You'd think that over the years fraud would become more difficult to commit and easier to curb, but it doesn't always seem to be the case. Credit card fraud is still a very big issue all over the world and entering your credit card information on a website could prove to be very dangerous. That is why RapidStudio has partnered with a trusted payments processing service company called PayFast . Using PayFast to pay for your orders online is 100% safe.  Shop Without Disclosing Your Financial Information With PayFast you can pay merchants (such as RapidStudio) without giving them your financial information. The protection of your financial information is their business and they employ sophisticated security to ensure the security and integrity thereof. So, by using PayFast you send money, not your financial information . Pay with EFT... Instantly With PayFast , you can pay for your goods online via your bank's Internet Banking without any of the hassles. ...

In response to a question asked on our Facebook Wall, I have written a short tutorial on how to redeem your discount voucher with RapidStudio. Using a Gift Voucher or Promo Code works exactly the same. Step 1 :  Add a photo product to your shopping cart by ordering it through the software or via the website. Step 2 :  In the shopping cart there is a "Discount Voucher / Promo Code" box.  Enter your voucher number or promo code into this box and click the "Use Voucher" or "Use Promo Code" button. Below the box where you've entered the number you will see a message: "Voucher (XXXX..) accepted." or "Voucher (XXXX..) has expired" or "Voucher (XXXX..) is invalid". If the voucher is valid, your discount will reflect on the right within the shopping cart totals. If your voucher has expired , whether it can be renewed or not will depend on what type of voucher it is.  If you have won the voucher in a compet...

We've recently had the pleasure in dealing with an organisation called Bottomup . Helene Rousseau from Bottomup created a Soft Cover Photo Book with pictures taken during the year of 2011 at the schools where they are involved.   RapidStudio printed the copies for them at no charge to show our appreciation for the commendable work they do with the learners in our schools.   Click here to view the photo book. Read on to find out a little more about the organisation, the work they do and how you could get involved. Their Vision : "To instill a sense of pride, belonging and identity within learners at existing disadvantaged primary schools and to empower them with foundational skills for a better future." They are involved with many projects at a couple of primary schools - including Physical Education, Life Orientation, Creative Arts, Literacy Support and Personal Development .  Browsing through their website or talking to one of the people involved, makes you excit...

Use Your Flash Most of us love taking pictures and there's always a camera at any event or family gathering. But sometimes we wish that we knew how to make a good portrait photo that doesn't resemble some shoddy happy snappy. Gerrie from OpenImage Photography was kind enough to give us a few tips on how to take the perfect portrait. 1. Use Your Flash When shooting during the day in bright sun light, it's always better to use your flash. Don’t think because it’s so bright outside that you don’t need to use your flash. In fact, the bright sunlight creates shadows in the eye socket. You need just that extra bit of flash to remove that shadow. Zoom IN 2. Zoom IN Don't stand too close to your subject and zoom out to get the full photo.  Rather take a few steps back and zoom IN.  This will ensure that your photo is in proportion.  If you stand too close, your subject might be out of proportion ie. their head might be smaller than their feet, or their hands might b...

In a few steps we will explain how to use your own image as a background in your photobook and add some effects to it. Step 1 :  Drag the image you want to place as a background to the edge of the page on the workspace and drop it there.  You will see (before you let go of the mouse button) that the page is greyed (img. bg-8) out with the wording ("right side background", "left side background" or "whole page background"). bg-8 This is all you need to do to add a picture to your background, but just to make it a little more interesting we're going to explain how to add some effects to your background. Step 2:  Add opacity to your background image.  Right click on your background and choose "Set Opacity" (img. bg-9). Now play with the slider to make your image more and less opaque (img. bg-10).  bg-10 bg-9 Step 3:  Click on the "Color" button (img. bg-11a) to change the colour overlay of your image. ...

Instead of flipping through your photo book and applying the same background page by page, there is an easier and much quicker way of doing this.  To make it easy to understand we've added a few screenshots below. Step 1:  Apply a background to a page in your photobook.  Then right click on the page background and choose "Copy Background". bg-1 Step 2:  Right click on that same page background and choose "Paste special on all pages | Background" (or use the short-cut Ctrl+G). bg-2 Now all the pages (corresponding to the side of the spread you copied) will have the same background.   In this case all the pages on the left will be green. bg-3 Step 3:   Now you have one of two options.  You can either simply right click on the other page background of the same spread and choose "Paste special on all pages | Background" (img. bg-4) to make every single page in your album exactly the same  (img.5).   ...