Tips & Tricks

Technology is no different than politics in that there are a variety of topics that people have opinions on. While you may not know much about these topics now, what you know about them can have a great impact on knowing who to listen to when it comes to learning more about digital photography and related topics.

PC vs. Mac:

The Mac people will tell you that Macs are better for graphics, easier to use more stable.

Organizing your digital photos is so important. Too often I see people who have major computer problems and think that everything is backed up only to find that their digital photos were so spread out on their computer that the only had a portion of them backed up.

Many people simply copy their digital photos onto their computer wherever a given piece of software puts them and they have no idea where that is. These notes will help you setup a system for managing your digital photos so they will be easy to find and backup even without programs like Picasa.

Here are a few links that will help you:

Rick Castellini's file management PowerPoint presentation

Here is what we will discuss at tonight's digital photo user group: 

1. How to find information in the Manual
If your camera didn't come with a manual, it is likely on the disk that came with the camera. You may also download it from the manufacturer's website.

2. How to insert and remove the camera memory

3. How to set your camera on full auto mode - this is the setting that lets the camera do all of the thinking
It may be indicated by a green square, the letter "A" or the word AUTO.

Video editing doesn't take a monster computer or a fancy camera.

Tools Required:

Camera - MiniDV camera works best because it is the most reliable and easiest to use.

Capturing the video from the camera:

If you have an older video camera VHS or 8mm, you will need a video capture card or device such as the Dazzle.

All you need if you have a digital video camera (MiniDV, DVD or HDD) is a firewire port on your computer and a firewire cord.

One of the disadvantages to digital photography (if you can call it that) is that you don't get prints as often. Photos tend to sit on disk or on your computer's hard drive and never get shared. The photo album is sadly becoming extinct.

If you would like to start printing out some of those digital photos, here are some pointers.

Install Picasa:

We talk about it a lot, but not often enough. Picasa will make selecting, organizing and printing your digital photos easy. In fact, there is little or no need for any other software for most people.

Although we recently had a class on getting to know your digital camera, many in the group have brand new cameras this time.

Since our meeting this month will focus a lot on the individual cameras that people bring to the meeting most of our notes will be posted after the meeting.

Here are a few items I expect to touch on.

You have a camera, now what?

Once you have the digital camera, you will need a few extras.

• A 1 gigabyte memory card
• At least one extra change of batteries
• A nice padded camera case
• A memory card reader

Software -

2006 promises to be a landmark year for digital photography. It is the year of the DSLR, affordable external storage, cheap memory, inexpensive computers, tons of other great deals.

Before you go shopping though, here are a few tips and suggestions that may point you in the right direction.

SHOPPING FOR A NEW CAMERA:

It is important to get a great deal, but make sure that you don't let price alone be your guide. There are many bad deals out there that may look too appealing to pass up. Here's what to watch out for:

Touching up your photos

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Before you begin touching up your photo, you should decide what size you want to print it and what programs you are going to use to do the job.

There are several tutorial sites out there that will help you learn how to do basic touch ups but the true techniques must be learned first hand using lots of practice.

There are the basic tools you will use:

l Clone tool: This is my favorite tool in any image editing program, basically it lets you copy an undamaged area of the photo over a damaged area - thus "healing the photo.

Digital Photo Restoration

Restoring old photos is one of the coolest things you can do in digital photography. The best part is that anyone can do it. All it takes is a scanner and a nice image editing program.

Important Photo Restoration Tools

There are many several tools that you just can't do without when it comes to restoring photos.

Cloning tool

Organizing and Viewing Your
Digital Photos

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The key to organizing your digital photos is sorting them from the beginning.

I begin by saving a folder to my desktop called "Camera pix," but it can be named anything. Inside this folder, I put a folder for each month. Inside each of those folders I make new folders as I need. For example, In my Camera Pix folder for last year I had a folder called December. Inside my December folder I have three other folders, "POL" for Parade of lights, Christmas, and "Misc."