Setup guide

INTRODUCTION TO
Digital Imaging—a primer for the uninitiated
DIGITAL CAMERAS
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Digital imaging is exploding. It seems everybody is doing it. And you think you want to get into it. Fine, but where do you
start? What equipment do you need? No problem. But before we get to that, let us begin with a little background information
so you’ll have a better understand of what digital imaging is.
Until about five years ago imaging was an analog affair. Pictures were “recorded” onto film and the manipulation of images
took place in a darkroom—a messy, wasteful and environmentally unfriendly way of doing things.
Digital imaging is the digital recording of images, either by a digital camera or a scanner. Once recorded, these digital
images (made up of 0’s and 1’s) can be transferred (downloaded) to your computer where they can be edited, manipulated,
e-mailed, printed, or incorporated into almost any kind of document.
Digital Camera vs. 35mm Camera and Scanner
So now we know that we need either a digital camera or scanner, so which one. You
might have thousands of dollars invested in a top 35mm system. If you scan your full-
frame 35mm image (negative or slide) with a 2700-dpi (dots-per-inch) scanner film
scanner (under $300 today) you get a 9.4 megapixel scan (2496 x 3776). Do it with a
4000-dpi scanner (under $1000) and you get a 21MB file (3762 x 5646). So you can con-
tinue to shoot with your familiar and versatile 35mm SLR camera—which very likely
has more features and better performance than most digital camera. And you have a
good negative or slide as well as a high-resolution digital image. But resolution is only
one part of the story. Digital cameras are the biggest innovation in photography in
over 100 years. They give you a myriad of benefits that simply can’t be achieved with
a 35mm camera. And if you haven’t invested a lot in analog—then there is no question.
In order to get images into your computer, they must be digitized. There are
basically two ways of digitizing them. Digital cameras or scanners. Digital
cameras digitize images as they are shot. Scanners digitize existing negatives,
transparencies and prints. Once the images are digitized—whether they were
shot with a digital camera or shot on film and scanned—you can transfer them
to your computer (there are many easy ways to do this.) Now the second part
of digital imaging starts . . .
You can optimize your images with an image-editing program, restore damaged
or faded photos, and apply an almost infinite variety of special effects. You see
the results of anything you as you do it, and if you don't like something – just
hit “undo” and do it again. You can e-mail your pictures, or post them on a
Web page, put them on flyers, turn them into calendars or greeting cards, put
them on T-shirts and coffee mugs, print them, or even have them output back
onto film. Oh, one more thing. In the long run digital is cheaper, a lot cheaper.
Much less money spent on film, chemicals etc.
So now, what do you need to go digital? A digital camera or a scanner, a fast
computer with a lot of RAM (at least 256MB), a 20˝ monitor, a lot of storage,
an inkjet or dye-sub printer or output device like a CD or DVD burner and
image-editing software. All these things you will find throughout this catalog.
But for now the question is . . .
You won’t have to crawl up in the attic
or dig around the basement anymore to
find those prints of the kids. With digital
photos, organizing, storing and finding
prints is a thousand times easier and
more efficient. In it’s simplest form you
can glance at hundreds of thumbnails of
your images on your computer to quick-
ly find what you are looking for. You can
make copies of your photos to create
albums in their own folder. On a more
sophisticated level you can use
cataloging software
(for as little as $50)
to attach keywords
to your images to
search your photo collection.
Not to scare you or anything, but fires,
floods, theft, earthquakes, etc. do
happen. The family photos one loses in
these disasters is often the biggest loss,
they are irreplaceable both in sentimen-
tal value and memories. So backing up
your photo collection is a must. And it is
easy. If your photos are in a digital form,
copying the files (photos) to a CD or
DVD and storing them in a safe place is a
lot easier to do. Keep them in a safety
deposit box or at work. You can store
thousands of photos for pennies on a CD
or DVD that takes up no space. It is just
a matter of you doing it and it is easy to
do. (This is a good idea even in the
world of digital because it is not
uncommon for hard drives to fail and if
that is the only place photos are stored
you are out of luck –so back them up).
One more thing, digital cameras are a
great way to learn photography. With
the ability to instantly see images, you
will have a much better appreciation for
settings such as aperture and shutter
and how they alter mood and character.