Prints Are Blurry
Your paper may be damp, or you may have loaded it with the wrong side facing up. Most papers have only one side designed for printing usually the brighter or shinier side. If you loaded the paper correctly, try using a different paper setting. Your printer may be using too much ink for the selected paper. Uncoated papers absorb more ink than coated, or glossy, papers. In the printer driver, switch to a lower-quality setting, or turn off options that use more ink the Super MicroWeave setting in...
Using A Colorimeter
OS X's built-in calibrator is great for a casual photographer on a small budget and using it is the very least you should do before editing images on your Mac. But it does have one weakness it relies on the viewer's perception of color. A colorimeter, on the other hand, eliminates subjectivity from the process. It takes precise light measurements directly off your monitor and feeds them into dedicated software that creates the profile for you. Colorimeters used to be quite expensive, but prices...
Histogram Literacy
The histogram is a bar chart that shows the distribution of tones in an image. Black is on the far left edge, white is on the right, and everything else is in between. Usually, you want photos with as broad a range of tones as you can get. Think about boxes of crayons you can create a much more detailed image with 64 different crayons than you can with just eight. Likewise, if the bars in the histogram are crammed together in a narrow space, your image probably doesn't have the resources it...
Macworld
President Rick LePage Editorial Director Jason Snell VP, Publisher Janet Ryan Managing Editor Charles Purdy Assistant Managing Editor Sue Voelkel Production Consultant Jennifer Werner Production Director Steve Spingola Macworld is a publication of Mac Publishing, L.L.C., and International Data Group, Inc.Macworld Is an independent journal not affiliated with Apple Computer, Inc.Copyright 2005, Mac Publishing, L.L.C. All rights reserved.Macworld, the Macworld logo, Macworld Lab, the...
Erase Flaws
Are wires or poles interfering with an otherwise scenic vista With the help of the Spot Healing brush and the Clone Stamp tool, cor recting such problems is easy see Now You See It, Now You Don't . Step 1 The easiest flaws to erase are those set against a consistent background color or pattern, such as the sky, grass, or water. To remove these sections of the wire, select the Spot Healing brush represented by a Band-Aid icon in the tool palette. Step 2 Adjust the size of the Spot Healing brush...
Exposure Compensation
Your camera's light meter always assumes that it's pointed at something that is 18 percent gray, because a scene generally reflects 18 percent of the light that strikes it. While this assumption is often right, you may need to tweak the camera's exposure settings to get the best results. Why It Matters Say you take a picture of a black statue. Since the light meter assumes that the statue is 18 percent gray, the exposure it calculates will reproduce the black carving as somewhat gray see...
Light Metering
No matter what your photographic goals are, the key to getting properly exposed images lies in your camera's light meter. When you press the shutter button down halfway, the camera runs through a list of tasks it calculates an appropriate focus, selects a white balance, and uses the light meter to measure the amount of light in your scene and determine an appropriate shutter speed and aperture. But your meter doesn't necessarily choose a shutter speed and aperture that will yield the best image...
How Many Pixels
For many years digital photographers were consumed with the quest for megapixels. My 1.3-megapixel camera was the greatest thing in the world until the 2-megapixel models arrived. Now consumer cameras offer as many as 8 megapixels. But why are megapixels so important You certainly don't want to plop down those extra dollars and use up valuable hard-drive space just for bragging rights. Megapixels are important for two reasons. First, they determine what size your prints can be. Second, they...
Get The Perfect Exposure
Once you've selected appropriate ISO and white-balance settings, you're ready to frame your shot. The most important consideration here is getting a good exposure. At the simplest level, your camera's exposure controls ensure that there's enough light to yield a good image but not so much light that your image washes out. It does this by balancing its shutter speed the amount of time the shutter stays open with its aperture the size of the lens' opening . Your camera's auto-exposure mode can...
Compact Cameras
If you need a good camera while on-the-go, I recommend looking at compact models. These lightweight cameras fit nicely into a pocket or a purse so they're likelier to be on hand for unexpected photo opportunities. They're also relatively easy on the wallet prices range from 150 to 400. Compact cameras typically have a resolution of 2 to 5 megapixels enough for online photo galleries and most standard print sizes. However, they don't usually offer the array of features and controls that larger...