Tips for an Easy Life in your Photography

Below are Bill’s notes from last week.

What are A members and B members?

A section are workers who have achieved a standard in the B section that indicated that they should move into the A section.

This is probably that they won the B section or the standard of their work was so good that the committee felt that they should move up.

Some A section workers placed themselves straight into that group when they joined as they felt that they can compete at that level.

The A section are members who are expected to produce exceptional work for competitions (internal and external) and can be expected to offer advice to those in the B section on how to improve.

What is the best camera

All cameras are good and the more you understand what it does and how you can ‘alter’ it the more it will be capable of.

Did your read the instruction book? Where is your instruction book?

I would predict that any camera that we use today that has more than 3 mega pixels should be capable of producing work of the required standards. It’s the photographer that makes the difference!

Things to consider – BEFORE – you press the shutter button

1. Do you know the theme, main subject, and compositional elements of the photo?

2. Is the quality and direction of light acceptable?

3. Do you know what you’re metering?

4. Is shutter speed important?

5. Is depth-of-field important?

6. Is the entire scene at the same plane of focus?

Software

Regardless of PhotoShop versions and types – you can easily produce all your work using Picasa 3.8 – free from Google - http://picasa.google.com/

  You probably also have software that came with your camera?

Effects Filters

HDR Topaz etc… are not needed to produce a great image. They are enhancement tools and should be used sparingly.

Your Workflow is?

Your digital workflow is important! It means that you can enjoy your photography rather than becoming a slave to the computer.

My one is as follows:

The Computer has only programs on the c:\ drive

All work is stored on an external USB drive called P:\

There is also another external USB drive called Q:\ on which there is an exact copy of P: (backed up once a week!)

This means that if (or when) the computer should fail then it is so easy to move to another machine or a re-built version of your own and lose nothing! Programs can always be re-installed – your images need to be kept safe!

Free back up software –SyncToy 2.1 – free from Microsoft

Also very good practice to have an ‘image’ of your C: drive made so that you can always go back to when the machine was last working properly.

Norton Ghost or similar…an image is not a copy – it includes all the hidden files and codes that make your machine work.

I always download straight from the camera by following the instructions that came with it.

I only clear the card AFTER the copy has been made to P: and Q: - I always have 2 copies of all my work.

Working on the image:

I generally use the following…

• Open the image and immediately save as a new name – usually the file name then what I plan it to become – e.g. img0123_A4print.jpg
• Straighten
• Crop / size the image
• Fix the levels – the histogram
• Sharpen
• Save

Printing

I always use the original inks that are for my printer – no compatibles are considered.

Paper – the club has a book that shows what members have tried over the years and what printer was used. Have a look.