photo editing
There are a lot of beginning users getting a computer to complement their recent investment in a digital camera. Congratulations to all of you! This is a brief talk more about storing, viewing and editing your photos. Please reread my posts about how to organize your hard drive, and some of the programs I recommend for organizing your photos. Now that we'’re all on the same page, I'’ll proceed.
Many of you are under the impression that you must run the software provided for you by the camera manufacturer. If you are running Windows XP, this is untrue. You may have to install a device driver, but you don'’t have to run their software. In my own experience, this software can be rather sloppily written which can lead to errors and sometimes to a computer crash. Not that you shouldn'’t use it, merely proceed at your own risk. If your computer was running perfectly before you installed your new camera, and now it runs like a slow clunker, you'’ve probably installed some bad software. Usually, Windows will detect the fact that you have plugged the camera into a USB slot, and will fire up a dialog box to let you view or copy your photos. Alternatively, if you are using Picasa or Photoshop Album, you can use that program to import your photos from your camera to your computer, and organize them appropriately.
Now, for basic editing, Picasa allows you to remove red-eye, align the image, adjust for improper white balance (a too-yellow or too-blue cast to your shot) and will also allow you to zoom in, or crop areas of the photo to set off your subject better than you did when framing in the field. Have fun!
As to file formatting and conversion, usually when you take a photo in to be developed the computers they have will only recognize JPEG files a.k.a. "picname.jpg". Sometimes when pictures are traded around, for example from a scanner, or other device, the photo will not be in the proper format for a printer to print. The solution is so simple, all you have to do is open the picture in Paint, (which comes with Windows) and save it as a JPEG. Told you it was easy.
Now get to editing those pictures!
Many of you are under the impression that you must run the software provided for you by the camera manufacturer. If you are running Windows XP, this is untrue. You may have to install a device driver, but you don'’t have to run their software. In my own experience, this software can be rather sloppily written which can lead to errors and sometimes to a computer crash. Not that you shouldn'’t use it, merely proceed at your own risk. If your computer was running perfectly before you installed your new camera, and now it runs like a slow clunker, you'’ve probably installed some bad software. Usually, Windows will detect the fact that you have plugged the camera into a USB slot, and will fire up a dialog box to let you view or copy your photos. Alternatively, if you are using Picasa or Photoshop Album, you can use that program to import your photos from your camera to your computer, and organize them appropriately.
Now, for basic editing, Picasa allows you to remove red-eye, align the image, adjust for improper white balance (a too-yellow or too-blue cast to your shot) and will also allow you to zoom in, or crop areas of the photo to set off your subject better than you did when framing in the field. Have fun!
As to file formatting and conversion, usually when you take a photo in to be developed the computers they have will only recognize JPEG files a.k.a. "picname.jpg". Sometimes when pictures are traded around, for example from a scanner, or other device, the photo will not be in the proper format for a printer to print. The solution is so simple, all you have to do is open the picture in Paint, (which comes with Windows) and save it as a JPEG. Told you it was easy.
Now get to editing those pictures!
Really great page man, its exciting that you enjoy using Mozilla. I do as well. I'll keep reading your blogs as you update.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Hey John,
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by! Thanks for your support.
Hey, I recently purchased a game for my PC and I (at the time) didn't know what the current video card I had was. After I encountered other problems like that, I was recommended a program called Sandra Lite, by SiSoftware. It is really a great program and if you haven't heard of it maybe check it out. Maybe you could give me a better diagnosis on whether it is good or not.
ReplyDeletethe URL I found is:
http://www.download.com/SANDRA-Lite/3000-2086_4-10451861.html?tag=lst-0-1
It is a pretty good program. It will help you determine exactly what is in your computer, and then run tests on it to see how it measures up against other computer systems. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteYa Sandra's a pretty decent program for that, I always remembered the name by calling it "Soft Sandra" ya, nothing implied there, well...hmmm ya maybe, wait NO! :) but it's faily decent.
ReplyDeletehey, sandra is the CRONIC
ReplyDeletei use it whenever i can.
peace
that was really me.. /\
ReplyDeleteno S#!T
ReplyDelete