Digital Photography - An Introduction & Editing Images - By: Bercle George

The phenomenon of digital photography began when digital cameras became commercially available sometime in the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Since then, a lot of people have stacked away their film cameras in their closets in favor of the digital camera. But before jumping into the digital camera itself and its finer details, it is important to know what digitalphotography is.

In a nutshell, digital photography is the act of taking pictures and saving it into a digital format. A scanned photograph, therefore, can also be considered as a digital
photograph. Most people prefer the digital format over film because of several reasons. First of all, seeing the results of digital photographs is instantaneous. After the shot is taken, the photographer can immediately see and decide if he does or doesn't like the result of his shot. This method is much cheaper than film because when using film, one has to print all the photographs taken including the duds which can't be seen until they are processed.

Another reason why people prefer digital photographs than traditional ones is that there are a variety of ways in sharing a digital photograph. One can send it through it e-mail, burn it to a disc, send it via Bluetooth or print it just like film photographs. However, there are purists who choose film photographs over digital ones. According to them, there film photographs produce more lifelike images than those taken by digital cameras. But the more advanced digital cameras of today are slowly but surely gaining ground and it will only be a matter of time before they produce images that will impress even the purists.

While the use of digital cameras has made it easier for photographers to quickly check whether or not they like the shot they've taken, there are still usually flaws that need
to be touched up or a crop that will make the image more dramatic. Because of this, they need to use image editors to produce their desired results. While image editors that are built-in to the computer's OS (take Microsoft Paint, for example) can do very basic editing, power users such as professionals and web designers need more powerful programs.

There are a number of good image editors out there that are popular among photographers and web designers alike. For one there's Adobe Photoshop. Ever since it was released in 1990, its use has become an industry standard in the image editing industry. Then there's Corel PHOTO-PAINT of the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. This program specifically targets photographers who wish to edit their images using the computer. Another photo editing software is GIMP which stands for GNU Image Manipulation. The good thing about this photo editor is that you can use it in a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix.

For those who are used to the Photoshop interface, there's the GIMPshop developed by Scott Moschella. Google has also developed Picasa which is a basic photo editing and organizing software which can be useful to photographers who only need to crop, fix red eye, and adjust the hues on their photos.

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For information about digital photography, questions and answers - be sure to visit :: http://www.digital-photography-mag.com/

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