First of all, find out how to turn off your auto flash on your still camera. The flash on your camera is great for indoor low light photos of family sitting around the dinner table, taking photo’s of people outside in the dark and recording information on a photo. However, if done correctly and without a flash, your image could have a very intimate look that reflects more of a mood.
Most cameras have an adjustment that you can make to turn off the auto flash. Find it and turn it off. Your automatic settings will adjust to the low light. However, when the light is low, the shutter opens at a slow speed. When you are shooting with a slow speed, you can easily get camera shake and that will put your image out of focus. So, steady your camera by placing your elbows on a table or on your knees or brace them on your chest. Gently squeeze the shutter. If you have a tripod, use it. As long as your subject is not moving around you will see what a nice photo you have. Then take it with your flash and compare.
Use the natural light of the lamp, candles and other lights that are on. Experiment with having a soft light beside your subject instead of bright house lights. If you are outside, try using the natural light of the campfire, lanterns, street lights etc.
How to Work with Your Photos Once They are Digitized.
There are several computer programs available that will help you to fix and enhance your photo and slide scans. First crop you images before you scan them and set your resolution to at least a 300 dpi. If you don’t, you will end up with a scan of the entire scanner page with your photo just a small image on that page. Then if you crop that photo, it will be really small. So, scan large. When you make adjustments to your images after scanning, the file size become smaller each time you save it with changes. So, its best to make all your adjustments at one time.
I like Adobe Photoshop Elements for easy and quick adjustments. It has automatic settings and there is an undo button if you don’t like what the computer does. You can also straighten your photo’s , reduce red eye and get some better color on the photos. Picasa is a free download program that also gives you some basic tools to adjust your photos on your computer.
With Heritage Makers, you can upload your photos and store them on your account for free. When you are making books, cards, or other projects, you can resize your images very easily, crop them, give them frames, write all the text you want, and create beautiful books. I store my photos on my Heritage Makers account and I make discs so that I have a hard copy too. When I need a greeting card, I can go to my account, drag some photos onto a card, type my greetings and letter and have the card sent direct to my person. The last time I bought a card at the store I was shocked at the high cost.
Comments are closed.