Microsoft 702 User Manual
Microsoft Picture It!
Companion Guide
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© 2000-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, Picture It!, and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or
other countries.
This product contains images from PhotoDisc, Inc., Definitive Stock, Gary Morrison; Kathleen Hanzel; Jon Canfield; Tony Chor; Tim
Hedlund; Charlotte Lowrie; David Parlin; and Tom Simmons.
This software is based in part on the work of the independent JPEG Group.
Portions of graphic filter software used with the permission of Eastman Kodak Company. Copyright © 1996 Eastman Kodak Company.
ImageStream graphics filters Copyright © 1996 ImageMark Software Labs, Inc.
Graphic filters licensed from Access Softek, Inc. Copyright © 1996 Access Softek, Inc.
Graphic filters licensed from Media Cybernetics, L.P. Copyright © 1996 Media Cybernetics, L.P.
Portions of graphic filter software are based in part on the work of Group 42, Inc.
Some project templates Copyright © Madison Park Greetings, © Bonnie Zuponcic.
This product contains Macromedia® Flash™ Player software by Macromedia, Inc. Copyright © 1995-1999 Macromedia, Inc. All rights
reserved. Macromedia and Flash are trademarks of Macromedia, Inc.
Portions of this product were created using LeadTools Copyright© 1991-2000, Lead Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
0702 Part No. X08-83103
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Welcome to Microsoft Picture It! ........................................................................................................................... 1
What’s New? ....................................................................................................................................................... 1
Other Helpful Resources ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Installation ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Starting Setup ...................................................................................................................................................... 3
Completing the Installation Wizard .................................................................................................................... 4
Installation Folder Dialog Box .................................................................................................................... 4
Installation Options Dialog Box .................................................................................................................. 4
Special Circumstances ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Upgrading from a Different Picture It! Product .......................................................................................... 5
Reinstalling or Removing Picture It!........................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera ...................................................................................................... 7
About Digital Cameras ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Photo Quality ............................................................................................................................................... 8
File Formats ............................................................................................................................................... 12
Using Zoom Features ................................................................................................................................. 13
Memory Cards, Disks, and Sticks ............................................................................................................. 13
Battery Life ................................................................................................................................................14
Using the Flash ................................................................................................................................................. 15
No Flash .....................................................................................................................................................16
Red-Eye Reduction Flash .......................................................................................................................... 16
Fill Flash .................................................................................................................................................... 17
Using Your Camera’s Manual Settings ............................................................................................................. 17
Exposure .................................................................................................................................................... 18
Exposure Compensation ............................................................................................................................ 20
Aperture ..................................................................................................................................................... 20
Shutter Speed ............................................................................................................................................. 22
ISO Setting or Equivalent .......................................................................................................................... 23
Setting the White Balance ......................................................................................................................... 24
Using Automatic Modes on Your Camera ........................................................................................................25
Macro Mode ............................................................................................................................................... 26
Action Mode .............................................................................................................................................. 27
Burst Mode................................................................................................................................................. 29
Portrait Mode ............................................................................................................................................. 30
Panoramic Mode ........................................................................................................................................31
Using the Self-Timer.........................................................................................................................................32
Getting Yourself into a Photo .................................................................................................................... 32
Taking Long Exposure Shots ..................................................................................................................... 32
Ten Tips for Great Pictures ...............................................................................................................................33
1. Know Your Gear .................................................................................................................................... 33
2. Nail the Exposure ..................................................................................................................................34
3. Capture a Moment in the Story .............................................................................................................34
4. Look for the Light .................................................................................................................................. 35
5. Follow the Rule of Thirds ...................................................................................................................... 37
6. Find a Unique Perspective ..................................................................................................................... 38
7. Bracket ................................................................................................................................................... 39
8. Analyze and Shoot Again ...................................................................................................................... 40
9. Shoot Every Single Day ........................................................................................................................41
10. Show Your Photos to Other People ..................................................................................................... 41
Chapter 3: Opening Photos in Picture It! ............................................................................................................43
Using the File Browser ..................................................................................................................................... 43
Opening Photos From a Digital Camera or Card Reader ................................................................................. 45
Scanning a Photo ............................................................................................................................................... 47
Opening a Photo From Your Computer ............................................................................................................ 48
Opening a Photo From a Photo CD or Other Disk ........................................................................................... 48
Opening a Photo Sent Through E-mail .............................................................................................................49
Opening a Photo from a Web Page in Picture It! .............................................................................................49
Opening a Photo from MSN Photos ................................................................................................................. 50
Chapter 4: Picture It! Basics ................................................................................................................................. 53
Startup Window.................................................................................................................................................53
Examining the Work Area ................................................................................................................................. 54
Common Tasks list .....................................................................................................................................55
Canvas ........................................................................................................................................................ 56
Workspace ..................................................................................................................................................56
Menus ......................................................................................................................................................... 56
Toolbar ....................................................................................................................................................... 56
Stack ........................................................................................................................................................... 56
Tray ............................................................................................................................................................ 56
Zoom controls ............................................................................................................................................56
Pan control ................................................................................................................................................. 57
Basic Image Formatting .................................................................................................................................... 58
Changing picture size ................................................................................................................................58
Manipulating Objects by Using Object Handles ....................................................................................... 59
Applying Text.................................................................................................................................................... 64
Help Resources .................................................................................................................................................65
Online Help ................................................................................................................................................ 65
Product Tour ............................................................................................................................................... 68
Instructional Videos ...................................................................................................................................68
Technical Support ...................................................................................................................................... 68
Chapter 5: Basic Touchup ..................................................................................................................................... 69
Adjusting Brightness and Contrast ...................................................................................................................69
Adjusting Tint ................................................................................................................................................... 70
Fixing Red Eye..................................................................................................................................................70
Using the Airbrush ............................................................................................................................................71
Cropping ............................................................................................................................................................ 72
Sharpening your Photos ....................................................................................................................................73
Chapter 6: Using Special Effects .......................................................................................................................... 75
Creating Cutouts ............................................................................................................................................... 75
Filters ................................................................................................................................................................. 77
Color Effects ..................................................................................................................................................... 78
Paint Effects ...................................................................................................................................................... 78
Chapter 7: Batch Editing and File Management ................................................................................................ 81
Batch Editing with Mini Lab ............................................................................................................................ 81
File Management with the File Browser .......................................................................................................... 83
Batch rename .............................................................................................................................................83
Batch move ................................................................................................................................................ 83
Batch copy .................................................................................................................................................83
Duplicate ....................................................................................................................................................84
Chapter 8: Adding Edges, Mats, and Frames ..................................................................................................... 85
Edge Effects ...................................................................................................................................................... 85
Mats and Frames ............................................................................................................................................... 86
Chapter 9: Saving Photos ...................................................................................................................................... 87
Saving Multiple Versions .................................................................................................................................. 87
Choosing a File Format ..................................................................................................................................... 88
Saving for E-mail and the Web .........................................................................................................................88
Long-term Storage on CD, Zip Disk, or DVD ................................................................................................. 89
Copying Photos to a Zip Disk ...................................................................................................................90
Copying Photos to a CD ............................................................................................................................ 90
Saving To MSN Photos ..................................................................................................................................... 92
Archiving Photos in the Gallery ....................................................................................................................... 93
Chapter 10: Creating Projects .............................................................................................................................. 95
Creating Photo Cards ........................................................................................................................................ 95
Creating Calendars ............................................................................................................................................ 96
Chapter 11: Sharing Photos ..................................................................................................................................99
Sending by E-mail ............................................................................................................................................. 99
Sharing on MSN Photos ................................................................................................................................. 100
Chapter 12: Printing Photos ............................................................................................................................... 101
Printing a Photo ............................................................................................................................................... 101
Printing Multiple Photos .................................................................................................................................101
Printing Labels or on Special Paper ...............................................................................................................102
Printing Cards .................................................................................................................................................103
Selecting Print Quality .................................................................................................................................... 104
Selecting a Print Size ...................................................................................................................................... 104
Determining a photo’s pixel dimensions ................................................................................................. 104
How large a print can you get? ................................................................................................................ 105
Choosing Photo Paper ..................................................................................................................................... 106
Creating Long-lasting Prints ........................................................................................................................... 106
Printing from MSN Photos ............................................................................................................................. 107
Index ...................................................................................................................................................................... 109
Welcome to Microsoft Picture It!
Congratulations on your purchase of Microsoft Picture It! Photo, a unique
combination of robust photo-editing tools and high-quality photo projects.
Although easy to use, Picture It! also offers powerful imaging technology that
helps you improve your photos.
What’s New?
Since the release of Picture It! 1.0 in 1996, Microsoft has repeatedly updated
Picture It! with new features, improved design, and innovative projects. Now in
its seventh version, Picture It! has been updated and improved once again, built
on a strong imaging foundation from years of research and feedback from
users. Improvements for Picture It! version 7.0 include:
■
A new file browser makes it even easier to obtain images from your
digital camera, scanner, hard-drive, or the Web.
■
An improved Mini Lab where you can perform common editing tasks on
several photos at the same time.
■
A new menu format that makes it easier to find the right tasks for editing
your photos.
■
New Instructional Videos that provide step-by-step guidance on how to
get started with Picture It!.
1
Other Helpful Resources
This Companion Guide is not an exhaustive resource for everything you can do
with Picture It!. For step-by-step instructions about using all the program’s
features, check out the online Help system, available from the Startup Window
or the Help menu. Or, for a demonstration of some key Picture It! features,
watch one of the Instructional Videos.
Digital photography is fun and exciting, and Picture It! makes it easy to get
great results.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
2
Welcome to Microsoft Picture It!
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
1 Installation
Starting Setup
To install Picture It!, you must be running Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP or higher. On Windows 2000 and Windows XP
systems, you must have administrative privileges. For information regarding
privileges, please refer to the operating system Help.
On most computers, Picture It! setup will begin automatically when you insert
the Picture It! CD into your CD-ROM drive.
To begin automatic setup:
1 Turn off any antivirus software that you’re using, and close any programs
that are running.
2 Insert the Picture It! CD into your CD-ROM drive.
The Installation Wizard begins automatically.
If the above procedure does not start the setup process, you can start it manually.
3
To begin setup manually:
1 Turn off any antivirus software that you’re using, and close any programs
that are running.
2 Insert the Picture It! CD into your CD-ROM drive.
3 Click Start, and then click Run.
4 If your CD-ROM drive is listed as letter D, type d:\setup.exe
If your CD-ROM drive has a letter other than D, replace D with the
correct letter when you type the path.
5 Click OK.
The Installation Wizard begins.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
4
Chapter 1: Installation
Completing the Installation Wizard
The Installation Wizard will show you a series of dialog boxes that provide
setup status and some installation preference options. For most users, the
default preferences will be appropriate. Information about the different setup
options is provided below.
Installation Folder Dialog Box
The Installation Folder dialog box allows you to choose where the program will
be installed on your computer. To install the program to a different folder than
the folder in the Installation folder box, do one of the following:
■
Type a different path in the Installation folder box.
■
Click Change, select a folder in the Change Installation Folder dialog
box, and then click OK.
Note that some files will be installed to the Program Files drive even if you
choose to install the program to a different drive.
Installation Options Dialog Box
The Installation Options dialog box allows you to choose between Typical
installation and Full installation.
■
Typical installation takes up less space on your hard drive, and is
recommended for most users. With Typical installation, you will have to
insert the Picture It! CD in your CD-ROM drive to use some of the
projects and clip art while you are using the program.
■
Full installation copies all of the Picture It! projects and clip art to your
hard drive, so you will not have to reinsert a Picture It! CD while you are
using the program. Look under Description in the Installation Options
dialog box for the disk space required for this option.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 1: Installation
5
Special Circumstances
Upgrading from a Different Picture It! Product
If you already have a Picture It! product installed on your machine, several
scenarios may occur when you try to install another Picture It! product:
■
Previous versions If you have a Picture It! product previous to version
7.0 already installed, installing a version 7.0 product will make both
programs available on your computer.
■
Upgrade from another version 7.0 product You can install a Picture It!
version 7.0 product that has more features than a version 7.0 product
already installed. The version of Picture It! with fewer features will be
uninstalled automatically, but your pictures and projects will not be
deleted.
■
Blocked downgrade If you have a Picture It! version 7.0 product
installed, you will not be able to automatically install a version 7.0
product with fewer features. To install the version with fewer features,
you must first uninstall the version with more features.
Reinstalling or Removing Picture It!
If you are having problems running Picture It!, reinstalling the program may
help it to run better on your computer.
You should not attempt to remove Picture It! by deleting the program files from
your hard disk. Instead, use the Picture It! Installation Wizard to properly
uninstall the program.
Other Picture It!
Products
The family of Picture It!
products includes
programs with the
following brands:
■
Digital Image Pro
■
Greetings
■
Greetings Workshop
■
Home Publishing
■
Picture It!
■
Picture It! Express
■
Picture It! Photo
■
Picture It! Publishing
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
6
Chapter 1: Installation
To remove or reinstall Picture It! on Windows XP:
1 From the Windows Start menu, click Control Panel.
2 Click Add or remove programs.
3 From the list of installed programs, click the version of Picture It! you
want to remove or reinstall.
4 Click Change.
The Installation Wizard opens.
5 Follow the instructions on the screen.
To remove or reinstall Picture It! on Windows 98,
Windows 2000, or Windows Me:
1 From the Windows Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control
Panel.
2 Click Add/Remove Programs.
3 From the list of installed programs, click the version of Picture It! you
want to remove or reinstall.
4 Click Add/Remove.
The Installation Wizard opens.
5 Follow the instructions on the screen.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
2 Making the Most of Your Camera
7
No matter how polished and creative you are as a photographer, Picture It! is a
valuable tool for helping you get the most out of your photos. With Picture It!
features, you can easily correct common photo problems such as red eye and
overexposure. And you can use features like filters and layers to create photos
strikingly different from your originals.
Although Picture It! is a powerful photo-editing program, it’s important to get
the best photo you can at the time you take it. Picture It! can do a lot to correct
minor problems with the originals, but certain problems, such as severely
blurred or underexposed photos, cannot easily be fixed with computer software.
And if you can develop your photography skills to take higher-quality photos,
you can spend your time doing creative photo editing with Picture It!, rather
than fixing mistakes that can be avoided.
The extreme blurriness and lighting problems of this photo would be difficult—if not impossible—to overcome with image-editing software.
Opening photos
from your digital
camera
For information on
opening photos from
your camera in Picture
It!, see the digital
camera section in
chapter 3, “Opening
Photos in Picture It!”
Many cameras available today offer a high degree of automation: just turn the
camera on and press the shutter, and the camera does the rest. While this
approach is quick and easy, it isn’t perfect in all situations. As a photographer,
you can learn to fine-tune the settings on your camera to gain greater control of
the camera to get the best possible photo for each situation.
With the range of cameras available—from basic point-and-shoot models to
professional SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras—this chapter cannot cover specifics
for all features available on all cameras. But this chapter does provide a foundation
of photography concepts that are vital to taking consistently good photographs.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
8
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
The first section of this chapter contains information specific to digital cameras: concepts such as resolution and compression that don’t have direct
counterparts in film photography. Later sections cover universal photography
concepts that apply to both film and digital cameras.
About Digital Cameras
If you’re new to using digital cameras, several camera features may seem
foreign to you. Some of these features, such as digital zoom and compression,
did not exist with film cameras because the technology did not exist. But it’s
important to understand what these features do and when it’s appropriate to use
them (or, in some cases, not use them).
Photo Quality
A digital photograph is composed of tiny colored squares called pixels (short
for picture elements). Like a mosaic, the pixels blend together to form a picture.
Each digital photo consists of a set number of pixels, ranging from a few
thousand to millions. When a digital camera takes a photo, it creates a digital
file that specifies the number of pixels and the precise color of each pixel.
Pixels are not a set size, so they can shrink or enlarge if photo size changes.
When a photo is enlarged too much, the individual pixels become visible,
making a poor-quality photo.
The original photo on the left was saved at high resolution, and you can see sharp detail. The
photo on the right has been saved at such low resolution that you only see the individual
pixels.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
The number of pixels that make up a photo is the photo’s resolution. Resolution
and compression are key factors in determining the quality of a digital photo.
The following sections explain resolution and compression.
Resolution
Resolution is one of the main determinants of photo quality since it is a
measure of the total number of pixels that make up a photograph. Resolution is
sometimes expressed as the total number of pixels, such as 3 megapixels (3
million pixels), or in pixel dimensions, such as 320 x 240 (which equals 76,800
total pixels).
Resolution is important primarily because it determines how much you can
enlarge and print a photo. Everything else being equal, a 3-megapixel photo
and a 320 pixel x 240 pixel photo look the same in a wallet-size print. But if
you enlarge those two photos to 5” x 7” prints, the quality of the 320 x 240
photo is very low: you can see the individual pixels. The 3-megapixel photo
still looks sharp at the larger size, since its pixels are too small to be seen.
Resolution is also important because it determines file size. High-resolution
photos contain color information for many more pixels than low-resolution
photos, so the files for high-resolution photos can be significantly larger. File
size becomes an issue if you have limited storage on your camera or hard disk,
or if you need to send the photos through e-mail.
9
The following chart gives an estimate of file size and maximum print size for
various resolutions. The chart lists file sizes for JPEG format, which is a
common (but not the only) format for photos.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
10
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
Megapixel rating
One of the main
factors in the price of a
digital camera is its
megapixel rating. The
megapixel rating
indicates the maximum
number of pixels (in
millions) that are
captured by the
camera’s image
sensor.
Dimensions Total pixels (with slight compression*) Maximum print size
Approx. JPEG file size
320 x 240 76,800 23 KB Wallet size
640 x 480 307,200 91 KB 4” x 6”
1280 x 960 1,228,800 363 KB 5” x 7”
(1.2 megapixels)
1600 x 1200 1,920,000 576 KB 8” x 10”
(1.9 megapixels)
2,048 x 1,536 3,145,728 970 KB 11” x 14” and larger
(3.1 megapixels)
* Compression, which is explained in the following section, varies by camera, so you may find
different file size results.
Instead of film, a digital camera uses an image sensor—usually a CCD (chargecoupled device) or CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) chip—
to capture the visual information when you take a photo. The image sensor on a
simple, low-resolution camera might capture just over 76,000 pixels. The image
sensor on a high-quality digital camera might capture more than 6 megapixels.
As you can imagine, the 6-megapixel camera can produce very large, highquality photos (with very large files). The 76,000-pixel camera can capture a
relatively small number of pixels, so photo quality would be fair to poor, even
at small print sizes.
On many cameras, you can set the resolution at which the image sensor
captures the photo. As a rule of thumb, always shoot at the highest resolution
possible—you’ll get higher-resolution photos that you can print in larger sizes.
However, in some cases you may want to lower the resolution so that the files
will be smaller. This allows you to store more photos on the camera’s storage
media, but you must sacrifice some quality for quantity.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Make sure to check your camera’s manual to find out what resolution you will
get from the photo-quality settings on your camera. Beware of settings that
offer “enhanced” or “interpolated” resolution. These features add extra pixels
not found in the original photo to produce a higher-resolution photo, but may
reduce overall sharpness or quality.
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
11
Compression
You’ve seen one way to reduce photo file size: lower the resolution at which
you shoot the photo. You can also reduce file size by having the camera
compress the photo file as it saves the file to the camera’s memory. Compression consolidates similar information in the photo, and discards some information. With JPEG compression, for example, series of similarly colored pixels
are grouped together and considered to be the same color. In the code that
makes up the file, the color information for these grouped pixels only has to be
listed once instead of hundreds, or even thousands, of times. This shortcut can
reduce file size considerably. Taken to extremes, a photo in highly compressed
JPEG format might be 95 percent smaller than the same photo in an
uncompressed format.
Although compression does reduce file size, it also reduces photo quality.
Slight to moderate compression might not noticeably reduce photo quality, but
high compression produces visible areas of splotchy color called artifacts. Even
with slight compression, artifacts become more pronounced each time the
photo is saved and compression is applied.
File size and
photo quality
Lowering resolution
and increasing
compression both
reduce file size and
photo quality. Bearing
this in mind, you can
use file size as a rough
way to judge photo
quality.
The left photo has been saved with lossless compression, so all of the image quality is
retained. The photo on the right was saved with heavy JPEG compression—which is not
lossless—and the compression significantly reduced the image quality.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
12
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
File formats
compatible with
Picture It!
Picture It! can open
photo files in any of the
following formats:
Adobe Photoshop
(.psd)
AutoCAD (.dxf)
CorelDraw (.cdr)
Enhanced Metafile
(.emf)
EPS (.eps)
FlashPix (.fpx)
GIF (.gif)
Home Publishing (.php)
JPEG (.jpg)
Kodak Photo CD (.pcd)
Macintosh PICT (.pct)
Micrografx Designer
(.drw)
PC Paintbrush (.pcx)
Picture It! (.php, .mix,
.fpx)
PNG (.png)
TIFF (.tif)
Targa (.tga)
Windows Bitmap
(.bmp)
Windows Metafile
(.wmf)
For important photos that you want to make into prints, it’s good practice to use
little or no compression. Or, if your camera offers it, you can take your photos in
a format, such as TIFF, that offers lossless compression. Lossless compression
reduces file size, but retains all of the photo quality.
File Formats
There are many file formats designed for photos or other digital images. Picture
It! can work with JPEG, TIFF, and many other file formats. If your camera
allows you to choose file formats for your photos, you can decide which format
to use based on your particular criteria: photo quality, file size, or compatibility
with other programs.
The JPEG format is the most common format for photos. JPEG files are
versatile, since they can accommodate over 16 million colors, can be compressed, and can be viewed in any Web browser. To reduce file size, the JPEG
format always uses compression, although the degree of compression varies by
camera. Experiment with the compression settings on your camera to find a
low-compression setting that produces good or excellent results. Because JPEG
uses some compression every time a file is saved, many photo purists prefer
formats like TIFF over JPEG.
The TIFF format provides an extremely accurate recording of digital-image data.
Some cameras can use a lossless compression method with TIFF. But even with
some compression, TIFF files are generally larger than JPEG files for photos
with the same resolution. For example, a single uncompressed 5-megapixel
TIFF image is larger than 10 MB. To work with photos of that size, you need a
lot of memory on your computer, as well as a high-volume storage disk.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
13
Using Zoom Features
A zoom lens lets you adjust the focal length of the lens, making your subject
appear closer to or farther from the camera. Some cameras have built-in
adjustable zoom lenses; others accommodate interchangeable zoom lenses of
different focal lengths.
Digital cameras may offer optical zoom or digital zoom. An optical zoom
feature uses the same principle as a zoom lens on a film camera: the lens itself
moves to change the focal length. In any of the zoom positions, the resulting
resolution is the same.
A digital zoom feature does not move the lens. Instead, the software inside the
camera crops the photo to make the subject appear closer. Because the pixels
are removed from the area that’s cropped out, the overall resolution is lower.
Many cameras offer a combination of optical and digital zoom. For best results,
use only optical zoom. Then, if necessary, use Picture It! to crop the photo.
Both “digital zoom” and “enhanced resolution” features use interpolation to
add pixels to the original photo, a process that increases the overall size or
resolution. Interpolation assigns colors to the added pixels based on the colors
of the surrounding pixels. While these features technically do increase resolution, they do not achieve the same photo quality as a photo that has not been
interpolated. If your camera has digital zoom or enhanced resolution, test it and
make sure you like the results before you use it for important photographs. For
true zoom capability and highest image quality, use optical zoom.
Memory Cards, Disks, and Sticks
After the image sensor captures a photo in your digital camera, the digital
information is stored on removable media, such as a CompactFlash or
SmartMedia card, a memory stick, a floppy disk, a CD, a microdrive, a miniature storage card, or a secure multimedia card.
Expand your
perspective
Zoom lenses are great
for capturing objects
you can’t get close to,
such as a ship sailing
in water far from the
shore. Use a zoom lens
to get candid close-up
shots of people without
seeming intrusive or
conspicuous.
Floppy disks and CDs have the advantage of being inexpensive and easy to
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
14
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
The best rechargeable batteries
Lithium-ion batteries
and nickel metal
hydride (NiMH)
batteries both work
very well with cameras,
providing power and
convenience.
find, even if you’re traveling abroad. Floppy disks, however, have very limited
storage capacity.
Memory cards are small, durable, and reusable. And storage technology has
been steadily improving, so you can now find cards that store as much as 1
gigabyte (GB). Memory cards can be reused over and over, which, over time,
makes them less expensive than film.
Buying additional storage media, like these CompactFlash cards, allows you to take many
more photos in a single session.
Storage media size dictates how many photos you can store. The media that is
included with some cameras can only hold a few high-resolution photos. This
type of low-capacity card can be impractical for situations such as traveling. To
give yourself more flexibility, you may want to purchase additional removable
storage media.
Battery Life
Compared to film cameras, many digital cameras use batteries at a surprising
rate. The LCD preview screen and the flash on the camera both put a heavy
drain on the batteries. And unlike some manual film cameras, digital cameras
cannot function without batteries or an AC power adapter.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
15
To ensure longer shooting, you can buy rechargeable batteries, which last
longer than disposable alkaline batteries. Keep your spares charged so they’ll
be ready when you need them. If you are running low on power and don’t have
a spare battery, conserve remaining power by trying the following:
■
Turn off your LCD screen and compose through the viewfinder.
■
Turn off your flash so that it doesn’t fire automatically. Turn the flash on
only when you really need it.
■
Wait until you’re home to preview your photos.
Using the Flash
Learning to use the flash is one of the easiest ways to get better photos both
indoors and outdoors. Especially when you’re photographing people, overpowering light from the flash can ruin the shot, often in ways that are difficult to
correct with photo-editing software.
Most inexpensive and moderately priced cameras come equipped with a builtin flash. The flash may be programmed to fire automatically when the camera
senses that the flash is needed. But relying on the camera’s judgment will not
always give you the best results. Built-in flashes can create harsh shadows,
overexposed areas, and unnatural-looking light.
Read your camera’s manual to learn what the recommended flash range is, and
to find out how to adjust different flash settings. Three of the most common
flash settings are outlined in the following sections.
Upgrading your
flash
If your camera
supports an external
flash, consider buying
one, especially if you
take a lot of indoor
photos of people. An
external flash will give
you much more control
and often better
results.
The range of your
flash
Check your camera’s
manual to find out the
recommended range
for your flash. Most oncamera flashes are
designed to illuminate
a subject that is 10 to
15 feet from the
camera. If the flash is
too close, your subject
may look too bright or
washed out in the
photo. If you’re too far
away, the flash doesn’t
provide enough light.
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Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
Fixing red eye with
Picture It!
If you end up with red
eyes in your photos,
Picture It! makes it
very easy to remedy
this problem. For more
information, see the
section on removing
red eye in Chapter 5,
“Basic Touchup.”
No Flash
Contrary to what you might think, you may be better off without your flash in
many situations. If you think the scene is too dark to take without a flash, try
increasing the ambient light by turning on lamps and opening the drapes. On
most digital cameras, you can increase the ISO equivalent setting, in effect
making the image sensor more sensitive to the available light, which allows
you to shoot in low light without a flash.
Many newer cameras offer low-light shooting modes and night-flash settings
that improve the quality of low-light photos. If your camera offers these options,
use them. Otherwise, always stay within the recommended range of the flash.
Red-Eye Reduction Flash
One of the most common problems with flash photos of people and pets is red
eye. This problem is caused by a flash located very close to the camera lens.
The light from the flash reflects off the blood vessels in the subject’s retina,
causing the pupils to look red. This problem occurs frequently in low-light
situations, when pupils are likely to be dilated. There are several things you can
do to help avoid red eyes in your photos:
■
Increase the ambient light in the room. Turning on lights and opening up
the drapes reduces the size of your subjects’ pupils.
■
Use your camera’s red-eye reduction setting. This feature fires preflash
bursts that help reduce the dilation of the pupils before the exposure.
■
If you have an off-camera flash, move it away from the camera lens.
Then, even if your subjects’ pupils are dilated, the light comes from a
different angle, and reduces or eliminates the red-eye effect.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
Fill Flash
You can use the fill flash setting to fill in deep shadow areas caused by bright
overhead sunlight, or in a scene where the light is behind the subject.
In the left photo, the strong backlighting creates a shadow that covers the subject’s whole
face. For the photo on the right, fill flash was used to counteract the backlighting and keep the
shadows off the subject’s face.
If your flash is using the automatic setting, bright daylight can prevent it from
firing. Turn on the flash manually, or, if your camera has a fill-flash setting,
turn it on. If you see shadows on your subjects’ faces as you’re composing the
shot, fill flash is a good idea.
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An alternative to using the fill flash is moving to a different place where the
light from the sun is diffuse and indirect, which produces a softer, more
flattering portrait light.
Using Your Camera’s Manual Settings
In today’s camera marketplace, the lines between manual and automatic
cameras have become blurred. It used to be that manual cameras were 35mm
SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras with manual controls for focusing, aperture,
shutter speed, and film speed. On the other end of the spectrum were fully
automatic cameras with very limited controls, possibly only a shutter button.
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Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
For serious camera users, the manual SLR cameras were usually the best
option, since they offered so much control. The creative process was not left to
the automatic settings of a camera. Automatic point-and-shoot cameras were
good for novice photographers who didn’t want to worry about setting the
camera controls. Many automatic cameras could produce adequate or even
excellent photos without requiring knowledge of advanced photography
concepts.
While you can still find fully automatic and fully manual cameras, many of
today’s cameras offer different modes for different degrees of automatic and
manual control. For example, some SLR film cameras let you switch to an
automatic mode where the camera determines everything from focusing to
setting the aperture. Many compact digital cameras are designed to be used
primarily in automatic mode, but also allow you to switch to program and
manual modes to control exposure settings, like shutter speed and aperture.
With digital cameras, the adjustments that you make are often digital approximations of the equivalent function in film cameras, as with shutter speed or
ISO. But the photographic result is the same. The following sections provide an
overview of the most important manual camera settings and concepts.
Exposure
Exposure describes the amount of light that comes into your camera when you
take a photo. Setting the camera to the correct exposure is crucial to getting the
proper tones and colors in your photos. Overexposur e occurs when too much light
has reached the image sensor (or film in a film camera), which decreases detail
and causes the photo to look washed out. Underexposure occurs when insuffi-
cient light has been let into the camera, and the photo looks dim and murky.
Exposure is controlled by three factors: the aperture, the shutter speed, and the
ISO rating. Aperture is the size of the opening that lets light into the camera.
Shutter speed is how long light is allowed into the camera. ISO rating (the film
speed in a film camera) is the sensor or film’s sensitivity to light.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
The water glass analogy
When taking a photograph, your goal is to achieve a perfect exposure. To create
the right exposure, you need to understand the relationship between the three
exposure factors: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO rating. Achieving perfect
exposure can be compared to filling a glass completely without spilling any of
the water. For a perfect exposure, the glass should become completely full with
no water spilling over. In this analogy, the tap symbolizes the aperture: the
wider the tap is open, the faster the glass fills up. The time that the tap is open
represents the shutter speed: leaving it open longer lets more water into the
glass. To fill the glass to exactly the right level, the rate of flow must be set
according to the time the tap is open.
The third factor, ISO rating, can be equated to the size of the water glass. A
smaller glass, representing a faster ISO rating, fills up more quickly than a
larger glass, representing a slow ISO.
Understanding automatic exposure
As a photographer, you will come across a wide range of lighting conditions,
and each condition requires that you adjust your camera to different exposure
settings. For example, shooting a photo on a beach on a sunny day calls for
different exposure settings than shooting on the same beach on a cloudy day.
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For many conditions, the camera’s automatic exposure setting gives you good
or even excellent results. But for some situations, the automatic exposure does
not perform as well.
Automatic exposure assumes that the scene you are photographing has a few
bright spots, many midtones, and a few dark areas. As the camera’s meter reads
the available light in your scene, it averages the light in the bright, middle, and
dark areas, and then calculates the exposure necessary to bring the average
level to a tone of medium brightness called middle gray.
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Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
Increasing your
chances with
bracketing
If you’re not sure what
the best exposure
setting is, try
ing.
Bracketing
involves taking
multiple photos of the
same scene. Start by
using the automatic
exposure, and then
use exposure compensation to take additional frames with
increased and
decreased exposure
levels. With a series of
photos taken at
different settings,
there is a good chance
that one has the
exposure just right.
bracket-
Automatic exposure does not work well if your scene is dominated by large
sections of very light or very dark colors. A bright field of snow, for example,
has so much bright light that the automatic exposure lowers the brightness until
the snow looks gray. To work around this shortcoming, you can use exposure
compensation.
Exposure Compensation
Some cameras have an exposure compensation feature that lets you manually
override the automatic exposure setting. Exposure compensation lets you adjust
the exposure with settings such as +2, +1, -1, and -2. A +1 setting, for example,
tells the camera’s automatic exposure system to make the middle tones brighter.
When taking a photo dominated by bright snow, increasing the exposure with
the +1 setting might correct the light level for the snow-filled scene. Your
actual results will vary according to your camera and the brightness of the day.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
With bright snow in a scene, setting your camera’s exposure compensation setting to +1 or +2
may help you to get the right exposure.
Aperture
The aperture is the opening through which light passes to reach the film, or, in
digital cameras, the image sensor. Aperture is measured by f-number, where a
specific setting is called an f-stop. With f-stops, a low number, such as f/4,
represents a wider opening that lets in more light. A small aperture, such as f/
16, lets in significantly less light.
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21
Some cameras have a fixed aperture that can’t be adjusted. If you’re adjusting
the aperture yourself, a setting of f/8 is a good place to start, since it gives you a
fairly wide zone of sharpness.
If your camera allows you to adjust the aperture, use the settings to regulate the
depth of field in your photo. Depth of field refers to the zone in your photo that
is in acceptably sharp focus. A wide aperture gives you a shallow depth of field,
while a small aperture allows a very deep zone—maybe even everything in the
photo—to be in focus.
Imagine pointing your camera down a set of railroad tracks which go all the
way to the horizon. With a wide aperture, like f/2.8, if you focus on a railroad
tie a short distance away, only a few of the other ties are in sharp focus. With a
narrow aperture, like f/22, many more of the ties are in focus, even those quite
a distance from your main focal point.
A wide aperture will give you a short depth of field, as illustrated in the photo on the left,
where only a limited range of the tulips are in focus. The photo on the right was taken with a
small aperture, so almost all of the tulips are in focus.
Program modes
If your camera offers
program modes for
specific photos like
portraits or action
shots, read your
camera’s manual to
find out the aperture
settings used for those
modes.
Shutterless
cameras
Many digital cameras
do not have a true
shutter. Instead, the
image sensor is
programmed to control
the exposure time. The
effect of shutter speed
control is the same as
a physical shutter.
For portrait photography, a wide aperture helps to limit the focus. Your
subject’s face is clear and sharp, but objects in the background are blurred. But
if you’re shooting a vacation photo of someone posing in front of a monument,
a narrow aperture may be in order. With the narrow aperture, both the person
and the monument can be in focus in the same photo.
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Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
Of course, adjusting the aperture also affects how much light is let into the
camera. But if a specific depth of field is important for your shot, you can
switch to manual mode, set the aperture, and then set the shutter speed to get
the correct exposure level. Some cameras also offer an aperture priority mode
that automatically selects the correct shutter speed to produce the correct
exposure for the aperture you select.
Shutter Speed
In most cameras, the shutter is the curtain in front of the film or image sensor
that is retracted for a precise amount of time to let light into the camera. Shutter
speed can be adjusted to let light into the camera for a longer or shorter amount
of time.
When determining the correct exposure for a photo, both shutter speed and
aperture must be considered in relation to each other. An increase in shutter
speed, which lessens the time the film is exposed to light, requires that you
widen the aperture to let in more light.
Shutter speeds are measured in fractions of seconds. In automatic mode, many
cameras will use a shutter speed of about 1/125th of a second. For action
photography, a very fast shutter speed, like 1/500th of a second, can help to stop
action and reduce blurring caused by movement of your subject.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
A fast shutter speed like 1/250th of a second can help you freeze action.
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23
At the other extreme, you might set the shutter to stay open for four seconds, or
even more for low-light night photography without a flash. But shutter speeds
slower than 1/30th of a second increase the likelihood that slight movements in
your hand while you take the shot will cause a blurred photo. To avoid camera
shake, mount your camera on a tripod or other firm surface for slow shutter
speeds.
To accommodate the low light of this twilight scene, the camera was mounted on a tripod and
set to a slow shutter speed.
Some cameras offer a shutter priority mode that sets the aperture automatically
after you set the shutter speed. This can be useful if you’re in a situation where
shutter speed is more important than aperture, like when you’re shooting a
subject in motion.
ASA versus ISO
If you have an older
camera, the film speed
dial might be labeled
ASA instead of ISO.
These film speed
ratings are the same,
and the ratings are
interchangeable.
ISO Setting or Equivalent
When shooting on film, you have the opportunity to select different types of
film for specific uses. Films are available in different speeds that are more
sensitive or less sensitive to light.
Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
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