The quality of SYD and SYC photos is head and shoulders above that seen on most other post-yourself-naked sites and newsgroups. This is primarily for the newbies to assist in maintaining the level of quality.

Basic photo tips:

? Avoid cell phone pics if possible. Even the best ones are of low quality, because phones aren't designed to be cameras.

? An image size of 640 x 480 (480 x 640 if vertical) is a good minimum size. Smaller ones tend to be difficult for seeing detail. The bigger the better, with one stipulation.

? Very large images that look quite good in the reduced size can look like shit in full size if they are grainy or a bit out of focus. Look at them on the computer before posting them. If they're fuzzy or grainy, it would be worth reducing their size by half to reduce the imperfections.

? Unless dark images are for artistic purposes, e.g., silhouette shots, they detract from the subject of the pic. If your dick or pussy can't be seen, why post it?

? Digital cameras are like computers: they don't do what you want them to do, but only what you tell them them to do. Here are some things to consider.

? Shooting against a bright background, such as a window on a sunny day, may result in a dark foreground object. Digicams tend to adjust for brightness based on the average of the entire image, and the bright areas tend to dominate. Many cameras have a metering method setting for using center-weighted or spot metering rather than the whole image, to allow concentrating on the brightness of your glorious boner rather than the window.

? Although the light that you are in might be considerably less than the brightness of the background, the automatic flash might not fire because of the background light. The camera might have a setting to fire the flash every time. If not, move to another position to avoid the background's effect.

? In normal mode, the minimum distance for sharp focus is typically a couple of feet. For tight close-ups, switch to macro mode. One of the menu buttons will have a small flower icon that allows autofocusing to within a few inches. Expensive cameras such as Nikon and Ricoh can focus to within an inch of the subject, although they're overkill for genitalia shots.

? The tradeoff in macro mode is the great reduction in the depth-of-field. Only a small range of distance will be in sharp focus, with everything else out of focus. This is most likely to be irrelevant when you're recording for posterity the fine details of your cock or clit, but one should be aware of it. And don't forget to close macro mode before taking longer-range shots (turning off the camera does that automatically).

? A cheap tripod can make a world of difference in image quality, since it avoids degradation caused by involuntary muscle activity when hand-holding the camera.

? A tripod also allows using the timer function that delays the shot for at least a couple of seconds, thus eliminating the camera shake caused by pressing the shutter button. On a ten-second delay, you can move away from it and arrange yourself for maximum erotic effect. :-)

? Autofocus is imperfect. If you're not within the AF zone, you'll get a perfectly-focused background and fuzzy family jewels, especially if your body is fairly close to the lens. Best bet: experiment to see where you have to be in the image to have yourself in focus rather than whatever is in the background.

? When you have your prized photos safely transferred to the computer, it would be worth examining them and maximizing them for posting so that we horny bastards will be whacking the willy to the best of shots. An excellent program is Irfanview ( www(dot)irfanview(dot)com ), the Swiss Army knife of freeware image manipulation and processing utilities. You can correct brightness, contrast, saturation, color balance, gamma and sharpness (corrects slightly-out-of-focus shots). You can add effects if desired. You can resize the image, crop it, rotate it, do horizontal and vertical flips, and save it in a lot of different formats.

? When you're satisfied, post your shots and let the world rejoice in your magnificent genitalia.