Help Needed

[Pacific]

With more rejections than I asked for in my latest batch of pictures, I need help in the following 2 areas:

1. I'm studying in the UK for the next 3 years, meaning I'm on an IBM laptop. IBM laptops have the worst LCDs I have come across. I really cannot tell if anything's seriously over/underexposed when I touch up the brightness in photoshop (with overexposed being the main problem). Is there any tools to help this situation?

2. Are there any tools in photoshop to check how centered an object is? My perception of "center" has always been dodgy ever since I started this hobby.

Edit: 3. I'm currently mucking around with "Unsharp Mask". I'm getting rejections due to oversharpening. I'm on a point-and-shoot and past experience shows the tiny bit of softness makes a rejection and my camera naturally has problems with sharpness compared with a DSLR. Any tips on the sharpening tool?

[exmanx]

For centering, use the grid. Works for me (sometimes). Not much you can do about the quality of your LCD, other than cadge time on a decent PC to do your editing.

Andy

[Top_Gun]

With more rejections than I asked for in my latest batch of pictures, I need help in the following 2 areas:

1. I'm studying in the UK for the next 3 years, meaning I'm on an IBM laptop. IBM laptops have the worst LCDs I have come across. I really cannot tell if anything's seriously over/underexposed when I touch up the brightness in photoshop (with overexposed being the main problem). Is there any tools to help this situation?

2. Are there any tools in photoshop to check how centered an object is? My perception of "center" has always been dodgy ever since I started this hobby.

Edit: 3. I'm currently mucking around with "Unsharp Mask". I'm getting rejections due to oversharpening. I'm on a point-and-shoot and past experience shows the tiny bit of softness makes a rejection and my camera naturally has problems with sharpness compared with a DSLR. Any tips on the sharpening tool?

Regarding the USM tool, I would highly suggest you do a search for JID, in his signature he has an awesome "how to" edit pictures which explains how to use this feature. My acceptance rate has risen dramatically since I started using his way of editing.

Here is his link.

http://www.btinternet.com/~victoryhall/workflow/

As for the LCD, I'm in the same boat at work. Pictures look so much darker at work than at home. The only thing I can suggest is to brighten the monitor alittle more.

Andy's idea is what I use, the grid is the only thing I can think of.