In the beginning I didn't take the time to complete even simple photo editing, so photos developed in Charlotte quickly before returning to Germany still have the look of film when it comes to red eye. Developing in the US is extremely cheaper than in Germany. The quality tends to suffer over here as well. I have found an online company here that produces very high quality prints though the price is some what hefty, the turn-around is 24 hours when uploaded by 5pm. www.24h-bildexpress.de/
With film, photos were shot, the film was taken to be developed and the praying began! Hoping, for starters that the shots would be in focus and the memory would be captured. Hoping also that the developer would not ruin the film some how and tag it as machine error or worse photographer/camera error. An easy out for their own personal error. Oh the joy when the enveloped was picked up and it was thick, slammed pack full, loaded with perfect, or mostly perfect shots / memories!
Over the years, I've purchased software, read books, studied on-line sources and learned from friends to have reached the point where I've learned much about digital photo editing... amounting to a drop in the bucket in comparison to how much I've still to learn. With digital, hundreds more photos are taken than with film, so there's a plus. Much more of a chance to get the clear shot as well. No longer is it required to print every shot, hence another great saving. Technically, a person could just shoot till their hearts content (or till the flash card is full) then head on directly to their local developer, be it a human or one of those little kiosks that accept multiple card formats with no worry of photo editing. Digital can be that easy! For others, like myself, we've got to pull up the shots, examine them, sort out the best and then tweak them till our hearts content. We have huge files of photos on our computer as well as backed up on an external hard drive and CD's /DVD's as well as Internet sharing web sites. SIDE NOTE: If you do not have a back-up in place for your digital photos, shame on you! PC's are not safe for photo storage, so back them up as soon as you upload them, or at least keep them on your flash card till you are able to make a back-up. A tip about CD's and DVD's, be sure to write the burn date on the disc. Discs do not last forever so should be re-burned every 7 - 10 years onto a new disc.
We have a second PC (our old out of date one) that gets very little use, so I took the 15in flat screen and installed in onto our newer PC that has the option for two screens, next to our 19 in. This enables me to edit photos much more efficiently. There is a photo below of the set-up. I can keep my photo folders open on the left allowing Photo Shop Elements to be open on the right. The photos can just be pulled back and forth with the mouse. My Wacom tablet is sitting on the printer & the external hard drive is to the right of the printer. We also have a web cam, as you can see, so give us a call sometime on Skype or Windows Live Messenger.
The photo on the screen is one of many of the wedding I photographed recently. The set-up might look high-tech, but it's quite basic when it comes to digital photo editing. Digital does save money in the area of film & developing, but it also has costs in software & hardware, though as mentioned above, not a requirement.
So,for all you shutterbugs out there...go get snappin!
1 comment:
I love digital, but I still love film too! There is definitely a lot to learn about digital, but think of it this way - your computer is your darkroom and you are doing all of your darkroom work now instead of the lab. What fun! Oh and do you realize I've taken over 10,000 pictures a year since I got my digital SLR in 2005. That's a lot of pictures!!!!
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