Chapter 12. Slides and Prints: Upgrading for Digital Photography and Picture Editing

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Downloading photographs from a digital camera

• Scanning photo prints

• Editing digital photographs

• Printing digital photographs

• Sharing digital photos over the Internet

One of the hottest pieces of gear today is the digital camera. Digital cameras work like normal film cameras, except they capture images electronically, instead of on film. These digital images are stored within the camera on flash memory cards. You can then connect your camera to your PC and transfer your digital photos to your computer.

That's when the fun starts.

After you've transferred a digital photo from your camera to your PC, you have lots of options available to you. A digital picture file is just like any computer file, which means you can store it, copy it, delete it, or whatever. You can also use photo editing software to manipulate your photos to touch up bad spots and red eye, crop the edges, and apply all sorts of special effects.

To use your PC as a digital darkroom, you might need to perform a few simple upgrades. Naturally, you'll need some way to get your digital photos into your PC a USB or FireWire connection, or maybe a memory card reader. (Or, if you're working with photo prints, you'll need to connect a scanner.) A bigger monitor is nice, especially if you're retouching your photos. And all those digital files take up disk space, which makes a bigger hard drive a necessity.

After you have beefed up your system, however, working with digital photographs is a snap no pun intended.