Digital photography is a fairly new concept, especially for those of us who do not make a living as photographers. But it has certainly made taking photos much easier. But what about managing your photos or even printing them?
It’s a Digital Camera. It’s a Smartphone. It’s a Digital Camera.
Did you know that a survey taken over five years ago found that 82% of people taking photos on a regular basis used digital cameras and more than 75% owned two or more. Since it was found that there was little different in the quality of the photo prints between film or digital, the use of film would decline sharply.
This has certainly come to pass…but at what cost?
With the ever-growing choices of electronics on which one can take a picture, the process of managing all of your photos has become more than just a quick project. When we were taking photos using a “camera” and took the film to be processed into prints, getting rid of bad photos, organizing them by date or event and even sharing photos was actually a bit more intuitive for people.
Many people don’t realize that there are settings to be managed well before you even snap a photo. The main elements to watch out for are resolution and lighting in order to make digital photo printing more successful.
Digital Photo Resolution – What’s in a Number?
You have probably heard the term “DPI” or dots per inch. This is the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within a 1-inch span. This is often how you will hear it referred to, although with the various levels of sophistication in digital cameras, the number of megapixels is the more important number to understand when dealing with printing a crisp digital photo.
A pixel is a tiny block of color and acts as the basic building block for a digital image. The more pixels that are contained in an image, the greater the detail. One million pixels equals one megapixel—today’s cameras have between 2,048 (3MP camera) and 4,500 (14MP camera) pixels horizontally.
The number of megapixels is directly related to size photo you can print. It is recommended by print professionals that, in order to achieve a high-quality digital print, an image should be saved at a minimum of 300 dpi. But if you are interested in a print larger than the basic 4 inches x 6 inches, you may need to do a little math.
A 3.1-megapixel image measures 2,048 horizontal pixels and 1,536 vertical at 300 dpi. In order to determine the maximum size image you can print is to divide each of the pixel dimensions by the dpi. So in this case, the largest high-quality digital image you can print would be 6.8 inches horizontally by 5.1 inches vertically.
Digital Photo Lighting – What’s in the Lighting?
Most people buy a digital camera and then just start using it. The default settings that it arrives with are the ones that it has when it eventually gets replaced. Well, if you never review and modify your flash settings, you could be missing out on some great digital photos.
There are several simple ways to adjust the flash that will create noticeably better digital photos. For example, when taking a photo in the sunlight outside, most cameras (in auto mode) will not utilize the flash. Those of us in the know will set the camera to force-flash to lighten the shadows that harsh sunlight can cause. There are also settings to diffuse the flash to avoid over lighting subjects that are very close or to sync the flash to pick up some lighting in a somewhat dark background.
If you are still not happy with the way the lighting has come out in a digital photo, many photo printing software packages allow you to correct the lighting in a digital image. In fact, you can rescue most digital photos with the ability to brighten up dark photos, correct colors, brighten a dark shadow, adjust the contrast, and adjust the hue and saturation to create a nicer photo that you had originally taken.
Printing Photos Should Be Easy, Shouldn’t It?
For most people, digital photo printing is an after-thought. Something that you panic about when you have relatives coming for a visit and realize that you do not have an photos of the kids to give them; or around the holidays when you need to send out holiday cards or a photo album; of after a vacation when you want to create a scrapbook to hold your memories. Most digital photos will, in fact, never make it out of its digital existence.
But instead of panicking when you need to print out the photos, understand what you need to accomplish it and you can be prepared for anything. There are many ways to print these digital images—at home on the right printer with the right paper or directly at a photo kiosk at the mall, or uploaded to a site that prints it for you.
There are many options, and each requires a certain amount of knowledge in order to get the best digital photo print possible. This site has more information to help you in your digital photo printing endeavors. Read on.
It’s a Digital Camera. It’s a Smartphone. It’s a Digital Camera.
Did you know that a survey taken over five years ago found that 82% of people taking photos on a regular basis used digital cameras and more than 75% owned two or more. Since it was found that there was little different in the quality of the photo prints between film or digital, the use of film would decline sharply.
This has certainly come to pass…but at what cost?
With the ever-growing choices of electronics on which one can take a picture, the process of managing all of your photos has become more than just a quick project. When we were taking photos using a “camera” and took the film to be processed into prints, getting rid of bad photos, organizing them by date or event and even sharing photos was actually a bit more intuitive for people.
Many people don’t realize that there are settings to be managed well before you even snap a photo. The main elements to watch out for are resolution and lighting in order to make digital photo printing more successful.
Digital Photo Resolution – What’s in a Number?
You have probably heard the term “DPI” or dots per inch. This is the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within a 1-inch span. This is often how you will hear it referred to, although with the various levels of sophistication in digital cameras, the number of megapixels is the more important number to understand when dealing with printing a crisp digital photo.
A pixel is a tiny block of color and acts as the basic building block for a digital image. The more pixels that are contained in an image, the greater the detail. One million pixels equals one megapixel—today’s cameras have between 2,048 (3MP camera) and 4,500 (14MP camera) pixels horizontally.
The number of megapixels is directly related to size photo you can print. It is recommended by print professionals that, in order to achieve a high-quality digital print, an image should be saved at a minimum of 300 dpi. But if you are interested in a print larger than the basic 4 inches x 6 inches, you may need to do a little math.
A 3.1-megapixel image measures 2,048 horizontal pixels and 1,536 vertical at 300 dpi. In order to determine the maximum size image you can print is to divide each of the pixel dimensions by the dpi. So in this case, the largest high-quality digital image you can print would be 6.8 inches horizontally by 5.1 inches vertically.
Digital Photo Lighting – What’s in the Lighting?
Most people buy a digital camera and then just start using it. The default settings that it arrives with are the ones that it has when it eventually gets replaced. Well, if you never review and modify your flash settings, you could be missing out on some great digital photos.
There are several simple ways to adjust the flash that will create noticeably better digital photos. For example, when taking a photo in the sunlight outside, most cameras (in auto mode) will not utilize the flash. Those of us in the know will set the camera to force-flash to lighten the shadows that harsh sunlight can cause. There are also settings to diffuse the flash to avoid over lighting subjects that are very close or to sync the flash to pick up some lighting in a somewhat dark background.
If you are still not happy with the way the lighting has come out in a digital photo, many photo printing software packages allow you to correct the lighting in a digital image. In fact, you can rescue most digital photos with the ability to brighten up dark photos, correct colors, brighten a dark shadow, adjust the contrast, and adjust the hue and saturation to create a nicer photo that you had originally taken.
Printing Photos Should Be Easy, Shouldn’t It?
For most people, digital photo printing is an after-thought. Something that you panic about when you have relatives coming for a visit and realize that you do not have an photos of the kids to give them; or around the holidays when you need to send out holiday cards or a photo album; of after a vacation when you want to create a scrapbook to hold your memories. Most digital photos will, in fact, never make it out of its digital existence.
But instead of panicking when you need to print out the photos, understand what you need to accomplish it and you can be prepared for anything. There are many ways to print these digital images—at home on the right printer with the right paper or directly at a photo kiosk at the mall, or uploaded to a site that prints it for you.
There are many options, and each requires a certain amount of knowledge in order to get the best digital photo print possible. This site has more information to help you in your digital photo printing endeavors. Read on.
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