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Late July update

I haven't gotten round to looking at any online Photoshop tutorials as yet.

One question I have recently wanted to get answered is: what are RAW files? Photodoto has a glossary of photographic terms, and says

You might think of a RAW file as the digital equivalent of a film negative.

They are a feature of some high-end cameras, so unlikely to be supported by my Sony compact.

And the August issue of Digital Camera Magazine has an article on How can we train our eyes to see shots?

Class 6 notes

A recap of what we've looked at over the past 6 weeks.

Notes and files for collage available

Class notes for class 4 on creating a basic collage have been uploaded.

I am supplying the files for you to have a go at creating the postcard which appears in the previous entry.

cow.jpg

port.jpg

To download files right click the link and select Save Link As... or whichever command indicates that it will download or save the file to your hard disk.

Of course you may want to use your own files. Either way follow the steps in the Class 4 notes. Notes only go as far as we covered in class.

Please let me know of any errors or any thing that needs clarified.

Basic collage

Here is my attempt at a basic collage combining a selection layer and a text layer, as per last night's lesson. Expanded notes on how to achieve this with your own photos to follow. The magnetic lasso (in full Photoshop) is fiddly but allows for more accuracy in making a selection.

DVD-RW and DVD+RW

I mistakenly thought there was a similar division amongst CDs ie CD-RW and CD+RW but it seems there isn't.

What the distinction is between DVD-RW and DVD+RW is not clear but see the Wikipedia articles:

DVD-RW
DVD+RW

They seem to be competing formats. cdfreaks has an article from June 2003 Why DVD+R(W) is superior to DVD-R(W) (it's a bit technical:).

Archiving your photos

Make sure that you store your photos in a logical manner on your computer. Organize your digital pictures has some suggestions.

Archive your photos fast suggests setting up a reminder to carry out archiving of photos on a regular basis.

The only point that I wish to make is the fairly obvious one that you only need to backup a set of photos once, ie you only need to backup the photos you've stored on your computer since your last backup. Hence the importance of organising your photos on your computer.

Scan resolution

Tom Ang (Digital Photography An Introduction DK) gives the following formula:

input resolution = (size of output x output resolution)/size of orignal

Suppose your original is 2 inches long and you want a print 10 inches. If you need an output resolution of 300 lpi (lines per inch) then you need

10 x 300 pixels

and the input resolution must be

3000/2 = 1500 ppi (points per inch)

The important thing is to know what the output resolution may be

• inkjets between 80 and 200 lpi
• screen 72 dpi or 96 dpi

He also gives some rules of thumb based on file size.

Picasa

from Google. A free digital photo tool.

I've been using the clone tool

I took this pic yesterday and only after I uploaded it did I notice the branches in the top left corner, rather spoiling the pic.

So this AM using Photoshop and the clone tool, in a job of a few minutes - branches gone:)