| Syllabus|Tech Concepts | Critical Literacy | Brochure | Table | Graph | Power Point | Digital Camera | Webbing |
Digital Cameras
Digital cameras are in many ways replacing the regular 35 mm camera because of their versatility and digital format, which can be easily edited, printed and used on the web by home users. Although initially they are more expensive, the fact that you can delete unwanted photos and do not waste money on developing photos you don't want, you may come out ahead.
Your assignment is to take a picture with a digital camera. Import it into one of the other project documents, i.e., brochure, table, PowerPoint, etc. You will need to pay attention to resolution, size, and the need for editing before you import it into your document.
Since as a publishing teacher I deal with digital cameras on a regular basis, I am probably presenting far more information about digital cameras than is needed for this assignment! But I find them fascinating as well as a lot of fun.
Digital camera FAQ topics
http://www.digital-camerastore.com/informationaboutdigitalcameras.htm
1.What is a digital camera ?
2. Image compression
3. Image resolution
4. Pixels
5. Cropping and Combining Images
6. Transferring Images to PC
7. Storing, Viewing and Printing
8. Memory Media
10. Lenses, Viewfinders and Batteries
11. Color, Contrast and Brightness adjustments using image editing software
12. Adding Special Effects
13. Sharpening an Image
14. What kind of Computer will I need ?
15. Advanced Features of a digital camera
The following information is adapted from http://www.dcviews.com/tutors.htm
File Formats
The JPEG, or JPG format (Joint Photographic Experts Group), which supports 24-bit color, can be read by many applications because of its standardized image compression. Created especially for the transmission and storage of photographic images, it offers a significant reduction in file size. It uses a "lossy" compression scheme by averaging the data in blocks of 8 x 8 pixels.
JPEG can achieve very high compression factors. But beware, since every time you open and save a JPEG file the image is compressed again so repeatedly saving the same image will seriously degrade it ("lossy").The GIF format (Graphic Interchange Format) which was developed by Compuserve in 1987, can only show 256 colors, although 24-bit color channels allow up to 16.7 million colors. (See under "Color Concepts" below.) These colors are stored in an index. It uses a lossless compression scheme. (Color is never degraded.)
An advantage over JPG is that it handles images with a lot of contrast, fine details and transparent areas better than JPG. This is the reason it is mostly used for line art such as cartoons, animations, logos and text, and not so much for photographic images. JPG and GIF are the most widely used formats on the Web nowadays.Color concept - the basics
Human beings can experience color by means of three types of cones in the retina of the eye which are sensitive to wavelengths that roughly correspond to red, green and blue light. The information we see is then encoded and sent to our brain to make us see the full color spectrum.The CCD in our digicam sees color in much the same way. It records the three primary colors, red, green and blue and combines them to make up the colors in an image. This is called the additive color system, because adding all three together at their maximum setting will produce white.
CMY, as used by printers or other output devices, are known as subtractive colors because the required color is produced by subtracting different quantities of cyan, magenta and yellow from white light. A color printer adds K for Black (CMYK) since the mixture of cyan, magenta and yellow pigments does not always make a clear black.High end digicams use a three shot sensor to record an image. They take three exposures, one for each color and combine them into one image. Most consumer digicams however work with sensors coated with color filters to capture an image with one exposure. Each pixel will represent a mixture of red, green and blue ranging in brightness from 0 to 255. A 24-bit image (8 bits per color) can then render 16.7 million colors. The histogram (a graphic representation)of an image can show us how the 256 levels of brightness for each color are distributed and if and where correction is needed. Sometimes it will be necessary to adjust white balance or use filters to compensate for different qualities of light present in a scene.
Image enhancement - the basics
Many digital images need some sort of mild tweaking before they look their best. We will take a look at a few basic techniques needed to enhance the image before it is being printed or output in any other way.Usually one of the first things to do is to adjust color balance. Although image sensors in cameras are designed to produce colors that match those we saw in the original scene, the results depend as much on the accuracy of your exposure as the different characteristics of the CCD.
Natural light present in the scene plays another major part. Light from midday sun for instance is much bluer than evening sky or tungsten light.
Then there is brightness and contrast. These work in much the same way as they do on television. Brightness controls the overall brightness of the image while contrast adjusts the difference between darker and lighter areas.
Since many raw images tend to be a bit soft, it will be necessary to use sharp mask. This should be the final step before outputting the image as other manipulations after sharpening can introduce unwanted artifacts, or stray bits of color on the image.Image resolution
Unlike conventional photographs where we refer to a 5 x 7-inch or 8 x 10-inch print, the overall size of a digital image is measured in pixels. They are grouped in a matrix of colored dots. The density of this matrix determines the amount of detail the image can show. This is known as resolution.
Pixel dimensions for digicams may range from 2400 x 1800 or higher, for use in newspaper or magazine covers, for instance, to resolutions as low as 800 x 600 or even 640 x 480, which will give us a small image with little detail.This resolution tells us the height and width of the recorded image, and reflects print quality. As a general rule, the more pixels there are the greater the level of detail captured.
It is probably best to take a digital photo at the highest resolution possible (taking into consideration how many more pictures there are to take, what the pictures will be used for--printing or the web; and how big your memory card is) and then reduce the size later by cropping or lowering the resolution.Required pixel dimensions can be calculated by multiplying the print size by the resolution, so an 8 x 10 inch print at 300 dpi (magazine quality) requires a resolution of 2400 x 3000. An inkjet print needs about 200 dpi, while an image for the web is satisfactory with a resolution of 72 ppi.
Top ten digital photography mistakes
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/getstarted/bigpicture/top10.asp
Beginning users
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/multimedia/photos/overview/default.asp
- Work with Photos
- E-mail Photos
- Transferring Photos
- Organize Your Photos
- Printing Your Photos
- Order Prints Online
- Publish Photos on the Web
- Brighten Up Your Desktop
- Store Your Photos on CD
How to for intermediate users
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/learnmore/default.asp
Tips for better composition
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/digitalphotography/learnmore/takeit/composition.asp
- Pay attention to framing. Nothing ruins a nice photo faster than distracting elements in the background. Don’t get so focused on the photo’s subject that you ignore what else is going on around them. Watch out for poles, trees and power lines, and look all the way around the edges of the frame, asking “Is this what I really want in my photo?”
- Learn the Rule of Thirds. One of the most popular rules of composition—the Rule of Thirds—dictates that you imagine the viewfinder is divided into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. This grid creates four intersection points. Place your subject where the lines intersect, instead of in the center of the frame.
- Foreground and a background. How you want people to view your picture determines what you do with the foreground and background. For example, zooming in, and choosing a large aperture setting, blurs the background while keeping your subject sharp. This is a pleasing effect for portraits. Conversely, zooming out to a wide angle setting, and choosing a small aperture, allow you to show the subject and their surroundings in more equal focus. Have your subject prominent in the foreground, and use the background to tell more about the subject or the environment.
- Take photos from different angles.Change your angle of view. Try kneeling, or even putting the camera on the ground. Climb a flight of stairs so you’re higher than the subject you’re photographing. Digital cameras with twist and tilt LCD screens are ideal for this. Changing angles provides a fresh perspective, and makes for a more dramatic photograph.
- Elements in a scene that draws a viewer’s eyes through the photo. A winding path, a row of telephone poles or even a line of chairs at the beach can serve as elements in a good photo.
- Patterns in nature or man-made objects. Interesting photos can be made of the waves and patterns created by drifting snow, a flock of birds flying in formation or pipes stacked at a construction site.
- Try getting in close. Look for texture in the wrinkles of a face or the bark of a tree. Hands can say a lot about a person. Pay attention to the details.
- Cropping brings a photo to life. If you edit photos on your computer, you are no longer constrained by the standard 4 x 6-inch, 5 x 7, or 8 x 10 formats. Look at each photo carefully and think about what you really want people to see and react to, then crop everything else away. Try some unusual shapes, like wide horizontals or narrow verticals.
Educational Technology
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