Sherwood was nice enough to point out something I had forgotten about.  (Thanks sherwood!)

When looking for a camera, it's so very important to check into the battery.  Some cameras have proprietary batteries, such as Sony ---- others take common AA batteries.  No matter your choice there's a couple things:

1. research!  Check reviews for any camera you're interested in.  Typically these reviews will let you know the average "lifespan" of a battery charge.  It probably won't be in hours ... more like  350 w/out flash or 150 w/ flash. 
   
2. Battery life depends on flash, use of LCD and probably a few other things that I'm neglecting.
3. Some proprietary batteries have a "health meter" type of thing on it.  It lets you know, via the LDC, how much of a charge it has left.  Not all batteries do this.
4. Even if proprietary batteries can be generic.  IOW, you don't have to spend $60 on an additional Sony battery when you can go to eBay and get the equivelant for half the price. 
   
5. If you fall in love w/ a camera and it sucky battery life --- get extra/spares.  Rotate them, one in camera charging -- the other in the charger.
   
6. Do not use disposable AA batteries!  Waste of money.  Go ahead and spend a little bit and get the rechargable AA's that are rated at 2500 mAh, or higher.  Spend a tish more and get the quick charge kind -- those will be fully charged in 10-15 minutes.  The batteries that are 2500 and up will offer A LOT of pictures with flash - or without.  It's worth the extra for this.

Playing with Graphics/
Cropping for printing...

Not every picture is perfect.  Some are too dark. Some too light.  The crop is wrong.  Color is slightly off.   Part of the "fun" (for me) is playing with them in a graphics program.   The very first thing to learn how to do, is crop an image -- not just any crop.  Crop for printing.

Take the following example:



There's a nice enough picture, but a lot of distraction.   There's stuff going on in the foreground, etc.

So, using PaintShop Pro:

• open the full, unedited picture.
• On the left hand side, third "thing" down you'll find the crop tool.  It looks like a little square w/ a light diagnal line through it.  Click it.
• Pop the presets box open by and choose the size you want the image to be -- 4x6 / 5x7 / etc.  You also have to choose if you want vertical or horizontal.
• Once you've done that a crop "outline" will appear on the picture.  You can grab any part of it and drag it so it's bigger, smaller, etc.  You can also move it to exactly where you want to crop, on the picture. 
  
• Doublecheck the height/width that is marked.  Make sure that it didn't "flip".  It does that sometimes and the numbers won't be right.
• Make sure the checkmarks for both "specify print size" and "maintain aspect ratio" are checked.
• On the Resolution section, make sure, as you're dragging your crop outline, you don't get too small.  If you do, you won't be able to print out a decent picture. I would recommend nothing less than 150/inch
• Make sure the units is set to "inches" not pixels.
• Once everything is where you want it to be, hit the checkmark and the image will crop.

Once that is done and if you have to do any other adjustments (those will be another day) --

• go to "File"
  
• "save as"
• hit the "options" box
  
• set the compression to the lowest number possible (1) to keep from losing image information
• hit "Ok"
• rename your image
• Hit "ok"
  

NEVER resave your original image.  Doing so creates lost information.  Leave your original (direct outta the camera) pristine and untouched.

The finished product, after cropping?


I've brought into focus EXACTLY what I want to bring in.   All the distractions are gone and the eye goes to the flamingo, not the partial tail that was in the foreground earlier.
Don't marry into only one crop.  Sometimes playing with crop angles - crop directions - smaller - larger --- can change the entire picture.  

There's some general "rules" for cropping -- most of them seem to be unwritten.  I can never find them when I'm trying to.
The main one is "thirds" (which I only mildly 'get')

• divide your image into thirds
• never keep everything centered (go left, right, up, down)
• In this case, the flamingo takes up 2/3rds of the frame.
• Try to fill your "frame" with the image that you're taking.  Not always possible in the original shoot, but it's doable in the crop.