Take a stand against torture

In my youth there was a form of torture inflicted on both child and adult. Worse yet, it was perfectly legal.

The torture device plugged into an ordinary power outlet. A humming fan kept a high-watt bulb cool so it can be used for hours against innocent people.

Thankfully, slide projectors are now mostly found in closets and basements. You can thank the digital camera.

But even the digital camera can cause pain and embarrassment. These days, perfectly decent humans — perhaps you’re among them — distribute digital photographs by e-mail. We can’t stop that, but maybe we can reduce the pain inflicted by poor photos.

We’ll limit today’s discussion to the point-and-shoot digital cameras most people use. Owners of high-end digital cameras either understand photography or think they do. They are beyond my reach.

Get the advantage

So let’s look at how the common shooter can use the advantages of digital photography while avoiding its disadvantages.

Advantage: You can take as many pictures of a scene as you like without added expense. And you can immediately look at the results. Many folks who grew up in the film generation have a hard time breaking the habit of shooting one or two frames and hoping it comes out well. So it bears repeating: If it’s a shot you want, take it a bunch of times, at different angles or settings. That also allows for the factor known as dumb luck. The more pictures you take, the more likely you’ll catch an especially nice shot.

Disadvantage: The camera’s tiny viewing screen isn’t big enough to show flaws that will be painfully obvious when the photo is shown on a large computer screen. With digital on a computer screen, you’re showing what amounts to a giant enlargement. Tiny flaws become giant problems. So it’s important to learn how to fix photo flaws, and we’ll deal with that next.

Advantage: In the days of film photography, most amateurs relied on the drugstore or photo shop for processing. That usually involved an automated process that produced barely adequate prints. With digital photography, you have the ability to fix mistakes the drugstore wouldn’t have bothered with.

So get comfortable with photo editing software. You’ll be able to adjust for bad exposure or even do minor surgery. What do I mean by surgery? Imagine that a particularly ugly dog wandered into the frame of little Susy’s outdoor wedding reception. Simply clone a patch of grass and — like a great magician — you’ve made a dog disappear. A great all-purpose program: PhotoShop Elements. It can be found at most computer stores or ordered directly at http://www.adobe.com/products/psprelements/.

Advantage: Even inexpensive digital cameras use a computerized exposure technology that’s beyond what was available to most professionals 15 or 20 years ago. Most cameras have settings that let you take pictures in low light, or when most of the pictured area is in strong sunlight but important parts are shaded.

Disadvantage: It’s easy to lean on those automated controls and forget the old-fashioned techniques that film amateurs used to compensate. For instance, when taking a picture of people in the sun, many cameras will think things are just fine. But using the camera’s built-in strobe (flash) will fill in ugly shadows on a face. I promise your subjects will thank you for this one.

This is just a start. You’ll need to experiment with your camera, and I suggest you do so before that big June wedding or July vacation. Then go forth and shoot it up. When you get home you can show your photos without torture.