Digital Shutters

A lot of photo albums consist of people smiling looking at the camera and posing for the shot. That’s great everyone loves those, they can see the faces everyone is happy. But sometimes that can get boring. A great alternative, when taking your photos for the family album is to consider doing a separate photo album or scrapbook of your outing using only the candid shots.

I sure we all remember the phrase “Smile your on Candid Camera�, this show had hidden cameras to catch people totally off guard. It involved setting up a tick or an unusual situation to ordinary people to see their reaction.

But on that family outing we don’t want to play tricks on them to get them to do silly things that will come naturally once they let their guard down. That’s where all those candid shots will come in.
The candid shots are the ones of the kids playing, someone acting goofy and not knowing the camera is on them. You don’t have to worry about doing any thing special any extra settings on your camera, or lighting. If you are inside just set your camera to auto inside and the same if your outside, set it to auto outdoors. Let the camera worry about finding the best exposure. This leaves you to enjoy yourself and gives you a chance to catch those unexpected shots. So when taking those smiling shots mix in those candid ones and create that special photo album.

About.com
Wikipedia.com

PHOTO OF THE DAY
A candid shot of My beautiful Niece examining the contents of a ladel.
Camera HP315
auto settings

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Living by the Gulf of Mexico for over 20 years I have many pictures of the beach.
From your standard family portrait to the sunset, Beach scenes are popular and leave limitless photographic opportunities. When going to the beach and taking photos find the unique pictures, the foot prints in the sand, the sand castle, seashells as they are washed up on the beach, old drift wood bleached by the sun. These will add interest to your photo album or scrap book. These shots also make great background scenes for your family photos.
One thing to remember is use your filters. A UV and Polarizer will help keep the glare from your photo and deepen the blues of the sky. They will also help to protect your camera lens from the dirt and sand that is blowing around.

Other related articles
About.com
Digital Photography School

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Gulf of Mexico, North Padre Island
HP315
UV and PL filter

beaches, sand, sun, fun, digital camera, Olympus, Kodak, Nikon, Canon, Photography, Photo, Picture, Edit, Photoshop, Paintshop, HP, Fuji, contests, tips

Sometimes when you want a great looking background for your photos you can use your editing software to create it. In these examples I used 3 programs
Here is an example of how to create a stained glass look background using different programs. I chose a picture of flowers that came out blurry.

Photoshop Elements 3.0 I decided to go for a mosaic tiled look that would keep the colors and give it a unique look.
I choose filter>texture>stained glass.
The settings cell size 10, border 4, and light intensity 3

In Photoshop CS3 I choose the same settings.
I choose filter>texture>stained glass.
The settings cell size 10, border 4, and light intensity 3
As you can see there is not much difference in the result. The image comes out lighter than in Elements giving it a softer effect.The Only difference in the programs is in PhotoShop CS3 you can apply smart filters and apply more than one filter at a time to come up with a more unique look

JASC Paintshop Pro I went for the same mosaic look, although it does not have the same stained glass settings as PHotshop has.
I choose Effects>Texture>and Tiles
The setting Tile Angular 75> Tile size> 25 > Border 4
Smoothness 25 > Depth 1 > Ambience 0 > Shininess 60
Angle 315 > Intensity 50 > Elevation 25
As you can see to get you get a totally different look with this program. The colors came out darker and not a stained glass look at all. but more a ceramic tile look.

background, edit, software, digital camera, Olympus, Kodak, Nikon, Canon, Photography, Photo, Picture, Edit, Photoshop, Paintshop, HP, Fuji, contests, tips

When taking photos most cameras have different file sizes to choose from. I have always said that the best size of photo to take with your camera is the largest format that it allows and to have extra media disks as back up. This way you can always resize the photo in your editing software to the final print size needed. Always remember you can shrink a photo without loosing quality but you cannot enlarge it past the original format it was taken in.

When editing your photos determine what you are going to use it for. Save the edited photo under a different file name so that you still have the original to use again. If it is going onto the web then it is recommended that you downsize it to the exact size it will be when published. Or use thumbnails. This will aid in speed of download for your site and will help to deter possible theft. You may also want to watermark you image, most editing programs offer this feature. Just remember the copyright laws. You cannot watermark an image that is not legally yours without the owner’s written consent.
With web images keep in mind that not everyone’s computer and monitor settings are the same as yours. Keep you images small but still viewable. The max size for speedy downloads of an image is 12K. Yes there are still people out there with dial up service. This size includes all images, animated, movies, etc.

Reference sites About.com

PHOTO OF THE DAY
The moon taken through my sons telescope
HP315 Point and shoot camera

web sites, moon, digital camera, Olympus, Kodak, Nikon, Canon, Photography, Photo, Picture, Edit, Photoshop, Paintshop, HP, Fuji, contests, tips

Using your digital camera is always fun and seeing the pictures is the best part. But in order to keep the fun for a long time you have to clean and take care of your digital camera. With proper clean and maintenance your camera will last a long time.

Always read your owners manual for manufacture recommendations. The sensors and lens are very sensitive and care should be taken when cleaning these areas. I would not recommend disassembling your camera, that should always be done by a professional but here are a few tips that you can do to keep your camera in god working order.

After a photo shoot inspect your lens, lens covers, media cards, for any dust, dirt, scratches. If you find any gently blow on the areas to remove lose particles. Do not use the canned compressed air to clean any of your digital equipment. The air inside is cold and could freeze ad damage your equipment.

Next use a soft lens cloth slightly dampened with plain water to clean the surface of the lens then use a dry one to dry the area. Do not use any abrasive cleaners to clean your lens with as this will scratch the surface and the scratches will show up on the photos. If you want to use a commercial cleaner I would recommend going to an optical store to buy a solution for cleaning glasses or contacts.

Wipe your media cards with a soft dry cloth and inspect the contacts to make sure that they are clean and not damaged.

Inspect the camera body itself and all its moving parts, such as lens covers, media doors, pop up flashes, to make sure that their movement is smooth and they are not sticking, they are opening and closing properly. Wipe you camera body off with a soft cloth; use a Q-tip to clean around any buttons, controls, and hinges to keep the areas free from dirt.

Once you are finished with the cleaning pack everything neatly in your camera bag to protect it from damage when not in use.

Reference articles
Cleaning Digital Cameras
Digicamhelp.com

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Gulf of Mexico, North Padre Island
Camera, HP315 Point and shoot

cleaning, digital camera, lens, media card, Olympus, Kodak, Nikon, Canon, Photography, Photo, Picture, Edit, Photoshop, Paintshop, HP, Fuji, tips

I have often talked of color corrections and editing photos using Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Some of my readers don’t have these programs and they use Jasc Paintshop. (Corel Corporation now owns Jasc) The photo I have here is actually taken with a regular 35mm film and scanned into the computer. As you can see its looks kind of blueish and the cactus does not stand out. There were several corrections I made to this photo.

First I went to colors >adjust> Hue/Saturation. Instead of staying on the master I selected red and adjusted the saturation to 10 and greens on 15. This made the red of the flowers pop and brought out the red tones of the wood in the cabin. The greens brought out the colors of the green in the cactus.
Next I selected effects > enhance photo > auto color balance. Here I set the strength on 41 and the temperature on warm 5670 this took away the hazy look that the photo had.
There were little fine lines on the image from the scanner so I then choose effects > noise > edge preserving and set it at 25 this removed the noticeable lines. And that is it!

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Sometimes when you take your photos the composition is great but the colors just don’t seem to pop.
In Adobe Photoshop CS3 there are many ways to bring the color out in your photos. In this photo I made several corrections First I removed elements that I didn’t want and then I adjusted the colors. When making adjustments have the preview selected that way when you make your adjustments its easy to switch back and forth between the original photo and the adjustments you made before committing to the corrections.

• I used the clone tool to remove the darkened upper corners. (Alt Click) to select an area close to where I wanted to make the corrections, I used small horizontal strokes to cover the spots; I then used the same technique to remove the sunspots.
• Next I used Image > adjustments> selective colors to adjust the greens, reds, and blues.
• Next I used Image > adjustments> Hue/Saturation. I increased the saturation but left the hue and lightness alone.
This brought out the deep red of the rocks and the bright greens of the plants. When adjusting photo colors you want to keep objects looking a natural as possible.
Play with your photos and different ways to make the adjustments to get various effects and as always save your photos under different file names so that you preserve the original photo.
A new feature that CS3 has along with the undo feature is the step backward feature which will let you undo any changes that you don’t like.

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Contests are great and everyone wishes they would win. Contests are also a great way for a photographer to get exposure to their work. With the World Wide Web there are thousands of photographers, artists, painters, etc out there wanting to get noticed. So how do you get noticed in this Digital age. Enter as many contests as you can. Look over your photos find the best ones you have. Edit them to prefection and enter the contest. Remember though most of the contests you enter will not let you enter a photo that is already enetered into a contest. In other words you cannot enter the same photo is several contests you might get disqualified. The more you enter the more chances you have of winning. And the more exposure you have. Some contests have weekly drawings, some are monthly and some are yearly. Read the fine lines and the contest details for all the rules and you will do fine.
In the world of Photography the most currents ones that are still going on are as follows. This is a great way for amateur and professionals alike to get exposure for themselves.
Listed are some of the sites from a search for photography contests.

International Library of Photography has a $10,000 amateur photography contest. I checked out the site it did not specify a closing date for the contest though.

SOAPhoto Contest has a monthly contest where they pick 4 winners per month 1 per category the prizes are new digital cameras and other things.

DP Challenge has weekly contests this site is kind of confusing, it appears to me like a DIGG site for photos. But still a great place to get exposure and get your name out.

Better Photo has a monthly contest that offers prizes. You can submit one photo per day.

Photo of the Day
Pink Rose
Olympus E-500
lens-14mm
auto floral setting

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On June 4th Olympus released new underwater housings for its point and shoot and DSLR cameras
The new PT-EO3 is for the new E-Volt 410 DSLR This is great news for the scuba divers out there as this certain piece of equipment allows the diver to hold the camera away from the face to view the scene on their camera
The new PPO-E05 underwater lens port is designed for the 14-42mm Zuiko lens.
They also released the UFL-1 an underwater flash.
Some of their new camera releases like the Stylus 770 SW and the Stylus 760 have underwater scene features built into them.
There are many other underwater features that Olympus is offering, read the Olympus Press Release June 4, 2007 for a complete review of these features.

On May 30, 2007 Kodak announced the release of its new Security Solutions a line of products and services to help protect against counterfeiting and fraud. To read the complete press release visit Kodak.

Checking the other sites, Nikon, Canon, HP, and Sony I did not find any new news on their press release sites that involved digital photography.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Texas Blue Bonnet
Olympus E-500
Auto Macro setting
Lens 14mm

digital, camera, Olympus, Kodak, Nikon, Canon, Photography, Photo, Picture, Edit, Photoshop, Paintshop, HP, Fuji

Many times in the past you might have heard or read about noise in your photos. What is noise? Noise is actually random pixels that are not part of the detail of your image. Noise can result from using to high of an ISO or underexposure. It can also occur when shooting night images with a slower shutter speed.
There are actually two types of noise, photos that look grainy or patchy have luminance noise, which is gray data, Or you may have color noise which appears as colored spots on the image.
Your digital photos can be corrected of noise using your photo editing software. When you reduce noise you will create a softened effect on your photo and it may loose some of the sharpness, you may want to sharpen your photo after you remove noise if the image has to much blur. Always remember to save your edited photo under a different file name to preserve the original photo.

References:
Wikipedia online

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Sunset at Lake Corpus Christi TX. A storm was starting to brew and the clouds were awesome that night.
Camera Olympus E-500
Zoom lens set at 100
Auto settings to night scene
To reduce noise I did a glausen blur