10 Digital Tips for Photographers

Maybe you just started digital photography as a hobby or maybe you have a great amount of experience in film photography and are just starting to experiment with digital photography. Either way these tips are more for people trying to learn about the digital aspect and not so much actual photography shooting tips.

1. Every time you edit and re-save a JPG you lose quality. This is one of the most common mistakes I see. When a JPG is saved it samples and compresses the photo creating some tiny amount of noise. Every time you re-sample the image it creates more noise and also amplifies any preexisting noise from the original photo or previous saves. Use a lossless format like TIFF or PSD when possible. The quality is worth the larger file 99% of the time.

2. Every time you rotate a picture in an image editing program you lose quality. This works on much the same principle as above in that your program will re-sample the photo even if it's not a JPG. When you rotate the picture the pixels are turned sideways and pixels are always square and level so it must re-sample to create new pixels. You can fix this problem by only rotating the photo once. If you don't like the rotate then undo it before rotating again. Ideally you could try to shoot the photo level the first time.

3. Never use digital zoom. Digital zoom is the same as zooming with a program after the picture is taken. it simply enlarges the pixels then re-samples when you save the photo.

4. Don't use the low quality setting all the time to "save space". Low quality/ High compression setting are on most digital cameras. What it should really say is crappy photo. Compression saves less data making the file smaller. Then when opening the photo the program has less data effectively making it guess what goes in every other pixel.

5. Don't assume more pixels equal better. Unless you plan on making large prints then large Mega Pixel (MP) counts are not necessary. 5MP camera's make excellent 11 x 14 prints. unless you plan on making prints larger than this a 9MP camera is a waste of money.

6. Don't assume you can Photoshop any error out. When you can just retake the photo in 2 minutes it doesn't make sense to assume you'll fix it later. You are going to waste time trying to figure it out unless you are an adept Photoshop user. Also a lot of enhancements in Photoshop will lower the image quality as mentioned above.

7. Don't judge the picture quality based on that tiny 3 inch LCD. Most screens are not color calibrated and even when they are outside influences such as sunlight can make the photo appear washed out when they aren't. At least take a look at it on your computer monitor before deleting it.

8. Don't use the highest ISO unless absolutely necessary. ISO increases the sensors sensitivity to light unfortunately most photos will have a wide variety of brightness in them. This increased sensitivity can wash out bright and dark extremes and increase the noise from random bits of reflected light and lack thereof.

9. Don't always use the flash. Flashes usually wash out the subject especially if it's close. Most professionals either bounce the flash off of something (like the ceiling) by pointing the flash up or soften it (Kleenex on the flash held on with a rubber band does miracles)

10. Always save originals before doing anything to or with the photograph. One you always realize you made when it's far to late. When you open the photo and edit it save it under a different name at the very least.

That being said experiment with this advice and feel free to disregard any or all of it for the sake of artistic expression.