Preparation for Creative Photography

Many elements exist in taking great photographs and this article aims at helping you set up your camera and monitor to get the most out of the pictures you take.

More to it than Photoshop

Photoshop is a very powerful tool when it comes to photo editing and this program allows you to enhance and radically change just about any aspect of a photo. Although you can import an image into an application like Photoshop and edit it in many amazing ways to get the best results to suit your criterion, you start by taking a great picture.

Presetting your Digital Camera

Apart from a few exceptions you should always shoot in RAW format because you can always be assured there's more creative leeway in a RAW file. JPEGs lack certain information in the data that makes up the file. If shooting in JPEG format make sure you shoot at the highest possible quality.
JPEGs have their role, for example, if you have little time to work on the photos after you shoot and just want to capture a snap, or you require fast sequence shooting then shooting in JPEG format is ideal.

Understanding your Cameras ISO

Every digital camera has a sensor to capture the image, similar to a computer chip. The camera ISO is related to the sensor and by adjusting the ISO you increase or decrease the sensitivity of the sensor to allow for taking images in awkward light situations. For example, a lower ISO setting reduces the light sensitivity and is used for overly bright scenes. A high ISO setting increases the light sensitivity and is suitable for taking pictures on a cloddy day.

Be Different, Be Creative

The great thing about digital photography is that you can create really impressive photos by simply playing around with your settings and experimenting. You will often find that a photo which is abstracted in some way will show more emotion, or reveal more about the subject in question.
On occasions you will go through phases where you can't snap that great photo and everything always seems boring or lacking emotion and depth. If you hit a period like this then try one of the following:

Get High: Look around for something you can climb like a staircase, tree or step ladder.

Get Low: Look around and try taking pictures from a low angle i.e. down a flight of stairs, or an underground hatch.

Calibrate Your Monitor

The guidelines above will help you take wonderful high quality photos that are full of detail and impressive to look at. Next you will most likely want to edit these pictures using an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop to put the finishing touches to your creations but first you need to prepare your work station.

Online retailers often face issues with consumers who are using monitors that are not properly calibrated. Often what's happening is the consumer is looking at a colour on a screen which is not true to life i.e. a red t-shirt which is really a burgundy t-shirt.

Adobe Gamma is a monitor calibration tool that comes packaged with Photoshop and it allows you to correctly calibrate the colours which your monitor displays. Alternatively, you can use QuickGama which is free software provided by Eberhard Werle.