Photography 101, On the Editing Floor: Post-Production

So you went out, bought your camera, took your photos (paying heed to lighting and composition!). Now you’re ready to edit them. This has become increasingly easy to do if you’re working with digital photography. There are many high-quality photo editors available. 

Gimp 2.2 by Luana on Flickr.  All Rights Reserved

Adobe Lightroom 4 is software used by many professional photographers, it works on a Mac or PC computer and allows you to run batch edits across a large collection of photographs at one time.  Lightroom allows you to tweak and improve your photographs but retains the original file for archival purposes.  Adobe Photoshop is also a popular choice for editing your photos (there are many versions available from consumer to pro level).  Picassa is free software that allows you to do some quick, easy edits (add colour filters, adjust saturation, the “I am feeling lucky” edit option will quickly fix any glaring problems with your photos).  iPhoto for Mac users is easy to use and allows you to quickly share photos with friends, save photos in web-friendly file sizes, and upload your photos to social media websites. 

Visit PC Magazine for more information about photo editing software (includes reviews)

Photography 101, Part VI: The Best Camera Phones

Many people are interested in documenting their lives via social media like Facebook and Twitter. Technology now allows us to take photos, upload them, and tag ourselves – and our location – all on the same device. Camera phones are now ubiquitous, so how does yours compare?

The iPhone 4 is top rated for photography. Nick Morris, all rights reserved.

Predictably, the slick Apple iPhone 4’s camera wins out in this category. Apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic make it even easier to edit and add effects to your snapshots after the fact. But for those of us not in the cult of Apple, there are other options. The HTC Evo3D, an Android phone, is another great choice, as are the Motorola XT720 and the Samsung Galaxy. Tech Radar has a great list – they’ve taken the same pictures with 10 different camera phones and reviewed them accordingly.

Of course the sky is (almost) the limit when it comes to a camera, but hopefully this guide has gotten you to think about what might work best in terms of your own needs and values. I encourage you to do plenty of research before buying your camera – the websites I’ve linked to above are great places to get expert advice and ensure that you make the best purchase possible. Happy shooting!

Image standards

This is about the nuts and bolts – the technicalities of file types and attributes that will make your images viewable to your readers.

First of all – file formats.
GIF for graphic elements with large blocks of similar colours, for example logos.
JPG for photographs
PNG combines elements of both GIF and JPG

Here is a web site that summarizes the differences and gives some examples.
http://www.sitepoint.com/gif-png-jpg-which-one-to-use/

What if your file is not in the format you want? Most photo editors such as Photoshop can convert your file and save it in multiple formats. Check out this list of free online graphic converters: http://www.internetymultimedia.com/?q=node/58

A word about file size: As a general rule, provide the smallest file size that will meet the quality requirements of your user. For example, a photograph of a work of art that your may need to be examined in great detail will require a larger file size than a photograph that is provided as a general illustration on your site.

Adjusting the resolution (expressed as dots or pixels per inch, or dpi/ppi) can help to achieve this objective. You can do this in Photoshop using the Image Size dialogue box.

 Here is a portion of a photograph that is originally a 180 dpi JPG (175kb)

 This can be reduced to 72 dpi (124kb) without a huge loss of quality:

But if this 72 dpi photo is cropped to show just a small detail, things can get fuzzy!










Remember – once the pixels are gone, they’re gone! Always save your original photos in their highest-quality format and resolution so that you have more pixels at your disposal for future close-ups.