chapter RI AL 1 TAL DIGI SLR CO PY RI GH TE D MA TE Understanding Digital Photography Are you confused about how digital photography works? This chapter introduces you to the advantages of digital photography, the different types of digital, and how easy it is to work with and use digital pictures.
Why Go Digital? .................................................... 4 Discover Digital Cameras ................................... 6 From Start to Finish: The Digital Workflow ...........................................................
Why Go Digital? With digital photography, you can do more than take snapshots for your family album. You can use a digital camera to quickly and significantly improve your photography skills. You can e-mail your digital pictures to family and friends, share your photos on social networking sites, or create interesting Web pages about your hobbies, family, or even home business. You can also simplify everyday tasks, or take part in documenting your family history with a digital scrapbook.
Understanding Digital Photography 1 chapter Share Pictures Online and in E-mail Within minutes of taking a picture, you can share it in an e-mail message, or upload it to an online photo site to share with family and friends. By doing it this way, those loved ones who want prints of the photos can buy them online and receive the prints in the mail. There are countless online options for sharing photos and having prints made quickly.
Discover Digital Cameras How Digital Cameras Record Pictures Digital cameras record pictures using an image sensor array — a grid composed of millions of light-sensitive pixels. The term pixel describes a picture element. The pixels are the building blocks of all digital images. A red, green, or blue filter covers each pixel on the sensor so that it responds to only one of the primary colors of light. Each pixel reads the brightness and color in a scene to produce an electrical signal.
Understanding Digital Photography 1 chapter Types of Image Sensors Most digital cameras use one of two types of image sensors: a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). Although each type of sensor has technical differences in how the light energy is transferred into electronic signals, both produce high-quality images.
From Start to Finish: The Digital Workflow A digital workflow is a step-by-step process that helps you get the best digital images and also manages your collection of images. The workflow includes taking, editing, sharing, organizing, and storing digital pictures. You can use the digital workflow described here as an introduction to and ongoing guide for working with your digital images. Capture Images The digital workflow begins by choosing camera settings that will produce the best photo.
Understanding Digital Photography 1 chapter Verify Exposure and Composition Next, review the picture on the camera’s LCD screen to ensure that the exposure and composition are acceptable. As you review the image in your LCD, look for distracting background elements, closed eyes, and other elements that you can improve. If the picture is too light (overexposed), or too dark (underexposed), most cameras set to automatic allow you to easily correct that by adjusting the exposure using exposure compensation.
From Start to Finish: The Digital Workflow (continued) Edit Pictures You can use image-editing software that comes with your camera or computer, or software that you purchase to edit pictures. Imageediting programs enable you to rotate, adjust color and saturation, correct red eye, remove unwanted elements (even people), crop, resize, sharpen, combine, and add text to digital pictures. There is no end to the things you can do to your digital photos.
Understanding Digital Photography Organize and Store Digital Negatives You should not alter the original image, which is the equivalent of a film negative. If you need to make changes to an image, get in the habit of making changes to a copy and keeping the original file untouched. This is not as hard as it sounds. Some image editors automatically apply your changes to a copy rather than to the original.
