Viewer or Windows Live Photo Gallery, neither of which have auto correct for colour. With older versions of Windows, I had a programme that was very similar to those, but gave you the option to do things like that, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it. Anyone else?
I've been trying to use other programmes, like Photobucket, Paint and Microsoft Office to auto correct the colour, but to be honest, it doesn't seem that easy. I don't want to try and mess around with shading and hues, as I really don't know what I'm doing, which is why I wanted something simple - any ideas?
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One Free program that many swear by for Windows users is GIMP.
Picasa, Google's Photo editor/organizer is also free. Not sure it will be a lot better than others, but it may be worth a look.
Another option - have you ever tried Adobe Lightroom? While it isn't free, it is one of the easiest and most flexible to use. You can get a free 30 day trial download. (I'm assuming this is available to UK residents).
Is the problem with saturation (washed out, dull colors), white balance (probably a yellowish or bluish tint)? If you don't get this sorted out, maybe upload a sample pic to show what the problem is.
Simple, one-click solutions are hard to come by - I could philosophize about the reasons, but it doesn't change the basic reality: the individual software developers who used to produce relatively simple shareware and freeware programs for Windows migrated first to Linux, and now are making apps for smart phones and tablets. What's left, for the most part, are the big-time operators, and they tend to sell higher-priced software with enough features to justify the high price.
I'm not up to date on Windows photo editing solutions, but I did take a look at the web page for Windows Photo Gallery (current version) and it does seem to offer a form of what you describe - an auto-adjust function, plus a function for automatically adjusting a batch of photos. Perhaps it deserves a re-look. Paint and the graphics tools in Office were never really intended for photo editing. It's no surprise they're hard to work with.
Another option would be Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 - it's a complex program, though far less complex than full-strength Photoshop (and far more affordable - it's currently on sale in the States for around $49). Adobe Lightroom offers similar features, plus lots of tools for organizing your photos, at a higher price.
Basically, the photo editing program, whether full strength like Photoshop, or the "light" versions, are a replacement for the darkroom, a place for getting the most out of a photo, regardless of what happened in-camera. While there's a bit of a learning curve for any of them, for basic tweaking of the sort your describe, it's possible to adjust photos quite quickly for the issues you describe, and even to get a whole lot more out of your better photos as well.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
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I'm not up to date on Windows photo editing solutions, but I did take a look at the web page for Windows Photo Gallery (current version) and it does seem to offer a form of what you describe - an auto-adjust function, plus a function for automatically adjusting a batch of photos. Perhaps it deserves a re-look. Paint and the graphics tools in Office were never really intended for photo editing. It's no surprise they're hard to work with.
Thank you so much - that's what I was looking for. I just couldn't see it anywhere when I looked originally. Amazing what a difference a day or two can make!
It could be your camera. Make sure you have set your white balance properly. That is extreamly important. When adjusting your photos you also need to make sure your monitor is calibrated.
It could be your camera. Make sure you have set your white balance properly. That is extreamly important. When adjusting your photos you also need to make sure your monitor is calibrated.
I figured the camera out by the evening - it was just the earlier shots that weren't right. It's so frustrating having a camera that doesn't work off "auto" mode and having to fiddle around with the manual settings to get it right.