What address will my web page have?

If you are listed in the Writers section, you address will be "http://www.beniciahouse.com/writers/yourpage.html".

The "yourpage" in the "yourpage.html" will be the name you indicated in your Information Submission Form.

Why are your graphics so small?

Authors and Writers are limited to 150 x 200 (landscape or portrait). By keeping images in these sizes, your page loads quickly. Review your own experience while surfing the web. How did you feel when you had to wait . . . and wait . . . for a graphic image to load? By keeping the graphic images below 30K, you are assured that someone viewing your page will not leave before your images are fully loaded.

How do I get my picture into my computer?

There are a few different ways that you can accomplish this. The first is the old fashioned way, and that is to use a normal camera, take a photo, and then take it to your local photo shop and get it developed. Once you get the photo developed, you need to get the photo scanned into your computer.

You can either buy a scanner at your local computer shop for approximately $50 or more, or you can take your photos to many local copy shops like Kinko’s where they will scan your photos for you.

The other alternative you can use is a digital camera, which will take a photo and download it immediately to your computer. These digital cameras are easy to use, but cost anywhere from $100 to $500, depending on the quality image you wish to obtain. If you are planning to use the camera to send pictures as attachments to email, you should shoot for an image size of 50K or lower. A camera for this purpose would be far less expensive than a "Mega-pixel" camera for fine graphics work. Let your salesman know what you plan to do with the pictures you take. It will save you a lot of money.

You can also use a normal camcorder to grab the image. With a small device (like SNAPPY) you can hook any video source, like camcorders, to your computer and transfer the image that way. These devices cost between $100 to $200 and are a good alternative if you already have a camcorder at home.

How do I get my graphics to fit your size requirements?

If you, or an associate, have taken a picture with a digital camera, you were able to download the image automatically via the program that came with your camera. The image would be in jpeg format. The size of the graphic image (W x H) depends on the resolution used when it was taken. The higher the resolution, the larger the graphic image in size and bytes. You may find that if you were to print out the full size graphic image, it would be over 20 inches in width, and could have a byte size of over 10 megabytes. This would obviously be much too large for any practicle use on the web.

Once your photo is saved on your computer in either a .gif or .jpeg file, the next thing you may need to do is process the photo in a graphic program. Programs like Easy Thumbnails or IrfanView are available as freeware on the Internet. You can use them to do things like crop the photo using only a portion of the photo with your item. You can use them to adjust things like brightness and contrast.

When the program Easy Thumbnails is run on your computer, you will find a "Settings" tab. Here you will want to insert only the dimension that is the larger of the two. Example. Your picture is W=780 x H=1250. If you want to reduce it to W=150 x H=200 and have all dimensions constrained, you would end up with a graphic image W=150 x H=240. In order to have the dimensions remain constant, in the Settings tab, you would only fill in H=200 and leave the W dimension open.

You might be able to reduce the size of the image by using the program that came with your camera. There are several problems associated with the reduction of image size. The first consideration must be to constrain the original dimensions. All that means is that you must retain the same ratio of Height to Width. Any program that allows you to modify image size should have a check box that indicates "Constrain Proportions." Thus, when you change one dimension, the other dimension is automatically adjusted to maintain the original ratio of Height to Width.

Programs like Adobe’s PhotoShop are full blown graphics programs that come with a high cost, but enable you to do things to your photographs that are absolutely unbelievable. You might want to delay getting into these programs until you are comfortable with digital photography since they are very sophisticated and require some study and a longer learning curve.There are many more programs available commercially, depending on your need and pocketbook.

Graphic programs are expensive. Will Benicia House modify my images to fit their requirements?

Yes, as long as the byte size is within our limits.

What if I want to cancel?

You may cancel at any time. Our program was designed to run month to month, with no long-term committments. Setup fees are non-refundable, but you may cancel your subscription at any time. Since we do not refund any pro-rated subscription fees, we will continue to keep your web page posted to the end of the pre-paid subscription month you are currently in unless we hear otherwise from you.

Please review our Cancel page which will show your exactly how to accomplish your cancellation.