Chapter 1 Jumping Right In
Contents
1. computer end of the USB cable into an available USB connection on your computer 4 Turn on your digital camera if transferring directly from the camera or plug in a memory card into the card reader 2 2 Uere Windows can perform the same action each time you insert After a few seconds your com adisk or connect a device with this kind of file puter should recognize the Pictures camera or memory card and What da vau want Windows to da prompt you to choose your next WP using Sonic RecordNow step as shown in Figure 1 4 Guay Diss using Sonic Records oy 9 Your computer will prompt you Copy pictures Eo a folder on my computer to choose the method to copy J using PictureProject your images or your camera s X View fles software prompts you MJ Uang Adake Bridge E Bc view files 6 Choose to either copy the tal using Windows Explore Images to the default folder on Always do the selected action your computer or better yet choose a specific directory you created to copy these images to Figure 1 4 You re prompted for the next step Create a folder on your computer where you can copy all your images to This way your folder won t be buried in the default images folder Your camera s software may automatically assign a folder name each time you copy images to your computer Get familiar with the way your folders are set up After your images are copied safely to your computer and the2. look different from one another they all have the same basic operation All run on batteries that need charging from time to time All need some sort of memory card inserted Do this properly They only go in one way They all have an on off switch and a shutter button The most important part of your digital camera is the user s manual that comes with each one Don t forget to read yours Using your digital camera is as easy as 1 2 3 1 Learn how to turn on your camera This step may seem a little basic but each manufacturer does it differently Don t be embarrassed I admit I ve fumbled a few times with new cameras finding out where the simple buttons and gizmos are See Figure 1 1 for the on off button on a digital camera Figure 1 1 Power switches are located in different spots on different cameras 2 Get comfortable with your lens Play around by zooming in and out Most digital cameras come equipped with a zoom lens with which you can zoom out for wide angle shots or for some cool landscape shots Zoom in to the image of a person for a great candid portrait 3 If you are shooting indoors turn on the built in flash 4 Make sure your shooting mode is set correctly Automatic mode surprisingly works for many shots you take Automatic mode is great for now until Chapter 6 covers more advanced shooting modes 5 Compose your subject Make sure you re not shooting into the sun You don t want your sub jec
3. Chapter 1 Jumping Right In In This Chapter Having some fun with your digital camera Getting out and shooting Transferring images from your camera to your computer Opening images in Photoshop Printing and saving your photographs Thinking about digital workflow n the past year or so just about everyone I know has gone out and pur chased a digital camera If you haven t noticed all the consumer elec tronic circulars in the Sunday paper have entire sections dedicated to digital cameras accessories and printers Yep right next to the cell phone page Digital cameras may be the latest rage but unlike the iPod I bet that most digital cameras end up like old film cameras collecting dust on the shelf I know people who purchased their digital cameras two years ago and never bothered to learn how to transfer images to their computer After filling up their memory cards they display the pictures they took by turning on the camera and reviewing the pictures on the 1 inch LCD Funny thing is these are the same people that are planning on buying the latest and greatest that is available on the market The point here is to figure out the basics about how to use your camera load images to your computer and then go out and have some fun Don t forget to make a few prints by the way 8 Part I A New Way to Play Using Vour Digital Camera Though all the hundreds of different digital camera models that are available today
4. New H Show this dialog at starbup Figure 1 5 The Photoshop Welcome Screen You can deselect the Show This Dialog at Startup check box in the lower left of the Photoshop Welcome Screen if you don t want to see this window every time you start Photoshop Browsing for images One of the biggest improvements to Photoshop in CS2 is Bridge shown in Figure 1 6 An update to the File Browser Bridge provides you with a powerful file management tool that allows you to visually select images you want to edit as well as organize and catalog these images 1 2 Part l A New Way to Play o o oo o R Prints Adobe Bridge File Edit Tools Label View Window Help gt G Prints Favorites Folders detroitJani5 C3 FAMILY Jan 2 C3 Family January 1 2005 G graves game jan DSC _OD44 10 6 2004 11 10 8 2004 11 10 9 2004 12 Dsc n054 DSc 0064 DSC 0144 psc gu1 10 9 2004 12 10 9 2004 1 0 10 9 2004 9 2 Metadata Keywords File Properties Filename DSC_O0016 Document Kind gt Photoshop document Application Adobe Photoshop C5 Windows Date Created 10 8 2004 11 06 40 PM Date File Created 12 28 2004 4 19 15 PM v DSC 0250 DSC 0579Amy DSC 0728 trai OE 10 17 2004 9 11 7 2004 4 5 12 27 2004 9 4k p 60 items 1 selected Getting _DSCOOD6 preview a a 22 EJ Figure 1 6 Bridge is an easy way to view open and organize fil
5. also provide the best practices of digital photography and how all this relates to the overall digital worktlow 17 Part I A New Way to Play
6. d look as shown in Figure 1 10 4 Choose Image gt Adjustments gt Hue Saturation and move the Saturation slider to the right until you see the desired colors pop out as shown in Figure 1 11 Don t overdo it just enough until you see the colors as you want to see them e C3 eei nag bec AM Piy rrr pate Dm nt FAS ar cc JSLDIET saxo gg ec pie x Ay Hata Fames Frulirchop FEO POC LAOT Profle Accbs ROD 1996 ukg Leer Case Ecberpion Use Adae Liig Figure 1 9 Never work on the original Save as a working image Brightness Contrast Brightness Contrast Figure 1 10 Increase contrast by moving the Contrast slider to the right Figure 1 11 Increase color by moving the Saturation slider to the right Chapter 1 Jumping Right In 15 5 Sharpen the image Unsharp Mask Sharpening usually does not happen inside the camera and has to be performed in Photoshop Sharpen the image by choosing Filter Sharpen Unsharp Mask as shown in Figure 1 12 Set the Amount to 150 by moving the Amount Slider to right Set the Radius to 1 5 and the threshold to 8 These settings are pretty safe unless you have your camera sharpen settings turned up If the photo appears weird turn the Amount slider down until the photo looks normal and sharp Another option is to choose Edit gt Fade Threshold Unsharp Mask to soften the effects of sharpening Figure 1 13 shows the original ima
7. es To open an image in Photoshop 1 Select File gt Browse 2 Select the folder you copied images to by using the Folders palette located within Bridge see Figure 1 7 Adobe did a nice job keeping the Folders palette functionality similar to Windows Explorer only more tailored toward working with images When you start Bridge it will display images in the browser from the folder you last visited 3 Double click the folder you want to view as shown in Figure 1 8 4 Select an image that you want to open in Photoshop by double clicking the image You are ready to perform plastic surgery on your photos I mean edit your photos Mi img0003 Adobe Bridge File Edit Tools Label View Window Help sa Irngooos Desktop My Computer LJ Local Disk C O Images Ba maoona Favorites Bridge Center My Computer J Adobe Stock Photos Version Cue Lj Collections Desktop My Documents My Pictures Metadata Keywords i 36lbems Getting DSCOOZI preview ImgQ003 Adobe Bridge File Edit Tools Label View Window Help al L3 Imgooo3 Favorites Folders 0 C Img no1 Img n02 imgoo03 E Imgooo4 Img0O05 s _pscoo01 10 6 2004 7 27 17 PM Dscong2 Metadata Keywords 9 e File Properties P Filename i Document Kind Application Date Created Date File Created TI eX ar 6 items 1 selecbed _psco003 10 6 2004 7 28 20 PM Fi
8. f every thing and everyone interesting to you You ll be amazed at how many photos you would have missed if you didn t have your digital camera Figure 1 2 Take your camera wherever you go with you You never know what you can find Copying your pictures rom camera to computer Every digital camera is packaged with a CD that includes software utilities for your camera Before you can transfer pictures from your camera to your computer you need to install the CD on your computer The other item you need is that USB cable that came with your camera It s that cable with the big thingy on one end and the little thingy on the other Refer to your owner s manual to locate the cable connection on your camera It can be hard to find The easiest way to transfer images to you computer is to use a card reader shown in Figure 1 3 Card readers are devices that connect to your PC via USB cable These devices often accept multiple memory card for mats such as CompactFlash and Figure 1 3 Think of your camera or card reader Memory Stick as an external disk Your computer does 9 10 Part A New Way to Play The common process for transferring images from your camera to computer is 1 Make sure you turn your computer on 2 If transferring directly from your camera make sure you turn your camera off 3 Plug the camera or card reader into your computer by inserting the camera end of the USB cable into your digital camera and the
9. ge in Figure 1 12 Unsharp Mask settings for Photoshop and then the image with the your first photo Brightness Contrast and Hue Saturation adjustments made Figure 1 13 The original image and the image edited in Photoshop 1 6 Part A New Way to Play Print save score Printing in Photoshop is a process upon itself Chapter 18 provides you with extensive information on printing For a quick introduction I take you through the quickie printing process here 1 Print your photo by choosing File gt Print with Preview The Print windows appears as shown in Figure 1 14 riw 2 Click Page Setup and indicate i eee rm whether the photo is portrait or landscape orientation Caen len par a end Amt Etam Profle Stokes Fae IESU itm 3 Select the correct paper size for your printer and then click Cker Heming x Aetrd ation cies E Finis Ecl TON Shes Phots 7 OK Randairg chert ze sth Coke metric v Elak Fant Corrae ration 4 In the Scaled Print Size area of the Print window select Scale to Fit Media This automatically sizes your photo for the paper you have Figure 1 14 The Print with Preview window loaded in your printer 5 Click Print and then OK Watch your work of art magically appear on your printer Consider this a quick preview There are going to be many more steps in this book to help you in making dynamic images you can be proud of Get with the Flow Digital Wor
10. gure 1 8 Viewing images in Bridge Chapter 1 Jumping Right In 13 psconot psom 10 6 2004 7 2 10 6 2004 7 2 Dacota DS5C 004 10 6 2004 7 2 10 6 2004 7 2 HER Unfiteed Lj S o m g 10 6 2004 7 27 57 PM Dacii 10 6 2004 7 28 48 PM 14 Parti A New Way to Play A little tweak here a little tweak there Without spending the next few hours going through some elaborate steps to make edits to the image and print I leave the heavy editing stuff for later For now you can do some quick edits and see how the image you choose prints out 1 Make a copy of the original image As a rule of thumb I never make edits to original images I always work on a copy As shown in Figure 1 9 the first thing I do is save this image under another working direc tory Choose File gt Save As to do this Make sure you save this file into a new or existing folder where you store your working images 2 Make a backup of the background original image layer Another rule I have in my digital workflow is to never work on the original layer Duplicate the back ground copy of the original layer by choosing Layer gt Duplicate Layer You can now safely tweak without working on the back ground image 3 Tweak Brightness Contrast and Hue Saturation by choosing Image gt Adjustments Go to Brightness Contrast and in the Brightness Contrast window and move the Bright ness and Contrast sliders to your desire
11. kflow Everybody has a daily ritual It usually starts getting out of bed maybe grab bing some breakfast and then heading out to do what people do during the day The rest of the time is spent on similar rituals For the most part most days start out the same and end the same Hey it works for most people Creating great looking photographs and organizing an ever growing number of images requires the same process any successful outcome requires Digital photographers call this digital workflow Digital workflow is a step by step progression of best practices that if followed faithfully can absolutely make you a better photographer In tech weenie talk digital workflow starts with proper image capture tech niques Translation good shootin The workflow continues with download ing images and backing up Setting up images with proper color settings and Chapter 1 Jumping Right In making sure your equipment and Photoshop are set up properly are part of the digital workflow The order of adjustments you make to an image is important to your digital workflow as are the procedures you use for sizing sharpening printing and saving Phew That s a mouthful The bottom line is that digital photography is a complex process The more disciplined you are with best practices the better your photography will become The remaining chapters in this book not only show you how to use this won derful image editing software called Photoshop but
12. ts dark with a light background Look for things in the scene that will detract from your shot like power lines running across the horizon or telephone poles sticking out of a person s head Make sure your scene is square and not tilted Try to get in the habit of taking the time to com pose your shot You will be surprised how much of a difference it makes 6 Depress your shutter halfway to focus the rest of the way to take the picture On most digital cameras pressing the shutter half way focuses the shot and pressing the shutter the rest of the way opens the shutter and takes the picture Chapter 1 Jumping Right In Get out and shoot The way to become a better photographer and get the most from your digital camera is to just use the thing Take it with you wherever you go Get used to carrying it around and shooting some photos like the one shown in Figure 1 2 which I shot in a parking garage After parking my car I looked around grabbed my digital camera and shot the skyline Get over that embarrassed feeling of taking pic tures of things when other people are around Just ignore them or better yet take their picture As a bonus you then have more images to play with when you begin to edit them in Photoshop later in this book a PERPE SITENCW a p 3 8 a 44 FI E af 3 a 1 For one week take your digital camera with you wherever you go Take pictures that week o
13. y are backed up as discussed in Chapter 4 you can then reformat your memory card in your camera to make room for more pictures Always make sure you have a backup of the images that are copied to your computer before you reformat your memory card You want to make sure that these images are not only on your computer but backed up to CD for safe keeping If you accidentally delete the images on the computer or the hard disk fails at least you still have the images on CD Chapter 1 Jumping Right In Invest in a USB card reader Prices for these devices have come way down and most of these can read multiple memory card formats Using card read ers to download images is quicker and safer Some computers even have these built right in Playing with Photoshop CS2 Now that you took some photographs copied them to your computer and backed them up to CD get on Photoshop and do some messing around Select Photoshop from the Windows Start menu or double click the icon on your Windows or Mac desktop Photoshop CS2 presents you with the Welcome screen see Figure 1 5 every time you start up Photoshop This screen provides you with an easy way to view help documents and other information about Photoshop CS2 Welcome Screen i Adobe Photoshop cs What s Mew in Photoshop New Features At A Glance Mew Feature Highlights What s New Movie Online Tutarials Learn the Basics Advanced Technigues Online Working With what s
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