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photos were all taken with a simple digital camera, Olympus 3030z,
which has been my first (happy) experience with an instant satisfaction
type camera where high quality gives way to expedient publishing
on the world wide web.
I
have found that as with 'real' cameras it pays to use a tripod.
And I now keep a mini tripod attached, which also aids camera
grip. I recently started to carry a Gitzo monopod to help with
the panorama pivot point.
The
digital darkroom, that is using an image manipulation program
like Photoshop or Corel Photo/Paint, has opened new horizons
for chemical free subtle photo retouching and image altering
such as sepiatoning.
I
soon found the panorama stitching software QuickStitch from
Enroute, and began using it. Once you decide between perspective
or cylindrical, the program merges 2-3-4 or more individual
shots into one panorama. These will need some cropping and minor
retouching. The contrast banding is a tech problem that requires
bracket exposures, some new cameras do this automatically. This
allows a 1 mega-pixel camera to include much more digital information
in each photograph.
Photo
storage on the road is a problem because one is dependent on
any number of cables, power supplies, and the security of your
notebook. It seems that a zip drive or a CD-RW on board with
multiple mail backs of data is the only SAFE WAY to go, and
remember some extra cables too! Also forget about the serial
port download, it's way too slow. Use a PCMCIA to SmartMedia
reader or a USB direct connection cable instead. Test all your
hardware and software before you leave. Burn an Applications
CD with ALL your critical PHOTO and CAMERA software on it.
Photoshop
6.01 was used to squeeze the graphics down in size from an average
600 kb and to make the thumbnails. I prefer to retouch with
Photoshop which has a deserved reputation for its' steep learning
curve. However, due to its' very depth and breath of power with
the retouching and pixel pushing set it is hard to ignore. I
appreciate the simple interface in Corel PhotoHouse5 to a set
of Corel Draw tools. All of the retouching was done in small
increments of just 3% to 6% change to contrast, brightness,
intensity and sharpness, through the use of the <Levels>
<curves> and <Hue> comands plus judious use of the
oddly named <Unsharp Mask> to sharpen them.
Remember
to do your editing on a bit mapped file [.bmp - .tif] and just
save once to a jpeg file. I have recently upgraded to Nikon
D1 & D100 cameras.
Pernel
S Thyseldew
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