An anonymous reader asks,
I took a bunch of photos at a party over the weekend. They looked fine on the back of my camera, but when I posted them to the web I noticed that a lot of them were blurry. Why doesn't my camera do well with quick movement?
As we love to say at MyPhotoSucks, the problem isn't your camera, it's how you use it. The simple answer is that you should have used your flash.
Before I discovered Lightroom I opened every image in Photoshop, closed the ones I didn't like, and adjusted the ones I did. I got pretty good at it and I had macros to do things like create jpegs for use on the web. Lightroom changed all that and introduced me to a much faster and more efficient process.
Lightroom takes a workflow approach that is quite different from traditional image editing software. Once you have imported your images into Lightroom, you can use it to select and/or rate your images, perform adjustments like cropping, levels, and minor retouching, and output the images to various file formats, a printer, or web galleries. While Lightroom has many great features, I love it because it is easy to use, very flexible and completely non-destructive. It also cut my postprocessing time by more than half.
Adobe Photoshop has long been the defacto standard for professional photographers and serious amateurs alike. Adobe recently released Photoshop CS4, and it includes some great new features.
A reader asks,
"I'm thinking of entering [an image in a competition]. The rules state that I can send jpg images on a CD but that they must be in RGB format and not CMYK format. When I capture images on my Canon S2IS what colour format does the camera use? If I use Picasa as my photo program does it use CMYK (I know most printers use these colours)? If I have a jpg image, can I use something like Photoshop to convert from CMYK to RGB?"
Virtually every digital camera on the market produces image in the RGB colour space, so the good news is that you don't have to do any conversion. People are often confused by the fact that their inkjet printer uses a CMYK process. However, the printer appears to your computer as a RGB device, as does your monitor, so you should continue to work in the RGB colour space unless there is a specific reason for you to convert to a different colour space.
Ken writes,
"What program or programs are recommended for captioning digital photos? I want to be able to choose the location of the caption, the font, and the colour of the text."
Most photo editing packages allow you to add text to your images. I seldom add captions to photos (and SmugMug automatically watermarks my uploaded images for me there), but when I do I usually just add a text layer in Adobe Photoshop. I just checked Photoshop Elements 6, and it supports text layers as well. Just click on the "T" in the toolbar, click on the image,and it will create the layer for you.
Many companies have downloadable trial versions online. For example, you can download Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 here and see if it meets your needs.
For a good depth of field example, check out this image on Dooce's blog. Note that the battery on top of the nose is in sharp focus, the one at the back of the head isn't, and the wall is pleasantly blurred.
In photography, depth of field (DOF) refers to the range of distances from the camera that appear to be in focus. A lens can only focus at one distance. However, the sharpness as one moves closer or farther away from that distance diminishes gradually and within a certain range nobody notices it.
Perhaps you want to take a photo of a friend standing in front of another object. If you have a narrow (or short) DOF, your friend may be in focus while the foreground and background appear out of focus. At the other extreme, a wide (or long) DOF could result in the entire image appearing to be in focus.
There's a good example of effective DOF control here.
Jim wrote to ask,
"Eric you spoke of small cheap flashes a while ago would you have a model number I could search for. I am looking for something to light behind my subject triggered by an optical trigger."
While the best solution to light a background is a pair of strobes, you can often get away with a basic flash and trigger to light a small area. Just about any flash will do, although you'll need to play with the output level and/or distance to the background to get what you need. If you're close to the background a diffuser might come in handy -- you can buy one or make one out of translucent fabric or plastic.
If you're looking for something cheap I'd try your local photo store and see what they have laying around. You can also talk to anyone who has upgraded to a digital SLR and bought a new flash. If you have to order off the net, check this out.
And, as always, leave me a comment and let me know how it goes!
"For a complete amateur like myself, who just really really really likes to take a lot of photos...which lens? Nikkor 55-200 VR or the Nikkor 70-300 VR ED. I currently have the 18-70 which came with my D80. My husband bought me the 55-200 but now he wants to change it to the 70-300 and I am not so sure.”My first question would be “What are you going to use it for?” Neither are wide enough to be your “main” lens. If you’re buying a lens specifically for nature, the zoo, etc., the 70-300 is the better choice of those two.
