Compact Flash cards
CompactFlash cards, like the one shown at right in Figure 3-5, are used as removable memory in a few other devices, but their primary application is for image storage in digital cameras. They provide a much smaller and more efficient form of removable memory than PC cards (which I discuss a bit later). Figure 3-5 Secure Digital (left) and CompactFlash (right) are the most popular digital memory card formats. Figure 3-5 Secure Digital (left) and CompactFlash (right) are the most popular digital...
Printing and Sharing Your Pictures
1 Making prints while you wait 1 Choosing among printer categories 1 Recommended print sizes 1 Sharing the wealth (of pictures you've taken) m Jg ntil the cost of those huge flat-panel digital displays that hang on the wall like a picture frame dip below their current stratospheric price levels, you'll probably want to use hard-copy prints of your best digital pictures to decorate your home or office. You'll also find that prints are more fun to pass around when you're sharing your vacation...
Book II Building Your Digital Photography Studio
This book helps you choose the right camera, whether it's your first digital camera or the one you're dreaming about as a replacement for your current model. You'll read all the facts on resolution, lens settings, storage, and accessories. One chapter shows you the requirements for setting up a PC for digital photography. The good news is that you probably already have everything you need in your computer. I'll give you some advice on recommended upgrades that can make your system work even...
What You Can and Cant Do with Image Editing Tools
1 Fixing faded and distorted color photos 1 Adjusting lights and darks i Fine-tuning sharpness and contrast i Eliminating dust, blemishes, and other artifacts i Rearranging, removing, and adding content i Merging images m My ith all the seemingly miraculous things that you can accomplish with WW image editing tools, it would be easy to assume that there's nothing you can't do. You'd think that you could take any image, in any condition, and make it beautiful but is that really the case Not...
Transferring Images from Your Camera to Your PC
The first challenge you have to face is getting your digital images from your camera into your computer so that you can edit them (if necessary), store them on some archival medium (such as CD or DVD), and make prints. Today, transferring images to your computer is a fairly painless process. It wasn't always so. My first digital camera back in the last millennium had no removable storage. It was bad enough that when the camera's internal storage was full, I had to stop taking photos. But what...
Setting Up a Computer for Digital Photography
1 Choosing between a Mac and a PC 1 Understanding your memory and storage needs i Selecting a microprocessor i Doubling your display pleasure i Pointing with a pen ou might be ready for digital photography, but is your computer up to the task The good news is that virtually any computer of recent vintage probably has the horsepower and features you need to work with the digital images that you capture with a camera or scanner. Even so, the differences between a computer that's good and one...
Whats good about Photoshop
Photoshop didn't attain its stature as the leading high-end image editing program by accident. It has a well-deserved reputation for delivering a complete feature set. In short, this is one powerful program. No matter what you want to do with an image, odds are that Photoshop contains the tools to let you do it. Photoshop can read, write, and manipulate all the industry-standard file for- Book V mats, such as TIFF, JPEG, and, through its Adobe Camera RAW plug-in, the Chapter 3 RAW formats that...
Book I Digital Photography Overview
This section is your digital photography short course, providing all the information on a variety of topics that you really need to know to get started. Each of the six chapters is an overview of topics covered in depth later in the book. You'll find the essentials of good digital photography, equipment basics, and how to acquire digital pictures. Buzz through the quickie introduction into some of the ways you can edit or restore a photo electronically and take a look at how you can store and...
Importing images into image editing software
The normal sequence of events is to use your camera's utility software to transfer one or more picture files from your camera to your computer. Next, you launch your favorite image editing software and open the image file to make some adjustments before finally saving or printing the picture. However, several image editing programs can do the transferring for you, which shortens the whole process. If Windows recognizes your camera or card reader as a mass storage device (and most such devices...
Book V Basics of Image Editing
This book is your introduction to image editing, providing general tips on what you can and can't do with popular image editors such as Paint Shop Pro, Corel PhotoPaint, PhotoImpact, or Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. You'll see the capabilities of these programs, discovering the full range of tools at your disposal. The book winds up with a chapter that compares and contrasts the most popular image editors so you can choose which image editing program you really need (or whether you...
Adobe Photoshop Atone at the
Adobe Photoshop, as shown in Figure 3-1, is the big kahuna of image editing programs. Available for both Windows and Mac OS, it is the industry standard by which all the other image editing programs are measured. Over the years, Photoshop has earned a place in nearly every digital imaging professional's toolbox. The latest version only cemented that position. In fact, for many graphics professionals, Photoshop is the primary tool for everything from resampling image files and changing the file...
Controlling shutter speed
How do you get your camera to use a short shutter speed to stop action You might have to check your camera's instruction manual to find the exact controls, but here are the options you should look for 1 Shutter priority mode In shutter priority mode, you can choose the exact shutter speed you want to use (such as 1 500 or 1 1000 of a second), and the camera's automatic exposure control will choose the f-stop lens setting appropriate for that shutter speed. Keep in mind that depending on the...
Mastering the best travel photography techniques
Raking pictures while traveling can be the most rewarding long-term benefit of a trip. Although memories of a particular location fade as the years go by, the images that you create will still be there to remind you of a special time in your life. Plus, face it Photography is fun Knowing that you've taken a good picture of that special location gives you a particularly satisfying feeling. Lasting friendships can be made during a trip, and being able to send your new friends pictures of the time...
Stopping action with slow shutter speeds
You can often stop action by using a slower shutter speed, too. Indeed, the effects might be more realistic than the frozen-statue look that you get when sports participants are stopped dead in their tracks. Here are some tips for stopping action at slower shutter speeds Look for momentary pauses. Many times, a sport has a moment of peak action where the action hesitates before movement returns. Think of a jumper on the ascent. At the top of the leap is a moment of stasis hanging in space...
Stitch them all together back home using an image editor or stitching software
Packages such as PhotoStitch (furnished free with Canon cameras for Windows and the Macintosh) or Photoshop and Photoshop Elements' built-in PhotoMerge panorama capabilities (see Figure 6-12) are easy to use and a lot of fun. Your digital camera may come with similar applications. Photographers who are really serious about getting good 360-degree panoramas can try a special tripod head made by Kaidan (www.kaidan.com). The Kaidan head enables you to mount the optical center (or nodal point) of...
Mh Battery Pac nn 1S5D rnAh NIMH uv
If you're lucky, you'll have a camera that can accept a rechargeable battery pack and use regular AA batteries as well. Some packs, like the one shown in Figure 6-6, are the same form factor as a pair of AA cells. Figure 6-6 Some rechargeable packs can be replaced with conventional AA cells. (ftNG Of course rechargeable batteries need to be recharged. If you're going overseas, make sure that you have the proper adaptors for whichever country you're visiting. Don't automatically assume there...
Plug one end of the cable into the USB port on your camera
The USB connector is often hidden behind a small door on your camera. It's sometimes a squared-off, D-shaped socket, approximately > 4 x ie inch. If your camera includes a standard USB port, you can use a standard USB cable, which has a rectangular plug on one end and a square plug on the other. However, most digital cameras now use a smaller mini-USB connection to save space. In that case, you may need to use the special cable supplied with your camera if it's not a standard mini-USB...
Basics of Equipment
1 Choosing the best camera 1 Looking at resolution 1 Examining camera categories 1 Checking out basic camera features Choosing a digital camera isn't a once-in-a-lifetime thing any more than buying a car, choosing a computer system, or purchasing a television would be. Your goal should be to select the digital camera that can do the job you want today and for the foreseeable future but not for the rest of your life. Odds are, you'll be making the decision all over again two or three years down...
Determining Whats Most Important
Even though I went three years between new computers, I generally buy a new system more often than that, and upgrade most other components more frequently than that. However, I keep three pieces of equipment for years and years. I lavish all available funds on the original purchases and hang onto them as long as possible. Those three items are my display screen, my keyboard, and my mouse. This trio involves the components you interface directly with all day, every day, usually for long periods...
S
Figure 5-5 Album software makes it easy to organize, find, and retrieve your images. Want more Do a search at your favorite search site for Photo Album Software (use the quotation marks to make sure the search engine uses the full phrase). You can also check Web sites, such as www.buy.com and www. amazon.com, where you can do similar searches for the photo album software each site has to offer. Your criteria for actually selecting photo album software is a personal thing. You may prefer ease of...
Whats New in Photoshop CS2
Photoshop CS2 has some new features that weren't available in its predecessors. Here's a quick listing of the most important changes for photographers Bridge The old Adobe File Browser has been revamped into a new standalone product called Adobe Bridge, shown in Figure 1-1, which works with all Adobe applications, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, and Acrobat. Vanishing Point This is a 3-D filter that lets you paint, add, or remove objects while retaining their perspective....
Why Digital Macro Photography Is Cool
Digital cameras and macro photography were made for each other. In many ways, digital cameras can be far superior to an ordinary film camera when it comes to taking close-up pictures. Consider these advantages Close-focusing lenses Digital camera lenses are ideal for focusing up close. Without getting too technical, macro photos are made with any camera by moving the lens farther and farther away from the film or sensor, in the case of a digital camera . Film cameras require moving the lens...
Latency and Shutter
Before you move on to tips for taking great digital sports photos, you probably should spend a few minutes considering the deep, dark secret that digital camera manufacturers don't want you to think about When you press that shutter release button, many cameras have a noticeable time lag before the picture is actually taken. Although this lag is but a minor inconvenience if you're taking a photo of the Eiffel Tower, that delay can be fatal to the shot, not to you when photographing sports....
Book VI Editing with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements
This book goes into a little more detail on the use of the two most popular image editing programs Adobe Photoshop favored by professionals and Adobe Photoshop Elements an inexpensive younger sibling that has lots of power but is still easy to use . You discover the power of making selections, brush away problems in your digital photos, correct your colors, and apply special effects with filters. Although this book is not a complete guide to Photoshop, you'll find lots of good information you...
Usb132
Riding the infrared light Transfers with teeth Memory Cards CompactFlash Secure Digital MMC Memory SmartMedia PC Transferring Images from Camera to Transferring pictures using camera utility software 141 Copying files to your hard Importing images into image editing Chapter 4 Adding a Printer and Scanner 147 Why You Want Choosing a Printer for Digital Choosing a What you can do with a Types of Scanner Prices and Entry-level Intermediate Advanced or business Professional or prosumer What Scanner...
About the Author
As a roving photojournalist for more than 20 years, David D. Busch illustrated his books, magazine articles, and newspaper reports with award-winning images. He's operated his own commercial studio, suffocated in formal dress while shooting weddings-for-hire, and shot sports for a daily newspaper and Upstate New York college. His photos have been published in magazines as diverse as Scientific American and Petersen s PhotoGraphic, and his articles have appeared in Popular Photography amp...
