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Re: potential problem

I used to work for a large garden center chain in Minneapolis. I did lots of presentations using their digital projection equipment with my own laptop. The articles I was writing then accepted either slides or high res digital images. Though I had been taking slides for years and had a large collection, including many from those sources that are "drying up", those experiences really started me on the digital path. When I was "down-sized", I began lecturing (among other things) as a freelancer.

I'm really a small potatoes garden lecturer, I suppose. I did only 29 garden programs last year and have only 10 booked so far for 2005. I bought a digital camera and began collecting digital "slides" in 2001. I began offering programs in digital format as I accumulated enough pictures for each topic. A year later, I bought a small digital projector. Mine cost $1200 - (a business expense) and comparable ones are today in the $1000 range. In the last two years, I have not given a slide presentation at all. I would like to acquire a suitable film scanner and salvage my 35 mm slides to use digitally.

I don't like to use PowerPoint either. I use Keynote from Apple. My laptop is a PowerBook. The color is as good as my slides ever were or can be enhanced with a photo editor. I use Photoshop Elements. There are some color problems inherent with digital media similar to the ageratum effect with film. My clients are extremely happy with the quality of the images. They cannot be told from slides unless you are an expert in those subtleties I mentioned.

My presentations with Keynote are exactly the same as my slide presentations with the exception of the fact that I can easily add text slides if I wish. I can add text (that Latin binomial) or other computer generated marks to the pictures themselves. Keynote is a graphic presentation application that permits text and PowerPoint is a business application that permits graphics. Keynote will even import and run PowerPoint presentations if you already have some. It was simple to learn too.

I would highly recommend that anyone who does more than two or three presentations a year consider getting a digital projector - as I said - it's a business expense taxwise. They are now very light weight and more affordable than mine was in 2001. With a laptop and the projector, you can handle most opportunities you may be offered. I request the organization I'm working for to provide a screen. If they don't, I use a wall. It works fine.

Since I work this way now, it has been a good thing for me to find that I can still get the latest specialty plant images as digital files from websites, often without even having to ask. I no longer buy film (digital media just keeps getting cheaper) and never have processing fees. I can take as many shots as I can and cull all I want without losing anything but my time.

It's like paper checks. I shall soundly hate to go to debit or credit cards only because I don't want to have to change the way I manage my money, but it's the way the world is going and it's not going back.

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