Digital Photography Tips and Tricks

Digital cameras have made the art of photography easy even for the novice photographer. These days many advanced photo-shooting features are built into even the basic point and shoot digital cameras. With a little creativity and practice an amateur can capture stunning pictures. Furthermore, image editing software like Adobe Photoshop can be used to enhance the digital photos to eliminate red eye, improve sharpness and contrast, reduce blur, etc. All this makes digital photography fun and rewarding.

Here are some digital photography tips and tricks to help you get the best results with minimal efforts.

• Use the maximum possible resolution you can set in your camera. This will help you capture the most details. And if you choose to print your photos, a higher resolution will get you a larger photo size. Use a high memory card in your digital camera to accommodate a large number of high resolution photos.

• Your camera stores the photos in some file format. If you can choose the file format, opt for 'raw' format rather than the default JPEG (.jpg file). When converting the captured shot to a format like JPEG, the camera does some internal processing that could alter the tones, saturation, sharpness, etc. of the scenery. The raw format (as the name implies) does not undergo such processing - so you can have full control over enhancing the picture quality later on the raw image.

• Optical zoom uses lenses to zoom in and is usually a good way to magnify the objects in focus. Avoid using the digital zoom setting in your camera - this type of zoom comes through internal processing and often causes noticeable distortion in the digital photo.

• When shooting in dim light, use the flash. Make sure you are positioned such that you do not catch a glare or reflection of the flash light itself. Many cameras automatically turn on flash settings if they sense poor lighting. Often this judgment is poor. Manually set flash on or off based on your judgment.

• The light sensitivity control in the camera is denoted by ISO numbers. You will see settings that allow you to tune to numbers like ISO 100, ISO 200, etc. Choosing a high ISO number implies high sensitivity to light. But increasing the ISO number also means increasing the possibility of noise. So you will have to find the right setting to have enough sensitivity and low noise.

• The exposure settings on the digital camera determine the shutter speed and the field of focus. You can change the f-stop settings to change the range of sharp focus. Use a high shutter speed to if there are moving objects in your picture. However if you want the appearance of flow or motion in the photo, pick a slow shutter speed.

• Use a tripod if you do not have a steady hand.

• You can alter the 'white balance' setting to capture warm tones more distinctly in your digital photo. If it is very sunny, using a cloudy setting is like having a filter that enhances red and yellow tones giving the photo a warm look.

• If you have a polarizing lens, you can reduce the glare from excess lighting. This is excellent for outdoor digital photography. You can simply use a pair of sunglasses if you do not have the lens built into your camera. Place the lens of the sunglasses in front of the camera lens and see a big difference in the digital image screen of the camera! You will see brighter colors and fewer spots of blinding light.

• Always experiment to find the best angle to shoot your photos.

Software like Adobe Photoshop can help you to further enhance your pictures. You can remove unwanted blurring and noise from your photos. There are settings to remove red eye effects. You can alter the color balance in the pictures or increase contrast and brightness. The image editing tools are very user friendly and it is only a matter of playing with them to find the best settings for your pictures.