But most photographs aren't just well-defined black and white boundaries - in fact, none of them are. So when faced with angles, gradients, or irregular shapes, the computer has to use its stored rules to guess what color the new pixels should be. In theory, the better routines allow the computer to do a pretty good job at smoothing out the image when the resolution is increased and all those new pixels are put in place. In practice, unlike in the movies or on TV, you can't get information out of a picture that isn't there. That tiny black dot on the horizon isn't going to turn into an umbrella when you double the resolution, it will just be a bigger black dot. So if you need a "bigger picture" than you have, why not use interpolation? The trick is that the interpolation done in your camera is not the same as the interpolation done in your computer's editing software.
You can use your photo editing software or even many picture viewers or dedicated programs, to view and copy EXIF data. It can also be used by specialized software provided by the camera manufacturer when loading pictures into your computer to record information about camera settings and even provide editing options. One of the things these transfer programs can do is to change the timestamp of the newly created file to match the time the photo was taken. That's another good reason to set the clock on your camera to the correct time. This data can be used to record a log of photographs for a variety of purposes. The time a favored shot was taken may be referred to later in duplicating light conditions. You can keep track of settings for experimenting with changes in settings, and never get your pictures mixed up because the data is stored as part of the file itself. You can export or copy the EXIF information and not have to manually enter information in your log.
Rough Side of RAW: RAW formats differ from camera to camera and there are debates about camera programming that provides some control over your RAW files by the camera manufacturer. Where protests have been issued, there is an effort to provide standardized RAW formats that would better serve the consumer where general market software could be used to edit the RAW material. If your computer is equipped with lots of processing memory, RAW data will not be as much a problem, however presently, RAW files take a lot more time to open and process than JPEG and TIFF files. That is where the option to capture in RAW and JPEG simultaneously is a strong benefit. While standard editing software is now offered on the market, the way that software processes RAW files may differ depending on how the software from the manufacturer is recognized by the software. Thus, be sure to find and ask a savvy sales expert. Most sensors record light over a 12-bit range, with intensities of more or less 4096 possible values. Each sensor with 12-bit output is one and a half bytes. So our small chip with 20,000 light cells gives a raw output of 30,000 bytes. In an actual file there is some non-image information, but that can be ignored for simple calculations.
When discussing image quality for digital photographs image noise is the equivalent of film grain for analogue cameras. Despite the fact that we are working in a visual instead of an audio medium, it is called noise, which is analogous to the subtle background hiss when a television channel has no broadcast or your audio system is turned up at full volume without a record or disk. In digital images, noise refers to random specks on the surface of a photo, which can degrade the quality of the image. While noise is often seen as a distraction and detriment to a photograph, it can be a desirable condition for certain artistic effects. Noise varies with sensitivity settings, length of exposure, temperature, and different camera models. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) is a useful and universal way of comparing the relative amounts of signal and noise for any electronic system. ISO setting or ISO speed are the standards, which describe a camera's sensitivity to light. A camera's relative sensitivity to light is represented by the ratio of the two ISO numbers. In terms of practical application, a photo taken at ISO 200 will take half as long to reach the same level of exposure as a photo taken at ISO 100 where all other settings are the same.
For the photographer that has a tight budget, it's good to know that there are free resources out there! If you take digital photos, then you can use some great editing software that is absolutely free, made available by Windows. Editing your pictures is a very important step in the photographic process, and can end up costing a pretty good amount of money by the time you are done. Anyone that needs to save money can take advantage of some great editing programs that are free and easy to use! Almost all digital cameras purchased today have a photo editing software program that comes as part of the purchase. These can provide simple cropping and picture modification. One of the many free photo editors offered by Windows is Paint.net. It is offered by Washington State University. You can freely download this freeware and use it to edit your own digital photos. The software has a ton of really cool features, including special effects! It is easy to use and you can even log onto a user forum, if you should need any help or want to see how others are using this great freeware! Another user-friendly freeware program that you can download to edit your photos is VCW VicMan's Photo Editor. This freeware is similar to Adobe's Photoshop. This software has a limited free version, but you can purchase the software for a great price. If you take a little time, you can find it offered at many online merchant websites and can even stumble across some great discounts!
Most experts will tell you what the automatic flash built into many digital cameras can't do - change light angle, redirect off surfaces to soften the effect but what is such a flash good at? As it turns out, there are a few times when such a feature is quite handy. While it can be handy to have dedicated lighting, or even a slave flash unit linked to your camera, there are good reasons why such items do not come standard with most cameras. Fill flash (also known as "forced on" or "anytime" flash) is a feature found on most digital cameras that allows the user to trigger the built-in flash whenever a picture is taken - no matter the light level. This is handy when natural light is behind the subject, but also to fill in shadows anywhere in the frame. While your eye can see the detail in these shaded areas, often the camera cannot. Many outdoor pictures are spoiled by excessive shadow or loss of detail when natural light seems adequate to the eye.
Memory Sticks are used only in Sony products, and Sony is serious about keeping the technology in use. Unfortunately it seems like no one else is. They're available up to 4 Gigabytes in capacity, have good speed, but if you're using a Memory stick, it's probably because you're using a Sony camera and you don't have a choice. The newest common storage media are xD-Picture cards. Developed by Olympus and Fuji as a replacement for the older Smart Media cards, xD cards are compact and durable, with a heftier shell than older designs. They are stable in the market and likely to be around for a while, but they are gaining neither market share nor size rapidly - currently the largest xD cards are 1 Gigabyte. This is probably because only Olympus and Fuji now use this standard. Wide and wafer-thin, Smart Media cards define "legacy technology." Available only as large as 128 Megabytes, this is one technology I would have expected to have been "voted off the island" by now. Alas, they were used in tens if not hundreds of millions of cameras and smart phones, so they are still being made and will be available for some time. You won't find them in any new cameras, however.
Though digital photography has come a long way, beginning photographers must still maintain control of the shots they intend to take. For example, focusing and clarity can be sensed automatically by most digital cameras, but that doesn't necessarily make the picture a good one. Therefore, choosing the right camera, one which allows you to control intensity, contrast and lighting, is not a choice to make sparingly. Most often, people review cameras and pick their own personal favorite, and while the advice may be helpful to others, it is not necessarily for everyone. First, your needs must determine the type of camera you will buy. Do you prefer to have a smaller camera that can be carried around in your pocket, or would you rather a full-size camera which is carried in a bag? The choice is up to the buyer, and should be thought about carefully before making a decision.
Some of today's film purists look at digital photography as an unnecessary evil. Is it an unfair advantage that the digital photographer can take a photograph, upload it to their computer, do a little image editing, then have a finished product ready to present to a client (or a personal framed print, suitable for hanging), all in a matter of a couple of hours or less? This is called capitalizing on available technology, and if you're still one of those that haven't embraced the tools that are available today, then shame on you! In no way does this mean that film photographers should ditch their 35mm cameras and darkrooms. Much of the work performed in the darkroom is similar to what we do today in Photoshop. We cloned in trees that didn't exist, removed power lines that distracted from the shot, enhanced colors that were bland, and if we couldn't do it in the darkroom it was sent to the lab's airbrush specialist. This person who was definitely an artist and highly skilled in what she did, also took ordinary images and made them extraordinary. One of her specialties was taking old photos that had been bent, folded, and manipulated, and airbrushed everything back to perfection. Digital photography and image processing is not a whole lot different from how things were done 25 years ago.
White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "color temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. Our eyes are very good at judging what is white under different light sources, however digital cameras often have great difficulty with auto white balance (AWB). An incorrect WB can create unsightly blue, orange, or even green color casts, which are unrealistic and particularly damaging to portraits. Performing WB in traditional film photography requires attaching a different cast-removing filter for each lighting condition, whereas with digital this is no longer required. Understanding digital white balance can help you avoid color casts created by your camera's AWB, thereby improving your photos under a wider range of lighting conditions. A digital camera's auto white balance is often more effective when the photo contains at least one white or bright colorless element. Of course, do not try to change your composition to include a colorless object, but just be aware that its absence may cause problems with the auto white balance.
Quality sports shots are somewhat difficult to come by. Most people have limited access to events to photograph them. The further away you are from the event, the harder it becomes to capture the event in a pleasing manner. You may need a flash with a high output for photographing indoor events.The new modern flash systems produce great results. Some sporting events like gymnastics and others are no-flash events. It is best to talk to an event official before using your flash.
JPEG (pronounced "jay-peg") is a standardized image compression mechanism. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the original name of the committee that wrote the standard. JPEG is designed for compressing either full-color or gray-scale images of natural, real-world scenes. It works well on photographs, naturalistic artwork, and similar material; not so well on lettering, simple cartoons, or line drawings. JPEG is "lossy," meaning that the decompressed image isn't quite the same as the one you started with. (There are lossless image compression algorithms, but JPEG achieves much greater compression than is possible with lossless methods.) Making image files smaller is a win for transmitting files across networks and for archiving libraries of images. The real disadvantage of lossy compression is that if you repeatedly compress and decompress an image, you lose a little more quality each time. This is a serious objection for some applications but matters not at all for many others.
If you use a flash in a dark environment, you often get a red eye effect. This is because the light of the flash is reflecting from the retina, which is covered with tiny blood vessels. The more open the pupils are, the more red eye effect you get in your photos. Red eye is more pronounced in people with light eye color. It is also more pronounced in people with blond or light-red hair and in children. Many cameras have a built-in red-eye reduction pre-flash that helps reduce the incidence of red eye. Red-eye reduction works by having the flash shine a light into the eyes of the subject prior to taking the picture. This causes the pupil to contract. However, you have to make sure the subject is looking at the camera. If not, this technique won't work. Also be wary of using red-eye reduction feature when not necessary, because it may cause your subject to blink.
"Picture-perfect" is a term almost always associated with photography, which makes photographers think that every photograph must be absolutely perfect. This is simply not true. Most often some of the best pictures are not perfect, because perfect can be predictable. However, in order to get those perfect pictures, any photographer, whether experienced or a beginner, must be patient and persistent. Eventually, taking perfect pictures will simply become a habit.
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