I Got a Digital Camera - Now What?

Summary

The goal of this session is to inspire the beginner consumer-end camera user to get to know their camera’s basic functions, how to transfer pictures from the camera to the computer and some basic-to-intermediate image digital darkroom editing techniques to enhance pictures and fix “rookie” photographer mistakes. This information can apply to digital photography as a personal hobby or as part of your CSU job.

This is one session from the Colorado State University Professional Development Institute presented on January 6, 2005.

Evaluations

1. How to Get To Know Your Camera

Learn a Little or a Lot

  • 1st thing I had to learn when showing others how to use the camera is to remove the lens cap before powering on the camera! If I forget to remove it, then lens automatically extends when powered on and I get an error. Then I have to power down the camera for the lens to go back in, then remove the cap and power on again.
  • 2nd how to read when batteries were low and how to charge batteries
  • 3rd how to read how many images were left to take, then how to take images off the card into the computer then have a clean memory card for the next user.

The Manual - To Read or Not To Read

If the Manual seems too daunting/too boring to read cover to cover, read only the essentials: how to preview images in the camera and delete if the images aren't satisfactory or you're running out of room on your memory card.

Another way is to read only parts of the manual that pertain to what you want to do.

If you're really ambitious, find all the controls mentioned in the manual and see what they do. An advantage of digital is that you can try out more or less everything as you read about it in the manual and see the results.

Tip: If manual is lost, some are available online at the manufacturer’s site, try the support area, or purchase on eBay.

The Menu

Here's some items typically located in the menu of digital cameras that you'll want to become familiar with. Refer to your manual if necessary:

  • Image quality and size
  • Viewfinder/monitor screen brightness. Rookie mistake, brightness is turned down so far you can’t see the screen because it’s almost black. Increase brightness, especially to see in bright sunlight.
  • Auto flash off. Know how to turn off flash if needed, for example sometimes there is a request for no flash photography at weddings, performances, etc.
  • Auto off, timeout. I need 1 minute for composing my shot, fiddling with menu and recomposing , ½ min wasn’t enough for me.
  • Date. Accurate date info is nice to have. I have a lot with meaningless default dates where I forgot to check the camera’s date setting. Date shows in Photoshop metadata and file details in My Computer/WinExplorer.
  • Card format. Erases all images but reformats card – good to do if you're encountering errors.
  • Movie feature? Mine's under a feature called “continuous”. Movies aren’t as good as those taken from a digital camcorder and vice versa, still images from a camcorder are inferior to those from a still camera.
  • Scene modes: automatic, fluorescent, cloudy, etc
  • Focus modes: Distance landscapes to macro close-ups. Once I started taking an interest in macro shots around my garden, I wanted to learn more and go beyond point-and-shoot.

Learn Photography Basics

Learn photography basics. Many of these apply to film and digital cameras.

  • How to hold your camera properly and use tripods/monopods for landscapes, panoramic and macro shots.
  • Aperture (f-stop) – The smaller the number (i.e. 1.8 is smaller than 2.8), the larger the aperture (F1.8 is a larger aperture than F2.8). The larger the aperture, the more light reaches the picture.
  • Shutter speed - The smaller the number (i.e., 1/1000 is smaller than 1/125), the faster the shutter speed (1/1000 sec. is faster than 1/125 sec.).
  • Depth of field
  • Histograms
  • Composition

Use your favorite search engine to research these topics. Or take courses.

I recommend BetterPhoto.com as a great resource for learning with free email newsletters, discussions, free contests, inspiration and online courses. I took their "Understanding Exposure" online course where lessons are given weekly and homework is submitted online and critiqued by your instructor and classmates.

More resources are listed in the side bar "References and resources".

Get Used to Lag Time

Digital cameras have more lag time than conventional cameras. This is the time between pressing the shutter release button and the camera actually taking the picture. However things are improving. More details at http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Camera_System/Lag_Time_01.htm
Regarding the shutter release button . . . gently squeeze release slowly and press all the way down and hold for at least 1 full second until the camera has recorded the picture to the memory card.

2. Transferring Pictures from Camera to Computer

Tether to Computer

This is older technology, where a cable is used to tether the camera to the computer. During the transfer, the camera's battery power is in use so your battery will drain or you can take the extra step to run power to your camera during the transfer process. Typically digital cameras come with an installation CD that contains a software program that will let you view your images and save them to your computer. This software must be installed on every computer that will be used to dowload pictures from your camera. In my computer lab environment, we had only one computer dedicated to this until card readers became available.

Card Readers

This is the current technology I use. There are card readers that read multiple types of cards, are inexpensive and easy to use. The card reader plugs into a USB port and is "plug and play" with Windows 2000/XP computers, meaning extra software is not needed.

Detailed instructions for using a card reader and other techniques are available at http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/intech/lab/nikon880.htm.

Here's a December 2004 review on the Dazzle 8-in-1 card reader.

Cradle/Dock Stations

This is new technology where your camera has a docking station where it can be placed to transfer pictures to the computer and charge the batteries. There's good and bad reviews from Amazon.com on these products.

3. Archiving

  • Transfer pictures from memory card ASAP
  • Save at least two sets of images
    • Raw/original/unmanipulated/how they came out of the camera
    • Modified
      • For print (high resolution)
      • For screen/email/WebCT/web/PowerPoint (low resolution)
  1. Store on physical media (CDs, DVDs), hard drives (LaCie, Fortress), virtual servers (Mirra)
  2. The key is storing and labeling them properly http://www.betterphoto.com/forms/qnaDetail.asp?threadID=12804

4. Editing Images

Take a few moments to review the image and decide what needs retouched

  • Overall lightness/darkness?
  • Overall color correction or saturation?
  • Crop/blur or darken non-essential background?
  • Adjust horizon lines/straighten edges?
  • Touch up faces, remove red eye, fly-away hairs?
  • Incorporate elements from one picture into another?
  • Apply special effects?
  • Add fancy text?

Process: Start with the big picture and work down to the details

Global density (over- or under-exposed images) and removing unwanted color casts should be the first steps in retouching digital images. This is typically done with Brightness/Contrast or Color Balance (under the menu commands Image > Adjustments) for beginners or intermediate Photoshop users may prefer the extra control Levels or Curves offers.

Try Photoshop CS's new Shadow/Highlight tool found under the Image > Adjustments menu. This tool can do amazing things to improving the overall image.The expanded menu offers sliders to control shadows, highlights and color casts.

Other overall editing techniques to consider would be removing or de-emphasizing unnecessary backgrounds with the Burn tool or Crop tool, or straightening horizons using the Measure tool.

Unskewing photos using Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl+T) - in the session we used the Free Transform menu commands to unskew a photo of a tile, to take it from a trapezoid shape to it's true square shape.

After taking care of overall enhancements, begin to work on smaller problem areas, typically zooming in on the image to apply touchups with the healing brush or liquify tool.

There are a number of ways for fixing red eye, and Deke McClelland suggests selecting the eyes (paint them in quick mask or use whatever selection tool you want, I used the elliptical marquee tool in this session) and then going to channel mixer and taking the red channel to zero and the other two channels to 50% each or a combination that equals 100%. It's pretty fast and it works well on a lot of images. He also recommends the Color Replacement tool, new in version 7 and up.