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Digital Photography

Digital vs. 35mm Film

More light! Most digital cameras need more light (wider aperture, longer shutter speed, or higher ISO number) to get an exposure equivalent to that of a film camera. Also, digital cameras' flash units often do not give the same results as the built-in ones on 35mm cameras.

Shutter delay. With today's digital cameras, you can't just snap off a fast shot and get the exact composition you wanted. Patience is a virtue. Pre-focusing becomes an art you must learn.

Sharpness of photos is less in the digital world. Even 4 megapixel cameras don't yield really sharp 8x10" prints. But many people don't care or use digital cameras for smaller prints anyway. One advantage of a digital image is that you can always "tweak" the image before printing. Most people will never fool with adjusting photos when printing from a film negative, so the end result is that a digital photo may still look better than one from a non-digital camera.

Editing. The ability to touch up your digital photos can make them so much better! And you won't get the unrealistically vivid colors or exaggerated contrast common in some store-processed 35mm prints. That can actually decrease the quality of the image made from a film negative.

Instant gratification! LCD screens on digital cameras are small, but they also let you check or just show off that tremendous shot right away!

The shakes. It's harder to stabilize a digital camera if you use the LCD screen a lot. And small, lightweight, yet standard height tripods are extremely hard to find now.

Basic digital photography tips

Preview. Take a close look at your subject on the camera's LCD preview screen. If you're taking pictures of a person, make sure no lampposts, street signs, or tree limbs are "growing out of their head". If you're photographing scenery or buildings, check that your camera is level. Create interesting compositions by moving your main subject off-center.
Prefocus. Virtually all auto-focus systems use the center of the image to determine focus. If your subject is off-center, the camera will focus on whatever is in the center of the image. To avoid this problem, place your subject in the center of the frame, then lightly press the shutter button to lock the camera's focus. Keep the shutter half-pressed, then recompose and shoot. This technique is also useful if you are taking pictures of two people and the background-not one of the main subjects-is in the center of the image.
Don't zoom. When possible, leave your camera on the widest-angle zoom setting. To get a closer shot, move closer to the subject. At longer focal lengths, zoom lenses gather in less light and the camera switches to slower shutter speeds to compensate. A long lens plus a slow shutter speed usually yields slightly blurry pictures. Using zoom also increases red-eye when using a flash.

If you have to use optical zoom, use a tripod, or brace the camera against a railing or other solid surface to reduce camera shake.

In any case, avoid using digital zoom. You can almost always get better results by "zooming" in with photo-editing software.
Use fill-in flash. If you leave your camera's flash setting on automatic, it probably won't fire the flash when you need it most. When taking portraits outside in bright sun, switch the camera to manual flash mode and force the flash to fire. The extra light from the flash fills in harsh shadows on your subject's face and helps avoid silhouetting against bright backgrounds.
Try available light. The built-in flashes on most digital cameras are designed to operate in a very narrow range - only about 4 to 12 feet. If you get closer, the flash may wash out your subject. If you get too far away, your subject may disappear into a dark background. Try turning off the flash and shooting with available light. Most cameras automatically adjust their exposure by switching to a slow shutter speed to produce fully exposed pictures in low light. You may also want to change the EV setting to help lighten the image and use the White Balance (WB) setting to correct any color imbalances. Use a tripod or other camera support to avoid camera shake.
Anticipate. Many digital cameras have very long power-up times and slow auto-focus mechanisms, so make sure your camera is ready to take a picture when you are. Prefocus your camera, then keep it from going into power-save mode by maintaining light pressure on the shutter release until you're ready to take the picture. If you're concerned about the battery running down, switch off the LCD screen and use the optical viewfinder to save power. Carry a spare, fully charged battery.
Use those pixels. Avoid using your camera's lower-quality settings! For the best possible image quality, you should always use the largest available image size with the least amount of JPEG compression. Memory cards are relatively cheap, so buy a larger size card if you need to.
Speed up file downloads. Buy an inexpensive USB 2.0 memory card reader. Besides being much faster than downloading directly from the camera, such a reader won't drain your camera's battery while you're copying your images.

[For more information, see PC Magazine online, Sep 16, '03]

Composition: The Rule of Thirds

To give your photo maximum interest, mentally use straight lines to divide your viewfinder frame into horizontal thirds and vertical thirds. Place the most important visual element — usually the face (or eyes in a close-up) — on one of the points where the lines intersect.

Crop a photo to get composition that fits the Rule of Thirds better

When a person moves across your camera's field of view in an open space, the final image usually has much more impact when the subject is off-center. Leave the open space in the direction in which the subject is headed. Similarly, if a subject is looking off to the side, it's best to leave more space in that direction.

A couple of other techniques will help you compose photos better, too. One is the Golden Spiral and the second is Golden Triangles. Each is a way of visualizing points of interest in the scene. The "Photo Tips" pages by ACD Systems offer information on these and many more techniques.

Composition: Plan ahead for the output media

Digital cameras take photos at a 4:3 ratio size (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, or 1280x1600, for example). But standard printed photos are 6"x4" - a 3:2 ratio. So at the same 6" printed width, the digital camera image is 4.5" inches tall. So printing from an uncropped digital photo cuts off the top or bottom of the image. If you choose to print the photos at one of those self-help machines in many stores now, you can usually select to "Edit" the photo. This will let you reposition where the crop takes place. The default crop on Kodak machines is to automatically crop off the top.

To make the situation even more complex, other standard printed photo sizes are different ratios. An 8"x10" print (or, in the order to the digital world, 10x8) is a 5:4 ratio. And a 5"x7" is, obviously, a 5:7 ratio.

So how do you cope? You have two basic choices when you want to print a photo. Plan ahead and leave "extra" room at the top and/or bottom when you take digital photos or else lose a bit of the photo when you print. Remember, you can always crop the image as needed if you leave a bit of room all around the edges. This goes against the urge to "crop" when you take the photo by carefully composing the photo image and perhaps "zooming in" on the subject or scene. But if you plan to make multiple media use of your digital photos, leave some "adjusting" room all around the edges.

Depth of field

The smaller the aperture (the higher the f-number) the greater the depth of field.

For portraits and to "concentrate" on a subject, use a smaller depth of field (larger aperture, smaller f-number).

For landscapes, you usually want a small aperture, but you can create artistic effects using a larger one to deliberately throw some foreground or background objects out of focus.

Photographing people

People like to see photos of people. So do newspaper editors. Make your shots people shots. It's hard to make group photos look interesting. Furthermore, having a lot of people in a photo means that each face is pretty small and may be hard to "make out". So try the following...

Outdoors shots

For variety, have members of the group strike up varied poses.
Try to create two or three different small arrangements within the bigger group.
Use a plain background that doesn't distract from the group.

Indoors shots. Arrangement of indoor group pictures is normally limited by having to use a flash.

Keep the group inside the maximum flash distance range.
Position the group so they are no more than two rows deep.

Environmental portraits

Sometimes surroundings are essential to depicting a subject's personality.

Use soft, diffused lighting, such as indirect window light indoors or overcast conditions outdoors.
Show the entire person, so you can also include the environment. If you have a built-in zoom lens, take a few pictures at the wide-angle setting to include more of the surroundings.
Try unusual angles too. For example, lie on the ground (you or you and the subject). Or shoot down from a second-story window

Portrait tips

When you take photos for a church directory or picture directory supplement, you'll be taking portrait photos. Use the following tips…

Framing. When framing your photo, zoom in or get close enough that you're filling your frame with your subject and not the background. This can be especially important when there is a distracting background, such as a crowd.
Portrait Mode. This camera mode gives you the smallest depth of field, thus making it easier to put the background out of focus. Remember to pre-focus on your subject before changing your point of view if your subject isn't going to be exactly in the center of the photo.
Aperture Priority Mode. Shooting in aperture priority mode (if your camera has it) is another way to reduce the distraction of the background. By using a large aperture, you reduce your depth of field (range that is in focus). This puts your subject in focus, but softens the background.
Lighting. For outdoor shots, try using fill flash to lessen shadows falling on the subject's face. Indoors, experiment to develop some flash/lighting configurations that work well.

Improving photos using digital camera features

EV Compensation

Exposure Value (EV) settings let you adjust the unrealistic and color-drained scenes that often result in bright or dark situations. Adjusting EV compensation can help you capture the colorful scene the way it really looks.

White Balance

Dull yellowish and/or brownish color caste photos can result, especially in strong fluorescent light and well-lit indoor settings in which your flash doesn't fire automatically. Adjust the white balance (WB) to compensate for this. Many cameras have several different white balance settings. Some examples: Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Tungsten, and Flash. As you change the WB, the LCD viewer lets you preview the result.

Flash strength

Increase or decrease the strength of the flash unit to get the best amount of flash light. This is very useful when using the flash to fill in shadows.

Memory card care

Always turn your camera off before removing or inserting a memory card. When your camera is on and your card is inserted the two are interconnected, passing information in the form of magnetically charged particles. Yanking out your memory card can cause problems.
Format your card regularly and always do so while it is in your camera, not connected to your computer.
Never delete individual files from a card using your computer. That is, only "copy" the files -- do not "move" them. Trying to delete files from a memory card can corrupt them.

Photo Editing Steps

Edit in a Lossless Format
Save the pic in a lossless format (e.g. TIFF), if it's not already. Some file formats, such as JPEG, lose quality every time you save an edit. This is called a "lossy" format. If you are performing a long series of edits, you may actually make things worse despite your efforts. With a lossless format no quality is lost when you make edits.
Initial Clean-Up
Some edits, such as cleaning up noise, are best done at the beginning so you don't exaggerate them during later steps.
Adjust Color Balance
Adjust the RGB (Red, Green and Blue) or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) values. Until you learn the theory of color adjustments, it is best to make very small changes and see how they look. Often, these adjustments lighten the image and reveal additional noise, so a bit more clean-up may be required. Some image editing software has a color balance tool.

Adjust Contrast and brightness
Image editing software always includes contrast adjustment. Many programs also allow separate brightness adjustment. Intermediate editing programs include a "Histogram" function that allows more fine tuning. Some programs even have a "Clarify" function that can bring out the main subject.

Using a histogram:
http://www.guides.sk/scantips2/simple1.html
http://www.marginalsoftware.com/HowtoScan/using_histograms_as_a_tool.htm
http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc001.html

Adjust Color Saturation and Hue
Color saturation and hue affect the appearance and richness of the colors in your photo. You will usually want to increase color richness. Again, the best results are normally had by making small adjustments. After this step, re-evaluate your color adjustments to ensure they still look right.
Final Edits
For best results, zoom in to work on these. Often, the image areas that need editing are quite small relative to the whole picture. This way, you will be less likely to make unseemly blotches instead of fixes. Some possible actions:
-- Remove blemishes from skin
-- Whiten teeth
-- Smooth out wrinkles, etc
-- If major edits are made at this stage, some additional color and saturation tweaks may be needed.
Scale
Perform the final cropping and resizing. Remember not to crop too close to important subject matter. If you leave plenty of space, the photo will look more balanced and you will be less likely to cover up nice parts of the photo up when adding framing.

Also, remember to consider pixel depth and the rules of thumb for printing before making your photo too big. Minimum print quality requires 150 PPI (pixels per inch). Maximum quality, which is recommended for enlargements, requires 300 PPI.
Sharpen specific areas
Perform sharpening last because it can exaggerate other problems. Because of the potential side effects of sharpening, select only specific areas for sharpening, usually the main subjects. Using the "unsharp mask" tool often gives better results than a general "sharpen" tool.

Image types

"RAW". Many digital cameras can save in a "RAW" or "native" lossless format that is of very high quality. The format also usually results in extremely large file sizes, though. "Converter" programs can let you save the edited file as a TIFF or JPEG.
TIFF - A "lossless" format. The image does not "lose" pixels or data when you save it. TIFFs can be quite large, though.
JPEG - A "lossy" format that can be "compressed". The stronger the compression, the more overall pixels are "lost" and the less the sharpness and color differences. Each time you save a JPEG type file, you lose a bit of data. So it's always a good idea to do editing work in a "lossless" format such as TIFF or one used by the image editor, then "Save As" a JPEG for a final run. Keep the original lossless format file around in case you need to do any more editing. The advantage of JPEG over TIFF is that JPEG files are much smaller than TIFF files. JPEG files cannot designate a color as "transparent"; GIFs can. Some image editors let you save a JPEG as a "partial transparency". In such cases, as the image "partial transparency" percentage or number goes up, the more white pixels replace others in the photo, making it "wash out" more and more.
GIF - This format is not for photos, but rather for "artwork", where the number of colors in the image is 256 or less. GIFs can designate one of the palette colors as "transparent", which can be very handy on Web pages. The file size of GIFs increases in binary increments of the number of colors (2, 4, 8, 16,. 32, 64, 128, 256 colors). So specifying either 128 or 150 colors will result in the same file size.

Online photography resources

Cleaning up photos

DCVIEWS - Digital Camera Views

D igital camera tips Archive (ACD Systems)

Digital Photography Review

General Imaging Information

Megapixel.net

Nikon.Net

Outdoors photography

Photo Tech Tips Archive (ACD Systems)

Photography gear

Photography Help