Digital Camera Mistakes – How Do I Take Better Pictures?
Many amateur photographers have never heard of the term “workflow”. In fact, many semi-professionals haven’t either. In actuality, it refers to the entire life span of a digital image. Its entire life means from the second it is captured on camera, or scanned into the computer, clear to the end of its life when it leaves the computer, through either output or put into long-term storage. And it is in this area that the majority of errors occur in photography. The initial clicking of the button is not the final product, regardless of public opinion.
According to Jay Watson, in his article on “Digital Asset Management”, he refers to the workflow of a photograph or a digital image as its initial downloading from the Internet, a scanner, or a digital camera; batch renaming; rating; deleting; sorting; adding metadata and keywords; creating master files and derivative files; scheduling back-ups; building a catalog for the images; editing with Photoshop (or something similar); and then getting the images outside the computer.
Some of the most common mistakes to try and avoid when using a digital camera, is the transmission and storing of images. Large and bulky transmission of high-resolution images always will block a recipient’s e-mail inbox as a large attachments. To avoid this, simply reduce the image to a size that will fit a monitor screen, taking less time to download.
A photo-cataloging program that is built into Windows XP is another solution, as it resizes photographs before they are e-mailed. There are several graphic programs, such as the free version of Easy Thumbnails, that can be downloaded to resize graphics and photographs for emailing or web-sites. Alternately, you can reduce the size of your photos and send them to a photo-sharing site or to a personal web site. This is a good idea if there are many photographs for sharing with friends and relatives.
It doesn’t take many mistakes resulting in lost data files, before the backup of images becomes automatic, or you find a software program that does it as the work is being done. ALWAY do a backup of images! The reason this is so very important is because the hard drive will crash at one time or another – and usually the time is the “other”, when the most important piece of work ever done, will be lost.
All the digital data may become lost or damaged, including the photographs that you have so lovingly taken. Currently, the most convenient backup solution is a second hard drive. However, the more affordable solution is recordable CDs and DVDs. They should be used to save multiple copies of the photographs, so that you always have a few copies available in case one of the CDs is damaged.
Digital or optical zoom requires a special skill to get the correct focus and exposure, even by using the latest photo editing software. If high resolution pictures are what is being worked with, this software is especially useful in handling them. It can create some good quality prints with sensible cropping. However, for close-up shots, a higher optical zoom or an add-on telephoto lens is a must.
In addition to software, many cameras offer several options for choosing the best compromise between picture quality and file size, provided an understanding of JPEG compression is understood. The disadvantage is that every time an image is saved in the JPEG format, there is a permanent and irreversible loss in quality of the image.
A digital camera’s highest resolution ability helps preserve digital photos with as much clarity, colors, and as many details as possible. User-manuals are not just another “pretty face” – they need to be read and worked with, to understand the digital camera to the point it becomes a best friend. It provides several helpful tips of optimizing results, and can go a long way towards improving anyone’s photography skills.
