All The Secrets Involved in Digital Photography

         >>  Digital Photography Secrets Revealed <<

 

It's unbelievable how many people are beginning to take part in amateur digital photography these days. Most amateurs are actually becoming quite good and infact turning professional quickly due to the fact that technology has improved a vast amount over the turn of the century. So what is involved in amateur digital photography? This is a question that everyone wants to know and it's easy, very little! With this said however, there are still things that you must know so that you can constantly imrprove the quality of the photos you are taking.

So What Are The Advantages?

One advantage to amateur digital photography is knowing immediately which photos you may want or need to retake. On most digital cameras when the picture is taken it shows on the LCD screen and you know immediately if it's in focus, heads are cut off and so on. You can retake the shot at the time and not whine about how bad it turned out later.

Amateur digital photography is a growing hobby as the price of quality cameras are coming down and the software to manipulate the images is becoming easier to use. More and more people are taking the time to learn the finer points of amateur digital photography and finding the results are better than expected.

Hobby Not Just For the Kids

It's a funny paradox that most people nowadays who take up photography are more likely to be older retirees who have a limited knowledge-base of technology. Fortunately there are classes that teach people all there is to know about digital photography. When this form of technology first hit cameras, many people were skeptical of buying cameras that they may not know how to use or would have difficulties with, just as they had difficulties with their computers.

This of course is not true at all, as digital photography was actually invented as an easier way to take, store and print photos and it's funny to see that many of these people who were skeptical at the time are now the ones praising such an amazing feat for technology.

One of the most popular recent editions to the digital photography world are the new printers that people can buy along with their cameras. These printers make it fast and easy for people who are wanting to print out the photos immediately as soon as they are taken. All that is required is to place the digital camera inside the corresponding printer, by that I mean the printer that supports the type of camera you have, and press print. Also it's important to note that you will need to buy proper printing paper that is only used for photographs. Using normal paper will reduce the quality of the photos once they have been printed.

If you don't wish to buy one of these printers, then there is another option. You can take your digital camera or just the memory stick into any digital printing shop and pay to have someone print them for you. This works out to be a little bit more expensive on the whole, however the quality of the photos you are having printed will be second to none.

If you want to learn more about photography including free information, reviews and much more, or you want to join our free weekly newsletter then please visit - photography courses (Recommended) or for more free articles all about photography visit Photography Blog

The Digital Photography Revolution Is Now Here

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With digital cameras becoming the norm or even a fashion item more and more children want to know how to use and set up their new cameras. Digital cameras are easy to buy but they come with a manual about an inch thick and like most children, they put the manual aside and fumble through hoping for the best.

They can take pictures with their mobile phones these days, so how hard could it be to use a digital camera?

Unfortunately that's the attitude and most miss out on how to change a few settings in their camera to get really great shots no matter what the lighting. Teachers are often at a loss to know how to take a class and teach a new technology that they themselves know very little about.

Digital photography is becoming more integrated with university courses. Having a digital camera will soon be like owning a calculator for the average student.

It is so important for a student to become proficient at the use of their new digital camera, as many lecturers are setting assignments that must have photos included, its just part and parcel of the new multi media revolution that is taking place at an enormous pace before our very eyes.

Knowing how to use the camera is half the battle, the other half is teaching students how to take photos that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Most children learn better by being shown how to do something rather than reading hard to understand photographic books.

As their photography teacher goes through step by step how to set up and use their digital cameras, they learn key skills that will help them in getting the most out of their cameras.

Sydney Pix is a professional photographer who teaches an 8 week TAFE course covering all the settings that a student needs to use their camera correctly. This course is now a comprehensive two DVD training course.

For more information go to http://www.profotocourse.com/school-photography-lessons.html

10 Tips To Improving Your Digital Photography

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Digital photography is the new way to take photos and offers many conveniences that the old 110 camera just cannot provide. Here are a few tips to help make sure your digital photography is the best it can be.

Try to place the focal point of your subject in the center of the picture. This is the best way to snap the perfect digital photography image and, while it can be difficult, a little positioning will get the subject in center focus.

Avoid any photo with random subjects, such as a waterfall with other tourists standing around taking pictures or that perfect picture of your new pup with someone petting him.

Select the highest resolution for your digital photography. On most digital cameras, there is a resolution selector that allows the photographer to determine a low, medium or high resolution for their digital photography.

Get as close to the subject as possible or use the zoom feature. If it isn't possible to get very close to the subject, either because of location or safety, most digital cameras offer a zoom feature that allows the photographer to get a close-up view without being close at all.

If you are photographing individuals, always use the red eye reduction feature. It's a well known fact that some people's eyes turn red in photographs and others do not, but do yourself and those in your photo a favor and use the red eye reduction just incase.

If possible, take digital photography from a unique angle. Rather than straight ahead, consider a low position as you are looking up toward the subject or a high position as you look down on the image.

Have fresh batteries and a spare pack with you at all times. Digital cameras operate on batteries and, when traveling, you will always want to have some spare batteries incase yours run out.

Use a tripod for a steady image. If you are naturally shaky and want to make sure that you get the perfect digital photography, set up the tripod and point the camera directly at the subject before snapping a pic.

Use the review feature that most cameras have so that you can make sure the image was perfect. This is the best feature of a digital camera. Why? Because a view screen gives you the opportunity to review photos that are stored in your memory card. If you missed the perfect photo or simply snapped it at the wrong time, there is no wasted film. Simply erase the photo and take another one.

Adjust the flash for the proper surroundings. If your digital photography project requires a night photo or one taken indoors, a flash will be needed. On a sunny day or even if just a few clouds are looming, you may be able to accomplish the perfect digital photography without the flash feature being used.To get more facts about digital photography, check out our website at http://www.best-digital-photography-tips.info for lots of free digital photography information and reviews.

Did You Ever Try Selling Your Photography?Part 2

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Anyone with the ability to use a camera correctly has the potential to sell their images. Picture agencies handle images of every subject and are always looking for emerging talent.

Pictures libraries and stock agencies are in the business of selling images. The don?t give you advice on how to take better images. Their purpose is business - they sell images to magazines, book publishers, the travel industry and many other industries that use images.

Many photographers look upon agencies as a last resort to sell their work; if you have been unable to sell any of your images, the chances are that most agencies won?t accept them.

If you are interested in an agency selling your images, you must be able to produce high quality images which are suited to the agencies market. Check out their website to view samples that are currently in use.
If you feel your work meets their standards and suits their customers - then approach them by e-mail or by standard mail.

But, before placing your work at an agency make a short-list of the agencies that seem to suit your work. Contact each agency outlining your work and which magazines have already published your images. If an agency is then interested they will ask you to send them samples.

If an agency accepts your work, don?t take this as a guarantee that your images will sell.

Don?t approach an agency until you have a large collection of images. Minimum first submissions can consist of anything from 50 images to 500 and regular submissions are normally required thereafter. Most agencies work on a commission basis - 50 % being the standard rate. If an image sells for two hundred euro - the photographer receives a one hundred euro fee.

When an agency takes on a photographer?s work, they normally require a four or five year retention period. Agencies normally sell the reproduction rights of a pictures - the image being licensed to a buyer for a specified purpose.

It may take as long as six months before an agency sells a picture belonging to you. First they need to scan your images if they are submitted by film; then they need to contact their clients and let them know that there is new material available - all of this takes time, so you must look at supplying a picture agency as a long term investment. It is only when you have several hundred images placed in a library that you?ll start to see regular sales.

Remember: agencies can?t sell images if there isn?t a market for them and placing images at an agency does not guarantee you sales.

Your Guide To Buying A Digital Camera That Matches Your Photography Skill

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For many folks buying a digital camera can be a confusing and bewildering purchase since there are so many models to choose from and so many different kinds of digital cameras too. Unless you are a photography hobbyist you probably won't be familiar with all of the acronyms and language used to describe the features of each camera either. So here is a general guide to help you know how to buy a digital camera that matches your own photographic skill level.

First of all, there is no one size fits all solution in digital cameras. It would be much easier to choose if that were the case, but it would also severely limit what each person could do with their own photography. And this means that is you aren't a serious hobbyist, you probably don't need to spend the extra money on digital cameras that have all the advanced features simply because you will probably never use them. And on the other hand, if you are a skilled amateur photographer, buying a simple point and shoot type of camera will not be a great decision either as it will not let you really be creative enough to satisfy your needs. So here are a few simple guidelines to follow.

If you don't consider yourself a photographer, and you just simply want to take good pictures of family and friends, and maybe some special occasions, you can most likely do very well with a 4 - 6 megapixel point and shoot fully automatic digital camera. This will be the most inexpensive option and so will save you plenty of money initially by not purchasing features that you really don't need. And the resolution of a 4 - 6 megapixel camera will let you make great prints on up to 8 X 10 or so.

If however, you know a little bit about photography and like to take some control yourself over the camera functions at times to create special photo effects in the composition of the photo, a more advanced digital camera that has fully manual features for exposure control, and allows you to save the image files in TIFF, GIF or RAW formats that do not lose image quality when compressed would be a good choice. Unless you do a lot of enlargements above 8 X 10 you probably can still get by with a 4 - 6 megapixel camera here too.

However, if you consider yourself a photographer of sorts and like to be creative with your photos, you probably should consider buying a digital single lens reflex camera(SLR) that uses interchangeable lenses, has full manual control capability, and advanced features that most serious photographers really appreciate. And if you like to do lots of manual cropping of photos and magnification of smaller parts of your photo images before you print, an 8 - 10 megapixel camera can be a good bet.

Of course, these guidelines and tips are just general suggestions but hopefully they can help point you in the right direction so that you can more easily select and buy the digital camera that will most closely match your photographic skills.

You can find the best rated digital cameras and buy digital camera online by visiting our Digital Photography website.

Cloudy Day Photography: Taking Advantage of Nature's Diffused Lighting.

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Cloudy days are nature's softbox.

Cloudy days can present many opportunities for great photographs. In fact, once you discover how easy it is to get great results, you'll look forward to a cloudy day as much, if not more, than a sunny day.

The studio photographer's arsenal includes a number of tools to soften and redistribute light to the best advantage of the subject. Among these tools is the Softbox which provides soft, even lighting by using a diffuser in front of the light.

In outdoor photography, cloud cover diffuses the light of the sun much like a photographer's softbox, producing a soft even light that results in softer contrasts. While high contrast can be quite dramatic, the softer contrast allows for more detail in both the light and the dark areas of your photograph. The softer light is also more flattering for portraits or candid shots of people.

On your first few cloudy day adventures, consider taking your digital camera. In spite of the differences in the cameras, what you learn about how the lighting changes your compositions and setup will be equally useful with your film camera. And with the digital, you'll feel free to experiment without the added cost of film on your mind.

Some difficult subjects which benefit from the diffused light include waterfalls in shadowy forested areas, sea life caught in a tide pool and wildlife hiding in the shadows, as well as close ups of flowers and people.

Diffused lighting is not as bright as direct light, indoors or out, and you will need to compensate with a slower shutter speed. Or widen the aperture and adjust the depth of field. You should count on needing your tripod for wide or long shots. The picture can be blurred by even slight camera movement with really slow shutter speeds, so use your remote if you have one.

Anita Cross is a self-employed Internet Marketing consultant, professional photographer and amateur writer. She sponsors the Call Of The Wild Photo web site, where you can find more Digital Photography Tips from Anita and other professional photographers.

Photography for Your Jewelry and Craft Website

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Not only is it important to take good photographs for your website, it is equally important to make sure that your pictures load quickly. In this article we will cover a number of important issues:

Photography set up
Camera settings
Editing for Website
Other Important Resources


Photography set up:

Your backdrop is your first concern. Where will you take pictures of your product, craft or object? Outdoor light seems to be the most recommended background. The outdoor lighting helps to create beautiful pictures. For jewelry, this option is not the best. It is harder to photograph jewelry than other crafts. For jewelry there are many other options for setting up a small photography studio.

How to Make My $15.00 Photo Studio http://www.home-jewelry-business-success-tips.com/jewelry-photography.html

Lapidary Art: Basic Jewelry Photography
http://www.lapidaryart.com/projects_2.html

Photographing Jewelry for Print and Web
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/lessons/vault/index.html


Camera settings:

Each camera comes with their own terms. You will have to read your manual to decide what term they use for each of these settings. There are a few settings that you need to make on your camera.

Quality - I use the middle setting. This takes really nice pictures, but does not use up as much disk space.

Picture Resolution - My camera has either High (1760 x 1168 pixels) or Standard (896 x 592 pixels). Use the Standard setting.

Using a scanner to take pictures - Use the highest setting for you scanner to scan your pictures. Then edit as you would pictures that you have taken with a camera.


Editing for Website:

Before we begin editing your photos there are a few things that you should know:

Do NOT save your photos in JPEG format until you are DONE editing. JPEG files do not take any changes very well. If you save it as a JPEG, then change the size, the picture quality goes down. Each time you open and change it, the quality keeps getting worse. Save all of your original files in your photo editing programs format such as .psd for Photoshop.

Save all of your website pictures in the size that you will use them on your site. Do NOT change the size of them once you get them onto your website. This will cause them to lose their quality. I like my "thumbnail" pictures to be 125 pixels x 125 pixels. The smaller the picture, the quicker it will load.

When you use the "thumbnail" tool, you are VIEWING the picture smaller, but your file size is still large. This causes your pictures to load just as slow as when you put the large picture on that page. This is why you save your picturethe size that you want it to appear on your website. If you want a "thumbnail" sized photo, save it that size.

I recommend Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (the less expensive version approximately $80 at Buy.com) photo editing. There are many more products out there that are less expensive.


Following are the steps to take to edit your pictures for you website.

1. Once you have taken your pictures, download them to your computer. Save these files in your photo editing programs format. Since I use Photoshop, I save them as .psd files.

2. Open your photo editing program and open your picture. Crop your picture two sizes.

-Crop one picture for the "thumbnail" sized picture. I crop at 125 pixels x 125 pixels for square or 140 pixels x 125 pixel. You will have to decide how large or small you want your pictures. Just remember that the larger that they are, the slower they will load. (crop, save this file, then click "undo" to crop your next picture)

-Crop one picture for the larger picture that people will see once they click on the thumbnail. I use 300 pixels x 300 pixels, or 300 pixels x 275 pixels.

3. Use your photo editing tool to sharpen, and adjust brightness. These are all tools that you will have to play with to get the look that you want. I suggest that you read the tutorial on the photo editing program that you are using. Once you have the setting that you like, write them down and use them for most of your pictures.

4. Once you are happy with the appearance of your picture, it is time to save it for your website. In Photoshop they offer an option to "Save for Web". Once you have clicked Save for Web, it will take you to a tool that allows you to save it at the quality that you want. You can save most pictures for websites at 60%-80%. You will also have to play with this to find the right balance between picture quality and load time. For example:

-Picture saved at 60%, not real clear, loads in 3 seconds
-Picture saved at 70%, pretty clear, loads in 4 seconds -- Best Bet!
-Picture saved at 80%, very clear, loads in 10 seconds

If your program does not offer, Save for Web, you will have to read the directions on saving for a website. **Just make sure that you save all of your website pictures in the JPEG format.**

5. Always keep a copy of your original (saved in your photo editing programs format). You may decide to go back and change it.

Lisa Jay is a freelance writer and the jewelry designer behind Lantana Designwear. You can visit her websites at http://www.LantanaDesignwear.comand www.JewelryMakingHQ.com
Be sure to sign up for her newsletter at http://www.JewelryMakingHQ.com/signup_newsletterto receive helpful information on making your business a success.