Having kids is one of the many life-changing experiences in a person’s life, and for many new parents, it triggers the video-taking, photo-snapping instinct in their body and lo and behold you are looking at pictures of bums, "accidents" and baby drool all over your Facebook wall. And then, you get these photographers who take awesome and creative photos of their kids that you actually wouldn’t mind to look at, over and over again.

Some of them are taken in a natural setting, others have props and scenery set up to create funny and endearing situations, but they are all very creative, inspiring and fun to look at. Here’s a look at the kind of photographs that parents should be taking more of.

Recommended Reading: 24 Absolutely Creative Family Portraits You Can Shoot

Elena Shumilova

It takes lots of talent to be able to capture photos like how Elena Shumilova takes them. Her picture seem to be magical retellings of a fairy tale. She usually takes picture of her children and their pets, locking in the natural elegance (and innocence), which betrays itself the moment you lay eyes on the picutres.

For more: Visit Elena Shumilova’s 500px.

Adrian Sommeling

Adrian Sommeling is a skilled photographer and photo manipulator. He puts kids in creative situations which defy logic, the laws of physics and sometimes, nature itself. His photos are very vibrant and you can see the emotion shine through in the faces of his children.

For more: Visit Adrian Sommeling’s website

Bill Gekas

Just like any father, Bill Gekas enjoys taking pictures of his daughter. However, he takes a unique approach by using his daughter as a subject to recreate classic paintings, pictures and movie scenes that some of you might have come across.

For More: Visit Bill Gekas’ website

Toyokazu Nagano

Photographer Toyokazu Nagano and father of Kanna portrays his daughter’s loud expressions by putting her in creative and fun poses. With the use of clever props, the photos are hardly average and you’re even sure if it is the father who is a talented photographer or his daughter who is an amazing model.

For More: Visit Toyokazu Nagano’s Flickr

Dave Engledow

You must have seen some of Dave Engledow’s work. A photo artist, and self-proclaimed "World’s Best Father" (we have to agree on that one), Dave puts his adorable daughter, Alice in humorous and fun situations that parents can only call "their worst nightmare".

For More: Visit Dave Engledow’s Fotoblur

Michelle

Michelle is like any other mother who enjoys blogging about life with her family and children at Burgh Baby. Once in a while, she posts unique street drawings drawn with chalk with her daughter as the subject. The effect is mystical.

For More: Visit Michelle’s blog

Jason Lee

Jason Lee became an Internet sensation when the photographs of his 2 daughters in unique situations began circulating around the Web. He puts them in physics-defying, levitating, mind-boggling situations but in all of them, the sisters are as happy as can be.

For More: Visit Jason Lee’s blog

Tim MacPherson

For a kid, the home is a playground, with a bit of help from their imagination. Tim MacPherson recreates outdoor scenes adventures from every day household items like bedsheets, pails and cardboards to make waves, motorcyle wheels and a horse.

For more: Visit Tim MacPherson’s website

Editor’s note: This is a contributed post by Sara Duane-Gladden, Editor for Smartpress.com, an online printing service based in Minnesota, and a contributor to the Smarptress.com blog. She also works as a freelance copywriter and photographer in her spare time.

It takes a lot of tinkering to get your ebook designs to look just right. From the cover art to the text within the interior pages, you want everything to look perfect in the digital space. But do you also consider how your ebook will look when it is printed out? Digital books are becoming more and more mainstream, but printed publications are still the norm. Though you strive to make your digital file flawless in the virtual world, some of that effort may be lost once ink has been applied to paper.

There are distinct benefits to ensuring that your ebook translates well when it is printed. You’ll know that whatever form your ebook takes, it will look good, whether the reader is viewing the file on their ereader, a hard copy printed off the home printer or the professionally printed version created by you or your publisher.

With a versatile design that works in both forms, you can distribute your publication in more ways, raising the prospects of greater message reach and potentially more profits.

Recommended Reading: Beginner’s Guide To Book Cover Design

With a few adjustments to your ebook design, it will look great when it makes the transition from the virtual to the physical world. Though nothing is foolproof, keep the following points in mind when designing your ebook project.

1. Wordsmith

Your word count isn’t as important with an ebook, but every extraneous word in your text adds up to extra pages in the printed version. Carefully review your work to make it as concise as possible. This exercise may even improve your writing. Additionally, spellcheckers are unreliable.

Read every word in the piece several times to make sure the words you’re using are the right spelling and grammatical tense.

2. Design and Layout

During the editing process when you’re moving, adding and subtracting ebook design elements to see what looks good, it can be easy to leave out something important. Mistakes are often made with consistency of fonts, colors, heading sizes, shadows and other small details that might have changed in some area, but not others.

This might be easier to miss in the digital space but when several pages of an ebook are printed out and the fonts change in size or consistency, it can be quite obvious. Double-check these points to ensure you’ve been consistent throughout.

3. Color Replication

Getting the colors on the paper to match the colors you see on the screen can be difficult. Different color model settings in the design program, digital file, professional printer and home/office printer will affect the final results.

While most graphic designers and photographers like to work in RGB, digital printers and home printers mostly use CMYK. To address this, you can convert the design to CMYK yourself, though it may take some tinkering to get the colors to look correct.

Monitor calibration may also make the colors of your design look different. Printing a test image and comparing it to what’s on your screen can give you a decent idea of how your monitor is impacting your design – and what people will see if they print your ebook at home.

4. Image Resolution

It’s recommended that you save your ebook PDF at 300 DPI. Though you can get away with lower resolutions in the digital space, every pixel is important for producing the best printed results. This is particularly true if your ebook is filled with photographs, intricate illustrations or other imagery.

When in doubt, always save your file with the highest resolution possible. You can scale it down if you need to, but there’s no way to add pixels later.

5. Limitations of Home & Office Printers

Home and office printers have big limitations. They aren’t like professional printing presses, which can accommodate papers of varied sizes. Home and office printers are often restricted to the most common types of paper on hand: Usually inkjet or laser printer paper, bright white in letter or legal sizes.

Additionally, home and office printers don’t lay down ink all the way to the edges of the paper, as there’s usually a minimum requirement of a 1/2" margin. Keep these home and office printing limitations in mind when creating your ebook design file.

6. Bleeds, Crop Marks & Cutting Tolerance

Digital designs become more complicated when you consider professional printing. Digital printers expect you to have knowledge of bleeds, crop marks and cutting tolerance when you create your design file.

• Crop marks tell the printer where to cut the pages to size.
• A bleed is printing that extends beyond the edge of the crop marks, and is cut off in the finishing process.
• Cutting tolerance is the slight variation that occurs when sheets are cut down to size.

Knowing your print provider’s cutting tolerance and having the correct bleeds and crop mark settings is essential to getting the final printed design you want. Bleed and crop mark requirements can vary depending on your printer, but many request 1/8” bleeds and quality printers have a cutting tolerance no greater than 1/16”.

7. Paper & Binding Options

When you print your ebook, how the final results look will depend on the paper and binding options you choose. Coated paper is smooth, has a satin-like finish, and is more resistant to dirt, moisture and wear. Coatings restrict how the paper absorbs the ink, which is desirable when printing sharp images. Uncoated paper is generally not as smooth and tends to be more porous, which can cause ink to spread on the paper.

As for binding options, most printers offer saddle stitch, wire coil and spiral binding, though each may have restrictions on how many pages can be bound together. Work with your printer to find the right paper and binding options.

8. Don’t work Alone

Check your work, make corrections, recheck it, and then have someone else review it. When working really closely on a project, your brain can fill in letters and words where they don’t exist. Having another pair of eyes check it over can eliminate these mistakes. Be sure to have them look at both the digital and the printed versions for best results.

9. Print It Out

As mentioned before, printing your ebook can help you see how it will look. This applies to professional printing too. Before submitting your file, print the ebook out with standard paper, cut it down, and do any expected folding, as may be required by a saddle stitched book. This will give you a good idea of how your project looks and, if needed, you can refine your design.

Once you’ve sent your ebook design file to the printer, you will also likely get a digital proof to approve. Print the digital proof and cut it down to size, too. Although this won’t show the final colors or paper, it will give you a clear sense of how it looks printed to size.

Look really close because once you’ve received a proof, you’re approaching the point of no return as far as changing the final design.

10. Get a Hard Proof

When you have your ebook professionally printed, digital proofs are great for a quick turnaround and low cost, but if you really want to ensure print quality, get a hard proof. This is especially true if the paper you’ve chosen has unique properties, such as synthetic materials, or it’s the first time printing your ebook.

You may also want a hard proof if you have very specific brand colors that need to be precise. Because the printer has to set up the press for your proof, there is often a fee for each one, but the nominal fee is worth it if you want to see what to expect.

Once you or your client is happy with how the ebook looks, the only thing left to do is get it printed. You’ve done what you can to make sure it looks good if someone prints it on a home computer and you’ve done everything within your power to ensure that you’ll be happy with what a professional printer produces. Barring any unusual glitches, the tips above should help you get the finished printed ebook you desire.

Internet browsers have come a long way since the days of Netscape Navigator, but the way we browse and manage our bookmarks hasn’t really changed much over the years. There’s nothing really wrong with the classic folder view, but what if there were a better-looking way to manage bookmarks, complete with smarter search features and support for tagging? Well, there is, and it is called Dewey.

Dewey is a Chrome application that provides a better way to manage your Chrome bookmarks. Not only does it have a great-looking minimal interface with website thumbnails, it also offers some extra features such as more robust searching, tagging and a few sorting options. If you’ve been yearning for a new take on bookmark management, Dewey might just be it.

Recommended Reading: 8 Chrome Extensions To Supercharge Your Omnibox Searches

Getting Started With Dewey

First, of course, install Dewey from the Chrome Web Store. Since Dewey is a Chrome App you’ll have to launch it from either the Chrome App Launcher or the Apps view accessible from the New Tab page. When you launch Dewey, it’ll open as a new tab in your Chrome window.

There’s no registration or extra setup required with Dewey, since all it does is access your bookmarks and present them in a different way. So, once you have Dewey installed, you’re good to go.

Dewey Features

Dewey takes the grid layout you’re probably familiar with from Chrome’s New Tab page and applies it to your bookmarks. Dewey doesn’t show thumbnails by default, though; to turn them on, you need to go into the Settings menu ( gear icon in the top right).

Here, you can enable or disable thumbnails (Show thumbnails) and determine whether Dewey ‘sees’ Chrome’s top-level bookmarks folders Bookmarks Bar, Other Bookmarks and Mobile Bookmarks (Hide top-level folders).

That second option is particularly handy because tag support. To be more specific, Dewey automatically tags your bookmarks according to your bookmark folders. So, if you don’t want your bookmarks to be taggged with Bookmarks Bar or Mobile Bookmarks, then you’ll want to enable Hide top-level folders.

Of course, you can also add your own tags to bookmarks. Just click on the Edit button and a window will pop up allowing you to edit the bookmark’s title, URL and tags. This pop up window is also where you delete bookmarks from within Dewey.

Dewey also includes comprehensive search capabilities accessible from the search bar at the top of the Dewey bookmark view. By default, Dewey searches for your selected keyword in your bookmarks’ tags, titles and URLs.

However, you can also limit your search to tags, titles or URLs.

• Adding tag: before a keyword will limit the search to tags.
• Adding title: before a keyword will limit the search to titles.
• Adding url: before a keyword will limit the search to URLs.

Clicking on any particular tag will also filter your bookmarks to only show bookmarks with that particular tag.

Dewey lets you navigate through your bookmarks with your keyboard. Use the Tab and arrow keys to navigate the bookmarks grid, and press Enter to open the selected bookmark. In addition, you can sort your bookmarks according to date added, title and URL.

Conclusion

Dewey is definitely an interesting new take on the tired old bookmarks display. If you have a lot of bookmarks and wish there was an easier way to search through them, or you’re just looking for a prettier way to manage your bookmarks, Dewey is definitely something you should try out.