taking your own pictures

project home page
introduction
background & more information
finding the images you need
on-line galleries
scanning
making your own
taking your own
digital image sizes
digital image sizes
resolution
file size
e-mail
copyright
adding images to documents
position
cropping
enhancement
paper size
posters
image file types
jpg or gif
transparency
screen prints and clip art
screen prints
clip art
the problems with text
fonts
line length
emphasis
text boxes
text images
free tools
text
drawing
image editing
web page design

 

Digital cameras are now getting much cheaper, much better and generally more easy to use than they used to be. Once a college would have a few very expensive cameras and you took your life in your hands when you borrowed one. Now even a mobile phone can take a reasonable snap for most simple document or small screen image purposes.

On a fairly modern computer the process of getting your pictures from the camera to your computer is pretty straightforward, usually using a USB lead between the two. Getting images off a mobile phone can be a bit trickier sometimes. If the phone and computer both have a Bluetooth facility then they can be linked up without cables, communicate and files can be shared without pain. If one or the other is not what is termed ‘Bluetooth enabled’ then there may be an option to get them to communicate via an Infrared connection. This is also wireless but whilst many laptops have an Infrared facility, most desktops don’t. So there’s a lot to be said for buying a phone to computer lead which should ease the complications of the task, especially if you have lots of images to transfer.

With the massive improvements in quality that newer digital cameras provide comes massive file size, however, and you may well find that your images are 500Kb or more. Fine for presentations perhaps but not for your handouts or most learning material. Unless you’re very accomplished, you will also discover that many of your images need a bit of attention as described in other sections. Do remember, however, always work with a copy of your image and not the original! File space should not be a problem these days and you will be very relieved to have kept an original one day when something disastrous happens during an editing session.
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page updated by Andrew Hill, Dunstable College 23 July, 2006