In the financial and the business world they say: "Invest when others can't". That's often more easily said than done, of course. In times like these, you might find yourself in a situation where you don't have much to invest. However, you also might find some great deals out there, that could save you a lot of money! Such as the new Spyder3Pro & nik Viveza Bundle.

It combines our high-end monitor calibration tool Spyder3Pro and nik's powerful Viveza tool, to selectively control color and light in photographic images without the need for complicated selections or layer masks. Buying separately would usually cost you at least 280 € - together you can get them now for only 208€ (excl. VAT)! This special is only available during February and March, so if you've been waiting to take your color control to the next level, now is the time to do it!

Deals like the one above are great for saving cash. But when times are really tough, you might also be thinking about ways to earn something on the side. If photography is your passion, why not utilize your talent and existing resources and make some money of it? One great way to do that, is iStockphoto. Selling your photos there is not as hard as you might think. You just have to sign up and apply to be a contributor for the types of media you want to upload, which can not only be photos, but also illustrations, videos, flash or audio files. There's a manual that you need to read and then take a quick test about it. After you pass, you submit three samples. Obviously, as always before doing any critical digital imaging work, make sure your screen is properly calibrated!

Whilst you might, at that point, not be able (yet) to quit your day job, you might actually be able to earn quite a bit. iStock pays contributors a base royalty rate of 20% for each file downloaded - if you are an exclusive contributor it can be up to 40%. That is not a bad deal at all. So, why not give it a try? Find out more at iStockphoto.com.

There's lots of things that could be said about our Friend With Vision, Paul Elledge. Not only has he worked with some of the best creatives and ad agencies, celebrities - from AC/DC to Willie Nelson, top CEOs and executives as well as many other people, "ranging from the richest in the land to those on death row", as he says. Paul is also a true all-round talent, having directed numerous music videos and television commercials.

However, what we like best of all of his work is his awesome photography, of which to say it was multifarious, would be an enormous understatement. His portraits are clearly outstanding, but there is much, much more to discover! A visit to his website should let you understand quickly what we mean. Paul will be giving a workshop "The Creative Portrait: Seeing Yourself in Others" this summer at TPW in Tuscany. Find out more about Paul Elledge and our other Friends With Vision on our website.

As you probably know, not all software applications support ICC profiles. This often leads to confusion: You might for example be viewing an image in the Safari browser, which does support ICC profiles and therefore displays colors correctly, whilst a client of yours might be looking at that very same image in Internet Explorer and see something entirely different.

What about Firefox then, you might be asking? Well, the latest version of Firefox (3.x) actually does support ICC profiles, although not by default - you actually need to switch that option on first. How? You just open a new window and type "about:config" in the address bar. After hitting enter, the app will give you a warning, that changing advanced settings is only a good idea if you know what you are doing. Once you've confirmed, you'll get a list of entries. Filter out the ones with the word "color" in them. At the bottom, you'll find one called "gfx.color_management.enabled". Simply double-click that line, and the setting in the "Value" column will change from "false" to "true". Now quit and re-open the app. That's it! Your Firefox now supports ICC profiles. We've prepared two test images, that allow you to check whether your current browser supports ICC profiles or not. You can find them here.

If your computer's memory often reaches its limits when you're working in Photoshop, you might want to take a close look at the performance settings in the Preferences window, particularly at the "Scratch Disks" settings. This section allows you to allocate volumes, so Photoshop can swap some of the work load. You can also define the order in which you want Photoshop to utilize these drives. Make sure that your boot drive isn't at the top of the list. Ideal are fast internal or external, physical drives (not just partitions on your boot drive) with sufficient space. A performance increase is of course always welcome, but this should be especially helpful if you're currently not making use of your computer's best possible RAM configuration.