Ditto. :thumbup:

Also known as the big screw.

The UK government has found a new way of reducing pensions - make people work so long that they will die before reaching pensionable age.

Today's children can probably look forward to working until they are 75plus - if they can find a job or unless they are rich enough to have a big private pension!

Of course the people who caused the problems in the first place will still be retiring at about 50 with a pension equal to their final (obscene) salary.

Usually the UK follows the US - I wonder if it will be the other way around in this case?

Depends what you want to do with the picture - facebook, twitter, instagram or whatever.
For printing - read the requirements. I use a professional printing service which prints whatever I send them without any corrections on their part. Their specification states that files should be set to whatever print size I require - eg 12" x 9" - and at 405 DPI.

Challenge yourself - e.g:
1. Use an Ultra Wide Angle lens and revisit well known places with just this lens for new perspectives.
2. Use a 'nifty fifty' lens so you have to move around more to get a particular shot.
3. Use a small memory card or consciously restrict yourself to just 36 shots on the whole photo shoot.
4. Use a basic 'point and shoot' camera and try to obtain some excellent shots.

I normally use a DSLR but have a similar Lumax to take anywhere else and apart from missing the viewfinder it takes quite good pics. My one only shoots JPG's but to prove a point I entered one of the pictures in a local competition and won first in the category.

Yes. I have just updated my Canon 700D for the first time.
It was very easy to do and detailed instructions on the site.
Basically - load the software onto your memory card and go to the camera menu.
:idea:
It is very important to read the instructions fully first, have a freshly charged battery in the camera and don't touch anything while the software is installing. :thumbup:

Toad in a hole is a Yorkshire pudding batter with sausages in it - very tasty!

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5822/toad-in-the-hole-in-4-easy-steps

OMG You cannot get clotted cream!!!!!

It is said that look into a big hole anywhere on earth and you will find a Cornishman!

There is a tea plantation in Cornwall that exports a Cornish cream tea of scones, clotted cream, Jam and clotted cream to Japan and is doing well.

Never realized you Americans were missing out on so much - and the list didn't even have Cornish Pasties or Haggis on it!

I would say though to British chocolate connoisseurs - Cadbury’s chocolate is most certainly not considered 'Proper' chocolate. To get that you need to go to one of the growing number of Chocolatiers making hand made chocolates.

Excellent commercial brands are Green & Blacks and Lindt - both of which make chocolate ranging up to 100% chocolate (no worries about sugar there).

Green and Black's Organic Dark Chocolate 85 Percent Cocoa 100 g
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Blacks-Organic-Chocolate-Percent/dp/B0069RPB16/ref=sr_1_3?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1457282676&sr=1-3&keywords=green+and+blacks+chocolate+100%25

Lindt Excellence 90% Cocoa Dark Supreme, 100g
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lindt-Excellence-Cocoa-Dark-Supreme/dp/B014PD02B4/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1457282806&sr=1-10&keywords=lindt+chocolate+100%25

Toad in the hole is preferable. This is Yorkshire pudding with sausages in it.

For a crop sensor camera - the Canon 10 ~ 18mm lens is an excellent buy at only £180 in UK - cheaper in US. It is light but takes very good pictures and benefits from a silent focusing motor and image stabilization (yes it can be useful on an Ultra Wide Angle Lens).

Check back on posts by myself and others over the last few months and you will find several example images.

Since purchasing in November the lens has practically stayed on the camera as I have revisited local places for new viewpoints.

Pro's are happy to spend $000's on a top quality monitor and then it makes sense to spend another $100+ on a calibration device. But they can offset the cost against high prices and expenses.

However, for us with limited income we have to ask ourselves 'is it worth the cost?' and a lot of us have said 'no'.

The main thing is to set your output to the profile for your printer - easy in LightRoom - and see how it goes.

I do not calibrate my monitor.
For the prints I need I use a professional print service and have set LR up with their printer profile. All the prints have worked out perfectly.

My neighbor - who introduced me to the service - is a semi-professional and has won scores of top completions with her prints which she also sells on line.

She does not calibrate her monitor either so it is up to you whether you send out a lot of - probably unnecessary - cash to a calibrator or simply see how your prints work out.

Surely that is in the eye of the beholder?

A semi-professional friend of mine only told me today of a picture she entered in a prestigious competition where it won fist place - then a few weeks later the same picture was entered in a different - equally prestigious - competition where she was told that it wasn't worth entering!!!!

Have a look at 'FastStone Image Viewer' - which is freeware.
It is a very versatile program with many features. After I first downloaded this program I never uses Picasa again.
:thumbup:

I do all the processing myself in order to get the final picture exactly as I want and then send the JPGs to a professional printer formatted to their requirements. Then what I get back is exactly what I sent without any processing at all by the printer.

How much processing depends on what you want. archival records of a scene would require basic processing of the RAW file where others may want to remove anything that does not add to the scene and others again may do a lot of processing in order to make a work of art.