200211 D.c.w

2 CDS

EXCLUSIVE! VIRTUAL CAMERA REVIEWS ON OUR CD!

NEW!

The definitive guide to better photos

148 pages of image-editing tutorials, kit reviews & more! ONE-CLICK FIXES 2 Simple Photoshop and Elements techniques for better pictures RESTORE DAMAGED PHOTOS 2 How to fix tears, stains and creases quickly and easily TOP PAINT SHOP PRO TIPS 2 PLUS exclusive FULL software on our CD! CREATE THIS GREAT IMAGE! Discover how to apply quick masks, motion blurs, layers and colour correction with our creative project!

7

IN-DEPTH HARDWARE REVIEWS 2 Colour printers, new digital cameras, mini-cams, gadgets and more!

buy the right kit – Use our reference cards to help you on 5 top cameras they contain full specs and verdicts

11

7

7

7

6 of the best pocket pleasers compared

EXCLUSIVE TIPS CARDS INSIDE!

YOUR PHOTO PROBLEMS SOLVED INSIDE!

£4.99

MINI-CAMERAS RATED

6 inkjets from £100-£350 on trial inside

2 What camera settings to use 2 How to compose a great photo 2 Ways to avoid common mistakes

NOVEMBER 2002

WHICH PRINTER?

Latest from Fuji, Konica, Toshiba, Olympus tested

Simple techniques you can use to take better party, family & portrait shots 9 771479 001003

SUB-£500 CAMERAS

TAKE BETTER PEOPLE PICTURES!

PRINTED IN THE UK

2

8

Nick Merritt Managing Editor Nick’s background is technology and image-editing related. He’s launched, managed and built some of the UK’s leading publications in these areas.

8

Dylan Channon Senior Art Editor Dylan is a keen amateur photographer and sits on the advisory board of Somerset College of Art and Technology.

8

8

8

8

8

8

Roddy Llewellyn Art Editor Roddy studied photography at university and is PPA Designer of the Year for his work on Create, a magazine for creative professionals. Tim Daly Photographer and writer Tim is one of the UK’s leading digital photography experts. He’s written numerous books on the subject and his photographs have been exhibited across Europe. Simon Danaher Photoshop guru Simon is a leading Photoshop expert, has written books on image editing and is a regular contributor to the world’s leading image-editing title, Computer Arts. Steve Bavister Photographer and editor Steve is one of the UK’s best-known photographic writers, having edited and published Practical Photography in the past. Ed Davis Photo retouching expert Ed is a commercial photographer of many years experience. He is a member the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Aidan O’Rourke Technical expert Aidan is contributor to the Manchester Evening News. He lectures on digital photography around the UK.

4

MEET YOUR TEAM

STARTHERE

Remember November! H

ello, and welcome to the first issue of Digital Camera Magazine. We hope you like what we’ve done (and will overlook the odd inevitable issue one rough edge!). It’s been a busy few months putting it all together, so do please write in and tell us what you think we’ve got right, what we’ve got wrong and how we can make it even better. So why us, now? Well, there are several reasons. The first is the obvious chest-beating one – we just felt we could do a better mag than those already out there. We want to be the very best title on the market, and we’ll be working hard to keep that promise as we develop. That’s why we’ve gone with two CDs, a big page size, great photography and high-quality production values. Another reason why we’re here is because we believe digital cameras are changing how people take and perceive photography, and this process is going to accelerate over the next few years. It’s not just that digital cameras are such wonderfully satisfying gadgets, or that the images they capture are rapidly closing in on 35mm quality, it’s that they give people a real chance to communicate visually in real-time. It’s possible to share memories and experiences instantly by transmitting images to other people via the net. We believe we’re only at the beginning of a very exciting process. Then there are the practical advantages – the extra control and precision that digital photography can offer creative photographers or people just starting to explore what a camera can do. This is the core of what Digital Camera Magazine is about: the process of creating better photos, then printing, sharing and archiving them. In the meantime, enjoy the issue and welcome to the club! Regards,

2

Our promise to our readers

Every month we will show you how to capture and create better pictures, give clear, independent buying recommendations on the latest kit, and deliver two CDs packed with the best PC software. We use boxes, tips, quick fixes, quality photography, walkthroughs and diagrams to show you how to improve your photographic and image-editing skills We have a cast-iron policy of editorial independence. All our kit is reviewed as-sold. We discourage our journalists from accepting gifts from advertisers. We welcome your opinions on the magazine, ideas for articles, photography, thoughts and questions. Send them in today – see below.

c

Departments

We want your letters, ideas, photography, articles, tips and more! Write in today to the following areas: Issues with your discs [email protected] Your letters [email protected] Photos for our galleries [email protected] Events, ideas, places to visit [email protected] For help and advice [email protected]

Nick Merritt, Managing Editor [email protected]

In issue 2, we test ten of the best cameras on sale for Christmas, and show you how to take perfect indoor/November party shots.

Articles/ideas for publication [email protected] Visit our website today! www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

; ISSUE 2 ON SALE 21 NOV 2

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

03

Contents DCM#01 What’s hot inside your magazine this November

STARTS PAGE

18

Discover how you can improve your people shots. We explain how to avoid common mistakes, take better pictures and tweak them digitally for best-ever results

ABOVE: We’ll help you take better people shots

Getup&Go We capture great autumn photographs, show you how to take firework shots and more!

Project Create your own stunning composition. Follow our tutorial on how to make this pic!

004

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

PAGE

64

PULL OUT SECTION – FIND IT AFTER P98

Hidden away! Watch out – there may be a digital camera hidden inside even the most unlikely gadget. We reveal six of the best

PAGE

16

2 Kit reviews

LONGLEAT PHOTOS PAGE 56

Your 2 coverdiscs

1

OLYMPUS C-4000Z PAGE 36

PAGE

Paint Shop Pro 5!

126

This famous image editor – exclusively for you! ADOBE ELEMENTS 2 PAGE 42

IOMEGA ZIP 750 PAGE 45

Every issue we’ll bring you not one, but two CDs – each one packed with exclusive full software like Paint Shop Pro 5. It’s a world first for a digital photo mag, and now it’s yours to keep for free ON DISC 1

6 MINI-CAMS PAGE 46

1

6 INKJET PRINTERS PAGE 49

INCLUDES

5 VIRTUAL REALITY CAMERA TOURS Try before you buy! Our reviews come with this unique CD extra: rotate and view each main camera on-screen with our unique virtual-reality tour. It’s the next best thing to holding the camera in your hands!

OPINIONS & SHOPPING

Visit our website, read our reviews, post your own views, see what other readers think, then click straight through to buy the camera! It’s all part of the service www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

FULL Paint Shop Pro 5 TRIAL Paint Shop Pro version 7.04 TOURS 3D tours of our main camera reviews TEST SHOTS for each of our main cameras

ON DISC 2

FULL ColorPilot 3.86 FULL Arles Image Web Page Creator 3.3 TRIAL Photoshop 7 TRIAL PhotoImpact 8 FREEWARE AhaView 1.1 FREEWARE Cam2pc 2.0

Regulars

2

MEMORIES RESTORED PAGE 70

CREATIVE PHOTOS PAGE 86

THIS ISSUE WE SHOW YOU HOW TO…

The UK’s definitive reviews package every month

KONICA KD400-Z PAGE 34

TRAILBLAZING CHINA PAGE 58

£O1 40 F FULL

TAKE BETTER PICTURES Create a sense of intimacy Create a halo effect around hair Know when to use a fill-in flash Improvise a reflector for even lighting Choose the best camera settings Avoid over-posed pictures Photograph children Get better composition Use the zoom lens Create depth of field effects Take perfectly exposed photos

20 20 20 21 21 23 23 25 25 86 88

IMPROVE YOUR IMAGE-EDITING SKILLS Reduce and remove red-eye Correct skin tones and remove colour casts Create shadows, shrink images FREEWARE IrfanView 3.7 FREEWARE SlowView 1.0 Remove tears and rips FREEWARE HotTEXT Add missing picture regions FREEWARE Plugin Galaxy Fix contrast and low saturation FREE GIMP 1.2.4 DRIVERS Kodak Use layers in Elements and Photoshop Get more from Paint Shop Pro Simulate depth of field on a low-end camera Correct converging verticals

26 28 64 71 72 74 76 78 83 90

USE YOUR PC BETTER Find a specific image in a folder of hundreds Improve your print quality Publish your photos to an online community

120 121 122

SOFTWARE IN TOTAL!

EYEWITNESS Hotshots gallery Frontline news Hidden gadgets

p06 p12 p16

HELP AND ADVICE Photo clinic Your questions First steps

YOUR PHOTOS & LETTERS Day in the life Trailblazers Viewfinder

p56 p58 p60

FOLD-OUT SECTION AFTER PAGE 98 11 Firework tips Isle of Purbeck photos & maps Westonbirt

OFFERS Mobile phone Subscribe! Save money Money off Paint Shop Pro 7

p98 p144 p130 p133

BUYER GUIDE Cameras Printers Memory cards Batteries

p70 p90 p94

p138 p140 p142 p142

HOTSHOTSTURNOVER Every issue, we print the best digital photography we can find. Turn over now and see some of the shots that have inspired us this issue…

2

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

005

SHOT OF THE MONTH DOWNHILL RACER ROB SCOTT “This was taken with a Nikon D1X with rear curtainflash sync, battery-powered rear lighting and oncamera flash. I panned with the subject as he spun the bike, which blurred the background.”

02 03

04

02

Orchid Bob Garas “I used the macro setting to capture the orchid, then combined it with a picture of a bee in Photoshop to produce the final picture.” Canon G1 with two White Lightning 1200 Strobes [w] www.geocities.com/bgaras2001

03

Adrian Rayment Rob Scott “I was given an assignment to shoot one of the stars of the forthcoming film sequel, Matrix Reloaded. I shot him performing martial arts, at Brompton Road Cemetery in London.”

Nikon D1X with White Balance set to fluorescent [e] [email protected]

04

Fashion #01 Walcot Studios

Nikon D1X [w] www.thewalcotstudio.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

007

The essentials of imaging

Those who are happy to let their hearts rule their heads, stop here. Everyone else, read on. Made from durable magnesium, with a textured rubber grip, there’s no denying the new DiMAGE 7Hi looks (and feels) the business. More important still, it does it. Its 2/3 type CCD has an effective resolution of 5.0 million pixels, delivering A3 prints at 150 dpi. And its spec list reads like a ‘What’s What’ on state-of-the-art digital photography.

to its high volume, 64MB buffer memory). And in Extra Fine mode, it can produce JPEG images at 2.5:1 compression (which not only makes it ideal for shooting bright skies or shiny objects but also minimises loss in high frequency areas of the image). All this in a digital camera that also boasts a brilliantly

To maximise the CCD resolution, it has a premium all

designed multifunctional electronic viewfinder (it has a 100%

glass optical jewel Minolta GT lens with 7x optical zoom.

field of view and 900 tilt mechanism), a real time Histogram

And to produce vivid, natural colours, Minolta Cx image

display, and Adobe RGB and SRGB selectable colour spaces

processing. Even shooting clear, low noise images, with fine

built in.

detail in shadow areas, is easily achieved with its 12 bit A/D conversion system. What's more, pictures can be shot at dazzling speeds – in

It’s even equipped with a flash sync. terminal that can be connected to professional studio systems. Enough to go to your head, isn’t it?

fact, at up to 3 fps at full resolution, capturing as many as 5

The new DiMAGE 7Hi

RAW, three TIFF or 10 JPEG images in one sequence (thanks

Way ahead of the game.

www.dimage.minolta.com

05 06

07

05

Laura Jo James Game “Laura Jo is an aspiring model and actress who I photographed for her portfolio.” [w] www.inspiras.com

06

Fashion #02 Walcot Studios “We do a lot of fashion photography at our studio. We’ve just gone digital and the time and cost-savings have been well worth it. We mainly use Photoshop for image retouching rather than for creative effects.” [w] www.thewalcotstudio.co.uk

07

Soldier Grant Lynch “This was taken at a new First World War memorial in London and then manipulated in Photoshop.” Nikon D1X with Photoshop [w] www.specialimages.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

009

08 09

10

08

Strawberry Splash Michael Chiu

Sony DSC-F707 with Sony F1000 exterior flash [e] [email protected]

09

Melancholy Angel Melanie Kipp ”I took this in a cemetery in the mountains of southern West Virginia.” Minolta Dimage 7 with infra-red filter [w] www.caughtintimephotography.com

10

Serenity Keith Moss “This is a calming shot captured in Deer Hill Reservoir, near Huddersfield, late evening in the winter last year.” Olympus E10 [w] www.finephotoart.net

@

NOW SEND YOUR PIC!

Email us a 100K JPEG thumbnail of your best shots! The best wins a 128Mb Crucial CompactFlash card each issue.

[email protected] 010

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

The new Sony F717. The only thing it hasn’t got is you. For a start, there’s the 5.0 effective mega pixel Super HAD CCD and 5x optical Zoom which offer superb picture quality over a range of distances. Then there’s the Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar lens which delivers crisp, distortion-free images and ultra-faithful colour reproduction. Add to that the innovative rotating lens unit which lets you shoot from virtually any angle, and you start to get a feel for the photography this camera is capable of. Then consider the wide array of unique Sony noise reduction technologies. Slow shutter noise reduction helps you achieve clear, sharp images in low light. And the NightFraming mode enables you to capture perfectly framed, focused and exposed images in complete darkness by incorporating Sony’s infra-red NightShot, Hologram AF and pre-flash exposure systems. And if that fails to impress, take a look at the F717’s photographic features. The manual focus/zoom ring gives you increased control of each shot, while the histogram display helps you manage the exposure of every image. You can also enhance lighting options by attaching an external flash to the hot-shoe. And on top of this, you can select shutter speeds from 30 seconds to 1/2000th second, or ISO settings up to 800, giving you the flexibility to shoot in all conditions from low light to fast action. But we didn’t stop with what’s on the inside. The robust, ergonomic magnesium body is designed to offer all the controls you need at your fingertips, while the LCD menu system is as intuitive as it is comprehensive.

Customer Information Centre 08705 111 999 www.sony.co.uk ‘Sony’, ‘Handycam’, ‘InfoLITHIUM’, ‘STAMINA’, and ‘NightShot’ are trademarks of Sony Corporation, Japan. * Continuous shooting with flash switched off & LCD on (power save mode)

Of course, all this is academic without the power to keep going throughout a serious photo session. Which is why the F717 incorporates Sony STAMINA InfoLITHIUM battery technology, to keep you shooting for up to 210 minutes*, while the indicator on the LCD panel lets you know exactly how long you’ve got left. And when time is of the essence, simply hook up to your PC via the high-speed USB 2.0 connection and let the supplied Image Transfer software do all the work for you. So, put it all together, and the Sony F717 really is the camera that has it all. Well almost. The only thing you’ll want to add now is you.

Frontline

What’s new in November ■ Send us your news! Email [email protected]

PowerShot G3 adds new features Canon upgrades its award-winning 4-megapixel camera, and it hits the streets this November with a bigger zoom and new DIGIC image processor

THE POWERSHOT G2 WAS VOTED EUROPEAN DIGITAL CAMERA OF THE YEAR 2002 BY EUROPEAN IMAGING AND SOUND ASSOCIATION

T

he latest in the award-winning Canon PowerShot range boasts a range of enhanced features. The PowerShot G2 was voted European Digital Camera of the Year 2002 by industry organisation EISA (European Imaging and Sound Association), and has built itself an enviable reputation among keen photographers for its combination of fast lens (f2.0-2.5), 4-megapixel resolution and in-depth photographic controls. The new model, the G3, ups the zooming range from 4x to 3x and retains a maximum aperture of f3.0, even at the telephoto end of the range. The new DIGIC processor doesn't just improve picture quality (CCD control, exposure, focus, White Balance data, JPEG compression and more), it consumes less power, too, prolonging battery life. Ergonomic improvements have been made to

the G3, including a new context-sensitive control dial and the ability to choose between JPEG and RAW picture storage after a picture has been taken, and before it's saved to the memory card. Another new feature is iSAPS (Intelligent Scene Analysis based on Photographic Space), where the scene, focussing and shooting information are analysed and cross-referenced against a huge Photographic Space data library built into the camera. Luckily all these additions won't break the bank. At an anticipated price of £699 when it hits the dealers' shelves this November, the PowerShot G3 compares favourably in price with the outgoing model. Call Canon on 08705 143 723 to find out more or go to its website for full details at www.powershot.com/powershot2/g3/ index.html Details Built-in flash and 4x optical zoom lens CCD type 1/1.8-inch Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) Total pixels (approx) 4.1 million Effective pixels (approx) 4 million Focal length 7.2-28.8mm (equivalent: 34-140mm) Digital zoom 3.6x (maximum 14x digital zoom is available when combined with optical zoom.) Max aperture f/2.0- f/3.0 Shutter speeds 15-1/2,000 sec. Slow shutter of 1.3 seconds and more, operates with noise reduction. Sensitivity Auto, or user-set ISO 50, 100, 200 or 400 equivalent White Balance control TTL Auto White Balance, Pre-set White Balance or Custom White Balance Extras Wireless Control Shooting and playback are available. Computer-connected Shooting Available (Using included Remote Computer software. Required USB connection to compatible computer) Storage media CompactFlash (CF) Card Type I or Type II Resolution (still image) Large: 2,272 x 1,704; medium 1: 1,600 x 1,200, medium 2: 1,024 x 768; small: 640 x 480 Resolution (movie) 320 x 240 or 160 x 120

012

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

CANON POWERSHOT G3 £700

FUJIFILM FINEPIX M603 – £700

OLYMPUS CAMEDIA C-50 – £550

Award-winning digital camera gets a new image processor and zoom upgrade ■ See below

Tasty looking combination of still camera and digital video recorder ■ See below

5-megapixel camera with some interesting features at this price ■ See opposite

QUICK SHOTS NEW TOOL CORRECTS COLOUR CASTS Xe847 will autocorrect blue or green colour shifts, using techniques based on how people actually see a colour, rather than how the camera sees it. There’s a trial available at www.xe847.com for download.

NIKON TRAINING COURSES This autumn Nikon is launching a series of training courses. Previously offered exclusively to photo retailers, the courses are now available to all Nikon owners. Visit www.nikon. co.uk/training to find out more.

DIMAGE 7HI GETS PROFESSIONAL Minolta has used Photokina to launch an improved version of its highly rated DiMAGE 7. The DiMAGE 7Hi gets a new Synchro terminal for integration with professional studio lighting setups, improved sequence shooting speed and a better HyperFinder.

EXTREME XI Minolta has upgraded its DiMAGE X. The DiMAGE Xi has 3.3-megapixel resolution, 1.2seconds start-up time and other enhancements.

Fujifilm FinePix M603 combines photos and video Are you a digital photographer who fancies having a shot at digital video? Are you put off by CAMERAS the price of camcorders and don’t want to leave digital still photography behind? Then the FinePix M603 from Fujifilm may be the camera for you. The FinePix M603 combines 3-megapixel still photography with the ability to record 15 or 30 frames per second video at 640 x 480. It’s compatible with Fuji’s new xD card technology and has an IBM Microdrive, which is able to store up to 30 minutes of video on a 1Gb unit. On the photography side, the M603 has a 38-76mm lens (35mm equivalent) with 2x optical zoom and 4.4x digital zoom. The ISO values are 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 for rapid photography. It’s fully automatic but has manual overrides for tricky lighting conditions; control over metering, focus and White Balance; and the ability to annotate each picture with a 30second voice recording. The FinePix M603 with a 512Mb IBM Microdrive is expected to retail for about £700 when it goes on sale in this month.

Olympus C-50 ZOOM hits 5 megapixels A new 5-megapixel successor to the Olympus C-50 is set to be released this month, priced at CAMERAS around £550. Supporting the new xD memory format, it includes a 32Mb Picture Card, TruePic imageoptimisation technology (a first at this end of the range, according to Olympus), and a number of automatic and manually-adjustable settings. It’s also the first Olympus to come with a Lithium-ion battery and charger, which means the size of the camera can be reduced while maintaining longer battery life between charges. Further highlights include an f2.8/f4.8 3x optical zoom lens, 5x digital zoom, manual exposure control plus spotmetering features. The 5-megapixel CCD enables a maximum picture resolution of 2,560 x 1,920 pixels, with six resolutions. You can save images as JPEG or TIFF files; there’s a movie mode that can handle 16 seconds of video at 320 x 240 at 15 frames per second; plus there are auto-bracketing, macro and panorama modes.

For more details and a full specification list, visit www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/ digimg/intro.cfm?id=C-50ZOOM

A public demonstration can be an ideal chance to capture some great pictures. The anti-war march in London revealed why The time: 28th September 2002. The place: London With the prospect of an attack on Iraq growing ever-stronger, the public got its first chance to take to the streets, with the anti-war demonstration in London at the end of September. Organised by the Stop the War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Britain, as many as 400,000 people descended on London from across the country. The demo was remarkably peaceful – indeed, there was something of a carnival atmosphere with some demonstrators arriving in costume – George Bush, Darth Vader and a group of people dressed as a tank were spotted. Americans joined Muslims, Saudis and British from all over the UK, taking several hours to travel the route from the Embankment, along the banks of the Thames, to Hyde Park. One demonstrator, Chris Croome, whose photos of the event can be seen at http://chris.croome.net/photos/ 2002/London_anti-war_demo_28_September had a bad day. Not only did he break his zoom lens, but he also lost 100 images (including dramatic pictures near Downing Street where an orange smoke bomb was let off), when the batteries went flat while he transferred his pictures to his PC. Despite this bad luck, we think the surviving images still manage to capture the spirit of the event. More pictures: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2286687.stm

New entry-level Canon inkjets Smaller footprints plus better image quality reckons Canon Two new printers have been released by Canon, both aimed at the home market. The i320 PRINTER features 2,400 x 1,200dpi resolution, USB 2.0 support and claims a print speed of 54 seconds for a 4 x 6-inch 1,200dpi colour photo. It’s expected to cost around £69. The i550, pictured opposite, features faster printing (45 seconds for a 1,200dpi 4 x 6-inch photo) and the ability to take up to 150 pages in its sheet feeder. It also offers bi-directional printing, which means only two passes of the printhead have to be made when outputting colour pages. Most importantly, it can output prints at 4,800 x 1,200dpi resolution. Both printers promise 25 years lightfastness using Canon’s paper, and can handle

borderless printing, too – find out more at Canon’s website, at www.canon.co.uk/ bubblejet

TALKBACK

1

Each month we will poll our readers about a key issue in digital photography, via our website, and report the results here. Visit digitalcameramagazine.co.uk to find out more!

Behindtheimage

New successor to C-40 ZOOM hits the streets in November

2

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

013

WIDEANGLE

What’s happening around the world

LONDON UNITED KINGDOM

TAIWAN

VANITY FAIR

NEW LAW HITS SPIES

Research from Hewlett-Packard reveals that 64 per cent of Britons are deeply embarrassed by photographs of themselves, and 72 per cent of all women hate their pictures. 52 per cent of people questioned are happy to tweak their own images to make themselves look better, while 18 per cent of respondents would undergo major digital surgery on themselves in order to look ideal.

A new law is being passed to ensure hotel, shop and restaurant owners regularly sweep their premises for concealed digital cameras. Spying and voyeurism have become a major problem in Taiwan, with intimate pictures being taken without people’s consent, then cut to CD and traded. SEATTLE USA

MICROSOFT REINVENTS JPEGS

ST LOUIS USA

ROBOT WEDDINGS A new robot photographer has been invented to take wedding snaps, which don’t look posed or forced. Research shows that people don’t feel as self-conscious being captured by a robot camera, resulting in more natural images. The robot is able to frame pictures according to the rule of thirds.

Microsoft has invented a new image format, which compresses image files to half the size of conventional JPEGs. It’s part of its new Tablet PC but, as yet, there’s no sign that it will appear in its digital photography products.

recalled by Kodak due to a possible electric shock hazard. If you have one, phone Kodak on 0870 243 0270 to get it inspected and, if necessary, repaired.

QUICK SHOTS

JAPAN LONDON UNITED KINGDOM

CHIPS GET BIGGER

KODAK SHOCKER

Sony has upped the stakes with a new 6.15-megapixel CCD, producing images of 3,040 x 2,024 pixels.

Bad news for Kodak DC5000 ZOOM camera owners – it’s been

The CCD is also physically larger – it’s approximately the same area as APS film. This means camera makers are now able to use standard optics across digital and traditional product lines, and thus reduce prices.

Digital use set to rocket You thought this year was exciting? Wait for 2003…

CANON EXPECTS TO MAKE NO FEWER THAN FOUR MILLION DIGITAL CAMERAS THIS FINANCIAL YEAR

2 3 Best Sellers 014

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

BEST SELLER Sony DSC-P9 Cyber-shot £389

Epson has updated its photo printer range with four new models. They include the Stylus Photo 830, with up to 5760 'optimised' dpi, and the 1290S, which replaces the old A3sized 1290, with improved edge-toedge printing. Find out more at www.epson.co.uk

SONY DYESUB

Digital camera makers seem to have been taken by surprise by the dramatic acceleration in digital CAMERAS camera sales. Canon, for example, reckons that sales of its digital cameras will outstrip those of analogue models as early as 2003. That’s sales in numbers, not just by value. Indeed, Canon expects to make no fewer than four million digital cameras this financial year – 70 per cent up on the year before. Sony-commissioned research suggested in January 2002 that digital camera sales would rise by 30 per cent, but by May the increase was 65 per cent, year on year. While HP reckons 40 per cent of camera owners in the UK have now gone digital, another 40 per cent is planning to. So why is digital taking off? We all know the main reasons – speed, editability, convenience and

Information supplied by www.dabs.com

NEW EPSON

Two new digital home printers are coming from Sony. The DPP-EX7 and DPP-EX5 offer printing direct from Memory Stick or USB, employ dyesub printing technology, and have image quality of 3.8 megapixels. Find out more at www.sony.co.uk

so on – but HP has found another attraction. The company’s research suggests that people like the idea that their photos can be digitally enhanced to make them look better, though there are regional variations. Northerners are the most likely to own a digital camera (41.5 per cent), but are least likely to resort to cosmetic adjustments. East Anglians are the most insecure, with 31 per cent admitting that they throw away unflattering photos and 18 per cent using digitalimaging tricks.

SUB-£100 Sipix StyleCam Blink £36.42

SUB-£300 Nikon Coolpix 2000 £179.77

FASTER PCS

SUB-£800 Fujifilm FinePix S602 £546.37

Packard Bell's new iXtreme 9701 uses Intel's latest chip running at an eyewatering 2.8GHz to provide more processing power. It backs this up with 512Mb RAM and a 120Gb hard disk drive. Available in PC World for £1,700.

W

ith convergence of digital products gaining pace, we’re seeing exciting gadgets and gizmos being released that have multiple functions – often ones that you just wouldn’t expect. With advances in miniaturisation, more and more features are being crammed into mobile phones, PDAs and other portable devices, and digital camera functionality is just one area where there’s been strident growth. With the dawn of photo messaging on mobile phones and the associated desire to be able to email images quickly and easily from portable digital assistants, the digital camera is creeping into increasingly diverse environments. A camera in a pen? You’d better believe it…

Not all digital cameras look like digital cameras – Paul Pettengale discovers a variety of kit that does more than just the obvious

Hidden away!

GADGETS CAMERA-ENABLED KIT

.

£250 www.casio.co.uk Incorporating a digital camera into a watch is an excellent use of miniaturisation, as demonstrated by this model from Casio. As well as working as a fully functioning digital watch, with all the usual gizmos, the WQV-10 can also take still images of up to 16 million colours that can be stored on its internal 1Mb of memory or beamed via IR to your PDA or laptop.

06/CASIO WQV-10 WRIST CAMERA

£450 www.sony.co.uk This PDA from Sony is a cut above the rest. Using the Palm OS it’s a cinch to operate and it has a raft of functions. For instance, there’s the built-in digital camera, with which you can take high resolution snaps to email to friends or colleagues.

05/SONY CLIÉ N70V PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT

£330 www.casio.co.uk The EX-M1 from Casio is a product with something of a split personality – is it a digital camera, or an MP3 player? The answer is both. As well as taking 1,280 x 960 digital stills and saving them onto removable SD and MMC memory cards, it can also store and playback MP3 files, so you can listen to music on the move.

04/CASIO EXILIM EX-M1 DIGITAL CAMERA/MP3 PLAYER

£149 www.captureview.co.uk This pair of binoculars from Meade has hidden functionality: frame something you want a permanent record of and you can press a ‘shoot’ button to take a digital snap. With autofocusing and automatic exposure settings, all you have to do it hit a single button to capture precisely what you’re looking at through the 8x viewfinder. The resolution’s limited to 640 x 480 and there’s just 8Mb of built-in memory, but you can download images from the CaptureView to your PC via the supplied USB.

03/MEADE CAPTUREVIEW BINOCULARS

£600 020 8964 9111 One for aspiring international spies among you: the Pencam from Swann houses a tiny digital video camera and transmitter. Click the pen once to start filming, and then a second time to stop. The transmitter has a range of up to 100 metres, though you’ll obviously need a receiver, too, as the pen can’t record – merely transmit. Very cool, but what would you use it for?

02/SWANN PENCAM SW-P-PC PEN CAMERA

£300 www.nokia.co.uk Photo messaging via mobile phones is going to be the next big thing, but you’ll need a mobile with a built-in digital camera to take advantage of this new craze. The 7650 from Nokia is an ideal choice – simply use the colour screen as a viewfinder and then point and shoot to take your snap. You can then send the pic to a friend on the same network, or email it to a computer.

NOKIA 7650 MOBILE PHONE WITH MMS

FEATURE

PHOTOGRAPHING PEOPLE YOUR GUIDE STEVE BAVISTER Steve is a photographic journalist and freelance photographer. He is editor of The Photographer, a leading magazine for pro photographers, and author of ten books on photography including Digital Photography and Take Better Family Photos

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO STEVE BAVISTER

People are easily the most popular subject, but you need to think carefully about what you are trying to achieve, says Steve Bavister, if you want to produce pictures with lasting appeal

S

ince its invention over 160 years ago, photography’s most popular subject has always been people – by a long way. While a relatively small band of enthusiasts have specialist interests such as landscape, still life or natural history, the majority of pictures taken are of family and friends. Whether we’re out having a wonderful time or simply relaxing at home, we like nothing more than to record the occasion for posterity. But all too often the results disappoint – failing to capture the magic of the moment or the personalities of those present. Even people you know really well can get tense and nervous when a camera is pointed at them, resulting in awkward poses and cheesy grins that ruin the shot. Other images are let down by technical considerations such as poor composition, ghoulish red-eye, inaccurate focus, wrong exposure or unflattering lighting.

Of course, one of the great advantages of using a digital camera is that you can review the pictures immediately, and shoot them again if they’re not quite right – or even salvage them later on a computer.

Getting it right But sometimes the opportunity has gone and there is no second chance – such as blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. So it makes sense to get it right first time. At the heart of the problem is the fact that many photographers just pick up the camera and snap away without thinking about what they are trying to achieve or how to get the best from the situation. However, with the right approach, a picture can be a true and lasting portrait that reveals something of the real people or a treasured memento of a precious moment – not just a superficial snapshot. The bad news about taking pictures of people this time of year is that it gets dark so early, and if you’re shooting after late afternoon the only option is to use the camera’s built-in flashgun. The good news is

Even people you know really well can get tense and nervous when a camera is pointed at them 018

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

that over the next couple of months there will be loads of parties, school plays and so forth, and you won’t find yourself short of subjects. The problem with using flash is that it’s not subtle. Because it blasts light directly at your subject, you’re not going to get the best shots in the world. All too often you end up with white, over-exposed faces staring out from a m

Shallow depth of field isolates the subject from the background Direct eye contact with the camera engages the viewer Muted background colours don’t distract from the main subject The model’s hair and arm pose help to frame the face

WHY WE CHOSE OUR COVER PICTURE

4

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

019

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHING PEOPLE

3 IMAGE EXPLAINED 1 Touching heads together creates a sense of intimacy and avoids the camera sensor focusing on the background 2 Shooting into the light puts a halo of light around the girls’ hair and back 3 Setting the built-in flashgun to give a burst of fillin flash ensures that the faces are fully illuminated and there’s an attractive ‘catchlight’ in the eye 4 Using the top end of the 4 2 camera's zoom range and placing the girls some 1 distance from the background gives a three3 dimensional effect

An increasing number of digital cameras allow you to select the aperture and shutter speed settings black background. Worse still, your subjects may suffer from red-eye, caused by the flash reflecting back from the blood vessels at the back of the eye. While red-eye is not difficult to correct using an image-editing program, why make work for yourself when it can often be avoided?

Dealing with flash Many cameras feature a red-eye reduction facility that will diminish and sometimes eliminate red-eye in the majority of situations. If you don’t have such an option you could try switching on the room light – the pupil of the person you’re photographing will close down, reducing the risk of their eyes ending up red.

020

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

You can minimise the likelihood of over-exposure when using flash by not getting too close to your subject. Around two metres is a good working distance with most built-in guns. If you have children, though, and want to photograph them in the Christmas play, you may need to increase the sensitivity setting on your camera, from ISO 100 to 400 or even 800. The quality won’t be quite as good, but it will increase the effective range, and reduce the possibility of under-exposure. Getting there early and bagging a front row seat is also a good idea. Sometimes you’ll have to use flash, and it’s ideal for ‘party’ pictures, but if you aspire to more than that – perhaps taking portraits with style and quality – it’s to the many moods of daylight you should turn.

Making the most of natural light If, like many photographers, you associate taking pictures outside with sunlight and blue skies, you might not be inclined to step through your front door with your camera in your hand at this time of year. But, in fact, the

gentle light you get in autumn and early winter is a lot more attractive than the fierce light of summer. Cloudy days in particular are perfect for people photography of all kinds. Shadows are much softer and more flattering, minimising lines on more mature faces. And even when the sun is shining, the fact that it’s lower in the sky means you don’t get ugly, dark areas under the eyes, nose and chin as you do in brighter weather conditions. In fact, the position of your subject in relation to the sun is of prime importance – and different results will be achieved at different times of the day, as the sun rises, circles the heavens, and then sets. Of all the kinds of lighting available to the photographer, top lighting is probably the least satisfactory. You get it in the middle of the day, when the sun is at its highest. Because shadows are point down and relatively dense, it really is best avoided whenever possible. The best times for portrait photography outside are morning and afternoon, when the sun is

a closer to the horizon. Place the sun behind you and your subjects will be evenly lit, with a catchlight (a point of light that’s a reflection from the sun) in their eyes, bringing them to life. A simple way to make the light even more appealing is to improvise a reflector of the type widely used by professional photographers. Any white or reflective material will do – a white piece of card, an old sheet or a square of polystyrene. Simply ask the person to hold it at waist height, so it’s not seen in the picture, and you’ll be astonished how much it improves the lighting. If you have a friend on hand who can act as an ‘assistant’, try positioning your subject so they’re lit

from the side, with the reflector held vertically on the opposite side to bounce light back into the shaded areas. Reflectors are also valuable when taking pictures into the sun – or contre-jour, as it’s also known. The backlighting from this arrangement can be attractive because of the ‘Ready-Brek’ glow it gives to hair and body, but if you just shoot away you may end up with a silhouette. Setting your camera’s flash menu to provide ‘fill flash’ can be an effective, but less controllable, way of making sure people are fully illuminated. When taking pictures outdoors in autumn and winter it’s a good idea whenever you can to get your

You can make people look thinner by asking them to stand at 45˚ to the camera, rather than square on to it

As well as photographing people standing and sitting, try out shots of them lying on the floor or leaning against a wall

2 APERTURE CONTROL If your camera enables you to select the aperture, you have direct control over how much of the finished picture appears sharp. There is a zone, technically called the depth of field, in front of and behind the point on which the camera lens is focused, which varies according to the size of the aperture. When you set a small aperture (confusingly, a big number such as f/11 or f/16), there’s a large zone of sharpness, with most things appearing in focus. When you set a large aperture (a smaller number, such as f/5.6 or f/8), the zone is much narrower, and only the main subject sharp. Choosing a small aperture is ideal where you want to show your subjects in their natural environment. Selecting a large aperture is preferable where you want to concentrate attention on the person.

1

By focusing on an area in front of the subject and choosing a large aperture setting, the subject is outside the shallow area of depth of field. This creates the unusual effect here

1

By selecting a small aperture, more of the subjects in the shot remain in focus. Unlike their traditional film equivalents, digital cameras rarely offer a depth of field preview, so some experimentation may be required to get the result you want

1 Extreme depth of field effects can be enhanced in an image-editing program. Here, the effect of shallow depth of field has been greatly exaggerated by digitally blurring the background Learn more about depth of field in our camera techniques feature on page 86

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

021

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS The best way to get an interesting facial expression is to be unobtrusive. Don’t ask your subject to ‘say cheese’ – instead, lie low and snap off a few shots when they’re least expecting it

022

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

g 2

FILL-IN FLASH

Only gloomy days it's a good idea to set your camera's flashgun to fire a burst of fill-in flash balanced to the existing lighting to make sure that your subject is fully illuminated.

subjects to wear bright clothes, to stop them blending into their surroundings.

Camera settings The lens setting you use and where people are positioned in respect to the background are important factors. If you want people to stand out, so the emphasis is on them rather than the surroundings, you should use the top end of your zoom range and get them to stand well away from the background. What this does at a technical level is reduce the depth of field – the amount of the scene that appears sharp in the finished picture. If you have a powerful zoom and the backdrop is some way behind, your subject will stand out almost three dimensionally. When you want to shoot an environmental portrait, showing people in their surroundings, you should do the opposite – go for a wide-angle setting and position people close to the background. An increasing number of digital cameras allow you to select the aperture and shutter speed settings, rather than leave it to the camera’s exposure system. If you have this option, you can control the depth of field in a direct and creative way.

Before you take a picture, look around the frame to see if there's anything messy or potentially distracting

When shooting indoors using room lighting, switch off ceiling lighting, which causes ugly shadows, and use table lamps instead

2 WIDE-ANGLE CONSIDERATIONS Experimenting with wide-angle lens settings can produce some interesting effects when shooting people. Wide angle lenses cause some interesting, if at times unflattering distortion of the facial features, and the wider the lens you use the more this will be apparent. You can also try experimenting with the Spherize filter in Adobe Photoshop/Elements on a normal picture to recreate the effect of a wide-angle lens.

Taking candid photos

8

Whether you shoot indoors or outside, getting your subjects to relax while you’re photographing them can sometimes be a challenge. As soon as you pick up your camera and point it in their direction many people get tense and nervous – with stiff body language and frozen smiles ruining the shot. Or worse, they start acting up and pulling silly faces. But there’s a simple way to avoid these problems – by shooting candid pictures. Instead of asking people to pose, you photograph them when they’re unaware of you. This allows you capture them as they really are, at their most natural, enabling you to get a glimpse of their real character. And shooting candid pictures isn’t hard to do. You simply have to develop a different way of working. Instead of getting people to ‘Say Cheese’, you stand at a distance using a telephoto lens setting, waiting for the right moment to release the shutter. Expressions change in a fleeting second, and opportunities can arise and be gone before you know it – blink and you miss them. So you need to concentrate on your subject completely, anticipating the right moment and acting decisively when everything falls into place. Of course, if you’re shooting candids indoors using flash, the first picture you take will give the game away. Outside, though, you may be able to take a sequence of pictures, especially if the person is immersed in some kind of activity or chatting to someone else. The downside of candids is that you have little control over things such as lighting or background, and for that reason you will almost certainly want to control the two approaches.

Taking posed photos If you do go the posed route, be prepared to offer direction rather than leave people to their own devices. The more you tell them what to do, within reason, the more confident they will be in your abilities. It’s best to

have some idea how you would like to start things in terms of location, pose, lighting and composition, and then make changes as you go along. The best way to put people at their ease is to chat to them about things that interest them, such as their hobbies or work – taking pictures as they grow more animated and lost in the conversation.

Photographing children This works particularly well with children, who often have a short attention span, and get bored with posing quickly. Subjects such as pop music and TV programmes are a good place to start, and a fund of knock-knock jokes or amusing stories can help break the ice with

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

023

It's truly total image editing software. Manage and edit your digital photos with dragand-drop ease. Create 3D images while applying special effects -- you don't even have to buy a plug-in first. If Web creation is more your style, produce graphics and entire Web pages without opening an HTML program. To top it off, burn complete photo albums to CD! Available at www.ulead.co.uk

Ulead PhotoImpact 8

f

Flatter people and make them look younger by using the flash whatever the weather. This softens shadows and bleaches lines. To reduce any potential harshness, secure a piece of tissue over the flash – this diffuses the light

2 EXPERIMENTING WITH COLOUR 01

Some digital cameras may give you the option to shoot in black and white, but for greater flexibility shoot in colour and then convert the image on your PC. Contrasty images work best when converting to black and white but this can also be tweaked in your contrast settings in your image editor. Here we see various colour alternatives, as well as black and white, try experimenting with duo, trio and quadtones. 1 Monochrome variation 2 Sepia toned image 3 Duotone image (black + yellow) 4 Duotone image (black + magenta)

©THE WALCOT STUDIOS [w] www.thewalcotstudio.co.uk

02

03

youngsters. As any parent knows, if you’re bossy they’ll start to rebel. Encourage them to try different poses rather than telling them to – perhaps by getting them to play with a favourite pet or toy, or asking them to pretend they’re a princess or king. One of the key things when photographing children is to get down to their level, both literally and metaphorically. Crouching so you’re the same height as them means you don’t get awkward expressions as they strain to look up at you. Babies are easy to photograph, because they stay where you put them, but toddlers can be tricky because they tend to be in perpetual motion – rushing towards you when you try to photograph them. For that reason a candid approach is more likely to be successful.

Improving composition As with other areas of photography, composition plays an important part in portraiture. How big you make the person in the frame, and where you place them is, to a large degree, a matter of personal preference. And while you will obviously want to enhance images once you get them on a computer, you don’t want to lose quality by throwing too many pixels away – and it’s a good idea to get your composition as right as possible in the first place.

One option is to include all of the person. This works well if you want to show them in context, but can lack impact because they often seem far away. For general picture-taking a three-quarters crop, typically from just above the knees, is a good choice – the face isn’t so small in the frame but you can still see the background. For maximum impact, try cropping even tighter, to a head and shoulders. You get lots of eye contact, and the only real downside is you don’t see any of the setting. If your camera has a zoom lens, it’s better to use that to fill the frame with the subject, rather than move physically closer. Avoid taking tightly cropped pictures of people at the wide-angle end of your range – the distortion that results is far from flattering. As you go closer you need to make sure you focus on the eyes because the depth of field is greatly reduced, and if the eyes are unsharp it tends to make the whole picture look wrong. When photographing one person, you’ll often want to place them at the centre of the frame – though it’s worth experimenting with other positions, such as to the side, or even dynamic compositions such as at a diagonal, by tilting the camera. When photographing two people together, you should aim to capture something of the relationship between them. If they’re related in some way, getting

04

One of the great advantages of using a digital camera is that you can show your subjects the results straight away them to put their arms around each other and tip their heads together is a simple way to create a sense of intimacy. It also avoids the common problem of the focusing sensor going between the heads and focusing on the background – with both people ending up out of focus. With groups, try to avoid lining them up like a firing squad. The key to success lies in making sure you can see everyone’s face and that there’s some kind of shape or structure. One simple technique is to create a ‘triangle’, with the tallest person in the middle, and others slightly in front and to the side. Whoever you photograph, and however you photograph them, one of the great advantages of using a digital camera is that you can show your subjects the results straight away, giving them immediate feedback on how they’re coming across. And once they see they look okay, they’ll noticeably relax, paving the way for even better images.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

025

FEATURE

PHOTOGRAPHING PEOPLE

Red-eye removal

8

It’s a hoary old problem – people’s eyes going demonic red when taking photos indoors with a flash. It’s easily fixed…

QUICK TIPS FIXING RED-EYE IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2 1 Select the Red Eye brush from the tools palette. 2 Choose a brush from the pop-up palette and select an appropriate brush size. You can select the colour you want to remove when you click in the relevant part of the image. 3 Choose a replacement colour, either via Default Colours or Replacement colour. You will probably want a good, deep black. 4 Choose a Tolerance (how close in colour different pixels must be to the ones they are replacing). The lower the tolerance, the closer the colours need to be to those they are replacing. 5 Click the pupils to change their colour.

O

ne of the most basic problems when photographing people, is red eye when using a flash. Red eye happens when the bright light from a camera’s flash unit reflects off the the subject’s retina. Some cameras have red eye reduction features built-in but even then, you may still have this problem Luckily, it’s something easily fixed. Many low-end photo editing programs feature dedicated red-eye removal tools and wizards. The latest versions of Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact and Photoshop elements all do but surprisingly the gorilla of the bunch, Photoshop, expects you to do it all manually. We’ve used Photoshop to show you how to fix it without recourse to fancy tools, but if you have Elements 2, take a look at our tip opposite.

01

SELECT THE EYES

03

COLORIZE THE LAYER

Mark up both eyes with a selection marquee ready to edit. Use any of the selection tools with the Shift key held down to select both affected eyes in the photo. For best accuracy, you should zoom in and trace around the eyes with the Lasso.

02

DESATURATE TO GREY

04

REDUCE THE LAYER OPACITY

Shift the reds to greys. Under the Image menu, go to Adjustments and choose Desaturate. This turns the red in the eyes to grey. In the Layers palette, click on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer button and pick Hue/Saturation.

Two steps to heaven There are several ways to approach the problem using paint brushes and alpha channels, but here we’ve chosen the most popular method using an easy two-step technique: first turn the red to grey, then Colorize that grey to something else. Using an adjustment layer also enables you to temper unrealistically coloured eyes by making the layer partly transparent. Now take a look opposite:

Apply a new colour to the selected grey eyes. The Hue/Saturation dialog window appears automatically. Add a tick next to Colorize, drag the Saturation slider to the centre (50%) and drag the Hue slider until you find the eye colour you want. Click OK.

Artificially applied colour can look fake so tone it down with layer transparency. Tone it down by dragging on the Opacity slider in the Layers window. This allows some of the grey in the Background layer to temper the hue you chose.

FEATURE

PHOTOGRAPHING PEOPLE

8

Correcting skin tones Get that skin colour right!

QUICK TIPS USING PHOTOSHOP The best tool for repairing skin tones is Photoshop, because it enables you to work in CMYK mode (the four colours that make up printed colours – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). You can precisely adjust the CMYK values separately. USING ELEMENTS 1 & 2 The Variations tool (under Enhance) enables you to add more of certain colours. USING PAINT SHOP PRO 7 Do something similar using the Manual Colour Tool to remove a cold colour cast and replace it with a warm colour category like ‘woods’. See www.jasc.com/tutorials/ robin/ for more information.

M

aking skin look correct is very difficult because people have an idea in their head what colour skin ought to look, regardless how the rest of the image appears. Another problem is certain kinds of lighting conditions or a predominance of colours like blue (like outside on a sunny day) can affect the balance of all the other colours, deadening them or making skin tones look cold. Luckily your image editor contains tools which enable you either to replace these colour casts or add warm colours to your image to offset them. On the other hand, once you begin editing a photo for skin tones, it’s easy to lose track and end up sending everyone’s faces pink instead of buff.

01

ADD AN ADJUSTMENT LAYER

03

ADJUST THE COLOUR BALANCE

Start with a new Adjustment Layer for each action. Open the Layers palette, click on the Add A New Fill or Adjustment Layer button and choose Curves from the drop-down list. An Adjustment Layer is created and the Curves dialog window appears.

02

TUG THE CONTRAST

04

NUDGE LEVELS

Adding more contrast will prevent dark areas from colourising in subsequent steps. In the Curves dialog window, tug the diagonal line down slightly from the middle in order to turn it into a gentle curve.

Fixing it up The quickest method is to experiment with Variations under Photoshop’s Image8Adjustments menu or Elements’ Enhance menu, but careful use of multiple Adjustment Layers gives you more control. This is especially important when you’re trying to add colour to skin (as shown here) rather than take it away. You can do something similar in Paint Shop Pro 7 although the tools here are less flexible. Probably the best rule of thumb is: add reds, to warm up an image. Take a look opposite:

Use sliders to swing the emphasis from greens to reds in the photo’s midtones. Click OK, then use the Add A New Fill or Adjustment Layer button to create a Color Balance layer. Gently move the sliders to compensate one channel colour against another. Click OK.

Moderate the colour change by adjusting the Levels balance to finish. Create another Adjustment Layer, this time choosing Levels from the drop-down list. A tiny adjustment is required here. In our case, a slight movement of the middle slider to the right.

Preserve your Memories on CD or DVD

From your camcorder…

From your digital camera…

From your PC…

…to your TV.

The fun and easy way to share your home movies and digital photos on CD and DVD • Capture from digital cameras and camcorders • Photo and video manipulation tools • Create motion menus • Automatic slideshow creation • Automatically fit your slideshow to your music • Automatic label creation

For more information call us on 01895 424228 or visit us at www.pinnaclesys.com/expression/digicam www.pinnaclesys.com

The Official Magazine

Tablet PC Edition What will handwriting recognition, wireless networking and complete portability do for you? Your complete guide to the next generation mobile computer!

Special edition with CD & free mousemat! Available 14 November 2002 priced £5.99 Call 0870 444 8470 to order a copy now!

From the makers of Microsoft Windows XP: The Official Magazine The Official Magazine

Microsoft and the Windows XP logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries

4

NEWHARDWARE&SOFTWARE

100% definitive

Kit reviews

Our reviews are carefully crafted to give you all the info you need

What you’ll want next, reviewed and rated

H

ello and welcome to the first reviews section of Digital Camera Magazine. As our reviews section develops in future issues, it will be our aim to be the first to bring you the very latest digital cameras and related software. This month, with aftershave ads on TV pointing ominously to Christmas, we thought it would be a good idea to kick off with some of the crop of compact cameras out on the market at the moment. We’ve taken a representative sample of cameras so you can see what your money will buy you in the £300 to £600 price range. We have a slightly belated look at Photoshop Elements 2 on page 42. With its huge range of quality image-editing features for the digital camera user on a budget, this program quite simply blows the competition away.

MAIN CAMERA REVIEWS

On a slightly different tack, digital photography isn’t just about the best kit at top prices. Many of us also want a second, cheaper mini camera that is small enough to slip in a pocket, and handy for firing off a few shots when something catches our eye. We’ve compared six of the best in our two-page review of mini cameras on page 46. What’s the best format for storing your image collection away from your computer? A 750Mb Zip disc or a CD-RW drive? We look at two solutions from Iomega on page 45. Finally, all this great kit is no good if your printer coughs out bad quality prints or produces colours that fade faster than a British racing driver. We’ve put six colour A4 inkjets through the Digital Camera Magazine labs. Check out the results before you buy – we think you’ll be surprised…

BEST BUY CAMERA – KONICA KD-400Z

■ FUJIFILM FINEPIX F401 P32 ■ KONICA KD-400Z P34 ■ OLYMPUS C-4000 ZOOM P36 ■ TOSHIBA PDR-T20 P38 ■ KODAK DX4330 P40 SOFTWARE REVIEWS

■ ADOBE ELEMENTS 2 P42 ■ QUICK FIX PLUG-INS P44 ARCHIVING SOLUTIONS

■ IOMEGA ZIP 750 P45 ■ IOMEGA PREDATOR 2 P45 MINI CAMERAS

■ SIPIX STYLECAM BLINK P46 ■ FUJIFILM FINEPIX A101 P46 ■ MUSTEK GSMART MINI2 P46 ■ FUJIFILM @XIA SLIMSHOT P47 ■ PHOTOCLIP 5-IN-1 P47 ■ SONY DSC-U10 P47 LAB TEST

■ 6 SUB-£350 INKJETS P49

BEST BUY CAMERA – OLYMPUS

ADOBE ELEMENTS 2

C P49 WORTH A LOOK

Reviews you can trust

alternative options, test shots, standard shots, 3D virtual tours on our CD, plus direct links to buy online, via our website ■ Clear We use diagrams, comparisons and boxes to ensure each review delivers a definitive verdict

2

ON OUR CD All camera test and comparison shots are on-disc.

3D TOUR Virtual tour of this camera can be found on our CD.

ON OUR WEBSITE Reviews, links to suppliers, reader opinions, latest prices.

BEST BUY Awarded to a final score of 90% plus. This product delivers what it promises.

WORTH A LOOK Alternative offerings from rival camera manufacturers.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

£

5

DIGITAL RANGE Four to five manufacturer alternatives so you can see if it’s worth spending a bit more money.

4

Our mission is to ensure that when you buy a camera, you are completely informed about its best and worst features. To this end, we guarantee each review is:

■ Independent We have a cast-iron policy of editorial independence. Suppliers never see a review until the magazine hits the newsagent ■ Authoritative Every review includes the manufacturer's range,

FEATURES Rates the strength of the specification IMAGES Rates resolution, colour balance, ability to handle varying conditions and accuracy BUILD Rates styling and how well the camera has been constructed VALUE Rates whether the camera is good value for money

What our reviews icons mean

LAB TEST – INKJETS

P42

LINKS TO THE WEB Visit our website for even more info.

P45

* P34

3D CAMERA TOURS Try before you buy! Rotate and view each camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour.

How our scoring system works 90+ An outstanding and almost faultless product. Buy it! 80-89 A well thought out product let down by a few minor details 70-79 A product that scores well and is worth considering 50-69 Average. A middle-of-theroad product that certainly doesn't set the world alight 30-49 A below average product 0-29 Something that insults the intelligence of people everywhere

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

P36

COMPARISON STRIP Peel back each righthand page, line up the Performance strip with the other strips, and compare the test shots from each camera.

EACH SCORE IS OUT OF 100

IOMEGA ZIP 750

OTHER MAKES Is there a better deal available from another manufacturer?

CAMERA RANGE Is it better to pay a bit more for a bit extra? Our 'range' box on the bottom left-hand corner of the review lists other cameras supplied by the manufacturer.

CONTACT OUR REVIEWS TEAM

If you have a comment about our reviews, or a product you would like us to test, please email us at [email protected]. Visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk for reader verdicts

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

031

REVIEWS

2-MEGAPIXEL ZOOM COMPACT FUJIFILM FINEPIX F401 Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£400 2.1 megapixels 38-114mm 3x zoom 16Mb SmartMedia Fuji 020 7586 1477 www.fujifilm.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Fujifilm FinePix F401 The FinePix F401 is the baby of Fujifilm’s F range, sitting below the F601. It shares some similar styling features with the F601, but it’s a lot more compact, and it has its own special charms…

*

ON OUR COVERDISC

VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

T

he F401 is one of the best looking ultracompact digital cameras around, with a sleek silver finish and glowing blue lights. The camera’s on switch is the vertical strip of silver that houses the three blue lights. Pull this back and the Super EBC Fujinon lens pops out to provide a useful 38-114mm, 3x optical zoom range. The automatic aperture selection is based on a range of f2.8-f4.8/f7f11.6, making the lens quite slow at full zoom. When not in use, the camera hides the lens behind a strong in-set cover.

4 1

Round the back

C

ON OUR WEBSITE

OPINIONS & SHOPPING Visit our website, read our review, post your views, see what other readers think then click straight through to buy this camera! digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL RANGE

FUJIFILM F6800 ZOOM Price: £550 Megapixels: 3.1 F601 ZOOM Price: £500 Megapixels: 3.1

5

F401 ZOOM Price: £400 Megapixels: 2.1 2600 ZOOM Price: £220 Megapixels: 2

£

5 032

A101 Price: £120 Megapixels: 1.3

Turning our attention to the reverse of the camera, there’s a small viewfinder at the top, which you really have to squint through, but it does its job well enough. The LCD is bright, sharp and has the option of a 2 x 2 grid overlay, which is great for composing shots. The body feels tough and the build quality and finish is excellent. Buttons and switches feel well put together and small details such as the three blue lights certainly give the camera a touch of class. A smart black case is provided to protect the F401 while it’s not in use. Fujifilm quotes a 1.9 effective megapixel rate for the F401’s CCD. However, as this is a Third Generation Super CCD, it enables you to take 4-megapixel images as well. The 4-megapixel images are created from the 2megapixel CCD resolution using Fujifilm’s own algorithm and will take up more space on your memory card. One of the benefits of this latest Super CCD is a high ISO range of 160/200/400/800/1,600 (though the last two are only available at 1,280 x 960 pixels). Another positive point about this CCD is its ability to record video at 320 x 240 for up to 120 seconds at a good standard of quality. Operation is straightforward, with mode switches and zoom controls all easy to reach. The menus shown on the LCD are controlled by only a couple of adjacent buttons, making this a very user-friendly camera. The subtle animations and bold colours of the menus help maintain the fresh stylish image of the exterior.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

3

7 FLASH The built-in autoflash offers red-eye reduction and slow synchro modes

Fujifilm claims the F401 is capable of 450 shots off one charge with the LCD off. With the LCD on this number drops to 200. The battery life impressed in our tests and we didn’t need to change the battery once during a day’s shooting. The camera’s SmartMedia card is kept under the same cover as the Lithium-ion battery.

7

7

LENS COVER Hidden behind a strong silver cover, the lens is well protected

CONNECTIONS Connections for power and USB are left open for the cradle

Supplied in the box is a 16Mb card, which allows nine photos to be stored at the 4-megapixel resolution, or 39 at a resolution of 2 megapixels. Supplied with the camera is a stylish cradle, which gives added convenience for downloading images and charging the battery. Alternatively, the power and USB

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Fujifilm FinePix F401 Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£400 2.1 megapixels 38-114mm 3x zoom 16Mb SmartMedia Fuji 020 7586 1477 www.fujifilm.co.uk

KEY FEATURES

7 CRADLE

7 BATTERY

Expect the Lithium-ion battery to last about 300 shots when fully charged

7 VIDEO

The F401 offers ease of use and a stylish body, together with a convenient cradle

Record up to 480 seconds of continuous video with sound

1

Fujifilm FinePix F401 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Exposure Metering Monitor AE Compensation Flash

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

2.1 (effective) megapixel, 1/2.7-inch Super CCD in interwoven pattern 1,600 x 1,200 Super EBC Fujinon 38-114mm 3x optical zoom (1.44x digital) Auto and macro (10-80cm) Auto and Programmed AE 64-zone TTL 1.5-inch colour TFT LCD (114,000 pixels) +1.5/-2.1 in 1/3 stops Auto-flash, Red-eye Reduction, Slow Synchro

MINOLTA DIMAGE X £300/1.96MP

TOSHIBA PDR-T20 £300/2MP

Video output Movie recording Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

NIKON COOLPIX 2500 £260/2MP

Small and funky with pretty good image quality This is an excellent 2-megapixel ultracompact camera. It offers lots of style and high image quality to back it up. However, when shooting in the 4megapixel mode, the 16Mb SmartMedia card is insufficient

N/A Up to 480 seconds with sound DPOF, Exif 2.2 SmartMedia Rechargeable Lithium-ion Supplied DP Editor, FinePix Viewer, VideoImpression 185g (excluding battery) 85.0(w) x 69.4(h) x 27.5(d)mm USB Windows 98/2000/Me/XP, Mac OS 8.6+

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F7 £280/2MP

Features Images Build Value

80 85 90 85

1 1 1 1

84% FINAL SCORE

Fujifilm FinePix F401

1

Closeup

;

NEXT MONTH

WE REVIEW THE FUJI FINEPIX F601

TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

7 1

2

PERFORMANCE FUJIFILM FINEPIX F401

2 SKIN TONES

BATTERY Expect the Lithiumion battery to last about 300 shots when fully charged

7 LCD PANEL The LCD is detailed and the brightness level can be adjusted

5 6

PRO Good colour accuracy means that most skin tones are well presented CON Being limited to a resolution of two effective megapixels, prints over A4 show problems

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS 3

4

7

VIDEO Record up to 480 seconds of continuous video with sound

cables can be plugged straight into the camera. The FinePix F401 has reasonably fast operating times. The lens is out and the camera ready to shoot in just over two seconds. After taking a shot there is a delay of about two seconds before you can take another picture, but turning the post view option off decreases this time. Taking a shot without pre-

group shot in low light. It features the usual modes of Auto, Red-eye Reduction and Slow Synchro. The menu includes a continuous shooting mode, which enables you to hold down the shutter so the camera can fire continuously. And you are able to choose whether it stores only the last four or the first four photos.

The F401 is one of the best looking ultracompact digital cameras available, with sleek silver finishes and glowing blue lights focusing means delays of between 0.5 and 0.9 seconds. Shutter lag on pre-focused shots is good, varying around 0.1 seconds. These figures mean you won’t become impatient waiting for the camera to catch up with you, and you’re less likely to miss a shot because of the camera. With a range of 3.5m, the flash is moderately useful and it’s powerful enough for the occasional

Image quality options enable you to select from 0.3-, 1.0-, 2.0- and 4.0-megapixel images. Higher resolutions increase the size of the images produced, so if you plan to shoot at four megapixels, you’ll benefit from buying a 128Mb SmartMedia card. Something that’s unusual to find with digital camera of this class is webcam functionality – but the FinePix F401 has included it. This lets you use

Fujifilm FinePix F401 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Exposure Metering Monitor AE Compensation Flash

WORTH A LOOK

2

2.1 (effective) megapixel, 1/2.7-inch Super CCD in interwoven pattern 1,600 x 1,200 Super EBC Fujinon 38-114mm 3x optical zoom (1.44x digital) Auto and macro (10-80cm) Auto and Programmed AE 64-zone TTL 1.5-inch colour TFT LCD (114,000 pixels) +1.5/-2.1 in 1/3 stops Auto-flash, Red-eye Reduction, Slow Synchro MINOLTA DIMAGE X £300/1.96MP

TOSHIBA PDR-T20 £300/2MP

Video output Movie recording Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

NIKON COOLPIX 2500 £260/2MP

conferencing software to show a real-time image of yourself right across the world. When in manual mode, you are able to select exposure compensation, white balance and ISO, plus a self-timer option. Despite this rather basic menu, photos taken by the FinePix F401 show a high level of colour accuracy, and the images appear sharp. The optional ISO settings and exposure compensation give a limited amount of manual control and very good results can be achieved. In-camera metering and the automatic whitebalance performs well with only the occasional slipup. Image noise levels are very low, with none of the ugly patterns seen on some cheaper digital compacts. Even at the higher ISO settings the third generation CCD proves to be capable of delivering above average results. The FinePix F401 fulfils the main requirements for a digital compact camera very well. It is suited to most beginner photographers, offering good image quality, excellent portability and a limited amount of manual control. If you need a flexible level of control over shutter speeds and apertures, you’ll have to look at a slightly higher-end model.

1

N/A Up to 480 seconds with sound DPOF, Exif 2.2 SmartMedia Rechargeable Lithium-ion Supplied DP Editor, FinePix Viewer, VideoImpression 185g (excluding battery) 85.0(w) x 69.4(h) x 27.5(d)mm USB Windows 98/2000/Me/XP, Mac OS 8.6+

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F7 £280/2MP

5 6

ZOOM CONTROL 3x optical zoom plus 1.44x digital zoom

Verdict

7

CRADLE The F401 offers ease of use and a stylish body, together with a convenient cradle

Small and funky with pretty good image quality This is an excellent 2-megapixel ultracompact camera. It offers lots of style and high image quality to back it up. However, when shooting in the 4-megapixel mode 16Mb SmartMedia card is insufficient

PRO The metering system is very reliable and, if needed, exposure compensation is provided CON The optical viewfinder is cramped, making you rely largely on the LCD

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO The white-balance system causes no grief and the flash has just enough power for low light shots CON Although a very minor problem, the tripod mount is at the very edge of the camera

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO For 2 megapixels, a lot of detail is present. Colour accuracy is good, with low levels of noise CON It would have been good to have options for sharpness and colour saturation

Features Images Build Value

1 1 1 1

80 85 90 85

84% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

033

REVIEWS

4-MEGAPIXEL ZOOM COMPACT KONICA KD-400Z Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£400 4 megapixels 3x optical zoom, 39-117 mm equivalent, f2.8-4.9 16Mb Multimedia card, plus Memory Stick slot Konica 020 8751 6121 www.konica.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Konica KD-400Z Konica says it’s ‘the world’s smallest camera in its class’. And at such a competitive price, is this camera too good to be true? We put it through its paces to find out… OUR COVERDISC * ON

VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

ON OUR

C WEBSITE OPINIONS & SHOPPING Visit our website, read our review, post your views, see what other readers think then click straight through to buy this camera! digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL RANGE

KONICA

5

KD-400Z Price: £400 Megapixels: 2 KD-310Z Price: £330 Megapixels: 3.2 KD3000 Price: £300 Megapixels: 2.2

£

5 034

KD100 Price: £100 Megapixels: 1.3

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

R

ight from the word go, the Konica KD-400Z does not feel like a £400 camera. Its solid, metallic construction is reminiscent of the far more expensive Canon Ixus and S30/S40 models. And not only is the Konica really well made, it’s really small as well. Slide back the lens cover (which is a bit stiff and awkward, it has to be said), and the lens pops out, a blue lozenge-shaped lamp below the lens twinkles and a short chime indicates the camera’s ready for use. Konica reckons it has got the world’s fastest start-up time, and while we can’t confirm that with tests of our own (not without getting together every camera on sale), it certainly is amazingly quick – a shade under two seconds in our timings. This speed is carried through into other functions. We timed the shutter lag at consistently below one second, and while that’s still far from instantaneous, it beats many mid-range rivals, including the new Kodak DX4330 reviewed on page 40. Having said that, you can’t take another shot until the image-saving process is completed, which takes a couple of seconds. Playback is fast, too – photos take about a second to appear on the LCD, and zooming in to view fine detail and panning around images is fast. Price and size notwithstanding, the Konica’s general processing and operating speed is excellent. The optical viewfinder is a little cramped – the eyepiece is so small that it can take a moment to get your eye positioned correctly, but it’s crisp and clear with minimal distortion. And while the 1.5-inch LCD is small, it’s bright, saturated and sharp. It updates quickly, too, so there’s no streaking, blurring and jerking if you – or your subjects – move. The navigation controller is positioned right at the bottom of the backplate, but this doesn’t pose any real problems once you get used to it. It’s a bit stiff and imprecise at first, but works well enough, and at least Konica’s resisted any temptation to put an OK button in the middle. Instead, the controller works in conjunction with a Menu/Set button directly alongside, and

4

3

7

7

SLIDING LENS COVER Also acts as the power switch

between them they offer easy and logical navigation of the Konica’s attractive looking menu system (which can also be set to either Basic or Detailed mode).

One step beyond Increasing numbers of camera makers are swapping from Compact Flash or SmartMedia to SD/Multimedia cards. The Konica goes further with two slots: one for an SD card and one for a Memory Stick. You can copy or move images from one card to another as required and, in theory, the two slots can double the camera’s memory capacity. In practice, though, you’re more likely

7

ZOOM LENS Could maybe do with being a bit wider at the wideangle end

TRIPOD BUSH Use this for long exposures to prevent camera shake

to find the dual-format feature useful for swapping images with a wider variety of other devices. It’s hard to fault the other controls and buttons on the back of the Konica. The zoom buttons are small but easy to find, and zooming itself is quick. A trio of buttons to the top-left control playback, the LCD display and image deletion, and they’re positive with good tactile feedback. The flash mode and macro/infinity/self timer options are controlled by pressing right or left on the navigation controller, respectively, to cycle through the options. This reduces the number of buttons on the back plate and works well.

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Konica KD-400Z Price £400 Resolution 4 megapixels Lens 3x optical zoom, 39-117 mm equivalent, f2.8-4.9 Memory 16Mb Multimedia card, plus Memory Stick slot Contact Konica 020 8751 6121 www.konica.co.uk

KEY FEATURES

7 SLIDING LENS COVER

7 ZOOM LENS

Could maybe do with being a bit wider at the wideangle end

7 TRIPOD BUSH

Also acts as the power switch

Use this for long exposures to prevent camera shake

1

Konica KD-400Z FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

4.13-megapixel CCD 2,304 x 1,704 Hexanon 3x optical zoom, 39-117mm equivalent, f2.8-4.9 (2x digital) Auto and macro (10cm-infinity) Programmed AE Centre-weighted, spot 1.5-inch TFT +2/-2EV in 0.3EV increments auto-flash, red-eye reduction, night portrait, off N/A HP PHOTOSMART 812 £400/4MP

KODAK DX4900 £400/4MP

Movie recording Other features

With sound In-camera picture resizing, voice annotations SD card and Memory Stick Rechargeable Lithium-ion Charger supplied, AC adaptor optional Basic manuals and drivers 198g without battery or memory card 94(W) x 29.5(H) x 56(D)mm USB Win98/Me, 2000 or XP, Mac OS 9.0 or later

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 410SE £400/4MP

Should a camera this good be this inexpensive? The KD-400 is a remarkable camera. It’s not just the size, build quality, results or price which, individually, can be matched by rival cameras. It’s the fact that you get all four in a package that really is hard to fault

OLYMPUS C-4000 £450/4MP

Features Images Build Value

1 1 90 1 97 1 FINAL SCORE 78

90

90%

Konica KD-400Z

1

Closeup

TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

PERFORMANCE KONICA KD-400Z

2 SKIN TONES

5 6

PRO Very good in all conditions, including overcast daylight, sun and shots taken using the flash CON None. A very good, reliable and consistent performance all round

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS

1 4 3

7

7

BATTERY The Konica’s lithium cell is recharged off-camera

LCD It’s only a 1.5-inch unit, but it’s very sharp, bright and responsive

offer a fair degree of photographic flexibility in the right hands. All the time you’re examining the Konica’s options and controls, you continue to be struck by just how small and how well made this camera is. It

The Konica doesn’t appear to have many weaknesses. The exposure accuracy and colour balance are consistently good exposure compensation control that works in 0.3EV increments. You do have to access the menus to get to this, though, and this illustrates a difference between snapshot cameras and those designed for enthusiasts – snapshot cameras offer many of the same features, but in a less accessible form. By default, metering is centre-weighted, but there’s also a spot metering system for tricky subjects. Combine this with optional manual whitebalance settings and you’ve got a camera that does

oozes quality throughout, and where some digital cameras can prove disappointingly plasticky, this one is really quite exceptional. That, and the very reasonable asking price, leaves you wondering if the image quality is going to be the weak link. But it’s not. Indeed, the Konica doesn’t appear to have many weaknesses. The exposure accuracy and colour balance are consistently good, the autofocus is reliable and the image quality is as good as you’ll get on a 4-

Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output

WORTH A LOOK

2

4.13-megapixel CCD 2,304 x 1,704 Hexanon 3x optical zoom, 39-117mm equivalent, f2.8-4.9 (2x digital) Auto and macro (10cm-infinity) Programmed AE Centre-weighted, spot 1.5-inch TFT +2/-2EV in 0.3EV increments auto-flash, red-eye reduction, night portrait, off N/A HP PHOTOSMART 812 £400/4MP

KODAK DX4900 £400/4MP

Movie recording Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

SAMSUNG DIGIMAX 410SE £400/4MP

megapixel digital camera. More expensive enthusiast’s models will give you more photographic control, but any differences in outright image quality will be so small as to leave you wondering whether you’re just splitting hairs. If the Konica does have a weakness, it’s that there’s no software bundle. You get a CD containing the camera’s driver and a PDF-based instruction manual, but that’s all. That won’t be a problem for those who’ve got image-editing software already, though, and the Konica does connect to your computer simply – it acts as an external drive, leaving you free to use Explorer if you want to view and copy your photos to your hard disk. There are lots of other 4-megapixel digital cameras to compare the KD-400Z with, but few at £400. The two big-name rivals are HP’s PhotoSmart 812 and Kodak’s DX4900, and the Konica is miles better than both of them. It’s better made, produces better pictures (certainly in the case of the HP) and it’s nicer to use. It’s not often we can recommend a camera unreservedly, but for image quality, price and build, the Konica KD-400Z is in a class of its own.

1

Konica KD-400Z FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens

NAVIGATION CONTROLLER A bit stiff but, like the other buttons, it’s positive and feels well made

With sound In-camera picture resizing, voice annotations SD card and Memory Stick Rechargeable Lithium-ion Charger supplied, AC adaptor optional Basic manuals and drivers 198g without battery or memory card 94(W) x 29.5(H) x 56(D)mm USB Win98/Me, 2000 or XP, Mac OS 9.0 or later

OLYMPUS C-4000 £450/4MP

Verdict

Photographically, the Konica is fairly limited. It’s not designed for photo enthusiasts, and its features are much on a par with those of other mid-range compact cameras. Half-pressure on the shutter release locks the exposure, and there’s also an

7

Should a camera this good be this inexpensive? The KD-400 is a remarkable camera. It’s not just the size, build quality, results or price which, individually, can be matched by rival cameras. It’s the fact that you get all four in a package that really is hard to fault

5 6

PRO The Konica copes well with bright skies, which routinely confuse cheaper cameras CON Highlights have a tendency to wash out on the white doors, frames and T-shirts, for example

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO Konica’s smooth shutter release helps keep hand-held shots sharp CON Flash power looks low when set to auto in daylight when it’s balanced against ambient light

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO The Konica might be tiny, but that doesn’t appear to affect its optical performance CON A tendency to overexposure can blot out the highlights, reducing your images’ dynamic range

Features Images Build Value

1 1 90 1 97 1 FINAL SCORE 78

90

90% DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

035

REVIEWS

4-MEGAPIXEL ZOOM COMPACT OLYMPUS C-4000 ZOOM Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£449 4 megapixels f2.8 3x zoom lens 16Mb SmartMedia supplied Olympus 0800 072 0070 www.olympus.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Olympus C-4000 ZOOM The latest Camedia 4-megapixel camera packs in tons of features to a classy looking body. And the quality of the images is absolutely superb…

*

ON OUR COVERDISC

VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

ON OUR

C WEBSITE OPINIONS & SHOPPING Visit our website, read our review, post your views, see what other readers think then click straight through to buy this camera! digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

O

ver the past year or so, Olympus has gained a good reputation in the mid-range consumer digital camera market. The reasons behind this are plain and simple – robust, attractive cameras with superb image processing and excellent usability. The C-4000 ZOOM has been launched after the success of the incredibly rugged and semi-pro feeling C-4040 ZOOM, and although it features the same basic design, it is a very different camera. Gone is the black, speckled metal feeling of the C-4040 that we like so much, to be replaced by a slick, brushed metal and silver plastic case. Don’t get us wrong, the finish is top-notch and the camera certainly feels strong enough to take a few rough knocks but, all in all, it seems like it’s more prone to scratches, and lacks the professional feel of the C-4040. In terms of feature positioning, the C-4000 is identical to the C-4040, sporting a 1.8-inch LCD, menu controls, quick display control, exposure settings and a flash control button on the back. A Power/Mode dial sits on the top of the camera directly behind the shutter/W/T zoom controls.

3

2

DIGITAL RANGE

OLYMPUS E-20P Price: £1,499 Megapixels: 5 E-10 Price: £999 Megapixels: 4

5

C-4000 Price: £449 Megapixels: 4 C-300Z Price: £299 Megapixels: 3

£

5 036

C-220 Price: £199 Megapixels: 2

Usability The C-4000 ZOOM is a doddle to set up and use. Much of this is due to the incredibly intuitive menu system. Appearing on the LCD, the colour-coded system enables you to do all the usual things – change resolution/file type and so on, as well as set up white balance, sharpness, contrast and generally customise the camera’s settings. It’s a simple, yet effective menu system that puts other manufacturer’s convoluted systems to shame. The virtual dial system (enabling you to cycle through mode options) is similarly intuitive. The C-4000 sports a f2.8 3x zoom lens, with a focal length equivalent to 32-96mm in a standard 35mm camera. Add to this the 3.5x digital zoom and you have up to 10x magnification – impressive stuff for a camera in this price bracket. One thing that takes away from this, however, is the clunkiness of the zoom. It seems to jar slightly as you zoom in and out on a subject. None

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

7 BATTERIES The C-4000 takes AA batteries as well the Olympus-only Lithium-ion versions

of this affects the final shot, of course, so maybe we’re just being picky.

Good images, vibrant colours Olympus’ image processing is simply superb, and the the company’s TruePic technology goes a long way to optimise all elements of an image, including contrast, colour purity and gradation. As a result, Olympus boasts images that are vibrant, well defined and feature a good tonal range.

7

7

SMARTMEDIA The C-4000 comes bundled with a 16Mb SmartMedia card

VIDEO The C-4000 outputs QuickTime video and shows all the LCD menu screens

Indeed, the TruePic technology seems to live up to the company’s claims – the C-4000 takes better quality shots in all conditions. Indoor shots are refreshingly vibrant, and shots capturing close-up subjects such as flowers retain a remarkable amount of detail – even when the flash is used. The skin tones remain true to the viewfinder in low-light conditions, thanks to the camera’s excellent automatic white balancing. The six pre-set white balance settings enable you to get the most out of daylight, overcast and fluorescent

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Olympus C-4000 ZOOM Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£450 4 megapixels f2.8 3x zoom lens 16Mb SmartMedia supplied Olympus 0800 072 0070 www.olympus.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 ZOOM LEVER

3x optical zoom and 3.5x digital zoom gives a total zoom of 10x

7 MODE DIAL

7 MENU

Change between shooting modes with standard mode dial

Move through the C-4000’s excellent set-up menu with these buttons

Olympus C-4000 ZOOM FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Focusing range Exposure Metering Monitor Compensation Flash

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

1/1.8-inch CCD solid-state image pickup with 4.13 million pixels 3,200 x 2,400 (in Print enlarge mode) Olympus 3x multivariator zoom lens TTL system iESP autofocus 0.2 m – infinity Programmed auto exposure, Aperture priority auto and Shutter priority Spot metering. Multi-spot metering 1.8-inch colour TFT LCD monitor AE ±2 EV in ±1/3 EV steps Auto, red-eye reduction, off, fill-in slow synch NIKON COOLPIX 4500 £599/4MP

CANON POWERSHOT S40 £549/4MP

Movie recording Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

KODAK DX4900 £349/4MP

A fantastic sub£500 4-megapixel digital camera A range of creative and photographic features are on offer – making this camera suitable for both the beginner or intermediate photographer looking for a second, more compact camera

1

QuickTime Motion JPEG recording AF area selection system SmartMedia Lithium-ion Not supplied USB drivers, Camedia Master 290g (without batteries and Smart Media card) 110 (W) x 76 (H) x 70 (D) mm USB Windows 98/2000/NT/XP, Mac OS 9+/OS X

SONY DSC-P9 £469/4MP

Features

90

Images

93

Build

90

Value

90

1 1 1 1

90% FINAL SCORE

Olympus C-4000 ZOOM

1

Closeup

TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

1

PERFORMANCE OLYMPUS C-4000 ZOOM

2 SKIN TONES

2

5 6

PRO Skin tones remain excellent in almost all conditions – the auto white balancing is excellent CON Colours can be rather washed out in artificially lit shots

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS 4

7

7 MODE DIAL Choose modes like Scene Programming especially for beginners

ZOOM LEVER 3x optical zoom and 3.5x digital zoom gives a total zoom of 10x

plus multi-spot metering for setting up the exposure based on several user-defined metering points. One Mode of interest is the Scene Programming mode. When switched to this, you’re presented with a graphical dial interface. Primarily aimed at beginners, this enables you to choose the type of

In terms of creative control and features, the C-4000 has much more to offer than your standard 4-megapixel automatic camera brightness levels from a graphical interface. In terms of creative control and features, the C-4000 has much more to offer than your standard 4-megapixel automatic camera. These are mainly within the camera’s comprehensive exposure and scene selection controls. The iESP autofocus works well when you want to point and shoot, but more control is possible. The usual spot metering is here,

shot you’re going photograph so the camera can adjust its settings accordingly. The Scene modes include portrait, landscape, sports and night shots. And once you’ve become adept at adjusting manual metering functionality, you can save your settings and refer back to them at any time – again, this is a novel and genuinely useful feature.

Olympus C-4000 ZOOM FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Focusing range Exposure Metering Monitor Compensation

WORTH A LOOK

2

1/1.8-inch CCD solid-state image pickup with 4.13 million pixels 3,200 x 2,400 (in Print enlarge mode) Olympus 3x multivariator zoom lens TTL system iESP autofocus 0.2 m – infinity Programmed auto exposure, Aperture priority auto and Shutter priority Spot metering. Multi-spot metering 1.8-inch colour TFT LCD monitor AE ±2 EV in ±1/3 EV steps NIKON COOLPIX 4500 £599/4MP

CANON POWERSHOT S40 £549/4MP

Flash Movie recording Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

KODAK DX4900 £349/4MP

1

Auto, red-eye reduction, off, fill-in slow synch QuickTime Motion JPEG recording AF area selection system SmartMedia Lithium-ion Not supplied USB drivers, Camedia Master 290g (without batteries and Smart Media card) 110 (W) x 76 (H) x 70 (D) mm USB Windows 98/2000/NT/XP, Mac OS 9+/OS X

SONY DSC-P9 £469/4MP

MENU Move through the C-4000’s excellent set-up menu with these buttons

Other highlights include the ability to record small QT movies; five flash modes, providing a good amount of control over artificially-lit shots; and a noise reduction feature for slow exposure shots. In the box you get the normal USB lead for data transfer, an AV cable and Olympus’ Camedia Master software for basic image management and editing. What is inexcusable, though (and we wish Olympus would sort this out), is the lack of a rechargeable battery and adaptor in the box. Although you can buy a battery separately, you really shouldn’t have to do so. Having said this, the camera does take AA batteries as well as Olympus-only Lithium-ion batteries, which is handy if you run out of juice in a foreign location. Olympus has built an affordable, 4-megapixel camera that follows in the footsteps of its consumer range. Fantastic image quality, a vast range of creative controls, excellent build quality and a neat design make the C-4000 a really great bit of kit. If you’re looking for a sub-£500 camera that oozes class and is extremely easy to use, then you need look no further…

Verdict

lighting conditions. We were struck by the results of the AF area selection system, which enables you to move the metering point along a horizontal and vertical axis in the viewfinder, so you can focus on areas other than the centre of the shot. Impressively, a histogram also enables you to tweak

7

A fantastic sub£500 4-megapixel digital camera A range of creative and photographic features are on offer – making this camera suitable for both the beginner and intermediate photographer looking for a second, more compact camera

5 6

PRO Great range of colours and tones, bright and colourful images CON Range of exposure settings can be a little baffling for beginners

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO Colours remain true and image quality sharp – even in close-ups shots CON Flash can be a tad bright and needs to be carefully adjusted

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO Olympus’ TruePix technology means that fine details in images are captured beautifully CON Focusing on close-up subjects can be tricky just using the LCD

Features

90

Images

93

Build

90

Value

90

1 1 1 1

90% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

037

REVIEWS

2-MEGAPIXEL ZOOM COMPACT TOSHIBA PDR-T20 Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£300 2 megapixels 38-76mm 2x zoom 8Mb SD Toshiba 08704 424 424 www.home-entertainment.toshiba.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Toshiba PDR-T20 We take a look at this touch-sensitive, ultra-compact digital camera with a stylish appearance and some unique features

*

ON OUR COVERDISC

VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

ON OUR

C WEBSITE OPINIONS & SHOPPING Visit our website, read our review, post your views, see what other readers think then click straight through to buy this camera! digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL RANGE

TOSHIBA PDR-M81 Price: £700 Megapixels: 4.2 PDR-3310 Price: £400 Megapixels: 3.2

5

PDR-T20 Price: £300 Megapixels: 2 PDR-T10 Price: £250 Megapixels: 2

£

5 038

PDR-M25 Price: £250 Megapixels: 2.2

2

T

he first digital cameras available to the public were generally expensive, bulky and not terribly well made. In the fast moving world of digital technology things have changed dramatically for the better. The Toshiba PDR-T20 shows just how far things have advanced: it’s compact, stylish and offers advanced technological features. When not in use, the lens is hidden by a shiny metal cover, providing an extra level of protection. When this cover is slid back and the camera switched on, the lens extends out and the flash pops up. Providing only a modest 38-76mm 2x focal range, the lens offers a reasonably fast aperture of f2.8 at full wide angle and f4 at full zoom.

3

2

Sensitive soul Flipping the camera over, we can see the most interesting feature – the touch-sensitive LCD. Toshiba has broken away from the usual interface design to create something unique. Held in your hand with the lens cover closed, you could be forgiven for mistaking the PDR-T20 for a PDA or mobile phone. However a good idea it might seem, some people will just find it too quirky and bothersome. Those who do approve of this system will probably like the animated graphics and speedy operation. Although a stylus is provided, it’s easy to use your fingers instead – but be careful you don’t scratch the screen. This system allows you to paint directly onto the photo from within the camera, and optionally save the result. Regardless of whether you like the touch screen, the fact of the matter is that it is hard to see the LCD in strong sunlight. And with no alternative optical viewfinder this is likely to cause frustration. Combining the reflective silver aluminium finish with a minimalist control pad makes the PDR-T20 one of the most stylish cameras around. To help keep it looking shiny, Toshiba has included a soft and protective case that’s a rather ugly green colour. The build quality of the body is above average for a camera of this class. The aluminium finish means that the camera feels tough

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

7 SLIDING LENS COVER The stylish metallic cover slides smoothly over the lens to protect it

and reasonably weighted, and the lozenge shape fits into a pocket easily. The one major criticism of the body is the absence of a tripod mount.

In performance This camera uses a 3.7V 1035mAh battery, which means it has a fair bit of power behind it. Coincidentally, the battery is identical to that used in the other digital compact cameras by Pentax and Fujifilm. Toshiba quotes 120 shots off one battery charge with the flash at 100 per cent. This is a reasonable figure but, unfortunately, the battery didn’t perform so well in our tests. It was only because we were carrying a spare battery that we were able to continue shooting on a day out. On a

7

7

FLASH The flash has built-in auto flash, red-eye reduction

POWER The disappointing battery life means you’ll have to recharge regularly

camera such as this, it’s crucial that the battery performance is excellent (because it lacks any optical viewfinder, it’s useless without the LCD switched on). Stored under the same compartment cover as the battery, there is the camera’s SD card. The card supplied is 8Mb so it’s only possible to store six photos in the best quality mode. After pulling back the lens cover, the lens takes around six seconds to extend and be ready to take a shot. Shot to shot times are good, with the camera ready to take another shot almost immediately. After pre-focusing on the subject, the shutter lag of the shot being taken is minimal for a digital compact at around .1sec. Focusing times indoors are reasonable,

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Toshiba PDR-T20 Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£300 2 megapixels 38-76mm 2x zoom 8Mb Secure Digital Toshiba 08704 424 424 www.home-entertain ment.toshiba.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 JOG DIAL

7 TOUCH-SENSITIVE

Used to control the incamera menu or for functions such as zoom

7 BATTERY AND SD CARD

LCD SCREEN A stylus replaces a button- operated LCD

The battery and SD card are stored inside a neat compartment

1

Toshiba PDR-T20 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Exposure Metering Monitor AE Compensation Flash Video output

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

2.01 (effective) megapixel, 1/2.7-inch colour CCD 1,600 x 1,200 pixels 8-76mm 2x zoom lens. f/2.8 (W)/4 (T) AF, macro (10-27cm) Program, Auto TTL 1.5-inch colour TFT LCD (118,000 pixels) N/A Built-in auto flash, red-eye reduction N/A

MINOLTA DIMAGE X £300/1.96MP

FUJIFILM FINEPIX F401 £400/2.1MP

Movie recording Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight

N/A Exif V2.2 SD memory card Lithium-ion Supplied USB Driver, ACDSee 170g (excluding accessories, battery and SD card) 54(w) x 108(h) x 29.5(d)mm USB Windows 98/2000/Me/XP, Mac OS 9.0+

Dimensions Transfer OS

NIKON COOLPIX 2500 £260/2MP

Stylish but let down slightly by image quality Although it provides a stand-out-fromthe-crowd appearance and handling, the image quality is only average. Build quality and looks are the main selling points – especially if style is important to you

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F7 £280/2MP

Features Images

75 70 85

Build Value

70

1 1 1 1

73% FINAL SCORE

Toshiba PDR-T20

1

Closeup

PERFORMANCE

TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

TOSHIBA PDR-T20

2 SKIN TONES

1

5 6

PRO The resolution of the camera means a full frame portrait shot contains reasonable detail CON From a distance the camera’s resolution is insufficient for fine detail

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS 3

7

7

JOG DIAL Used to control the in-camera menu or for functions such as zoom

ranging from 0.9 seconds to 2.1 seconds, depending on the lighting. Image playback functions are very fast and you can scroll around the image using your finger on the screen. The built-in flash pops up as soon as you slide back the lens cover. In common with many compact

7

choose from – 100, 200 and 400. In addition, there are five pre-set white-balance settings and an automatic setting. In order to help beginners get the best possible photographs from the camera, there are five scene modes – Portrait, Portrait + Landscape, Macro, Sports

Held in your hand with the lens cover closed, you could be forgiven for mistaking the PDR-T20 for a PDA or mobile phone digital cameras, it lacks power. It has a red-eye reduction mode, which can be turned off through the camera menu, and although it will be enough for some low lighting indoor shots, it can’t be totally relied upon to deliver good results. Through the camera menu there are a limited number of settings for image quality, with high and standard quality modes for the highest 1,600 x 1,200 resolution. It features a range of ISO options to

and Portrait + Night scene. There is also an automatic control option and a Multi-shot option that takes 16 small photographs and saves them as a single image.

Style over substance? Image quality on the PDR-T20 is distinctly average, with occasional shots not appearing sharp and some fine details lost. Colour rendition is also average,

WORTH A LOOK

2

2.01 (effective) megapixel, 1/2.7-inch colour CCD 1,600 x 1,200 pixels 8-76mm 2x zoom lens. f/2.8 (W)/4 (T) AF, macro (10-27cm) Program, Auto TTL 1.5-inch colour TFT LCD (118,000 pixels) N/A Built-in auto flash, red-eye reduction N/A N/A MINOLTA DIMAGE X £300/1.96MP

FUJIFILM FINEPIX F401 £400/2.1MP

Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

NIKON COOLPIX 2500 £260/2MP

with pale skin tones and colours often undersaturated. The image noise levels are low, however, and respectable up to ISO 400. There are some image artefacts present, but these shouldn’t be noticeable at smaller print sizes. The in-camera metering performs well, but without exposure compensation to rely on, it may prove to be problematic. The automatic whitebalance system works intelligently, even coping well with some potentially tricky shop display lighting. There are some features that are noticeably absent, which means that this is basically an automatic camera with a limited degree of manual control over image quality. The biggest concern for this camera is the lack of manual modes. Some more manual controls – especially exposure compensation – would make an appreciable difference to most photographers. Also, many people will be disappointed with the absence of a video capture mode – something that is almost standard on compact cameras at this price point. Having said that, the PDR-T20 is still competitively priced, and worth considering if style is a big priority for you.

1

Toshiba PDR-T20 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Exposure Metering Monitor AE Compensation Flash Video output Movie recording

BATTERY AND SD CARD The battery and SD card are stored inside a neat compartment

TOUCH-SENSITIVE LCD SCREEN A stylus replaces a button operated LCD

Exif V2.2 SD memory card Lithium-ion Supplied USB Driver, ACDSee 170g (excluding accessories, battery and SD card) 54(w) x 108(h) x 29.5(d)mm USB Windows 98/2000/Me/XP, Mac OS 9.0+

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F7 £280/2MP

Verdict

2

Stylish but let down slightly by image quality Although it provides a stand-out-fromthe-crowd appearance and handling, the image quality is only average. Build quality and looks are the main selling points – especially if style is important to you

5 6

PRO The metering and white-balance systems are usually reliable CON In bright sunlight the LCD can be hard to see. No alternative optical viewfinder

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO The LCD is easy to see for composing shots. The white-balance system copes with tricky lighting CON There is no tripod mount, so achieving a sharp shot in low light can be difficult

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO Selectable ISO settings and colour modes allow a small degree of user adjustment CON Detail levels are only average and at an A4 print size the failings will become apparent

Features Images

70 85

Build Value

1 1 1 1

75

70

73% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

039

REVIEWS

3.1-MEGAPIXEL DIGITAL CAMERA KODAK DX4330 Price Resolution Lens Memory Contact

£300 3.1 megapixels 3x optical zoom, 38-114mm equivalent, f2.8/5.1 16Mb Multimedia card Kodak 0870 243 0270 www.kodak.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Kodak DX4330 Kodak’s latest EasyShare software and cameras aim to bring digital photography to the masses. Does it succeed with the DX4330, or is it just too simplistic?

*

ON OUR COVERDISC

VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

ON OUR

C WEBSITE OPINIONS & SHOPPING Visit our website, read our review, post your views, see what other readers think then click straight through to buy this camera! digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL RANGE

KODAK DX4900 Price: £350 Megapixels: 4

5

DX4330 Price: £300 Megapixels: 3.1 CX4230 Price: £200 Megapixels: 2

£

5 040

CX4210 Price: £150 Megapixels: 2

K

odak’s digital camera range is changing quickly right now, and at the time of going to press it consists of two models in the essentially point-and-shoot CX range, and two in the more advanced DX range. ‘Advanced’ is a relative term, however, and even the most generous-minded photographer will have to admit that the DX4330 is pretty basic. With only exposure lock (half-pressure and shutter release) and an exposure compensation function (via the menus) by way of manual overrides, you’re largely at the mercy of the automated functions. The DX4330 is switched on using the multi-function mode dial on the top plate. The first position is the Auto setting, which handles flash, exposure and automatic focus, while other positions optimise the settings for sports photography, night scenes, landscapes and macro shots. The DX4330 is simple enough to pick up and start using straight away, and the controls on the back are scarcely more complicated. The four-way navigation controller has a central OK button for switching the LCD display on and off and navigating around the camera’s menus. There are also Delete, Menu and Review buttons. The DX4330 has a further Share button. In Review mode, this enables you to pick out specific pictures for printing, emailing or for tagging as Favorites to help you find them quickly. This feature works with Kodak’s EasyShare software. As soon as you hook your camera up to your PC (either using the supplied cable or Kodak’s separately-available Camera Dock), the pictures are transferred, printed or emailed automatically. The EasyShare software does its job very well. You slot the camera into its dock and press the button (or hook it up to your PC via the USB cable), the software starts and you are prompted through the transfer process. Afterwards, you can use EasyShare to browse your photo collection, add keywords (Labels), print, email your photos and run on-screen slideshows. It’s all very user-friendly.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

1

3

7 POWER 2x AAs or a single Lithium-ion CRV3 cell – convenient and inexpensive

Nice and easy? Most keen photographers want to know what’s going on with their cameras. And the simplest type of image transfer system is where your camera acts as an external hard drive and you view and move images across using Windows Explorer. You then go on to use whatever image-editor or cataloguing software takes your fancy. Although Kodak’s all-in-one approach is great for beginners, it means they are only going to learn how to use the EasyShare software, and little about image management and image editing in general.

7

7

LENS 38-114mm (equivalent) zoom: surprisingly crisp and punchy

MODE DIAL Springy and firm, but a little imprecise, too

The drive towards simplicity has left the camera itself with one surprising omission – no white balance control. Granted, you can nearly always leave digital cameras set to auto-white balance and never give it another thought, but all Kodak’s rivals offer this feature, and most experienced photographers will feel slightly uneasy at the thought of it not being there. But what’s the DX4330 like to use? In common with previous Kodaks, it’s chunky enough but does not feel especially expensive. The main mode dial’s got quite a positive metallic springiness to it, which feels good initially but soon proves a bit imprecise. On the back,

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Kodak DX4330 Price £300 Resolution 3.1 megapixels Lens 3x optical zoom, 38-114mm equivalent, f2.8/5.1 Memory 16Mb Multimedia card Contact Kodak 0870 243 0270 www.kodak.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 FOUR-WAY

7 SHARE BUTTON

CONTROLLER Those central OK buttons are always a fiddle to use

7 ZOOM CONTROL

On-camera Share button for tagging images for emailing and printing

The zoom is slow and you’re restricted to a maximum 4x zoom

1

Kodak DX4330 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

3.3-megapixel CCD 2,160 x 1,440 Kodak Retinar 3x optical, 38-114mm equivalent, f2.8/5.1 (3.3x digital) Auto and macro (7-70cm) Program with ‘scene’ modes (macro, landscape, sport, night, movie) Multi-pattern TTL 1.8-inch ‘indoor/outdoor’ type +2/-2EV in 0.5EV increments Built-in auto-flash, red-eye reduction, fill, off NTSC/PAL OLYMPUS C-300 £300/3MP

SONY DSC P71 £350/3.2MP

Movie recording Other features

Yes, with sound On-camera tagging for email, printing, favourites Internal memory (8Mb) and SD card slot CRV3 Lithium-ion or 2 x AAs Not supplied (optional Camera Dock) Kodak EasyShare 210g (without batteries) 110.5(W) x 66(H) x 39(D)mm USB Win98/Me/2000/XP, Mac OSX

Image Storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

HP PHOTOSMART 720 £300/3.3MP

A good beginners’ camera but lacks real charm Kodak’s EasyShare system certainly is easy, but it’s designed more as an all-in-one solution for snappers with little interest in learning the technicalities. Image quality is reasonable, but certainly not perfect

KONICA REVIO KD300Z £300/3.2MP

Features

55

Images

63

Build

62

Value

70

1 1 1 1

63% FINAL SCORE

Kodak DX4330

1

Closeup

TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

PERFORMANCE KODAK DX4330

2 SKIN TONES

1 3

5 6

7

7

FOUR-WAY CONTROLLER Those central OK buttons are always a fiddle to use

Compact Flash card reader, as many digital photographers will have. That’s not necessarily relevant, though, since the DX4330 is clearly aimed at digital first-timers. In this respect it does a good job, providing crisp, bright, colourful images with point-and-shoot reliability. The image transfer and tagging system might not appeal

to established digital photographers, but for beginners it’s neat and accessible. Picture reviewing is slow. Although the Kodak displays a low-res preview of each shot immediately, it takes a couple of seconds to render a fullresolution version on the LCD. Zooming in is slow – you’ll have to get used to watching that hourglass if you want to look at your shots close up, and you’re

Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash

WORTH A LOOK

2

OLYMPUS C-300 £300/3MP

SONY DSC P71 £350/3.2MP

Video output Movie recording Other features Image Storage Batteries AC adaptor Software Weight Dimensions Transfer OS HP PHOTOSMART 720 £300/3.3MP

NTSC/PAL Yes, with sound On-camera tagging for email, printing, favourites Internal memory (8Mb) and SD card slot CRV3 Lithium-ion or 2 x AAs Not supplied (optional Camera Dock) Kodak EasyShare 210g (without batteries) 110.5(W) x 66(H) x 39(D)mm USB Win98/Me/2000/XP, Mac OSX

KONICA REVIO KD300Z £300/3.2MP

Verdict

Focus Exposure modes

3.3-megapixel CCD 2,160 x 1,440 Kodak Retinar 3x optical, 38-114mm equivalent, f2.8/5.1 (3.3x digital) Auto and macro (7-70cm) Program with ‘scene’ modes (macro, landscape, sport, night, movie) Multi-pattern TTL 1.8-inch ‘indoor/outdoor’ type +2/-2EV in 0.5EV increments Built-in auto-flash, red-eye reduction, fill, off

ZOOM CONTROL The zoom is slow and you’re restricted to a maximum 4x zoom

restricted to a maximum 4x zoom level, too (contrast this with the Konica KD-400Z on page 34, which races through startup, image display and zooming, right up to 12x magnification). The results delivered by the Kodak belie its fairly crude feel and specifications. They’re sharp, colourful and well exposed. It’s only when you get the fine detail that you start to see a loss in quality – not so much in outright sharpness, but more in the smudging of subtle tones. High-contrast detail comes out well, but low-contrast detail less well. The DX4330 has a couple of nice touches that other cameras don’t include, such as automatic picture orientation to save you having to rotate portrait-format shots on your PC, and an LCD designed to be viewable in both bright daylight and indoors (though we found it a bit dim and lacklustre in both sets of conditions). Beginners will be happy with this camera, and it delivers a satisfactory blend of performance, quality and price but, in reality, it does little better than any one of a number of similarly-priced 3-megapixel cameras on the market. And, for a little more money you can get a lot more camera…

1

Kodak DX4330 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Image size Lens

7

SHARE BUTTON On-camera Share button for tagging images for emailing and printing

The DX4330 is clearly aimed at digital firsttimers. In this respect it does a good job, providing crisp, bright, colourful images and the in-dock recharging is a neat and foolproof way to keep them topped up. We’re less keen on Kodak’s recent swap from Compact Flash cards to Multimedia cards, though. Compact Flash is the commonest and cheapest format, and it’s hard to understand why Kodak’s designers couldn’t find space to slot it into the new DX range. It’s a nuisance, too, if you’ve already got a

CON Outdoor shots in overcast lighting have dull, pinkish tinge (exposure compensation might fix)

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS

4

the controls are similarly uninspiring. There’s a bit too much play in the four-way navigation pad, and it’s too easy to push it in one of the four directions while you’re pressing the central OK button. This makes menu navigation a bit of an ordeal. The battery requirements are modest (just a pair of AA cells or the supplied rechargeable CRV3 cell),

PRO Good, both in direct sunlight and when using flash indoors, with no unflattering colour shifts

A good beginners’ camera but lacks real charm Kodak’s EasyShare system certainly is easy, but it’s designed more as an all-in-one solution for snappers with little interest in learning the technicalities. Image quality is reasonable, but certainly not perfect

5 6

PRO Good highlight control with a reduced tendency to highlight burn-out CON Tendency towards underexposure and tonal compression leaves many shots looking flat

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO The white balance copes with mixed lighting and the flash balances with ambient light CON A softer/smoother shutter release would reduce the risk of camera shake in low light

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO Crisp, sharp and colourful with objects that have clearly-defined detail and plenty of contrast CON Tends to go mushy with detail that’s less contrasty, such as delicately shaded vegetation

Features Images

63

Build

62

Value

1 1 1 1

55

70

63% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

041

REVIEWS

IMAGE-EDITING SOFTWARE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2 Manufacturer Price Contact Website

Adobe £69 Adobe 0208 606 40000 www.adobe.co.uk

WEBSITE www.adobe.com:80/products/photoshopel/main.html

Photoshop Elements 2 A vast range of quality image-editing features for the digital camera user on a budget. We introduce the latest release of Photoshop Elements – it’s a truly class act…

*

ON OUR COVERDISC

EXCLUSIVE! PHOTOSHOP 7 TRIAL Try the very newest version of Photoshop for yourself

PAINT SHOP PRO 5 Full version of this well-known image-editing software – see for yourself whether you need to upgrade to Elements 2

x FEATURES NEW STUFF ■ Quick Fix dialog ■ Smart Messages ■ Glossary ■ Selection Brush ■ Create PDF Slideshows ■ Import frame from video ■ Attach email

ENHANCED STUFF ■ File Browser ■ Variations dialog ■ Picture Package ■ Brushes ■ Drawing tools library ■ Layer Styles ■ Liquify ■ Save For Web

042

W

hen it comes to image editors, there is nothing better than Adobe Photoshop. A longterm industry standard, its depth and breadth of high-quality colour correction, image-enhancement and compositing tools make it an essential tool for any professional digital artist or photographer. However, at nearly £600, it’s beyond the budget of many people. So, what options are there for the digital camera user on a budget? You could opt for Jasc’s popular Paint Shop Pro or a freeware offering such as The GIMP. Alternatively, you could go for Adobe’s latest budget image-editing application, Photoshop Elements 2. Elements 2 is a cut-down, digital camera-orientated version of Photoshop. It keeps and adapts certain Photoshop features that the digital photographer will need and discards other, more professional, printorientated features. The first release of the application offered an intuitive interface, excellent colour-correction tools, an innovative file browser and an easy path to the higher-end world of Photoshop. So what’s changed? Well, nothing in terms of product positioning but, as far as features go, both beginners – and existing users who want to upgrade – will be in for a pleasant surprise. The interface itself is elegant, and sports the familiar Adobe look and feel, and it works on both Microsoft’s and Apple’s latest operating systems (Windows XP and OS X 10.2 Jaguar).

The Picture Package feature lets you print multiple versions of the same image or different size images on one sheet of photo paper

Photoshop Elements 2’s new Quick Fix dialog enables you to easily adjust images without wading through many menus

simple to use. The context-sensitive tool options bar provides access to all the brushes, as well as opacity and blending mode controls. Layer styles (which enable you to automatically apply certain image effects) have been improved, and now the quick creation of a wider range of professional drop shadows and bevels is easier than before. The Drawing tools library has been updated, with more vector shapes available for use in your compositions. Enhancements to the ever-intuitive Liquify dialog come in the form of Wacom tablet support, which makes pushing, pulling and warping your images a breeze. The

Filters palette has remained much the same (but Photoshop’s hasn’t changed in a long time, either), but this is no real surprise.

What it offers the digital photographer

2 WHICH IMAGE EDITOR?

The main improvement to the creative-based tools in Elements is within the Brush tools. Taking its lead from Photoshop 7, Elements 2 contains a variety of natural brushes, enabling you to echo traditional media effects within your digital artwork. Although not as comprehensive and powerful as Photoshop’s brushes (with dynamic controls that enable you to alter brush shape, paint viscosity and other elements as you paint), they do a fine job and are

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Budget: if budget is not a consideration, get Photoshop 7. It’s as simple as that. If budget is a consideration, then it’s a toss-up between Elements 2 and Paint Shop Pro 7, with both offering comprehensive file-browsing and image-editing tools. We’d give the edge to Elements 2, though,

Creative tools The only real addition as far as creative tools are concerned is the Selection Brush. Add this to the Magic Wand and Marquee tools that already exist in Elements, and you have a formidable number of tools for creating cutouts and masks. Much like Photoshop’s Quick Mask, the Selection Brush enables you to paint on selections using Elements’ range of brushes. Selection methods

purely because it includes handy features for correcting and publishing your photographs. Features: the range of tools on offer in Adobe’s flagship app is stunning. While it’s true that Elements 2 does many of the things that Photoshop does on a consumer level, when it comes to professional colour

correction and print-preparation tools, it just won’t wash. The ability to import a frame from a movie file as an image is a boon. It also has a firstrate help system. Platform: finally, while Paint Shop Pro is only available for Windows, Elements is available for both Mac and PC platforms.

;

2 USING ELEMENTS 2 The Elements interface is very similar to the one in Adobe Photoshop. Here’s how it works

01

02

03

NEXT MONTH

LOOK OUT FOR A TRIAL OF ELEMENTS 2 ON OUR CD

04

PERFORMANCE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2

2 CREATIVE TOOLS

05

06 08

1 Shortcuts bar

07

Create a new file, open a document and print files amongst other things in this handy shortcuts bar

5 6

2 Filters

This palette enables you to apply certain special effects filters to a selection, layer, or entire image

PRO New brushes tools, Selection Brush and updated Layer Styles features CON The FX filter’s not updated. Mind you, Photoshop hasn’t seen a filter update in years

2 FILE BROWSING

3 Recipes

These ‘How To’ guides enable you to learn basic and more complex image-editing operations 09

4 Effects

Add various texture, vignette and frame effects your image using this palette

5 Undo History

Retrace your image-editing steps and never accidentally lose a great effect with this Photoshopinspired palette

This content-sensitive tool bar changes as you change tools – providing all the options you need in the same place, every time

can be combined (add a Marquee selection to a Selection Brush, say) and they can now be saved out and loaded back in. Adobe has added many new tools that will please those of us who have ever taken a badly lit shot. In our opinion, the most useful tool is the new Quick Fix dialog. This brings together a number of image-correction tools into one dialog. From within the Quick Fix dialog you can correct brightness, colour, focus, plus rotate the image. The top half of the dialog is taken up by a relatively large preview, displaying before and after results. Another new dialog is the Colour Variations feature. A similar dialog is found in Photoshop, and provides you with an easy and visual way to add and take away colour from your image. Simply choose the area of the image you wish to correct (Midtones, Shadows, Highlights or Saturation), adjust the colour intensity and choose a thumbnail in order to increase or decrease certain colours within your image. As you click a thumbnail, the After preview box updates immediately.

Quick fixes A Red Eye brush is here for those less talented (or patient) when it comes to removing glare manually, as is an Auto Straighten/Crop tool for automatically straightening up your images. These are both novel

7 File Browser

Search for, rename, open and rotate files using Elements’ intuitive File Browser

8 Layer Styles/Layers

Apply effects individual layers and manage your layers for better composite images here

additions to the app, but not exactly groundbreaking. Adobe has acknowledged that high-quality photographic paper is expensive to buy and can’t be wasted. For this reason, the company has included the Picture Package function (updated since version 1). This enables you to print varied size images on the same piece of paper – without messing about with a DTP app such as XPress or InDesign. Contact sheets are also possible, as is the ability to stitch photographs together to create panoramas.

Workflow tools Finally, we should look at the workflow tools. The main workflow tool in Elements 2 is the File Browser. Adobe introduced this in version 1 and liked it so much it put it in Photoshop 7. The File Browser in Elements 2 not only enables you to browse for files on your hard drive, but also lets you rotate, rename, reorder, label and view file type and EXIF data. It’s efficient, a doddle to use and does exactly what it says it will do. Batch processing tools go hand in hand with the browser, enabling you to quickly rename, change the file format or resize multiple images at once. It’s features like this that make Elements stand out from other sub-£100 image editors. Adobe has made an effort to introduce the beginner to digital image editing. The first, and

It keeps and adapts certain Photoshop features that the digital photographer will need, and discards other, more professional, print-orientated features

9 Hints

This palette is context-sensitive and changes to give hints and tips on the tool that’s currently selected

ingenious, help-orientated feature is Smart Messages. If an error message occurs and there’s a word or sentence underlined, you can click on this to help prevent the error happening again. It makes perfect sense and is a breath of fresh air – finally new users can demystify error messages. A userfriendly glossary is now searchable from within the application, and Recipes (a crummy name we know), which give step-by-step advice on basic and more complex image-editing techniques, has been improved. Finally there’s an enhanced Save For Web dialog that lets you optimise your images for web output; an enhanced Create Web Photo Gallery command for quickly uploading folders of images to the web; the ability to quickly add an image to an email; and the ability to create PDF slideshows. We’d never say that Elements is a replacement for Photoshop. However, for those wanting an easy route into Photoshop – learning the basics of colour correction and compositing techniques – Elements 2 is the best application around. And at £69, it’s stunning value for money.

Verdict

6 Tool Options

Elements 2 is the best budget image-editing app For under £70, you’re getting a great image editor with a plethora of intuitive and powerful features. The application also provides an easy route up to Photoshop

5 6

PRO The File Browser is intuitive to use, and has handy new features and help system CON It’s extremely hard to complain about the file browsing and ease of use!

2 COMPATIBILITY

5 6

PRO Elements supports all the major file formats and the File Browser will even read EXIF data CON Nothing to worry about here

2 ENHANCEMENT TOOLS

5 6

PRO The new Quick Fix dialog and the Variations dialog are excellent and intuitive to use CON We’d like to see channels introduced into Elements – but, then again, it is only £69

Features

1 1 1 1

90

Navigation

92

Performance

93

Value

94

93% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

043

REVIEWS

PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS

PhotoFixes

PLUG-INS OPTIPIX, OZONE, LIGHT!

Rather than learn complex image-editing techniques to fix up a photo, use a plug-in instead. Steve Jarratt tests a few of the latest, in this irregular series

Reindeer Optipix 1.02

AT WORK In this instance, Optipix is averaging two exposures to produce a third, balanced image

This suite of five tools promises to improve the exposure, contrast and detail of your shots Price System

M

Ozone 1.0 System Price

044

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

85%

One shot of this abbey is exposed for the brickwork (above); the other for the cloudy sky (left)

The two images are blended, sharpened and the contrast improved to produce the final shot

Light!

Mac/PC, Adobe Photoshop 5.0+ $75 (£48) Website www.digitalfilmtools.com

Based on Ansel Adams’ system for still photography, this plug-in splits an image into 11 discrete zones based on luminance values, such that each zone is twice as bright as the one preceding it. Once divided up, each zone can then be adjusted in terms of its luminance or red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow hues. All of the adjustments take place within the preview window, so that you can adjust the image before making a change. You can tweak the colour or brightness values of specific regions of your photo, or even colourise

them up. The other two filters, Edge Enhancement and Safe Sharpening, endeavour to clean up your digital image, bringing out detail without amplifying noise. They work in a similar fashion to Photoshop’s Sharpen and Unmask Sharp, and while the results are a definite improvement over the built-in filters, they still need to be applied subtly, otherwise you end up with harsh, contrasty edges. Version 1.02 has made some major improvements to Edge Enhancement, although the main problem is that the preview window displays the image at 100 per cent. It would have been far more useful to have some degree of magnification – you do find yourself hopping in and out of the plug-in to zoom in on areas independently. Optipix is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. But it doesn’t feel like you get a lot for your money, and while some people will appreciate its power, Optipix probably isn’t a wise investment for the casual photographer. FINAL Overall, it’s a serious tool for SCORE the serious digital photographer.

8

ost digital photos require some restoration in Photoshop, and that’s where Optipix aims to help. The suite consists of five filters that can be used in concert to improve exposure, increase contrast, reduce noise and sharpen edges, and they all work in 8- and 16bit colour space. The first step is to use the Exposure Blend to produce an image with detail in both highlights and shadow. It works best with cameras that autobracket exposures: as long as the camera is steady, two differently exposed images can be blended together with pixel-perfect accuracy (the Nudge filter can be applied to images that are misaligned and it works in sub-pixel increments). The technique is easier than simply cutting and pasting between shots, but it’s largely dependent

on the exposure levels of the images being blended; it doesn’t work well if they’re too over- or under-exposed and, of course, it’s limited to static subjects – even the slightest change in clouds, for instance, can produce unexpected results. Auto Contrast is a one-click tool for improving image contrast. You simply run the filter and it spreads the available colour data across the entire value range, so that your blacks are solid black, and your whites are pure white. It’s usually better to turn your image into a 16-bit file beforehand, and then run Auto Contrast – the resulting image uses the full 16-bit spectrum and the stretched histogram remains smooth. An alternative to Exposure Blend is Image Averaging, which adds any number of variously exposed shots into the buffer and averages their individual pixel values. This is useful for removing noise from a photo (the averaging process gradually removes extreme colour values), and can generate similar results to the Exposure Blend. In reality, though, it’s not nearly as useful, and the results are generally desaturated, requiring further work to tidy

8

Manufacturer Website Telephone

$100 (£64) Any Mac or PC capable of running Adobe Photoshop 5.0 or above Reindeer Graphics Inc www.reindeergraphics.com (001) 828 252-7515

System Price

entire black and white images. And because changes take place across areas of similar luminance, it’s relatively easy to make alterations without affecting the whole image or needing to create masks. FINAL Not must-buy but useful SCORE nonetheless for those with an artistic eye.

79%

Mac/PC, Adobe Photoshop 5.0+ $75 (£48) Website www.digitalfilmtools.com

This unusual filter adds dramatic shadow textures to your photos. To give the impression that the shadow is falling across the scene, it’s possible to skew the texture, and then use the luminance values of the image to displace it. Obviously, the result isn’t strictly accurate in terms of how the shadow falls in 3D, but it’s certainly good enough to fool the eye. It can be used to produce soft blooms, fog, mist and glows using the masks alone without any shadow texture. And that’s about it: it works, it’s fairly

painless to use and results are quick and believable. It’s the sort of tool that’s best used to jazz up flat-looking indoor shots. Little that Photoshop’s FINAL transfer modes and SCORE displacement filters don’t already do.

58%

IOMEGA CD VS. ZIP DISC REVIEWS

Gimme some space! Iomega Zip 750 vs Iomega Predator 2 CD-RW What’s the best format for storing your image collection away from your computer? Cheap-butslower CDs or expensive-but-quick Zip discs? Nick Peers looks at two solutions from Iomega

T

he main advantage of the Zip drive is that it’s easy to set up – install the drivers, plug it in and you can use it like a floppy or hard drive. Any back-up software will transfer your images to disk (or you can manually copy them across yourself), and finding your images again is easy with any cataloguing software or your operating system’s Find function. The same is true of CDs, although you’ll need a CD-RW and some special software such as the HotBurn program that’s supplied with the Predator 2. In return for a lengthy formatting process – up to 40 minutes per disc, around 130Mb of space and a severe performance hit – you can use it in exactly the same way as a Zip disk.

Share and share alike If you want to share your photos with family or friends, then the CD drive is the only way to go. While the CD-RW disc is less likely to work in another machine, you can easily burn a CD-R that plays happily in 99 per cent of all CD and DVD drives, Mac or PC. Zip drives are less portable – less people have the drive, which makes it difficult to share your images with them via this format. The fact that you can only read from the most common format – the 100Mb disk – reinforces this point further.

Performance tests We tested the drives by copying 500Mb of image files, stored in various folders, to and from various

discs. While the Predator 2 enjoys the edge in regular reading and writing speeds, performance took a nosedive when the CD-RW disc was used as a virtual drive in Windows. Although it’s the only category in which the Zip came out on top, it’s arguably the most important one if you want to be able to use the CD-RW like any other drive in Windows. It’s not an issue, however, if all you want to do is burn discs for yourself and friends for use in a read-only capacity.

Which is best for digital images? While the Zip drive is easier to use and faster as a drag-and-drop drive, we feel it’s had its day. Zip disks are far too expensive – around £10 each compared with £1.50 for a CD-RW, and can’t easily be shared among friends and family. Before you go out and buy the Predator 2, though, consider this. It’s overpriced – even with a USB2 card in special promotional packs – and you can do far better elsewhere. Mac users should look for Firewire alternatives, while PC owners should start their search at www.pcindex.co.uk for comparative prices.

1

HEAD-TO-HEAD VERDICT IOMEGA ZIP 750 £152

IOMEGA PREDATOR 2 £181

If you want to be able to use your drive like a hard or floppy disk, then this definitely has the edge in terms of performance. But unless you regularly copy 500Mb of data as opposed to 50Mb of data, is the extra outlay worth it for a dying standard? We think not.

While CD is not as fast as Zip when used as a removable drive, it’s still far cheaper and easy to share. That said, we suggest you shop elsewhere (Mac users will find plenty of equivalent Firewire drives available) for a better deal.

FEATURES BUILD QUALITY VALUE FOR MONEY

FEATURES BUILD QUALITY VALUE FOR MONEY

60% FINAL SCORE

65% 75% 50%

65%

Read time in seconds

Zip

70% 70% 55%

(based on a group of files and folders CD-R totalling 500Mb)

Write time in seconds

FINAL SCORE

Zip

(based on a group of files and folders CD-R totalling 500Mb)

REVIEWS

MINI CAMERAS

SIPIX STYLECAM BLINK The StyleCam Blink is tiny, but maybe a fraction bulkier than the others here – partly due to its use of a AAA battery rather than a compact lithium cell. This battery is handy in some respects, because you can get a replacement anywhere if the power goes. The Blink is a still camera, video camera and, when connected via its USB lead, a PC/webcam. The video mode, though, isn’t all it seems. Indeed, the maker calls it a ‘streaming snapshot’ mode. Pictures are captured at a rate of three or four per second, then assembled on your PC using the bundled AVI Maker program. A frame rate of 3-4fps is obviously going to make for pretty slow and jerky movies, and it’s a pain having to assemble the frames manually, too. So is the Blink really a video camera? Only just.

4

Price Contact SiPix Sensor

£40 0870 241 4289 310,000-pixel CMOS

Lens Memory Movie mode

The picture quality from its 0.3-megapixel CMOS sensor is tolerable, but only if you’re pretty undemanding and happy with the novelty value alone. Exposure control seems pretty fair, both indoors and out, but images aren’t very sharp, especially towards the edges. The @xia SlimShot is a better performer in this respect. What you do get with the StyleCam Blink, though, is a good software bundle. As well as the AVI Maker application, you also get ArcSoft PhotoImpression 3.0 (image acquisition, organisation and editing), ArcSoft VideoImpression, ArcSoft FINAL PhotoFantasy and ArcSoft PhotoMontage. SCORE The StyleCam Blink promises a lot, but the results and its capabilities are a bit lame.

73%

Fixed focus, f3.0 8Mb internal Snapshots at 3-4fps

Battery Weight

1 x AAA 50g (est)

FUJIFILM FINEPIX A101 The FinePix A101 is no styling masterpiece, but it’s solidly made. Switch it on, and it’s ready for use after just a second or so. There’s next to no shutter lag, either, since it uses a fixed-focus lens with no autofocus delays. This fixed-focus thing isn’t as scary as it sounds because the tiny lenses on digital cameras offer huge depth of field and the A101 offers pictures that are sharp from 0.8m to infinity – and there’s a macro mode, too, set by a switch next to the lens, which lets you get as close as 8cm. The controls on the back are easy to navigate, and there’s really not much to do except pick the quality

4

Price £140 Contact FujiFilm 0207 586 5900 Sensor 1.3-megapixel CCD

Lens Memory Accessories

setting and adjust the flash mode where necessary. The movie mode’s okay for occasional use, but the 8Mb SmartMedia card limits your movie duration to a maximum of 47 seconds, and at just 10fps with no sound recording, it’s not going to replace a camcorder. The results from the A101 are very good, given the limitations of any 1.3-megapixel CCD. Exposure is accurate, colours reasonably punchy and detail as sharp as 1.3 megapixels can be. There are few frills on FINAL this camera, but it’s a snapshot SCORE tool that’s easy to use and produces good results.

84%

36mm (equiv) 8Mb SmartMedia USB cable

Battery Weight

2x AAs 145g

MUSTEK GSMART MINI2 The Mustek’s not much heavier than the SlimShot, but it’s significantly less pocketable, thanks to a protruding lens barrel that kind of spoils the miniaturised effect. It contains a fixed focus lens, but you rotate the lens barrel to switch between standard and macro mode. This gives the camera added versatility, and it’s easy to leave it switched to macro and muck up lots of ordinary shots by mistake. The results from the Mustek are a disappointing. The 1.3-megapixel CMOS chip occasionally produces some quite sharp results, but it is hard to know when that is going happen. The fixed focus seems a little too

4 046

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Price Contact Firebox Sensor

£80 0870 241 4289 1.3-megapixel CMOS

Lens Memory Accessories

heavily biased towards nearby objects, and we suspect the shutter release is bleeping a fraction ahead of the picture being recorded – we had a few mis-timed shots. With this in mind, the GSmart’s maximum (interpolated) resolution of 2.1 megapixels is just too ambitious.This camera is no rival for a ‘real’ digicam. With care and familiarity, though, the Mustek might do better. And it has the advantage of a movie mode and the ability to hook up to your PC as a webcam. FINAL Like the SlimShot, it recharges via SCORE the USB lead, so it gets top marks for practicality.

71%

Fixed f2.8 16Mb internal Adjustable mount

Battery Weight

Rechargeable Lithium 40g

; 2

NEXT MONTH

SUB-£100 BUDGET CAMERAS

FUJIFILM @XIA SLIMSHOT The @xia’s one of those little gadgets that just leaves you awe-struck. It’s light as a feather, will fit into your top pocket without any snagging or sagging and is ludicrously simple to operate. You switch it on, and the lens panel on the front pops out a couple of millimetres. Compose your shot with the good-sized optical viewfinder (no LCD displays on this baby), press the shutter release and a little bleep immediately signals the picture’s been taken. The results from the 0.3-megapixel CMOS chip are predictably poor, but the colour and contrast are reasonable, even if the resolution isn’t, and the results are fine for novelty value and some unambitious web use. The SlimShot uses an ‘Autobrite’ system to manage high-contrast scenes, and the results are quite good in that respect. What’s clever is the way the SlimShot recharges from your computer’s USB port. The controls are utterly undemanding, too. One button on the back controls the mode – high res (these things are relative), low res, delete FINAL last (picture) and delete all. Another button switches the sound effects on and off. SCORE As an aide-memoire or a novelty camera for the kids, the SlimShot is wonderful. A bit more memory would help – you can only take 26 high-res shots – but that’s just carping.

82%

4

Price £80 Contact Fujifilm 0207 586 5900 Sensor 310,000-pixel CMOS

Lens Memory ISO

47mm (equiv) f3.8 8Mb internal 100

Battery Weight

Rechargeable Lithium 35g

PHOTOCLIP 5-IN-1 The list of things this gadget will do is absolutely barmy. You can shoot 1.3-megapixel digital photos and sequences, record 320 x 240 movies (with sound), record audio clips (and annotations with still images) and play MP3 files. Amazing. Not surprisingly, there are compromises. The 1.3-megapixel CMOS sensor is adequate, but not as good as the 1.3-megapixel CCDs in equivalent ‘proper’ digital cameras. You can control the white balance and exposure compensation, but the LCD panel on the backplate has a lot to do (there’s no colour LCD preview screen on this camera), and it can be a bit of a faff. The specs are good, with an excellent 64Mb of built-in memory plus a Compact Flash card slot, but the build quality leaves something to be desired. There are dire warnings about over-rotating the swivelling battery FINAL compartment (it doubles as a prop-up camera stand) and, sure enough, it feels quite SCORE delicate – inserting batteries is awkward, too. Worse still, the ultra-flimsy card slot cover broke as soon as we tried to use it. The controls on the back are okay, if a bit cheap-feeling.

75%

4

Price £200 Contact Firebox 0870 241 4289 Sensor 1.3-megapixel CMOS

Lens Memory

50mm (equiv), f2.8 64Mb internal plus CF slot

Accessories Battery Weight

Headphones, soft case 2x AA 99g

SONY DSC-U10 Next to some of the other miniaturised gadgets on the shelves, the Sony feels like it’s hewn from solid granite. Slide back the lens cover on the front and, in around a second, it’s ready for use. Uniquely, this camera has no optical viewfinder, but relies instead on a dinky 1-inch LCD that’s nevertheless sharp, bright and responsive. The photographic controls are accessed by a trio of buttons below the LCD – and you get a lot more control than you might expect. There are portrait, night shot and landscape ‘scene’ modes in addition to the default autoeverything setting, and the flash modes include auto, always on, always off and red-eye reduction. The dinky little menu system is reached using a dinky little button, but there’s not much else to sort out here beyond the image size and various initial set-up options. The DSC-U10 will fit neatly in the palm of your hand, dangle from your wrist or sit in your pocket or bag. It feels FINAL solid and sturdy, and with the lens cover slid back over the lens, generally well protected. SCORE The image quality is pretty good, too. A little prone to lens flare, maybe, with slightly muted colours, but good nonetheless – especially in a camera as tiny as this one.

85%

4

Price Contact Sony Sensor

£200 0990 111 999 1.3-megapixel CCD

Lens Memory Accessories

22mm (equiv), f2.8 8Mb Memory Stick 2x rechargeable AAAs

Battery Weight

2 x AA 118g

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

047

SPECIAL BOXED ISSUE! >> FREE PROJECT NOMADS POSTER >> 40 PAGE MICROSOFT GAMES SUPPLEMENT >> EXCLUSIVE GAMES DEMOS, MORE…

ON THE DISC

3CD ISSUE!

THE BEST GAME DEMOS AND FULL PROGRAMS Posters, games supplements, full versions – you’ve never had it so good!

EXCLUSIVE DEMO

EXCLUSIVE

EXCLUSIVE

Be the first to play one of the most unique games of the year.

Huge image effects expansion pack for PSP.

Finally, the killer demo you’ve all been waiting for!

PROJECT NOMADS

PAINT SHOP PRO XTRAS

HITMAN 2

ON SALE 10 OCT

Y

ou can take all the digital photos you like and spend hours manipulating them to the nth degree, but even the best digital images are not much use unless you can output them at a good quality. Ideally, at a quality that can rival conventional silver halide photo prints. Fortunately, the technology behind inkjet printing has advanced in recent years, and a print from a quality inkjet printer is often as good as one processed by a high street lab. The other, and equally important, advantage of digital photography is the degree of control that imagemanipulation software – such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro – offers over the final appearance of your photos. Unlike the results from a photo lab, printing your own images at home on an inkjet printer gives you ultimate control over the colour balance, cropping, print size and even the content of the photo. You can turn your snaps into photographic masterpieces before outputting them – virtually in an instant – at home. However, if inkjet printing is so good, why hasn’t the whole world moved over to it? There are two main

barriers to the universal take up of inkjet photo printing: longevity and cost.

SUB-£400 PRINTERS

A4 INKJETS

Universal acceptance First, many photographers who experienced the early days of digital inkjet photo printing remember with horror their prints literally fading before their eyes. This was largely due to the paper and ink technology of the time. Air pollution and damage from ultra violet light is responsible for making short work of inkjet prints. Fortunately, those problems have largely been sorted with the use of advanced inks and special fade-resistant photo papers. These days, most prints from a photo inkjet printer will probably offer an image that will be as stable and last at least as long as a conventional silver halide print. As long as the finished photo is kept out of strong sunlight or displayed behind glass, then it stands a pretty good chance of giving years of pleasure. Of course, one of the main advantages of digital photography is that if your print does fade, then you can easily print off another copy, secure in the knowledge that your stored digital images will still be there – fresh

CANON BUBBLEJET S820 Price: £219 CANON BUBBLEJET S900 Price: £329 EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 830 Price: £99 EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 950 Price: £379 HP DESKJET 5550 Price: £149 HP PHOTOSMART 7350 Price: £199

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

049

LAB TEST A4 INKJET PRINTERS – FEATURES TOP TIP Looking for photo paper or ink cartridges? Try www.inkjet-cartridges.co.uk

3 IN DETAIL

CANON BUBBLEJET S820

PAPER There are two basic types: porous and swellable. Porous paper dries quickly and is scratch resistant. It’s not very glossy and is prone to fading. Swellable paper takes longer to dry but has a higher gloss finish and resists fading better.

CANON BUBBLEJET S900

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

? EXPLAINED LIGHTFASTNESS The amount of time your photos will last without fading. Depends on whether it’s behind glass, the paper quality and the type of ink.

FEATURES

FEATURES

Build You can’t exactly call the S820’s styling exciting, but it cuts a fairly cool dash in its battleship grey. There’s a lid that opens up to access the individual ink tanks, and controls are limited to two buttons: one for power and one for paper feed.

Build When it comes to photo printers, the Canon S900 really is the business. It looks the part and has obviously been well engineered. Particularly welcome are the separate ink tanks including the use of photo cyan and photo magenta cartridges.

Build Flimsy is the best word to describe the build quality of the Epson Stylus Photo 830, but don’t let that put you off. The print speed is very good for the price and the photo output is well up to Epson’s usually high standard. Combined colour ink tanks make running costs a bit higher.

Printing The use of six inks instead of the usual four reduces grain in the output of the 820 – particularly on things like flesh tones. The S820’s swift print speed makes for a perfect balance between price and quality.

Printing When used in conjunction with Canon’s Photo Paper Pro (one of the glossiest papers on the market) the results are impressive. However, most astonishing is the print speed, which makes some of the other printers on test here look as if they’ve been sedated.

8

Printing Quiet in operation, the 830 makes for a good budget printer. Its quoted resolution at 5,760dpi (optimised) sounds a bit misleading as no separate vertical and horizontal resolution figure is quoted.

8

CARTRIDGES

CARTRIDGES

CARTRIDGES

Canon has pioneered separate ink tanks in budget printers. They certainly save you money and you can visually gauge how much ink you have left. Fitting is easy and quick.

Separate ink tanks can dramatically reduce the running cost of a photo printer. As with the Canon S820, the S900 has photo cyan and photo magenta cartridges.

Epson’s use of combined fivecolour cartridge makes for higher running costs and more waste. Changing cartridges is easy. Each cartridge has a microchip to monitor ink levels.

as the day you pressed the shutter button. The second main objection to the use of inkjet printers in photography has been the cost of producing finished images. True, on a price-per-print basis, a 4 x 6 print will cost more to output from an inkjet than a straightforward package at a high street photo lab. However, recent research indicates that people are only happy with about 10 per cent of conventional film images that they have developed at a photo lab. Add to this the horrific price that most photo labs charge for reprints and enlargements, and the inkjet option actually

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

FEATURES

8

050

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 830

begins to look rather favourable since with you’re not paying out for the privilege of proofing your prints. With a digital camera and PC you can proof everything on-camera, or on-screen and just pick the images that you want to print off.

Which printer? So, now that we’ve persuaded you that inkjet printing is the way to go, which photo printer should you consider buying? Well, we looked at six A4 printers that are neither absolute rock-bottom budget machines, nor

high-end output devices. Remember that most printer manufacturers sell their printers at a virtual loss, but make up their profits by selling you papers and ink. The running cost of a photo printer should be a factor you take into consideration when buying your printer. For our lab test, we asked each manufacturer of photo printers to supply us with two inkjet models for testing in the £100 to £350 price range. Photo inkjet stalwart, Epson, put forward the sophisticated Stylus Photo 950, and the brand new Stylus Photo 830, which

HEWLETT-PACKARD DESKJET 5550

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 950

HEWLETT-PACKARD PHOTOSMART 7350

? EXPLAINED INTERFACE The way your PC connects to the printer. All printers these days carry a USB connection but a few also offer parallel interfaces for use with older PCs. USB tends to be faster and more flexible, and is our recommended option.

INK There are two types of ink used in inkjet printers: dye and pigment. Dyes are more common but fade more easily, while pigments last longer but aren’t as shiny.

FEATURES

FEATURES

FEATURES

Build For an A4 inkjet, the Epson Stylus Photo 950 pushes at the group price bracket. The Epson 950 has something special about it: separate ink tanks and a paper cutter. The 950 can take roll paper and will even print directly onto a CD.

Build Odd rounded styling and a flimsy casing let down what is a very competent photo printer that offers true photographic quality when used with the optional HP Photo cartridge. The main advantage with the Deskjet 5550 is that it can double up as an excellent general-purpose printer if you replace the photo cartridge with a regular black version.

Build The company that recently merged with Compaq has decided to go for the digital photography market in a big way – hence products like the Photosmart 7350. Included with the printer are four memory card slots for direct printing. The biggest disappointment is the incredibly slow speed of the 7350. The figure of 27 minutes for our test print was unacceptable.

Printing Oddly, our test showed that the 5550’s print speed was considerably faster than the HP 7350. Using a USB2 interface could cut down print times a little.

Printing Good points for the 7350 is the use of newly formulated inks that, when used with HP’s range of Premium papers – offers 65 years of lightfastness.

Printing A nice feature for digital photographers is the borderless printing facility that makes more of your photographic paper. The separate ink tanks feature dye-based quick-dry inks provide high-resolution output at a very acceptable 2,800 x 1,440dpi.

8

8

8

CARTRIDGES

CARTRIDGES

CARTRIDGES

Separate ink tanks with newly formulated inks provide much longer-lasting prints when used with Epson’s special photo papers. Note the two shades of black for improved B&W output.

The ink cartridges in the Deskjet 5550 are a new design and there’s an option to swap out the black cartridge for a special photo version. Note the ink warning light above.

By using the optional photo ink cartridge, you can dramatically improve the stability and lightfastness of your prints. However, HP inks aren’t the cheapest on the market.

is aimed at entry-level digital photographers. Our second manufacturer, HP, volunteered its new entry-level photo printer, the Deskjet 5550. This no-frills model with its curvy new styling offers HP’s new PhotoRET IV technology. HP also presented us with its PhotoSmart 7350. As well as incorporating PhotoRET IV technology, the PhotoSmart 7350 has some unique tricks up its sleeve that enable you to print photos directly from your camera’s solid-state storage card. To do this it has four slots that can accommodate the most popular formats of

storage cards: SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Memory Stick and MMD/SD. Our final inkjet manufacturer in this test is a relative newcomer to the photo printing market – but not to the world of inkjets, which it prefers to call BubbleJets. Canon has been in the imaging business for a long time and its latest range of ink printers offer some outstanding results at reasonable prices. Their main advantage is the use of separate ink tanks, which mean you can replace the coloured inks in your printer as each cartridge runs out. The two Canon

models on test here are the three-ink S900 and the photo-specific S820, which Canon markets as a printer specifically tailored to photo printing.

3 IN DETAIL PRINT TECHNOLOGY There are two main types of printing technologies used in consumer printers. The most common is thermal inkjet where the ink is heated before being used. The less common (used by Epson) is the cold Piezo method, where ink isn’t preheated.

Down to specifics There are two schools of thought when it comes to measuring the resolution of an inkjet printer. Strictly speaking, a printer should quote two resolution figures: one for vertical resolution and one for horizontal. The figure in dpi (dots per square inch) may be unfeasibly high in one direction but quite low in another. Be wary

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

051

LAB TEST A4 INKJET PRINTERS – PRINT QUALITY TOP TIP If you find your printer’s installation software isn’t right for your PC, check the manufacturer’s website, all of them carry downloadable versions of the latest drivers

OUR COVERDISC * ON

CANON BUBBLEJET S820

PRINTER TEST IMAGE Find the test file we used to generate the print results on this page on our coverdisc A, look for a link to it on the disc intro page

ON OUR

C WEBSITE BUY A PRINTER You can buy all these printers at their latest prices via our website: digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

? EXPLAINED PICOLITRES The amount of ink that a printer can squirt in one dot can be as tiny a 3 to 4 picolitres. A picolitre is a million millionth of a litre.

8

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 830

CANON BUBBLEJET S900

8

8

PRINT RESULTS

PRINT RESULTS

PRINT RESULTS

Colours Strong and striking colours but with a hue that is believable and not too overblown. That is, perhaps, the best way to describe the principal characteristics of the print output from Canon’s BubbleJet S820.

Colours There’s little – if anything – to separate the quality of output between the Canon S820 and the S900. Print speed may be a bit faster, but that’s about it.

Colours For a printer as cheap as this one, the print quality really is outstanding. The colours are fairly natural and pleasing to the eye. Another bonus with the 830 is the ability to print borderless prints. It’s amazing how much difference a borderless print can make to a finished photograph.

Resolution The dither pattern on the output all but disappears, thanks to the combination of six inks and Canon’s excellent Photo Paper Pro which has all the hallmarks of a high quality photographic paper. Despite being a porous paper, Photo Paper Pro has the glossiest finish of any special photo paper and this undoubtedly helps to sharpen the final output.

Resolution If anything, in our print test, there was slightly more fuzziness around the edges of some of the colours, particularly where light areas juxtapose with darker areas. In one or two areas, midtones had a little noise about them but, once again, not such that you would be too bothered. Remember that all the prints here were outputted at each printer’s highest resolution so you would expect fairly decent results.

Blacks The blacks in the Bubblejet S820 print aren’t as black as some of the other prints in this test, but they are dark enough and still leave fine detail in the shadow areas of the image.. It is hard to criticise the quality of the S820 and it certainly holds its own with a conventional silver halide print. Canon quotes lightfast data of 27 years.

Blacks The strange thing about printing at this resolution on Canon’s Photo Paper Pro, is that the image is quite light at first, particularly in the black areas, but after 15 minutes it develops (almost like a conventional photo) and exhibits strong but not solid blacks. Curious.

of the figures quoted. Also, high resolution doesn’t automatically mean that a printer produces either a sharper or clearer print. Squeezing ever more dots into each square inch by firing smaller and smaller droplets of ink at it isn’t the whole story. It’s as much a matter of how the ink behaves when it hits the paper and how the paper reacts. For example, it can be as different as the results of writing on Basildon Bond or blotting paper with the same pen. One manufacturer, HP, eschews the ‘more dpi

is better’ argument with its PhotoRET IV technology. Although HP does offer a high dpi setting for those who want it, the PhotoRET option offers faster printing with results that the company claims are almost as sharp as the highest resolution printer, despite printing at 300dpi. How does it do this? By layering up to 30 dots of ink, one on top the other, in order to build up subtle variations in tone. Does it work? Well, yes and no. It depends on what you’re looking for in a digital print. In terms of

Resolution Because the Photo 830 uses a five-ink colour cartridge, the gradients and dithering are good. Although the quality is good, there are a few drawbacks – notably the print speed and the cost. The 830 may be cheap to buy but its wasteful five-ink cartridge and sluggish print times could cost more in the long run. Blacks Looking closely at the texture of the face we can see that the amount of darker dithering used to make up the shading in the texture of the skin is very fine indeed.

* WEB LINKS MICROSOFT INSIDER PRINTING SOLUTIONS WEBSITE www.microsoft.com/insider /printhelp Microsofts’s Printing Solution Center has information ranging from printer set-up and driver installation to solutions for specific error messages, establishing networks, and articles for Microsoft programs and operating systems.

052

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

sharpness… not quite. In terms of producing a good print… yes. PhotoRET IV is very good at mixing subtle colours with its clever layering technology, but it’s still no substitute for high-resolution printing. Just as well, then, that the HP print drivers have an option to skip PhotoRET IV and print at maximum resolution.

Consumables Of course, the printer manufacturers want you to buy their range of inks and paper – that’s how they make

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 950

HEWLETT-PACKARD DESKJET 5550

HEWLETT-PACKARD PHOTOSMART 7350

0

EXPERT TIP MARK SPARROW PRINTING EXPERT

PRINTING PHOTOS

8

8

8

PRINT RESULTS

PRINT RESULTS

PRINT RESULTS

Colours As with other Epson printers, colours are reasonably natural and not too warm or too cold – in fact, just right. If you’re fussy about colour then you really will appreciate the Stylus Photo 950.

Colours Our print shows colours that are a bit too lively. The reds show up as scarlet while a print of a banana had a definite green tinge to it. One good point about the HP photo cartridge is that it now handles flesh tones more accurately. Previously, getting a believable flesh tone with an HP tricolour printer was difficult.

Colours The HP offers ‘American’ colours. Apparently, the North American public prefer vibrant blues and reds to the more natural and muted colours that we Europeans are supposed to prefer. This may explain why the PhotoSmart 7350 has a much brighter output.

Resolution Separate ink tanks and the addition of a light black or grey option means that the print output from the 950 is very high. Unlike the HP way of doing things, the Epson technology uses finer dots of ink at astonishingly high resolutions to produce the illusion of continual tones (as in a conventional photographic print). Blacks The 950 really scores in its output of black and white prints. These are notoriously difficult to get right on most colour inkjets due to the use of colour inks to achieve a pseudo-monochrome finish. Having a second, grey ink means that the atmosphere of a black and white print is more achievable.

their money. But surely, any ink or paper will do, cutting a few corners will get you prints for less? The answer is an emphatic “no.” The manufacturer of your particular printer will have spent millions of research dollars formulating its own brand of ink and paper products to work perfectly together. The printer, paper and ink are sometimes referred to as a ‘golden triangle’. Replace any one of the three elements and the triangle no longer works and your prints will look awful.

Resolution Dithering of the lemons in our test print was larger and rougher than we would have liked. The Deskjet 5550 should turn out very good prints since our test model had been fitted with HP’s brand new photo cartridge that substitutes the plain black cartridge with one that contains photo inks and black. HP offers better lightfastness – 65 years behind glass. Blacks The blacks in the print are good but the glossy finish of the paper is somewhat diminished in the black areas. This is probably to do with the new formulation for the fade-resistant ink.

To get decent quality prints, simply use the ink and paper recommended by your printer manufacturer. There’s no secret to it – just stick to those rules and your photos should print out perfectly.

Installation issues Printing out your photos on an inkjet printer is a straightforward affair once you’ve got your parameters set up. Installing the printer drivers is no more difficult than putting any other piece of software on your PC.

Resolution The HP Photosmart 7350 ostensibly shares the same print engine as its cheaper sibling. But you wouldn’t think so from the results. We noticed some quite severe JPEG artefacts in the image, coupled with the same over-enthusiastic colours. The use of the HP photo cartridge is supposed to reduce the amount of grain in the prints that the 7350 produces. However, on close inspection we didn’t notice a staggering amount of difference. There is a slight improvement in skin tones where redness is reduced but, otherwise, you may be better off by not investing in the photo ink. Blacks Again, the blacks are good.

Printing photos isn’t very different from other types of printing, although you do have a few more choices to make. As long as you set the print driver to match the type of paper that you’re using, and choose to print at a resolution that matches your image, then you should have few problems. If you’re printing out a relatively low-resolution image then don’t be tempted to rack up the printer resolution. You’ll simply be printing a finer grain and won’t be able to increase the clarity of the image. What’s more, you’ll use more ink and it will take longer. So, be careful about maxing out on resolution… more isn’t always better. A print is only as good as the source that you’re printing on. If you haven’t adjusted the image’s levels and produced a well-cropped image, then your print will be disappointing. Leave your print to dry for at least 24 hours before you attempt to put it behind glass. It’s likely to smudge if you don’t. Crop your print to make a really good composition. Even an average photo can be improved with a good bit of judicious cropping. Be creative.

And because all these printers use USB interfaces (there are one or two with a parallel option), connection shouldn’t be too taxing. The things you have to set up via the driver when printing are the paper size and the paper type. Each printer behaves differently depending on the media that you are feeding into it. The HP models feature an automatic paper sensor that can distinguish between four basic types of media and will deliver the correct density of ink and the right resolution for the media

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

053

LAB TEST A4 INKJET PRINTERS – SPECIFICATIONS BUYERS’ TIP Factor in the cost of paper and ink, don’t just look at the headline price. Some companies charge less for the printer, but more for the consumables

1

SPECIFICATIONS AT A GLANCE

CANON S820 DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

CANON S900

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

90%

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 830

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 950

Rating

95%

86%

88%

Price

£219

Maker

Canon

£329

£99

£379

Canon

Epson

Epson

Warranty

One year, on site

One year, on site

One year, on site

One year, on site

Telephone

0800 616 417

0800 616 417

0800 220 546

0800 220 546

URL

www.canon.co.uk

www.canon.co.uk

www.epson.co.uk

www.epson.co.uk

Print technology

Bubblejet

Bubblejet

Micro Piezo

Micro Piezo

Maximum resolution (dpi)

2,400 x 1,200

2,400 x 1,200

5,760 optimised

2,880 x 1,440

Maximum paper size

A4

A4

A4

A4

Inks

B, M, C, Y, PC, PM

B, M, C, Y, PC, PM

B, M, C, Y, PC, PM

B, M, C, Y, PC, PM

Ink tanks

Separate

Separate

Combined

Separate

Paper capacity

100 sheets

100 sheets

100 sheets

150 sheets

Max/min weight of paper

64 to 105g/mm2

64 to 105g/mm2

60 to 255g/mm2

60 to 255g/mm2

Memory

80Kb

N/A

N/A

256K

Interface

USB + Parallel

USB

USB + Parallel

USB + Parallel

Borderless printing

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Max print speed (mono)

4ppm

7ppm

14ppm

8.8ppm

Max print speed (colour)

4ppm

7ppm

13ppm

8.5ppm

Real test speed

2' 27"

2' 10"

3' 31"

4' 15"

Black cartridge cost

£8.99

£8.99

£21.91

£9.99

Colour cartridge cost:

£8.99

£8.99

£17.75

£10.34

Size

430 x 294 x 177mm

443 x 319 x 185mm

480 x 260 x 181mm

515 x 333 x 209mm

Weight

5.2kg

5.8kg

3.32kg

7.6kg

OS

All Windows + Mac OS 9 and X

All Windows + Mac OS 9 and X

All Windows + Mac OS 9 and X

All Windows + Mac OS 9 and X

5

5

5

5

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

5

054

that you are using. The other two makes of printers require manual setting of the paper types. So, if you’re using glossy photo paper you’ll have to set the driver accordingly. Likewise, if you’re using plain paper, then you’ll need to check that option before you print. You can also select the print resolution via the print driver and print in draft mode just to see if the print fits on the paper properly and looks roughly right. All of the printers that we tested feature a range of custom options that you can set in the print driver. You can save these custom settings and even paper sizes so that you don’t have to re-enter all the values each time you want to print out a picture. Options available for special features include things like borderless printing, special effects and even the tone of the image and other features like watermarks. The new HP printers even have a range of photo manipulation features such as Digital Flash. You can adjust the images you’re about to print without going

5

Look out for the DPI figure quoted for your inkjet printer. DPI stands for Dots Per Inch. The higher the figure, the higher the quality… in theory.

PRO Super fast, great output, separate inks

CON Difficult to find fault

PRO Good smooth output, very fast printing

5

DPI

CON Bit dull looking

CON Feels a bit fragile, no separate inks

into a full-blown photo program like Photoshop. It’s a handy feature if you’re in a hurry. You can also set the way your printer handles colour. All the models on test here handle Apple’s Colorsync system and for PC users there are controls that adjust how vivid the colours are that your printer delivers.

Useful extras Because you’ll be using your printer mainly for outputting photos, you may want a model that has memory card slots for printing direct from a Compact Flash card or SmartMedia. Generally, the more you pay the more likely you are to find these little extras. Some Epson printers even come with a roll paper feeder to turn your inkjet into a mini photo lab. It seems like a good idea, but rolled paper can be a devil to make flat and you may well find that individual 4 x 6 glossy photocards are easier and cheaper to use. If you do like the idea of printing directly from cards, make sure it’s a feature you’ll use. If you’re a

PRO All-rounder, Duplex option, photo quality

5

? EXPLAINED

PRO Super fast, great output, separate inks

CON Not particularly well built, slow

serious digital photographer you will probably want to download your photos first and adjust the levels and crop the image accordingly. Unless you’re one of the minority that can produce a perfectly exposed and composed print every time, then these card slots may be an expensive gimmick. Some photo printers – notably the HP range – offer duplex printing so that you can print on both sides of a piece of paper. While it may be tempting to print details of your photograph on the reverse side, the chances are that your nice new print will be heavily scratched going through the printer for a second time. Also, since HP’s glossy papers are the swellable variety, you may find that they take quite a while to dry and will get smudged if you put them through the printer again without allowing for enough time.

Test results All the printers on test here are capable of delivering extremely good results. Naturally, the quality of output

; 2

NEXT MONTH

WE TEST AND COMPARE THE LATEST CD BURNERS

HOW WE TESTED THE PRINTERS HP DESKJET 5550

HP PHOTOSMART 7350

75%

75%

£149

£199

HP

HP

One year swap

One year swap

0870 547 4747

0870 547 4747

www.hp.com

www.hp.com

Thermal inkjet

Thermal inkjet

4,800 x 1,200

4,800 x 1,200

A4

A4

B, M, C, Y + Photo

B, M, C, Y + Photo

Combined

Combined

100 sheets

100 sheets

60 to 90g/mm2

60 to 90g/mm2

8Mb

8Mb

USB2 + Parallel

USB2

Only 4 x 6

Only 4 x 6

17ppm 10ppm

21 mins (4' 35" PhotoRET)

11 mins 20 seconds

£16.45

£16.45

£21.14

£21.14

456 x 385 x 156mm

475 x 391 x 152mm

5.3kg

6.5kg

CON Very slow at its maximum resolution

All Windows + Mac OS 9 and X

5

5

depends on you using the correct combination of inks and paper. You’ll also need to set up the print driver for the type of paper and the job that you’re doing. Once that is done, it’s a question of sitting back and waiting… and waiting, in some instances. Canon’s BubbleJet s820 and BubbleJet S900 were the fastest of those in our lab test. Incredibly, they ripped through our test print in just over two minutes. This is not due to interfaces, but the efficiency of the driver and the speed of the print-head. The fact that the Canon range uses cheap separate ink cartridges also makes it a very economical proposition for the digital photographer. The HP printers promise a great deal. HP makes many claims for PhotoRET IV technology and the new photo cartridge. In practice, we found that there was very little difference in the output between the prints using the photo ink and those outputted with the black cartridge. The print times count heavily against both the Deskjet 5550 and the Photosmart 7350. However, if you

PRO Prints directly from memory cards, produces index pages

5

5

PRO Easy to use when printing from memory cards

driver to maximum resolution. Unfortunately, this bypasses the PhotoRET IV technology with the HP printers but it is the only way of comparing like for like. For information we also noted the time taken to print with the PhotoRET switched on, since many users will be perfectly happy with that setting and will appreciate the time saving option. Each print was assessed for its sharpness, colour balance, grain and dithering. We looked closely at the amount of black dithering introduced in shadowy areas to see if any roughness was introduced. All the prints were laid out in a blind test and assessed against each other. These real world tests are important since we don’t all scrutinise our photos with a magnifying glass. The overall impression that a print gives may often be better from a distance than a print that looks good close up.

BLACK CARTRIDGE COST £s

9ppm

All Windows + Mac OS 9 and X

T

esting a photo printer requires a source image that can stretch the abilities of the printer as well as taxing the print driver to its limits. We had two test images: a fruit display and a test card. The fruit display was taken with a 4-megapixel Olympus E10 on a bright day at noon, under a glass canopy. The canopy diffused the light and reduced the highlights yet still provided a bright and well-detailed image. Although the colours are up in the yellow end of the spectrum, this is a good test of the printer since yellows can often turn a nasty greenish colour. The test card was a PDF containing a portrait, an action shot, a black and white photo and a series of calibration tests. The first aspect of our test was to see how fast an A4 print takes with each printer bearing in mind that the test photo is a 10.8Mb tiff file. To do this we set the printer

CON The output not brilliant, print speeds are surprisingly slow

want a reasonable photo printer that can also double up as a general-purpose inkjet then these two models are worth a closer inspection. Finally, the Epson contingent. The Stylus Photo 830 offers excellent photo output at an amazing price. The drawback is the running cost of the Epson combined cartridge and the unreasonable cost of the black cartridge. If you print a lot of photos you may find that the money you save on the initial investment is eaten away by expensive consumables. So, if Epson is your choice, consider the Stylus Photo 950 that has the advantage of using separate ink tanks and turning out impeccable prints. However, the printer that takes the prize for offering the perfect mixture of price, performance and features has to be the Canon S820. At £219, this is a reasonably priced inkjet that offers incredible photographic quality and a print speed that is truly unbelievable. Running costs should be low and the borderless printing feature works perfectly.

COLOUR CARTRIDGE COST £s

SINGLE A4 PRINT MINUTES

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

055

YOUR PHOTOS

Dayinthelife

8

Each month, we give a digital camera to someone in an interesting job and ask them to document a day’s work. To kick off, we went to Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire…

W

@ CONTACT US Now it’s over to you: we want your life in our hands (or on these pages anyway). If you have a visually interesting job that you think might make a good Dayinthelife, please email us today at: [email protected]

056

8

Pet Corner: it’s feeding time. Val prepares fruit for the guinea pigs, rabbits and birds. Watch out for the gorillas… actually, it’s a quiet day for the gorillas, who spend much of the day watching TV. Visitors board the boat that sails around Gorilla Island – watch out for the hippos and pelicans in the water. Lunch time: later on in the day, a quick check on the zebra and giraffes. Their shed is mucked out while they’re outside. Next it’s time to give the animals their lunch. The food in this shot is for the iguanas. Then it’s onto the elephants (the one in the photo is sevenyears-old – they can live for 20 years in captivity), and the famous lions. End of the day: The animals are led back into their pens for feeding and welfare. Ian sedates a giraffe because some medicines have to be injected rather than fed. This giraffe – Roxanne – is being fed antibiotics to keep her healthy through her old age.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

8

Many thanks to the staff at Longleat, and Minolta UK, who kindly donated time and equipment for this article.

STARTING TOP LEFT Morning time: the self-described Motley Crew – Ian’s team of wardens at Longleat – get ready for a day’s animal welfare. The first job is to release the giraffes and zebras from their heated shed, where they are kept overnight. At around 9am it’s time for them to hit the park – it’s back to the shed when the last car leaves the park about 5-6pm.

8

MEET IAN TURNER… Ian is the Deputy Warden of Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire. It’s his job to help care for the zebras, lions and giraffes. He’s also a keen amateur photographer – his work is used to illustrate Longleat’s brochures. We offered him a Minolta digital camera in exchange for a day looking over his shoulder. Here are the results.

e were sitting in our office trying to think of interesting subjects for day in the life pictures. Obviously, our own jobs are out of the question – who wants to watch a bunch of stressed-out journalists depth-charging gallons of coffee on a variety of ill-considered deadlines? Then it came to us: where better to kick off this new series than Longleat Safari Park, a place full of potentially fascinating wildlife shots. Even better, it turned out that the Deputy Warden, Ian Turner, is a keen amateur photographer. Over to Ian…

8

8

8

Ian Turner, armed with his camera, about to record his day’s work at Longleat Safari Park

8 8

8 DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

057

8

TrailBlazers Travel the world, see interesting things and shoot them

BE INSPIRED WWW.LONELYPLANET.COM

Email us shots of your destination, and the best one each month gets printed and framed. See opposite for more information!

2 SINGAPORE

9

2 HONG KONG

2 BANGKOK

1

Photographed by: Stephanie Forsey Location: this beach on Sentosa, a small island just off the coast of Singapore, was a good place to escape the bustle of the city Camera used: Minolta Dimage X Photographed by: Rachel Spooner Location: this shot of two fishing boats was taken on the island of Cheung Chow, one of the islands off the coast of Hong Kong Camera used: Olympus 3030Z

Framed and Returned

Photographed by: Andrew Crook Location: situated on the upper terrace of Grand Palace in Bangkok, this is a model of Angkor Wat, a famous temple complex in Cambodia Camera used: Nikon Coolpix 885

2 BEIJING 2 SHANGHAI

Photographed by: Phil Sowells Location: the superb colours, textures, light and shade – this time in Beijing – are what captured Phil’s attention. The result is this lovely image Camera used: Pentax Optio 330 Photographed by: Phil Sowells Location: this shot of a man napping on his bike was taken in Shanghai Camera used: Pentax Optio 330

058

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

2

YOU HAVE ONE MORE THING TO DO… …while you’re in that ramshackle cybercafé in the middle of some hellhole up a mountain somewhere, and that’s send us the pictures! We want your digital photos direct from the spot you’re visiting, with a few words on what made you want to capture the event, the make of the camera, and your details. We’ll print the best here. And, each month, one outstanding picture from a reader will be printed at the largest size we can manage, framed and posted to their home. ■ We’re looking for landmarks, shots with lots of local interest, unusual events or just something fabulously composed. Start planning that trip away today! Email us at [email protected]

2 MALAYSIA

2 NORWAY

Photographed by: Steve Taylor Location: one of the many beaches in Kelantan, in Northern Malaysia Camera used: Fuji Finepix F601

Photographed by: Dave Musgrove Location: this nicely composed shot of two canoeists was taken on Ulla River in Central Norway Camera used: Nikon Coolpix 4500

2 EGYPT 2 GREECE

2 SYDNEY

Photographed by: Patrick Joscelyne Location: this shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was taken in the summer. The concrete pillars are purely for reassurance and decoration – they serve no engineering function Camera used: Sony DSC-F707

Photographed by: Mark Phillips Location: this shot was taken from a boat on the Red Sea, and shows a scuba diver checking out the famous coral on the coastline of Tiran island Camera used: Ixus 330

Photographed by: Dan Griliopoulos Location: this landscape was taken at Meteora, in Thessalonika. The buildings on the vertical rocks are monasteries Camera used: Olympus C-2020

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

059

Viewfinder

We want your letters! Email us at [email protected] and we’ll print the best

Welcome… …to the first letters page. Like all first issues, we’ve been stuck with the problem of how to fill a letters page when we’ve yet to receive any letters. So rather than fill this valuable space with the madeup ramblings of our editorial team, we invited a few digital camera owners to take a look at some early pages and tell us what they thought. However, in future issues, we’d love to publish your comments. We’ve worked hard to get our first issue as right as we can, but we know that it’s hard to get it perfect first time. For us to evolve and improve, we need to know what you think, what we’re doing well, and what we can do better. We hope you like the broad shape of the magazine and will forgive the odd inevitable launch issue rough edge. We’ll be working hard to smooth it out over the next few months. Now write in, to [email protected]

What’s your reviews policy? Dear DCM, The amount of information you get on your camera reviews pages is impressive and I like the Performance strip you can turn back to compare shots. However, all the cameras you’ve reviewed are compacts. Is this deliberate or will you be covering higher-end cameras at a later date? David McNally, Bristol DCM Thanks for the feedback, David. No, it’s not our policy to only review compacts. Our aim is to cover cameras mainly within the £250-£700 price range because this is where we believe most of the buying action is located. However, we also realise that some of the most exciting stuff is only available in the £800-£1,000 price range, and usually includes the kind of features that, in time, filter down

060

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Dear DCM, Will you mainly be covering Photoshop? Most people can’t afford to spend that much money on a piece of software, no matter how good it is. Brad Neaves, Swindon DCM Our aim is to focus as much as possible on Elements and Paint Shop Pro, as we believe these are the most widely-used home imageediting applications. Although we will use Photoshop for some of the higher-end creative projects, it’s unlikely we’ll be using many tools that require Photoshop’s most advanced features. Elements and PSP are just so good and digital photography-friendly.

Dear DCM, It’s a weighty old magazine you have here, which is just as well at the price! I must say, I am impressed just how much of it there is, and by the overall feeling of quality throughout – it’s nice to see a magazine that finally takes us

We’re the only digital camera magazine to covermount two packed CD-ROMs every issue!

Are you a digital photography/imageediting journalist? Or a photographer with work you want others to see? Then we want to hear from you!

What image editors are you covering?

Are you doing two CDs and tips cards every issue?

Nick Merritt Managing Editor

We want your articles and pictures!

to the more reasonably-priced cameras. So they’re well worth looking at, to see what’s going to be the standard in a couple of years. We’re also aware that many readers may want to upgrade their cameras once they get into their stride with our camera technique tutorials. So we will be covering a wider range in the future – being a launch issue, we went with compacts in order to get a representative spread of cameras across our target price range.

The UK’s biggest digital camera mag is looking for freelance contributors to help put distance between ourselves and our rivals. We want to be the best digital title. If you’re a photographer looking to get your work published, we can promise the highest production values and biggest page sizes so your work is shown off to the maximum effect. Why squeeze your best stuff onto small, shoddy, cramped pages when you can let it loose around here instead?

We’re looking for wildlife, nature and landscape photographers, plus events ideas/writers for Getup&go, submissions to our galleries, reader photos, tutorial writers and much more. 2 If you’re a journalist looking to contribute tutorials and articles, email the editor directly at [email protected] in the first instance and let’s talk! 2 If you’re an artist who uses digital photography to create quality artwork, please email our art

digital enthusiasts as seriously as the traditional photo magazines. But hey, we know how it works. You’ll drop the two CDs and tips cards first chance you get, eh? Steve DCM Nope, no plans to do that, Steve! Although we can’t guarantee everything will stay the same forever, it’s two CDs every issue with full software, the fold-out section and – for another couple of issues at least – tips cards. We know we can do two CDs every issue because we’re published by Future Publishing, which has being covermounting software for years across more mags than anyone else in the UK, so we have the resources to get the best software first. On to the price, we’re no more expensive than a couple of the other mags on the market, and we offer considerably better value and production quality.

Do you accept submissions? Dear DCM, I would like to try to get my pictures published – do you accept stuff for publication? R Rix, Bristol DCM Yes we do. If you’re sending in work to a specific area of the mag, like the Galleries or TrailBlazers sections, email the addresses given at the bottom of those pages. Otherwise, if you’re a professional, send in your work on CD (please include an SAE if you want it returned) and a covering letter. We are on the look out for good photos we can use in our Getup&go section, and cover features. See the box below for more info.

editor at [email protected].

2 If you’re looking to have your work published (it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, all that matters is the quality of images), please email the relevant section: For Getup&go, email getupgo. [email protected]. For submissions to our galleries, email [email protected]. For general picture enquiries, email picdesk.dcm @futurenet.co.uk.

The Official Magazine

The definitive guide to getting more out of your Windows XP computer The UK’s only official magazine for Windows XP Every month, we deliver exclusive full software, updates from Microsoft, the best playable game demos, and definitive tutorials about using your PC

On sale now at all good newsagents! Or order direct, postage free* on 0870 444 8470 www.windowsxpmagazine.co.uk CD Edition £5.99 DVD Edition £6.49

*UK only

4

PROJECTSTUTORIALSTIPSIDEAS

100% authoritative

Your images

Our tutorials are carefully crafted to give you more

Expert guides to making and creating better pictures

T

aking digital photos is only half the story. Once your image is safely ensconced on your PC hard drive, you’ll probably wonder if there’s anything you can do to improve it. That’s the beauty of digital photography – the control it offers over your pictures, whether you want to add to them creatively or fix up little errors and blemishes for a perfect result. Each month in this section, we aim to bring you the best creative ideas combined with essential photo fixes and image-editing techniques. We also aim to put as many of our tutorial files on our CD as possible so you can follow our walkthroughs, step by step. We’ll cover the three main image-editing programs: Abobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro. This month, we kick off with our creative project on page 64, which shows

CREATIVE PROJECT

you how to integrate your digital photos into a single piece of work, using a variety of techniques from adding shadows and shrinking images to motion blur. You’ll find all the files needed for this on our CD. Take a look at our Photo Clinic on page 70, where we take one fond, but damaged, picture from a reader, repair it and show you how we did it. If you have an old image that has become faded, torn or maybe there are people you want to remove from it, send it in – your picture might be repaired next month! In our our Photoshop and Elements techniques tutorials, we explain how to fix common photo problems and simulate high-end camera effects on lower-end images. Finally, don’t forget our Paint Shop Pro tips – just fire up your coverdisc software and use our handy guide.

CREATIVE PROJECT

■ PHOTO MONTAGES P64 Create a stunning montage. PHOTO CLINIC

■ RESTORING A PHOTO P70 Fix a damaged photo. DIGITAL PHOTO FIXES

■ ENHANCING YOUR PICS P74 Use Photoshop and Elements. PHOTOSHOP AND ELEMENTS TOOLS

■ HOW TO USE LAYERS P76 Unleash the power of layers. PAINT SHOP PRO TOOLS

■ COMPLETE GUIDE TO PSP5 P78 Get the best out of PSP5. IMAGE EDITING

■ MOTION BLUR P82 Add movement to your photos.

PHOTOSHOP/ELEMENTS TOOLS

WEBSITES More info online is always available.

Your expert team

P76

P74

TIM DALY Tim is a lecturer on photography and is the author of several best-selling digital photography books.

ED DAVIS Ed is a pro photographer. He is also a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

GEORGE CAIRNS George is a university lecturer teaching Photoshop skills. He has written tutorials for Computer Arts magazine.

SIMON DANAHER Simon is one of the country’s top experts on Photoshop and Elements, and is currently publishing a book about them.

TOP TIPS

P78

the tutorial for yourself, delivering a complete package ■ Clear Our large page size means we can add extra elements, explanations and detail to each tutorial

4

Our mission is to ensure that our tutorials bring you creative ideas, expert techniques, tips and quick fixes you can use in your own work.

■ Authoritative A leading professional in their field writes every tutorial ■ Valued added Where possible, we include image files, and full or trial software so you can try

IN FOCUS We talk about a particular idea or tool in depth, so you have a clearer understanding of key concepts.

PHOTO FIXES

P70

Tutorials you can trust

TOP TIPS, ONECLICK FIXES Quick ways to get more from the program or technique under examination.

EXPLAINED Any tricky jargon and concepts are explained in more detail here.

They’re here to help you improve your skills

PHOTO CLINIC

P64

KEY DETAILS Your quick reference to any covermounted extras, full or trial software, how long each project or tutorial is likely to take you to complete, and what software delivers the best results.

CONTACT OUR TUTORIALS TEAM

If you have a comment, suggestion, or submission you would like to make, please email us at [email protected]. Visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

063

PROJECT CREATIVE PHOTO MONTAGE YOUR GUIDE GEORGE CAIRNS George has been writing tutorials and features for years in magazines like Computer Arts Special and 3D World. He also teaches Photoshop to students at university level

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO GEORGE CAIRNS WEBSITE WWW.GEORGECAIRNS.COM

Create your own stunning photo montages Take on the Hollywood pros as George Cairns shows you how to master a variety of Photoshop tools and techniques to select a model and composite her into a specially shot background scene PROJECT

KEY DETAILS

2

ON THE DISC The source images of the girl and the background can be found in tutorials/ fairies/images on CD A

2

SKILL BOOSTER

8

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

7

HOURS

W

hen we thought of a project that would demonstrate a range of useful creative image-editing techniques, we wanted something challenging that would demonstrate a range of Photoshop tools applied to everyday photographic themes. So the idea of having kids playing in a paintbox seemed ideal. Actually organising and photographing the separate elements was a big challenge. Luckily, we have our own photo studio here at Digital Camera Magazine, so we were able to shoot each element digitally. Then we asked George to produce the final image. We’ve placed all the files from this tutorial on our CD (disc A) for you to reproduce the final image. And when you’ve mastered the techniques here, why not cut your own friends and family down to size,

combine them with the files on our CD and send a thumbnail into us at [email protected]? The best images will be published in issue 3 and one winner will receive a Crucial 128Mb CompactFlash card for their effort.

7TOOL SCHOOL

What you’ll learn

FIND IT HERE Quick Mask

In this tutorial we’ll turn one little girl into a gang of kids in a paintbox playground, using a variety of Photoshop tools and techniques. We’ll show you how to take source images of our model and use masks to remove unwanted elements like backdrops. Then we’ll use multiple layers to combine her with a specially shot background. To sell the illusion we’ll make the girl interact with the background image by adding shadows and footprints in the paint.

MAKING MASKS Learn how to use Quick Mask to make complicated selections like isolating a person from other picture elements

Being confident with masks and layers will give you skills that you can apply to many different digital projects. What was once in the realm of Hollywood professionals is now achievable on your own PC with the click of a mouse. Well, quite a few clicks, as you follow our step-bystep tutorial over the next few pages…

HOW WE SHOT THE INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS PHILIP SOWELS

8

PHOTOGRAPHER

A

THANK YOU TO MODEL MILAN UPTON AND STYLIST GENIE, BOTH AT BOSS MODELS

064

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

PHOTOGRAPH THE BACKGROUND

This element of the final composition was shot in our studio. We bought an art set from a local store and shot it using our top-of-the-range Horseman DigiFlex. The light cast across the set, simulating a window pane, was actually a spotlight with a Gobo filter.

8 B

DIRECT THE MODEL

Ensuring you get good shots is as much down to the model’s personality as anything clever you can do at the shoot. We were very lucky that Milan Upton really seemed to enjoy the absurd things we asked her to do.

C

SELECT THE IMAGES

Working digitally meant we were able to preview images as they were shot, and reshoot if necessary. Once selected, we used our own CMYK tools on the elements (Photoshop’s CMYK filters are adequate but not up to top-quality repro standards).

Everything you need to create this image is on your CD We’ve put all the images, filters and plug-ins you need to create this image on your cover CD

2

CDA/tutorials/fairies/images

THE PAINTBOX

PEEKING

JUMPING

SLIDING

WALKING

HANGING

LOOKING

filename/paintbox.tif

filename/peeking.tif

filename/jumping.tif

filename/sliding.tif

filename/walking.tif

filename/hanging.tif

filename/looking.tif

PROJECT CREATIVE PHOTO MONTAGE ONE-CLICK FIX To clarify which tools this tutorial is referring to, hold your mouse over each Photoshop icon and a handy label will appear telling you its name

STAGE 1

2

MAKING MASKS We're going to use various Photoshop tools to isolate and remove the girl from the unwanted elements in the photographs (like the grey backdrop).

01

UNLOCK THE LAYER

04

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK

07

REMOVE THE BACKGROUND

Open Peeking.tif. Make sure the Layer Palette is visible. If it isn’t, go to Window8Layers. Notice the Layer thumbnail for the image is called background and is locked. Double click on it and label it ‘Peeking’. It is now unlocked and ready to be worked on.

0

02

SELECT THE BACKGROUND

05

FINE-TUNE THE SELECTION

08

USE THE LASSO TOOL

Choose the Magic Wand Tool [W] from the Tool Palette. In the top menu bar set the tolerance to around 34. Shift + click in the grey background. A dotted line appears to indicate the selected area. Shift + Click to add extra parts to the selection.

03

USE THE QUICK MASK

06

NIFTY BRUSH WORK

09

REMOVE THE BOOK PROP

To fine-tune the selected areas, click on the Quick Mask icon at the bottom of the Tool Palette. The unselected areas turn red showing that they are masked. However, some of the girl's shoulder has been selected as well as the wispy strands of her hair.

EXPERT TIP GEORGE CAIRNS PHOTOSHOP LECTURER

CHANGING YOUR BACKGROUND VIEW Press [F] to replace all your desktop clutter with a plain grey background that doesn’t distract you from your work on the image. Press [F] again to get a black background.

Zoom in using the Zoom Tool [Z]. To tidy up the mask, choose the Brush Tool [B]. If you’ve got a stylus use it to help you paint more accurately. Press D to set the default foreground and background colours to black and white.

You will need to go back to Quick Mask Mode to fine-tune certain areas. When you've finished, click on standard Mode and press the backspace key to delete the unmasked background. The chequered pattern indicates the transparent parts of the layer.

066

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Spray the Brush over the areas that should be masked to turn them red, too. To adjust the brush size, click on the Brush Preset Picker in the menu bar at the top. Alternatively, activate the pressure sensitivity of your stylus using the adjacent airbrush icon.

To remove the rough book prop, hold down the Lasso Tool icon. Select the Polygonal Lasso. This tool creates a selection line between each point you click on. Do a rough selection of the main areas of the prop book. Double-click or press Return to complete.

If you spray red into a section you don't want, press Command + [Z] to undo the last stroke. Use a softer brush near the edge of the figure for a less jaggy selection. Press on the Tool Palette's Standard Mode icon to see how your selection is shaping up.

Turn on Quick Mask. Paint out the red areas near her hands using a white brush (Press [X] to change the foreground colour to white). Then go to Edit in Standard Mode and delete the selected prop. The girl has been isolated from the unwanted elements.

4

USING OTHER SOFTWARE

PAINT SHOP PRO

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS

You’ll be able to duplicate most of this tutorial in Paint Shop Pro 5. Some of the shadow effects will be hard to do, though

GRAPHIC CONVERTOR (MAC)

Its Selection Brush is similar to Photoshop's Quick Mask mode. No Layer Mask function, though (see step 17)

Although it'll open absolutely anything, it lacks the selection tools and layer controls of Photoshop

WWW.PLANETPHOTOSHOP.COM/RESOURCES.HTML T ADD TO FAVOURITES

STAGE 2

2

CUT HER DOWN TO SIZE Now we're going to see how Photoshop's layers enable us to position and edit the girl to fit into our main scene.

10

ADD SOME LAYERS

Open the file paintbox.tif and the Peeking image. Click on the Peeking layer and drag it onto the paintbox image. Notice that the paintbox image now has two layers. The Peeking image appears as a separate layer on top of the background layer.

STAGE 3

2

11

SCALE THINGS DOWN

On the Peeking layer choose Edit8Transform8 Scale from the menu bar. A box appears around the girl. Hold the Shift key to constrain the layer's proportions and drag a corner box to scale her down. Hit Return. Move her into position with the Move Tool [V].

IN FOCUS

INTERACTION

15

To sell the concept of our miniature maiden we need to make her appear to interact with the elements in the scene – especially the knife and the paint.

COPY THE BLADE

14

ROTATE THE BLADE

ROTATE THE LAYER ELEMENTS

Choose Edit8Transform8Rotate to tilt the Peeking layer until the line of the stand-in book matches the line of the background book. Scale her down further if necessary. Fine-tune her size once more girls have been added to the scene.

Enhance interaction by using filters

FUN WITH FILTERS

Photoshop lets you manipulate your layers in all sorts of amazing ways using a variety of powerful filters. We'll use Motion Blur and Ocean Ripple to fine-tune the effect of the girl as she bounces off the knife and slides through the paint.

13

12

On the Twang layer, go to Filter8Blur8Motion Blur. Type in the values shown. Reduce the master opacity for the layer to 85%.

Copy and paste a selection of paint from the background layer. Motion blur the new layer to streak it. Apply Filter8Distort8 Ocean Ripple.

Using the techniques in Stages 1 and 2, cut out and position the girl from jumping.tif next to the knife. Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the knife’s blade. Choose Edit8Copy. Select Edit8Paste and a new layer is created containing the blade. Label it ‘Twang.’

* WEB LINKS PHOTOSHOP FILTERS www.icnet.de Some handy filters here, which can save you time when working with Photoshop files. Now includes Windows XP updates.

Go to Edit8Transform8Rotate. A box appears round the blade. By default, it rotates around a pivot in the centre of the box. Drag the pivot to the topleft corner where the blade begins. Rotate the blade in the same way as the girl was rotated in Stage 2.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

067

PROJECT CREATIVE PHOTO MONTAGE ONE-CLICK FIX By pushing the numeric keys when using the painting or cloning tools, you can change the opacity of whatever you are applying

STAGE 4

2

NEED FOR SPEED Let's add some momentum to our character to put a sense of motion into our still image.

16

MAKING MOTION

19

ADD THE WALKER

22

DISTORT THE SHADOW

Duplicate the Slide layer and place it on top of the original layer. Apply the motion blur filter to the copied layer in the usual way. We need to make the blur effect subtler so we can still see her expression.

STAGE 5

17

ADD A LAYER MASK

20

CREATE A SHADOW

23

LIGHTEN THINGS UP

Select the blurred layer. Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Palette. Painting black on the Layer mask makes the corresponding parts of the main layer transparent. Painting white on the mask makes those areas of the layer solid.

18

USE THE GRADIENT TOOL

21

FLIP THE SHADOW

24

TWEAK THE COLOUR

Select the Gradient Tool from the Tool Palette. Make the foreground colour black. Select the Layer mask thumbnail. Click + drag with the mouse to draw a gradient across the girl. Now the blurred layer shows through at her feet but doesn’t obscure her face.

2

ME AND MY SHADOW Shadows help to anchor our composited youngster into the image.

Open walking.tif. Using the Magic Wand and Quick Mask, isolate the girl and remove her background. Drag her layer onto the main image. Or go to Select8All. You can then Edit8Copy her onto the paintbox image. Scale her and move her into position.

Right click on the Walking Layer Thumbnail to select its transparency. Click on the Create a New Layer Icon. Go to Edit8Fill. Set the contents of the fill to black. Press Command + D to Deselect the selection.

Zoom out. Go to Image8Transform8Flip Vertical. Drag the Shadow layer below the Walking layer. The light in the background scene is coming from the right and is casting shadows to the left. We need to make our shadow behave in the same way.

3 IN DETAIL GROUPING LAYERS It’s easy to group different layers together if you want, so you can move them around together – handy if you want to move an object and its shadow at the same time. Select a layer then click in the box between the eye and thumbnail of the layer you want to join it to.

Go to Edit8Transform8Skew. A selection box appears around the girl. Drag the handles on the box until you've distorted the Shadow layer as shown. The key light in the image is quite high, leading to short shadows. Hit Return when you're happy with the shape.

068

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

The shadow is too harsh so let's lighten it up. On the Layers Palette make sure the Shadow layer is selected then reduce the master opacity of the layer to 25%. To soften the edges go to Filter 8Blur8Gaussian Blur and set that to 2.1.

In nature shadows aren’t grey. They are a darker version of whatever colour they are cast onto. To warm this one up go to Image8Adjustments 8Hue/Saturation>Colorize. Adjust the settings as shown. Tidy up the extra bits by her boots using the Erase Tool.

4

USING PHOTOSHOP 7

TOOL PRESETS

Save yourself some time – the new Tool Presets feature enables you to save and recall frequently-used tool settings

WWW.ADOBE.COM/PRODUCTS/TIPS/PHOTOSHOP.HTML T ADD TO FAVOURITES

STAGE 6

2

ADD FOOTPRINTS Emphasise the patter of feet by creating some fairy footprints.

25

SELECT THE SOLES

Imagine our fairy-sized female has run through that blob of nearby paint and left a trail. Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool [L] and give it a feather of 2. Draw around the sole of her boot to create a footprint shape.

STAGE 7

2

26

SAMPLE THE PAINT

Create a new layer and label it Footprints. Select the Eye Dropper Tool [I] from the Tool Palette and click on the paint nearby. The Foreground Colour matches the colour sampled. Choose File8Fill8Foreground Colour and create more footprints.

IN FOCUS

CHANGE COLOURS

30

How to make one of our fairies unique by changing the colour of her T-shirt.

SELECT THE T-SHIRT

29

COLOUR THE SELECTION

ADD A MASK

Turn on the chain icon next to each footprint layer’s Eye icon. Click on the top right of the palette and choose Merged linked. Create a Layer mask for the layer and select it. Go to Filter8Render8Clouds. Random sections of the footprints disappear.

Add the final touches

THE ICING ON THE CAKE

Once all the fairies have been added you may want to fine-tune the size of some of them. Select all the elements belonging to a particular fairy by clicking its layer’s Link icon. Then when you scale its shadow its linked footprints will scale, too.

28

27

Use the Quick Mask technique to add the girl to the brush – you’ll need to rotate her to align with it.

Use the technique learnt in Stage 5 to give the other girls shadows tinted to match the object they are cast on.

Click on the Walking layer. Set the Magic Wand to a tolerance of 33. Click to select the white areas of her T-shirt. Hold down Shift and click to add more areas to the selection. Use the Quick Mask technique to isolate the shirt from the rest of the scene.

@ WIN! We want your creative efforts! Send them in and the best image wins a great 128MB CompactFlash card, courtesy of Crucial Technologies. (Find out more about Crucial at www.crucial.com/uk [email protected]

With the T-shirt selected, create a new layer. Click on the Tool Palette's Foreground Colour icon. In Colour Chooser, click on Custom and choose a colour. Go to Edit8Fill using the foreground colour. In the Layer Palette choose the Multiply Blending Mode at 85%.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

069

PhotoClinic

PORTFOLIO ED DAVIS WEBSITE WWW.ED-DAVIS-PHOTOGRAPHY.CO.UK

Got a picture that needs restoring? Send a JPEG to us at [email protected]. See below for full details!

YOUR GUIDE ED DAVIS

Ed Davis is a London-based

Restoring a damaged photograph

advertising and corporate photographer with many years

Don’t despair if a much-loved photo is damaged beyond repair. Our experts can help you out. Each month we’ll fix a reader photo and show you how we did it, so you can apply the same techniques to your own pictures

experience of studio and location photography. He specialises in image manipulation, and delivers

W

elcome to the Photo Clinic, the only fix-‘emup section in any digital photo magazine. Each month we’ll set our experts the task of repairing the most impossibly damaged, faded or disappointing photos you have, and show the rest of us

creative solutions that combine photography and digital technology. He is a member of NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals)

how they did it. It doesn’t matter if your photo was shot traditionally or digitally – our aim is to show you how digital tools can put them right. First up in our new section is this disaster from John Dugdale of Huddersfield. John told us: “I have researched

my family tree and wanted to give my research – plus a family photo – to my grandmother, as a birthday present. However, over the years, the picture has become severely damaged. Can you help?” Enter Ed Davis, a specialist photo retoucher…

Equipment used: a scanner and Adobe Photoshop 7 [w] www.ed-davisphotography.co.uk

BEFORE

AFTER

Through the years the photo has become folded, cracked, ripped, stained and damaged

TEARS AND RIPS Solution: put sections of the image on separate layers. Move the layers into position making them meet.

COLOUR IMBALANCE

@ SEND ’EM IN! We want your faded, damaged pictures today! Send them in, we’ll fix them up for free, show everyone how we did it and send them back restored! The sort of pictures we’re after need to be decent photos which have become damaged – unfortunately we can’t make badly composed/shot photos good. ■ Contact us via email, with a small JPEG of the photo attached, and if it’s right for the mag, we’ll get in touch. How’s that for a bargain? Email the following address:

@

[email protected]

070

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Solution: remove colour using the Desaturate command. The image will be re-toned once the retouching is completed.

MISSING AREAS AND CRACKS Solution: find an area with similar tonal range, copy and paste to fill the gap. Balance out the tonal differences with Levels.

STAINING Solution: copy an unstained part of the boarder and paste it into position over stain. Then use clone tool to repair it.

8

Reconstructed: the photo is saved!

4 STAGE 1

2

HOW TO RECONSTRUCT THE RIPS The first thing we need to do is get each part of the damaged photograph onto its own layer.

R1

01

SELECT THE PRINT

Using the Lasso Tool, draw around a section of the print. Press (Ctrl + J) to put the selected section on its own layer. Now all the parts of the photograph have their own layers, delete the background layer by clicking on the layer and dragging it into the bin at the bottom of the Layers Pallet.

STAGE 2

02

REMOVE THE WHITE

Remove the white background from the image using the Magic Wand Tool. Select the tool, set the Tolerance to about 20 and click in the white area around the photograph. You can now remove the selected area by pressing the Back Space Key or Edit8Clear. All the white should now have gone. Repeat this in the other pieces of the photo.

03

R2

R3

REMOVE THE RIPS

The base paper is visible on the ripped edge (R1). To bring the pieces together, select the Eraser Tool and remove the white edge on each of the pieces (R2). Next, use the Move Tool to bring the ripped edges together (R3). Align the pieces using the Free Transform command. Finally merge the layers.

2

REMOVING STAINS AND DISCOLOURATION The colour of this sepia-toned photograph is uneven, due to discolouration over the years. It is also stained with blue ink. We need to remove the different colours from the print before retouching.

04

DESATURATE THE IMAGE

07

SELECT A NEW COLOUR

Open Image8Adjustments8Desaturate or use the short-cut Shift + Ctrl + U. This will remove all colour from the image, leaving a monotone photograph. This makes it much easier to copy and paste from different parts of the photograph.

05

THE DESATURATED IMAGE

08

REMOVE THE PHOTO STAINS

This is what your image looks like now all the colour has been removed. The original sepia tone colour will be re-applied once the retouching work has been done.

06

REMOVE THE BORDER STAINS

09

STRETCH THE COPY

Using the Polygonal Lasso Tool with a 3 pixel Feather, make a selection around the border area including the missing section. Make a new layer by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the Layers Pallet.

? EXPLAINED DESATURATE To remove all colour from an image leaving it monotone.

FREE TRANSFORM Enables you to copy an area within an image and stretch it into another shape. If the area selected contains fairly regular shapes and colours. you can use this technique to fill tricky spaces with the image.

With the new layer active, use the Eyedropper Tool and select an area in the border that has a little tone. This now becomes the foreground colour. By clicking Ctrl + Backspace it will fill the selection with the foreground colour; you now have a clean border.

To remove the ink stain, select and copy a good area close to the stain, then make a loose selection around the stained area with the Feathered Lasso Tool. Use Edit8Paste Into. The piece you have just copied is inside the selection and a Layer Mask has been created in the Layers Pallet.

Open Free Transform and stretch the copy so that it fits the space then adjust with Ctrl + L or Image8Adjustments8Levels. This technique is a lot quicker than laboriously using the Clone Tool to repair any blemishes.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

071

PhotoClinic Got a picture that needs restoring? Send a JPEG to us at [email protected]. See below for full details!

STAGE 3

2

MISSING AREAS AND CRACKS Damage that removes detail from a picture can be hard to fix. Here’s how to go about it.

10

FIXING THE EYE

13

MATCH TONES

16

COPY AND PASTE

Select the Lasso Tool (L) with the Feather Setting at about 5 pixel. Make a selection around the boy‘s good eye then use Ctrl + J. This will put the eye on its own layer.

0

11

MOVE AND FLIP

14

REPEAT...

17

SELECT AND MOVE

Press (Ctrl + T) or Edit8Free Transform. Once this is activated you can move the new eye into place and flip the image by clicking onto the right edge and dragging it to the left.

12

MOVE INTO PLACE

15

...UNTIL DONE

18

SCALE TO FIT

Once the copy of the eye is in place, click to accept. Lower the opacity of the eye until you can see the image (click Opacity in the Layers Pallet, and slide the percentage bar to the required level).

EXPERT TIP ED DAVIS USING LAYERS

FILE SIZES Each layer you create increases the size of the file so keep the layers to a minimum if memory is short and merge as you go.

To match the new eye with the skin, click Ctrl +L or Image8Adjustments8Levels. This brings up a histogram of the tonal range. Slide the clear triangle over to the left to lighten the image.

STAGE 4

By similarly copying and pasting good parts of the image we can cover large areas of the photograph quite effectively. This will cut down the time considerably.

Remember to put everything on separate layers so if you make a mistake, you can go back a stage and get it right. When complete, merge all the layers to flatten the image, for the final stage.

2

ADDING MISSING PARTS Now we need to add in large areas missing through being torn and lost.

As before, we can use the copy and paste method to replace the lost corner. In the image you can see a balcony (top right-hand corner). We can use this section to fill in the gap.

072

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Make your selection. The Ctrl + J (the function that was used to put the eye on its own layer in Step 1) is now moveable. Lower the opacity and place it into position.

Use the Free Transform Tool to position the new section in place. Click Ctrl + L or Image8Adjustments8Levels to fine tune. Perfect!

STAGE 5

2

CLEAN IT UP Small imperfections, scratches and specks of dusk still need to be removed.

19

SELECT THE CLONE TOOL

Using a separate layer, select the Clone Stamp Tool, set the mode to normal, the opacity to 100 per cent and check that Use All Layers is selected.

STAGE 6

2

CHOOSE THE COLOUR Finally, we need to recolourize the image, from monochrome to whatever you like!

p

IN FOCUS 22

20

SELECT THE BRUSH SIZE

Select a brush size large enough to cover the damage you want to correct, place the cursor near the scratch, press Alt + click mouse to set the clone source, then clone over the scratch.

21

GO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL

Once all the cloning, cutting and pasting and adjustments have been made we need to give it some colour again, so that the picture is returned to its original tones.

Which colour?

USE THE TOOLS

You can choose any colour you like from the hue and saturation options within Photoshop. If you want to continue with an aged feeling, sepia hues are the best. But you have plenty of other options.

Stay with black and white for that 1940s feeling – you may only need to adjust the contrast and brightness.

This Magenta hue requires you to use the Colourize controls – see next steps opposite for how.

This is the colour we’ve chosen as it most closely matches the colours of the original photo.

CONCLUSION

Easier than you might think! What seems to be a difficult job can often turn out to be easier to do than you realise. The key techniques used for this tutorial are first, to make the whole image monochrome, then match the different bits, and use the Free Transform tool quickly to stretch ‘good’ parts of the image over damaged parts. Now try it with your pictures at home!

WE WANT YOUR PICTURES!

23

USE HUE AND SATURATION

24

CLICK THE BOX

To open the Hue & Saturation dialog box click Image8Adjust8Hue & Saturation. This presents a series of sliders you can use to add colour to your image.

Click on the box marked Colourize. Move the top slider and see what colours you can get (click the box to ensure you see the changes in real-time). Job done!

If you have a much-loved family photo that you think is beyond repair, or needs retouching, send it to us, we’ll fix it up and send the new version back. Email [email protected] with a JPEG and we’ll see what we can do

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

073

ENHANCING YOUR PHOTOS IN PHOTOSHOP & ELEMENTS

TUTORIAL

YOUR GUIDE TIM DALY Tim has written several books on photography, including The Digital Photography Handbook, The Digital Printing Handbook and The Desktop Photographer, and he continues to write for The British Journal of Photography and AG. His photographs have been exhibited across Europe

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO TIM DALY WEBSITE WWW.PHOTOCOLLEGE.CO.UK

Fixing low contrast and low colour saturation Disappointed with the quality of raw files opened straight from your memory card? Don’t be harsh on yourself – digital cameras deliberately produce low contrast and low colour saturation results, but Tim Daly explains how to put them right

I

nkjet prints made straight from unprocessed digital camera images can look dull and insipid, so it’s useful to know a quick and easy way to make things better. Just like processing film in conventional photography, digital files need to be processed and prepared carefully before they are printed out, and they are just as intolerant of errors and sloppy workmanship. Despite the comprehensive rescue tools available in the digital workflow, once an image has been badly processed and re-saved, the quality has gone forever. This tutorial takes you through the five key stages of image processing:

TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR CD Use our trial of Photoshop 7 to try the fixes revealed here

2

SKILL BOOSTER

5

2 2

TIME TO COMPLETE

10

MINUTES PER IMAGE

NEXT MONTH More useful photo fixes

setting highlights and shadows; image brightness; colour correction; colour saturation; and sharpening your image for print out. In practice, it’s a good idea to run through the first four stages with every image you intend to keep, but the final sharpening phase should only be carried out immediately before printing. Badly prepared images will never print out properly and will never show the fine details and sensitive colours present in the original image file. In camera aliasing, filters cause a drop in image sharpness and, in turn, help to minimise the size of colour palette used to render the image.

IMAGE PROCESSING

This has a useful impact on image compression, with smaller data created for storing low colour image files. Despite the loss, all this can be put back in your imaging application without too much aggravation. Never be tempted to improve the look of your raw files by experimenting with the contrast or sharpening settings on your digital camera – it’s much better to leave them on low or turned off altogether. Finally, if you are ever in doubt about your sensitive image-enhancing skills, make sure you duplicate the background layer you are working on, leaving your original image untouched.

Follow these steps to clean up and sharpen an image before you print it out – a bit of preparation makes all the difference…

? EXPLAINED PIXEL The basic unit of a digital image. A pixel is a single block or tile of colour.

CLIPPING GROUP A special group of layers whose bottom layer 'clips' away layers above it.

TRANSPARENT PIXELS Have no colour, you can see right through them.

074

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

01

THE RAW FILE

Transferred directly from the camera and opened in Elements, the raw file looks flat and lacks the vivid colour of the original scene. The greens should be varied and bright and the blue sky looks muddy. These problems are easily rescued using the Levels dialog.

02

AVOID THE AUTO FIX

It’s tempting to fire off the Enhance8Auto Contrast command if you want to see quick results, but your image will lose quality immediately. Shadow areas will start to spread out and there may be highlights where you least expect them. With this example, the sky has become too bright.

03

ANALYSING THE LEVELS HISTOGRAM

A better way to alter image contrast is to use Levels, found under Enhance8Adjust Brightness/Contrast8Levels. The black mountain shape of the histogram shows peaks at the shadow and midtone end, but little at the highlights.

4

BETTER AUTUMN PHOTOS

Check out some very handy tips on taking and making better autumn photos at www.kodak.com/US/en/digital/ dlc/techniques/archive/autumn.jhtml

0

ONE-CLICK FIX TIM DALY ON ELEMENTS 2

USING THE QUICK FIX COMMAND

04

SETTING HIGHLIGHTS AND SHADOWS

There’s a decent black shadow already, so the first step is to set new highlight point. Pick up the triangular slider at the far right of the Input Levels and move it left until it sits at the foot of the black mountain. If you go too far, pull it back to the right.

07

BETTER COLOUR CONTROL

Enhance8Adjust colour8Colour Variations gives you better control over colour change. Make sure the Midtone option is selected and reduce the Colour Intensity from its default midway position. This image, taken in early morning, was bluish, so the Decrease Blue thumbnail was clicked once.

05

CORRECTING BRIGHTNESS

08

IMPROVING COLOUR SATURATION

Next, make the image brighter or darker using the Levels midtone slider. Move it to the right to make your image darker and to the left to make it brighter. You can also enter numerical values in the centre blue Input Levels text box. This image was brightened slightly from 1.00 to 1.10.

Washed-out colours can be enhanced using the Saturation slider. Do Enhance8Adjust Colour8Hue/Saturation and move the saturation to the right. Don’t go beyond +10 for this adjustment, or your image will look posterised and overcooked. Don’t touch the Lightness slider, or you’ll get a crude result.

06

AUTO COLOUR CORRECTION

09

FINE FOCUS

Once image brightness is set correctly, you can turn your attention to colour balance. As with the Auto Contrast command, the Enhance8 Auto Colour Correction command has made things worse with a red cast visible in the midtone areas. A much better option is the Colour Variations dialog.

A useful addition to Elements II is the Quick Fix dialog. With all common adjustment tools presented in a one-stop shop, you can easily make your raw images better with a before and after preview. This is ideal if you are new to digital photography because you can easily undo mistakes or revert to your original file.

The final stage in the fixing process is to tweak image sharpness before printout. Don’t use the pre-set sharpening filter on a digital camera, as it can’t be removed once an image has been recorded. This example shows an unsharpened image with blurred detail and soft edges.

? EXPLAINED ALIASING

10

THE SHARPEN MORE FILTER

Surprisingly, Photoshop Elements has four sharpening filters, designed to increase contrast at shape edges. This gives the impression of increased sharpness, but it can be taken too far. This example shows the destructive effect of two applications of the Sharpen More filter.

11

THE UNSHARP MASK FILTER

A much better option is the USM filter, with variable controls for the quantity and range of sharpening. A good starting point is Amount 100, Radius 1.0, Threshold 1.0. Any more than this and you’ll start to cause damage, especially if your raw file was saved in camera as a low quality JPEG.

12

READY TO PRINT

The end result is brighter, cleaner and more like the original scene. Badly prepared images look even worse after printing because inkjets can’t cope with excessive shadow areas or highlights. As your picture is perfect, any colour imbalance in the print should be tackled using the printer software.

A grid of square pixels makes a bad job of describing curved shapes and lines. Aliasing was invented to reduce the visible jaggy lines or staircasing effects in digital images and works by reducing contrast at shape edges. All digital cameras have an anti-aliasing filter fixed in front of the sensor to minimise this effect, but with a loss of image sharpness and contrast.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

075

TUTORIAL PHOTOSHOP & ELEMENTS TOOLS YOUR GUIDE SIMON DANAHER Simon Danaher is a digital artist specialising in Photoshop, compositing and 3D. He is also a consultant, trainer and author. Simon has been working professionally in the graphics industry for over six years, and is currently writing his second book on professional graphics techniques

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO SIMON DANAHER

Getting the most out of Layers Layers enable you to unleash the power of Photoshop's image-editing capability, Simon Danaher shows you how to use them to their full potential…

P

hotoshop is the pre-eminent digital retouching, editing, colour-correction and painting tool. Elements is rapidly becoming the same for the home user. It's the ideal accompaniment to any digital darkroom, and it runs on both Mac and Windows PCs. At its heart is the concept of layers. Layers are like a stack of clear celluloid sheets, onto which you can paint, copy, paste, adjust, clone and so on. Any changes made on one layer will not affect the layers above or below it. When you create a new

TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR CD Use our trial of Photoshop 7 to explore the techniques here

2

SKILL BOOSTER

4

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

30-45

document or open an image file, Photoshop presents you with a single layer: the Background layer. This is a layer unlike any additional ones you might add (though you can convert it into a normal layer if you wish). New layers can be created in different ways. You can create a new, transparent layer by clicking the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Palette; duplicate an existing layer by dragging it onto the New Layer icon; or copy and paste a selection from another layer. In all these cases, Photoshop adds an extra sheet to the pile. You can think of the Layers Palette as

Photoshop's control centre. It's where the layered structure of your document is displayed and modified. Visually, the Layers Palette is simple to understand. Layers are added in the palette from the Background layer upwards, so opaque portions of upper layers obscure layers below them. Layers have three components: image pixels, transparent pixels and layer masks (and, in Photoshop 6 and 7, an additional forth component – vector masks). In this tutorial we'll look at what these components do, and how you can make the most of them.

MINS

2

ELEMENTS LIMITATIONS None

2

THE BASICS

In this quick overview of basic layer functions, we show you how to create a new layer, add some text and edit an image

NEXT MONTH Cloning, healing explored, plus Elements 2 trial on our CD

8

8

? EXPLAINED PIXEL The basic unit of a digital image. A pixel is a single block or tile of colour.

CLIPPING GROUP A special group of layers whose bottom layer 'clips' away layers above it.

TRANSPARENT PIXELS Have no colour, you can see right through them.

076

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

01

OPEN AN IMAGE

Launch Photoshop (try the trial on our CD) or Elements and open an image. The document contains a background layer containing the image pixels. Notice that we can't alter the Background layer's Opacity slider or its visibility (the 'eye' icon).

02

CREATE A NEW LAYER

Now, create a new layer using the menu command Layer8New8New Layer, or by clicking the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Palette. We can paint on this new layer, or create some text and it won't affect the pixels in the image below. Notice that we can alter this layer's opacity and visibility.

03

DUPLICATE IT

To delete the layer, drag it to the trash icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Now create a duplicate of the image by dragging the background layer onto the New Layer icon. This enables us to edit the image pixels in the duplicate keeping a duplicate for safety. In this example we've used the Clone tool to remove some of the tableware.

4

LAYERS IN ELEMENTS

USING LAYERS

Making use of layers gives you flexibility when you are editing digital images. Follow our nine-step walkthrough on how to modify a portrait using layer techniques

8

04

Do you need Photoshop? You can do all the techniques mentioned below in Elements and Elements 2. With the new Layer styles in Elements 2, the reasons for spending hundreds of pounds on Photoshop 7 are disappearing – unless you’re a professional who needs to produce CMYK files. See our Elements 2 review on p42-43 for more details…

OPEN A NEW IMAGE

www.adobe.com www.arraich.com /elements/psE_intro.htm [w] www.arraich.com /ps_intro.htm [w] [w]

8

05

Now we’ve got simple layer usage under our belt we can move onto some more complex stuff. We are going to work on a simple portrait that we intend to modify using various layer techniques.

* WEB LINKS

SELECT THE IMAGE

We want to crop the image to make a family portrait (without the breakfast in view) and create a frame vignette. Before we commit to cropping, add a new layer, then make a selection using the Elliptical Marquee tool.

06

MOVE AND FILL

Move the selection by dragging with the arrow keys. Invert the selection by typing command/control-shift-i. This means that everything outside it is selected. This is filled with white (Edit>Fill... and choose White from the pop-up menu).

; READ ON HOW TO CHEAT AT PHOTOSHOP BY STEVE CAPLIN

8

07

CROP TO CREATE A BORDER

With the vignette layer selected in the Layer Palette we can use the Move tool (V key) to adjust its position. Once we’re happy with the position, we can switch to the Crop tool and crop the image so that it leaves a bit of a border.

8

08

FILL IN ANY GAPS

Fill in gaps with white using a rectangular selection. At the top of the Layers Palette there are buttons next to the word 'Lock:'. With the vignette layer still selected click the first one. We can fill this layer with colour, without losing the ‘hole'.

09

LOCK IT

Lock the transparency and add a new layer to the stack. With it above the vignette layer, alt-click on the dividing line between them in the Layers Palette. The new layer is indented in the palette and a small arrow appears next to it.

Published by Focal Press ISBN 0240 517 024 Price £24.99 Website www.bh.com/focalbooks A handy collection of quick image editing techniques by the wellknown illustrator. Check out some sample tutorials from this book in our sister magazine PCFormat.

8

8 ? EXPLAINED ADVANCED USES/ FEATURES

10

GROUP LAYERS

This is a way to group layers in Photoshop called a Clipping Group. Now if you fill this new layer it will respect the locked transparent pixels of the layer below it – in other words, the 'hole' will remain even though the layer is actually fully opaque.

11

CHOOSE A PATTERN

Type Edit8Fill... and chose a pattern. Use the ribbed pattern that comes with Photoshop. Although it gives texture to the frame, we've lost the colour. Luckily layers can be blended so that they affect those beneath in different ways.

12

OVERLAY THE PATTERN

Select the pattern layer, then choose Overlay from the pop-up menu at the top of the Layers Palette. We can still easily change the colour of the vignette layer and the pattern will overlay it.

Layers have many different controls and options. Double click a layer to access the Layer Options palette. This large palette contains controls for advanced blending and masking amongst other things.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

077

TIPS PAINT SHOP PRO 5 YOUR GUIDE NICK MERRITT Nick has edited, managed or launched some of the UK’s leading technology magazines, and has been writing about and using computers for longer than he wants to admit

[email protected]

WEBSITE www.futurenet.co.uk

Your complete guide to Paint Shop Pro 5 TIPS GUIDE

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR DISC Yep, it’s the full, no-holds-barred, complete version of Paint Shop Pro 5, one of the ‘big three’ image editors Find it on the front of this mag

2

SKILL BOOSTER

8

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

2

HOURS

2

You don’t need thousands of pounds to become an image-editing whiz – just Paint Shop Pro 5 and this guide to getting the best from it

NEXT MONTH Discover our essential collection of tips, techniques and skill boosters for Adobe Photoshop 5.5

P

aint Shop Pro (PSP as its fans like to call it) is probably the most popular piece of home image-editing software in the world, with more than 20 million users. And thanks to the free version on our coverdisc, hopefully a few more too. It’s an ideal package for retouching images, creating web graphics and animations, and jazzing up your tired old photographs. But hang on, what about Photoshop? Although professionals swear by Photoshop, it’s not intended for beginners, and figuring out how to achieve a seemingly

TEXTURES

simple task can be a struggle. Paint Shop Pro, on the other hand, makes things simple for you. It’s been around for more than ten years, and in that time it’s been tweaked and honed to become the friendliest yet most powerful graphics-manipulation program for home users that budget-conscious users can buy. Paint Shop Pro 5 brought the program into the mainstream and secured its popularity. Packed with features yet a doodle to use, it’s full of possibilities, and over the next four pages we show you how to restore old or damaged pictures; red eye removal; quick and

easy ways to get your snapshots onto the screen; and selections and masks. So let’s get started…

Restoring old or damaged pictures ■ Adjust the overall gamma of an image in order to bring out more detail in the shadows. ■ Use gamma rather than just brightness to keep the relative weights of highlights, mid-tones and shadows. Go to Colors8Adjust8Gamma Correction… ■ Make sure Link is ticked and tick the Auto Proof option, so you can see any changes you make in real time on the main picture.

It’s easy to apply textures to your photographs to simulate the effect of grainy paper for example. Here’s how

PAINT SHOP PRO 5

TOOLBAR Here’s a quick guide to the tools mentioned on the following pages. To rearrange the toolbars, drag the handles at their lefthand ends.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

8

8

Selection Mover Freehand Magic Wand Paintbrushes Picture Tube Flood Fill Text

078 DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

01

OPEN A PATTERN

You can use patterns to add texture to a photo. Open one of the .tex files from the Papers folder and save it under a new name. Use Colors8 Negative to make it predominantly light, and increase the contrast slightly. Select Flood Fill, then select the texture as the pattern source.

02

ADD THE TEXTURE

Switch to the photograph and use Masks8 New8Hide All to create a mask that obscures it. Select Masks8Edit so you’re working on the mask rather than the image, then click anywhere with the Flood Fill tool. The photo reappears, looking like it’s been printed on rough paper.

03

…OR USE LAYERS INSTEAD

You can achieve a similar effect using layers. Instead of creating a mask, add a new layer to the photograph. Set its Blend Mode to Multiply and pour in the pattern, then knock the Opacity back to about 40 per cent. Other Blend Modes produce different effects – why not experiment?

4

3 QUICK WEBSITES

LAYERS

TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

http://mardiweb.com/web/ for articles, tips and PDFs for download – very useful

FREE TUBES AND BRUSHES http://autumnweb.com/Roxys/Tubes/ 2RoxysTubes.html for a good selection

OFFICIAL JASC SITE

www.jasc.com kindly agreed to us covermounting Paint Shop Pro 5, so visit and check out PSP 7

There’s so much you can do with layers – the walkthrough below is only a simple guide but it’s enough to get you started

TIPS GUIDE

RESOURCES Looking for more tips and ideas? Dive into the following websites…

2

01

SELECT THE SKY

One great use for layers is to replace skies in your photos, with better ones. To make the sky interesting here, use the Magic Wand to automatically select the sky behind the statue, clicking and adding until the entire background is selected.

02

INVERT THE SELECTION

Choose Selections8Invert so that the selection is enclosing the statue. Use the Rectangle or Circle selection tool – hold down [Ctrl] as you remove the area from the selection, until you have just the statue itself selected.

03

Paint Shop Pro Users Group http://pspug.org A huge site and one of the originals, the PSP Users Group features an enormous amount of info, including tutorials, reviews, forums, competitions, plug-ins, help, advice and, well, just about everything you could want.

FEATHER IT

Choose Selections8Modify8Feather… and feather by three pixels. Load the new sky image and, in the statue picture, choose Edit8Copy. Switch to the new sky image and choose Edit8Paste 8As New Layer.

2

PSP Tutorial Links www.psplinks.com You want tutorials? It’s got tutorials. At least, it has links to just about every tutorial site on the web, organised into categories such as Animation, Digital Painting, and so on.

2 04

MOVE STUFF AROUND

05

CORRECT EACH LAYER AS YOU WANT

06

MORE ABOUT LAYERS

The statue is floating as a layer in front of the sky. Move it around using the Mover tool. Go to View8Toolbars and tick the box next to Layer Palette to see the two layers listed.

You can toggle layers on and off, adjust their opacity (transparency), group them and change their blend mode (how they’re drawn on layers underneath them).

Layers are a powerful tool – try adding more layers to the image; the best way to understand their power is to experiment. There’s more about layers on pages 76-77.

■ Move the sliders – the shadows reveal more detail when you increase the gamma. Set it to a value that looks good without washing out the picture too much. ■ Most scanned pictures benefit from a little sharpening. Go to Image8Sharpen8Unsharp Mask... Tick Auto Proof and play with the strength until the image looks better. Don’t overdo it, because too much sharpening makes extra noise. ■ Most scanned pictures benefit from a little sharpening. Go to Image8Sharpen8Unsharp Mask… (the filter that gives most control over sharpening). Tick Auto Proof and play with the strength until the image looks better. Don’t overdo it, because too much sharpening makes extra noise. ■ Use the gamma function to lighten a picture up and reveal some details in the shadows

■ Try the Despeckle filter (Image8Noise8Despeckle) if you want to try to get rid of spots on the image. ■ Use the Clone Brush if you need to remove light flare. Copy and paste from nearby parts of an object to try to recreate the proper look. This takes time and a lot of experimentation – fiddle with the brush settings and be very delicate with your strokes. ■ The retouched area probably looks much smoother than the rest of the image. No problem – use the Selection tool, choose Circle, and make a selection round the area. Now go to Image8Noise8Add… and apply a bit of uniform noise to the selection area.

as is comfortable to get a good look at the eye, while keeping the other normal size for reference. ■ Make a new layer by choosing Layers…8New, and then click OK to create the layer. Now choose the eyedropper tool and select a colour from a normal-coloured part of the pupil. ■ Choose the paintbrush tool and select a very small size brush from the controls – it may even be only one pixel big. Now carefully brush over the red areas in the eye, watching the result in the unzoomed image. Reselect colours as needed to match the brightness of the pupil. ■ Remove any stray bits using the eraser tool. When you’re satisfied, choose Layers8Merge All (Flatten) to add the layer to the picture. Save it under a different name to the original, so you always have a copy. 8

Red-eye removal ■ Make a copy of your picture by choosing the Window8New Window menu. Zoom into one as far

JASC www.jasc.com/learncenter.asp? JASC’s (PSP’s developer) site has a reasonable collection of beginner tutorials, together with resources and hints for photo image-editing, web graphics and art creation. Many are biased towards Paint Shop Pro 7, though.

2

Scanning tips www.scantips.com Although scanning is simple, there’s a lot of tips and tricks you can use to improve your results – and this site is the bible for everything scanworthy, with an enormous amount of excellent theoretical and practical info.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

079

TIPS PAINT SHOP PRO 5 ONE-CLICK FIX If the shapes you draw aren’t quite right, try using a font instead. ‘Shapes’ fonts are available for free download at www.astigmatic.com

SELECTIONS

01

The selection tool is your basic tool within Paint Shop Pro 5. With it you can mark out basic shapes and regions within an image

BASIC TOOL

Enables you to mark out rectangles, squares, ellipses, circles. You can combine them to create more complex shapes – hold down [Shift] to add to the current selection, or [Ctrl] to remove.

8

2

TOOLS

Paint Shop Pro 5 always has the right tool for your job

8 Crop This simple tool will become your best friend. It simply enables you to select an area of the image and discard the rest. Drag out a rectangular area, adjust the edges by dragging them as you wish, then just double-click to crop.

8 Magic Wand Great for automatically selecting large areas of a similar colour. Just select the colour you want, then click in an area. You can adjust its tolerance using the controls palette, to be more or less sensitive.

8 Retouch A quick and easy way to selectively apply various handy effects such as lightening, darkening and softening. Just choose the effect you’re after from the controls palette menu and then paint it on.

8 Picture tube An extremely powerful little tool that can automatically draw a set of images as you move the brush around. We’ll come to this in more detail later, but for now you can experiment with the preset images and modes using the controls palette.

080

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Working with images

■ Use the Window8Duplicate command (or press [Shift]+[D]) as soon as you start to work on a new image. That way, you’re working on a copy of your original, so if you accidentally save, you still have a backup to start over with. ■ On a smaller display, things can get pretty crowded with all the toolbars open at once, so close the ones you don’t need very often (such as the Histogram display). You can always open them again later using the View8Toolbars… command. ■ The toolbar (top), tool palette (left) and colour palette (right) don’t have to stay where they are; you can drag them to any area of the screen and resize them however you like. What’s more, they always float in front of your picture and don’t get lost behind it. ■ Use the View8Image Information… menu command to get a one-stop collection of handy information about your picture, including its resolution, how many layers it has, how big it will print, and the amount of memory it’s taking up. You can also assign copyright information here.

Selections and masks ■ To give the selection soft edges, go to Selections, Modify, Feather and enter a number. You’ll end up with a border of semi-transparent pixels that gradually fade out to a see-through edge. ■ Feathering is useful when you’re pasting an image onto a coloured background or trying to make seamless joins. ■ Use the Freehand tool to draw round irregular shapes. It doesn’t matter if your first attempt isn’t perfect – hold down [Shift] or [Ctrl] and draw round the pixels you want to add or remove. ■ Select Antialias to smooth the edges of any curves. It’s best to feather the selection afterwards, once you’re happy with its shape.

02

DRAGGING IT

03

USING IT

Dragging the selection has the same effect as cutting and pasting it – you end up with a hole in the picture. To move a copy of the selected area, float it (using Selections, Float) before you drag.

Try using a pattern fill to create a document full of dots. Select the white background with the Magic Wand, then invert the selection. Use Selection, Save to Disk to save the outline in a .sel file.

■ The Magic Wand selects adjacent pixels of similar colour, hue or brightness. Adjust the tolerance to increase or decrease the range of colours it grabs. ■ Don’t set the Magic Wand too high – you’ll have more success if you use a moderate tolerance and [Shift]-click to add more pixels. ■ You can use the Freehand tool to tidy up your shape. Sometimes it’s easier to select the things you don’t want. Use the Magic Wand to select the background, then reverse the selection using Selections, Invert. This trick is also useful when you want to apply an effect outside a boundary. ■ To move the selection outline on its own, switch to the Mover tool, hold down the right mouse button and drag. ■ To produce instant Op Art, use Selection, Load from disk to reactivate dots.sel. Invert the selection, set the background colour to white and press [Delete]. Strictly speaking, you don’t need to invert the

selection twice, but it makes it easy to remember what’s in the .sel file. ■ Masks are greyscale images that conceal parts of the underlying image. Black areas are opaque, white areas are see-through and grey bits are something in between. ■ You can use a grey background and fill an expanded, feathered outline with black. Fill the original outline with white to complete the mask. ■ Switch to the document you want to transform and go to Masks8New8From Image. Select the mask document from the drop-down list and click OK to place it over the image. ■ To edit the mask, select Masks8View and Masks8 Edit, then use the painting tools to make changes. To make the effect permanent, go to Masks, Delete, Yes. ■ To see the result of your efforts, go to File8 Preferences8 General8 click Transparency and set Grid Colors to None. ■

TOP TIP

Using the right file format

Paint Shop Pro 5 supports all the major file formats, which means it’s compatible across the range of image editors As well as its .psp format, Paint Shop Pro can save in all major formats. JPEG makes the smallest files at the expense of quality (although you can vary the settings depending on how much space you have), and is best for the web. PNG (.png) is great for the web if the image doesn’t have too many colours. TIFF (.tif) or Targa (.tga) are great for high-res, high-colour images. If you are manipulating files for printing, use TIFFs.

LEFT JPEGs use a type of compression that averages out certain areas of an image, producing ‘artifacts’ like these. This is why they’re unsuitable for top quality print work

4

PAINT SHOP PRO 5 VERSUS…

…PAINT SHOP PRO 7

…PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2

Includes vector graphics for drawing and specific tools for digital photography enthusiasts

… ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 7

Superior layer control and fully compatible with Adobe Photoshop. PSP 5 is a much smaller install though

Different weight class of image editor, so comparisons are a bit unfair. Still the best though

WWW.PSPIZ.COM/ T ADD TO FAVOURITES

2SHORTCUTS PLUG-INS Ten PSP shortcuts No need to delve into those menus… Save [Ctrl]+[S] Resize [Shift]+[S] Rotate [Ctrl]+[R] Full screen preview [Shift]+[Ctrl]+[A] Zoom [G] Crop [R] Eye Dropper [Y] Magic Wand [M] Eraser [E] Text [X]

01

EMBOSSWORKS

04

SIMPLE FILTERS

So many plug-ins, so little time… but is what’s on offer right for you? Here’s our pick of some of the best, plus where to get them

www.cybia.co.uk There are 20 different plug-in filters for producing various embossing effects, in addition to the ones already provided with PSP5 here. All manner of effects are available.

www.btinternet.com/~cateran/ simple/#qt A bunch of simple filters that do one particular thing. You can’t alter any of their parameters, but useful if you need to do something complicated.

CLONING

01

REMOVING A PERSON

That yellow-shirted guy to the left of the picture is slap bang in the way and distracting from the main subject – as is often the case with holiday snaps. Let’s remove him, using the Clone Brush.

02

MEZZY

05

FILTER FACTORY

www.cybia.co.uk A set of 15 different filters that add a mezzotint or screen-style to an image. As with all Cybia filters, you can alter various parameters for an amazing number of combinations.

http://showcase.netins.net/web/ wolf359/plugins.htm Home to an astounding number of filters and plug-ins. Each set includes numerous abstract and more concrete effects – it could take hours to see them all.

03

EDGEWORKS

06

ADRENALINE

www.cybia.co.uk Yet more from Cybia, this time a set of 20 filters that produce different edge effects. These can be used to add a stylised print and Pop Art look to anything, à la Andy Warhol.

www.v-d-l.com/adrenaline.html A mix of freeware and inexpensive commercial plug-ins, such as Old Movie, which turns your image into just that. NightVision, for example, simulates those army infra-red goggles – nice.

Need to remove some lurkers from your holiday snaps? Time to wheel out the clone brush and get scrubbing

02

ZOOM IN ON HIM

…and select Clone Brush from the tools palette. Bring up the controls palette and choose a brush. [Shift]+click on an area of nearby beach to set the clone source, then start brushing him out.

03

SELECT SOURCE AREA

Move the clone brush and it replaces the area under the cursor with the source area you chose. Select a new source area by [Shift]+clicking from time to time, so you don’t get a repeating pattern.

04

TIDY UP

We might as well get rid of everyone else, using the same method. Take your time, and with a little judicious cloning, you can empty an area of people to keep your subject the centre of attention.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

081

IMAGE EDITING

4

TUTORIAL

WHY YOU’LL LOVE THIS TECHNIQUE

What is it? Motion blur is most often found in sports photography and can add dynamism and movement to still shots. Can my camera do it? To get the best effects you need to be able to control the exposure settings. Can I get around it? See our tutorial below…

YOUR GUIDE SIMON DANAHER Simon is a digital artist specialising in Photoshop, compositing and 3D. He has been working professionally in the graphics industry for over six years, and is writing a book on professional graphics techniques

BEFORE & AFTER A STILL SHOT BECOMES DYNAMIC

How to add movement to your digital photographs Create motion blurs in an image, using the motion blur tool in Elements. Simon Danaher shows you how TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

2

IMAGE EDITORS YOU CAN USE

T

he Radial Blur filter in Elements and Photoshop can be used to simulate the effects of motion blur. Radial blur in Spin mode creates the effect of rotating the camera with a slow exposure: parts

of the image towards the edges are blurred more than the centre, and the results can be both dizzying and dramatic. If the subject is also rotating while you twist the camera it will appear unblurred, but the background

will appear blurred. As you can imagine, this is pretty tricky to get right with either a traditional SLR or digital camera. Digitally it's simple, but it does take some preparation work to get a good result.

Use either Adobe Photoshop or Elements (as we have here) to reproduce the effects mentioned on this page

SKILL BOOSTER

6

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

50

MINUTES

01

? EXPLAINED CLONING Copying pixels from one part of an image to another using a brush-like tool.

OPEN YOUR IMAGE

In this image we want to add some movement. It would have be nice if the girl had actually been rocking and we'd followed her when we took the picture to motion blur the background. But we didn't, so we’ll use motion blur instead.

02

CREATE A LAYER

Duplicate the image by dragging the background to the New Layer button in the Layers Palette. If we try to do the trick of blurring one layer and erasing the unblurred one we won’t get the result we want because the girl's image will be smeared in the background.

03

SELECT THE CLONE TOOL

There is a sneaky way to get around this, though. If we first edit a copy of the image so that there is no girl in the background, then we can blur away without getting a smear. Select the Clone tool and begin to clone out the girl from the duplicated layer.

04

TAKE LOTS OF SAMPLES

To use the Clone tool, alt-click where you want to sample from – in this case, the window behind the girl. Go carefully, and take lots of sample points. As you progress you'll have a bigger area to sample from, which will make it easier.

RADIAL BLUR A blur filter that progressively blurs pixels around a point.

STACK The stack of layers in an Elements document that are viewed in the Layers Palette.

@ SEND ’EM IN! Try out the techniques in this article then send us your pictures. We’ll print the best each month. Email us at the following address:

@

[email protected]

082

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

05

SWITCH TOOLS

Remove a large section from the top so you can stop using the Clone. Switch to the Marquee tool and drag to select an area of window. Command/control-alt-drag to copy the selection. It doesn't have to be perfect because it will be blurred later.

06

NOW IT’S BLUR TIME

After a while this is what we end up with. Not perfect by any means, but good enough for our purposes. To add the motion blur, apply Radial Blur (Filter8Blur8Radial Blur) set to Spin mode and move the centre to the bottom near the base of the rocking chair.

07

APPLY THE FILTER

With the filter applied to the cloned-out duplicate background, make another copy of the original background layer and move it to the top of the stack. Use the erase tool to rub out the background, making the blurred-on show through.

08

TWEAK UNTIL HAPPY

If there's too little movement on the girl and chair, rectify this by duplicating the original image again and applying Radial blur. Move it to the top of the stack and use a large brush to erase everything but the parts of the blur we want to show through.

4

WHY YOU’LL LOVE THIS TECHNIQUE

What is it? Depth of field is a photo technique often used to blur the background so objects in the foreground jump out of the picture. Can my camera do it? Many cheaper ones don’t have the controls. Can I get around it? Yes, we show you how to use an image editor to blur the background instead

;

BEFORE & AFTER SUBJECT STANDS OUT MORE

FIND OUT MORE SEE OUR DEPTH OF FIELD TUTORIAL ON PAGES 86-87

How to recreate a depth of field effect with a low-end camera Are your snaps looking a bit flat? It’s easy to simulate depth in your photos with a bit of image-editing creativity. Here’s how… TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

IMAGE EDITORS YOU CAN USE

D

igital image editing can help to add photographic techniques that would otherwise require a more expensive digital camera. Only the more expensive models give you the full features of

a traditional SLR such as varying the exposure, shutter speed and f-stop. However, using image-editing applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Elements can enable you

to add in those much needed depth effects. A typical use for depth of field is to separate the subject of the picture from its background. In this tutorial that's just what we'll be doing.

We’ve used Elements here but Paint Shop Pro (on our disc) and Photoshop all support this handy technique

2

SKILL BOOSTER

4

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

30

MINUTES

01

RUN THE PROGRAM

Our test image here already has a minor degree of depth of field blur, but a lot of cameras won't allow you to change the settings to vary the depth of field if you want a stronger effect. Enter Adobe Elements, which makes it easy to blur selected parts of an image.

02

CREATE A LAYER

By selectively filtering the image we can increase the blur of the background so that the foreground subject stands out more, and attracts the eye better. Duplicate the background layer by dragging it onto the New layer icon in the Layers Palette.

03

SELECT THE OBJECT

Use the Polygonal Lasso tool and select along the right, top and left sides of the image, plus roughly around the table and girl. Select the duplicated layer and hit Delete to erase the pixels. Nothing will appear to happen in the picture…

04

CHECK PROGRESS

...but if you turn off the visibility of the background layer by clicking the Eye icon, we can see what has happened and where we’re up to. Simply repeat the procedure outlined in the previous step to cut out the fiddly sections under her arms.

? EXPLAINED LEVELS A tool in Photoshop and Elements used to adjust contrast and brightness in an image.

GAUSSIAN BLUR A filter that is used to blur pixels in an image. It is named after the mathematician, Carl Friedrich Gauss.

POLYGONAL LASSO A selection tool that uses a series of straight segments (a polygon) to make a selection.

05

BLUR THE LAYER

Make another copy of the background layer. This lets us practice with blurring while saving the original copy. With the new layer selected in the Layers Palette and no selection active (command/control-d), apply Gaussian Blur (Filter8Blur8Gaussian Blur).

06

SELECT THE DEGREE OF BLURRING

Adjust the slider in the Gaussian Blur filter to achieve the amount of blurring you want. Click OK to accept the result of the filter and apply the blur to the layer. The result is good but the rough selection is a problem.

07

ERASE ANY ROUGH BITS

In fact, even if we make a more accurate selection there will probably still be an edge visible. The best way to deal with this is to paint it out using the Eraser tool. Use a medium, softedged, brush and carefully erase the unblurred surround on the cut-out layer.

08

TWEAK THE FINAL IMAGE

The results are very good using this method, but you can try some other effects, too. Try changing the blurred layer's blending mode or applying Levels (command/control-l) to adjust its brightness and contrast for the best possible quality.

FROM THE MAKERS OF

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP JUST GOT BETTER! …With The Complete Adobe Photoshop Handbook, on sale now from WH Smith

123

H

M IT

SIMPLE STEPS SERIES

S

k

O N FR N S O M O A W W L H E

k k

250 pages of expert Photoshop tutorials, tips and techniques Free CD-ROM packed with essential Photoshop tools and plug-ins And much more!

4

TECHNIQUEQ&AGETSTARTED

100% authoritative

Your camera

Our tutorials are carefully crafted to give you more

Expert guides to taking better pictures

O

ne of the joys of digital photography is discovering how easy it is to view your images on the LCD screen after taking them, and deleting the ones that haven’t worked. But if you have a relatively decent camera – one costing upwards of £450 – there’s the opportunity to do much more. Many useful and dramatic photographic effects are within your reach, accessible via the camera controls. We’ll show you how to achieve them. Each month we’ll show you a couple of key techniques, how they work, what they do and how you can use the same effect in your own photography. This month we look at depth of field and exposure. Don’t be put off if these topics seem a little complicated to

CAMERA TECHNIQUES

begin with, the results will be well worth the effort. And when you do take a photograph you’re particularly proud of, email it to us at [email protected] and we’ll print it in our Eyewitness section. Also check out our monthly Q&A section on page 90, where we’ll do our best to solve your camera and photography problems. We’re interested in all sorts of problems, from technical questions to image-editing queries. Please send us your questions to help.dcm@ futurenet.co.uk, and we’ll do our best to tackle them within our pages. And don’t worry if you’re new to digital photography because we’ve included a ‘get started’ guide in this issue. Turn to page 94 to find out why you’re going to love digital photography…

CAMERA TECHNIQUE

■ CREATIVE DEPTH OF FIELD P86 Take control over your image sharpness with depth of field. CAMERA TECHNIQUES

■ PERFECT EXPOSURE P88 Get your camera exposure right the first time.

or tool in depth, so you have a clearer understanding of the key concepts described.

FURTHER INFO Quick ways to get more from the technique or project that is under consideration.

PHOTO HELP

■ Q&A P90 All your camera and imageediting queries answered! FIRST STEPS

WALKTHROUGH We don't just describe a technique; we show you how to do it step by step.

■ GET STARTED WITH DIGITALP94 Why you’ll love digital – taking, displaying and sharing photos has never been easier.

IN DETAIL Here's where we talk about a particular idea

EXPLAINED Any tricky jargon and concepts are explained in more detail here. SEND EM’ IN We want your contributions! Please send in your suggestions, article ideas, tutorials, pictures and more.

Your experts Our photography writers are here to help

CAMERA TECHNIQUE

TIM DALY Tim is a lecturer on photography and is the author of several best-selling books about digital photography and image-editing techniques. His work has been exhibited around Europe.

Q&A

P87 GET STARTED

AIDAN O’ROURKE Aidan has contributed to the Manchester Evening News and has been using digital photography for years. He’ll be answering your technical and photographic questions every issue.

P90 GET STARTED

4

CONTACT OUR TUTORIALS TEAM

If you have a comment, suggestion, idea or submission you would like to make, please email us at the following addresses:

P86

Tutorials you can trust Our mission is to ensure that our tutorials bring you creative ideas, expert techniques, tips and quick fixes you can use in your own work.

■ Authoritative A leading professional in their field writes every tutorial ■ Valued added Where possible, we include image files, and full or trial software so you can try

P94

P95

the tutorial for yourself, delivering a complete package ■ Clear Our large page size means we can add extra elements, explanations and detail to each tutorial

■ For technical help/problems: [email protected] ■ For submissions to our gallery section: [email protected] ■ For general response and feedback: [email protected] ■ For suggestions, ideas for articles: [email protected] ■ Talk about the magazine and our tutorials with other readers: visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

085

TECHNIQUE USING YOUR CAMERA YOUR GUIDE TIM DALY Tim has written several books on photography including The Digital Photography Handbook, The Digital Printing Handbook and The Desktop Photographer, and he continues to write for The British Journal of Photography and AG. His photographs have been exhibited across Europe

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO TIM DALY WEBSITE WWW.PHOTOCOLLEGE.CO.UK

To take control of your image sharpness, you need to get to grips with depth of field. Tim Daly shows how it’s an easy way of improving your photographs

ABOVE Professional photographers use both shallow and deep depth of field to emphasise their subject matter to make much more memorable images FAR RIGHT This image shows a sweep of sharpness from foreground to background achieved with an aperture of f16 and a focus point set at a third of a way in

086

D

etermined by your lens aperture setting and your proximity to the subject itself, depth of field is unique to photography. When looking around us, the human eye focuses so quickly on subjects at different distances that we hardly notice any transition. In fact, we are blissfully unaware that we can’t keep sharp focus on a close-up object and the distant background simultaneously. With photography, however, you can create an image that presents more information to the human eye than happens in reality. Depth of field is a photographic term used to describe the range in which two objects at different distances look equally sharp, and can be varied from a matter of

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

millimetres to infinity. To use this technique, you need to control the aperture.

Aperture and depth of field The aperture is a variable-sized circular opening inside your camera lens used to moderate existing light levels for a successful exposure, and it also determines depth of field. A typical lens has an aperture range like f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11 and f16. In terms of controlling exposure, an aperture of f2.8 is the widest and lets in the most amount of light. At the f16 end of the scale, the aperture is at its narrowest and lets in the least amount of light. In depth of field terms, f2.8 produces the shallowest result with little sharp

4

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you are interested in the long lens techniques used in sports photography, then visit the professional sports photography agency, Empics, on www.empics.co.uk. Click on the sports fans section and see if you can figure out how these great shots were taken

RIGHT The same photograph was taken twice using different aperture values. The image on the left was shot at f4 and shows a noticeable background blur. The other image was shot at f16 and shows a much more distracting background

1

THE LENS AND FOCUSSING

EXIF INFORMATION A much under-used feature of digital photography playback is the photo information captured with your image file. This panel of settings is recorded and stored with most digital images and can be previewed on the camera LCD, or in your image browser after transfer to your PC. The photo information records the vital aperture and lens focal length settings so you can tell exactly how a depth of field effect was created. This image was shot with an aperture of f3.3 to create the characteristic blurred out background.

the camera meter decides on an appropriate aperture value to generate a correct exposure, without taking your depth of field wishes into account. The aperture priority exposure mode lets you take control of depth of field and leaves you to select a shutter speed. The other factor in creating depth of field effects is your distance from the main subject. If a landscape image is divided up into foreground, middleground and background, then it’s important to realise that you can’t separate objects lying in the same plane with shallow depth of field effects. As subjects get further into the background, it becomes harder to assign sharpness to one element and not the other. For mid-range zoom lenses found on most digital compacts, anything more LEFT This advanced SLR has a thumbwheel selector for setting lens aperture values just beyond the shutter release. The current aperture, f5.6, is displayed in the LCD on the top plate

FOCUS POINTS

NEXT MONTH

3 IN DETAIL

detail beyond your chosen subject. At the f16 setting, sharper detail is rendered both in front of, and beyond, your main subject. On budget digital compacts there’s usually a reduced set of apertures to choose from, such as f4 and f11. On better compacts this will extend to five or six options, with a full range available on the top-price SLRs. Aperture values are usually accessed via a thumbwheel or menu on the rear of the camera body, but can only be selected in manual or aperture priority exposure modes. In auto and other programme modes,

7

; 2

than five metres away will record with a similar level of sharpness as the furthest parts of the scene.

Focus points Especially important when focussing at close range is a third factor: your exact point of focus. A common mistake when shooting portraits is to focus on the nearest part of your sitter, usually the tip of the nose, which can leave the eyes slightly unsharp. Instead, pick the nearest and furthest parts you want sharp, then focus one third of the way in. Depth of field doesn’t remain constant throughout the far-reaching landscape and close-up photography. As you get closer and closer to your subject, the effective depth of field diminishes until it can be reduced to a matter of millimetres – even at maximum f16. If you want to capture detailed images at close range your small apertures will force you to use slower shutter speeds than normal, and necessitate the use of a tripod.

As depth of field extends both in front of, and behind, your point of focus, it’s essential to pick the right spot to gain the best results

? EXPLAINED IMAGE DETAIL In addition to affecting depth of field, aperture values also have a bearing on the amount of fine detail recorded. A lens recording the sharpest detail best of all if it's set to the value in the middle of the scale. On a lens that ranges from f2.8 to f22, the sharpest results will be produced at f8.

CAMERA MODES For many photographers, the aperture priority exposure mode is popular because it lets you take control of depth of field and leaves the less crucial task of selecting an appropriate shutter speed to the camera itself.

@ SEND ’EM IN! 01

SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD

This effect is used to blur out a distracting background and allows a greater emphasis to be placed on the main subject. This is created by selecting a large aperture like f2.4 or f4 and framing your subject tightly in the viewfinder.

02

TELEPHOTO LENSES

Used by wildlife and sports photographers, this creative effect can only be made using ultra long telephoto lenses and won’t work on subjects sitting in the background. Compact users will need to invest in a digital SLR camera.

03

WIDE-ANGLE LENSES

The nature of a wide-angle lens is to push subjects away from the photographer and this example shows how an extensive depth of field can be created from a nearby object to monuments several hundred metres away.

Try out the techniques in this article then send us your photos. We’ll print the best each month. Email us at the following address:

@

[email protected]

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

087

TECHNIQUE USING YOUR CAMERA

How to get perfect exposure

Despite the convenience of rescue tools found in image editing applications, there’s no substitute for getting your exposure right first time. Tim Daly reveals how

ABOVE Contrary to your expectations, white subjects will always be recorded darker than you perceive them. Snowy landscapes will record grey and muddy if you leave the camera to judge exposure. Light meters attempt to turn bright whites into a darker shade of grey and need to be fooled for better results

C

orrect exposure is achieved through the right combination of aperture and shutter speed, and makes a world of difference to your final image quality. Every digital camera has a built-in light sensitive meter, which is used to determine all auto exposure functions and, on more advanced cameras, the manual exposure readout in the viewfinder. Light meters can only respond to the brightest values in your subject, regardless of their size, shape and colour, which means they can be fooled by everyday situations. A perfect exposure results when the photographer guides the meter into capturing a balance of highlight and shadow detail. Too much or too little light will have a profound effect on image detail, tone and colour reproduction.

Aperture, shutter speeds and ISO These three independent variables are entirely interlinked and when one is changed, another needs to be changed to compensate. In addition to the creative consequences of using these scales, their primary

088

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

function is to enable the photographer to shoot photographs in widely different lighting conditions. The ISO scale sets the sensitivity of the image sensor and works in an identical way to ISO speed in conventional film. At low light levels, a higher ISO value like 800 is best selected, so the sensor can operate with less light than normal. At bright light levels, a smaller value like 200 is set. On basic digital compact cameras, the ISO value is fixed, but better models have a selection of different values such as 100, 200, 400 and 800. Once your sensitivity has been set, then the right combination of aperture and shutter speed is sought to make a good exposure. The aperture is in your camera lens and is essentially a hole of varying size designed to let more or less light reach your sensor. Apertures are a uniform size on all cameras and conform to an international scale described as f numbers like f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16 and f22. At the f2.8 end of the scale, an aperture is at its largest and lets in the most amount of light available. At the opposite end of

4

FURTHER INFORMATION

Go along to the exposure section at Say Cheese www.saycheese.com/simplesteps/camera_ basics/Exposure.asp for information on how light meters work, tools to lock in exposure, exposure distortion and exposure compensation

PROBLEMS WITH EXPOSURE How to recognise, and what causes, underexposure and overexplosure

01

HOW TO RECOGNISE UNDEREXPOSURE

Underexposed images are dark, lack detail and have muddy colours. With severe examples, so little light reaching the sensor cells has caused bright red or green error pixels called noise. On the histogram, the pixel count is high towards the left-hand side describing the large quantity of black or dark grey pixels present.

HOW IT’S CAUSED

03

HOW TO RECOGNISE OVEREXPOSURE

Underexposure occurs when too little light hits the camera sensor and causes dark images with muddy colours. Underexposed images can be rescued by imaging software, but excessive changes will result in the sudden appearance of random coloured pixels and a deterioration in image quality. Underexposure frequently occurs when shooting in low light on automatic exposure mode, as the cameras shutter speed range may not extend beyond a few seconds. A common cause of underexposure when using flash occurs when the subject is further than five metres away, as the small burst of light is too weak to reach out to distant subjects.

Metering systems

8

02

Overexposed images are bright, have little detail and very washed out colours. In extreme cases, so much light reaches the individual sensor cells, that it spills over and influences adjacent cells, resulting in a spread out effect called blooming. Overexposed images display a strong pixel count in the right-hand half of the histogram.

04

HOW IT’S CAUSED

LEFT You can see the difference between an underexposed and correctly exposed picture here. The top tree’s foreground is too dark because the photographer hasn’t compensated for the brightness of the sky. See opposite for more details on how to get this right

8

Too much light makes pale and low contrast images with burnt out detail which can not be rescued by software trickery. Digital cameras rarely encounter overexposure when set to automatic exposure mode, but it can still occur if too high an ISO value, such as ISO 800 is selected under bright lighting conditions. The commonest cause of overexposure with digital compacts occurs when using flash to light a nearby subject. Close-up flash can still be too much light for a small aperture value to cope with and will cause image highlights to white out. On fully manual mode overexposure is caused by selecting a very slow shutter speed or a large aperture.

the scale, such as f22, an aperture is at its smallest and lets in the least amount of light. To accompany the aperture scale is the shutter speed scale, again designed in a standardised range, but in fractions of a second such as 1/1000th, 1/500th, 1/250th, 1/125th, 1/60th, 1/30th, 1/15th, 1/8th, 1/4, 1/2 and 1s. At the 1/1000th end of the scale, the shutter remains open for short time, but at 1/2 second, the shutter remains open for longer.

There are three common metering systems used in digital cameras. Centre weighted on the left, matrix in the middle and spot metering on the right. Most digital compacts use the functional rather than foolproof centre weighted metering. Centre weighted metering works by making an exposure judgement based on subjects that are placed in the centre of the viewfinder. This is perfectly adequate for centrally placed compositions, but can come unstuck if you intend to frame your subjects off-centre. The much better matrix or segment metering system is designed to cope with the greater demands of more adventurous photographers. It works by taking individual brightness readings from the four quarters of your frame, plus an extra one from the centre. These five readings are then averaged out into a single exposure reading, resulting in a better balance. The more complex spot metering system takes a reading from a much smaller area, typically the tiny centre circle superimposed in your viewfinder. Useful for getting accurate light readings from skin tones or other small and precise elements of a composition, a successful spot reading will emphasise this over other less important parts of your image.

; 2

NEXT MONTH

SHUTTER SPEEDS AND MOVEMENT

3 IN DETAIL THE EXPOSURE COMPENSATION DIAL Most good digital compacts and all SLRs have an additional exposure control called the exposure compensation switch. Identified by the ‘+/-’ symbol, this can be used to counteract lighting situations which would otherwise fool your light meter. It works by allowing more or less light to reach your sensor as follows: to increase exposure, use the + settings (for example, +0.3), and to decrease exposure, select the – settings (for example, –0.6). Each whole number represents a difference of one aperture value, commonly referred to as a stop.

? EXPLAINED

Where to take your readings

STOPS

The camera meter never knows which is the most important part of the image. It can only respond to variations in brightness so you have to trick the meter into behaving differently. With so many different levels of light reflecting off objects, the best exposure is a trade off between recording simultaneous detail in both highlights and shadow areas. Most good digital compacts have an exposure lock button located close to your shooting hand, or accessible when the shutter is half-depressed. Exposure lock enables you to take meter readings from the important areas of your image, save the reading then recompose before shooting.

A stop is a photographic term used to describe a single shift along the exposure scale. The term is derived from the series of different aperture settings which were traditionally changed on the camera lens. With each shift up and down the scale would be accompanied by a recognisable click stop, hence the term stop. When analysing exposure or the quality of processed images, professional photographers refer to variations in brightness using ‘stop’ as a key term.

Camera histogram All digital SLRs and quality compacts offer the benefit of a Levels histogram where an image is played back on the rear LCD preview monitor. If you find it hard to judge if your image file is overexposed, check its histogram. The histogram shows the quantity of pixels on the vertical scale together with their brightness values along the horizontal scale. At the left-hand end of the graph there is the shadow point with the highlight point set at the opposite right side. As each image is recorded, it’s possible to judge exposure by looking at the histogram. If this function is not available on your camera, it can be accessed via the Levels dialog in your image editor.

@ SEND ’EM IN! Try out the techniques in this article then send us your photos. We’ll print the best each month. Email us at the following address:

@

[email protected]

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

089

PhotoHelp

PORTFOLIO AIDAN O’ROURKE WEBSITE WWW.AIDAN.CO.UK

Got a question about cameras or images? Send your emails today to [email protected] and Aidan will do his best to help!

YOUR GUIDE AIDAN O’ROURKE

Aidan O’Rourke is a freelance photographer who has been working with digital imaging and photography since 1994. He created ‘Eyewitness in Manchester’ (part of Manchester Evening News), the largest online source of photos and information about Manchester. He’s currently running seminars on digital photography around the country [seminars] www.aidan.co.uk/seminars/

All your camera questions answered Send us your camera and image-editing queries and Aidan will do his best to help

2

HOW DO I CORRECT CONVERGING VERTICALS? IMAGE EDITING

■■ INTERMEDIATE I’ve heard that I need to correct converging verticals on photographs of buildings. Why is this necessary and how do I do it? Ian Yates

Q

index.html

Photographs of buildings generally look more pleasing to the eye when vertical lines are vertical or nearly vertical. The problem is, in order to include the building within the frame, we often have to aim the camera up, so that the building appears to be leaning back. If you are using a wide-angle lens, it’s possible to avoid converging verticals at

A

2 ANSWERED! IMAGE EDITING Converging verticals . . . . . . . . .90 Picture resizing . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

image capture stage by placing the building within the upper half of the frame, and cropping off the lower half later on. If you’re too close or don’t have a wide-angle lens, then you’ll need to aim the camera up, which will give you converging verticals. These can be corrected at image manipulation stage using the Distort tool. Before we do this, let’s try to understand exactly what we are doing. A building captured with converging verticals appears on the canvas as a rectangle with a shortened upper side. What we need to do is stretch the canvas at the top to restore the shape as close as possible to an even rectangle with vertical sides. Imagine the canvas is made of rubber stretched out on a frame with extendible sides. Pulling the

top corners up and out makes the rectangle even again. This is what we do at image manipulation stage – see the walkthrough below.

2

HOW DO I DOWNLOAD PHOTOS FROM MY CAMERA? PC USE

■ BEGINNER I’m having problems downloading photos from my camera to my computer running Windows XP. I’ve tried everything but nothing seems to work. Philomena Dare

Q

A

There may be a number of reasons why this is happening. It

may be the fault of the camera, the operating system or the computer the operating system is running on. If the camera is new, then the chances are the fault lies with the computer hardware or software. Doing a clean install of your operating system, and then re-installing the software supplied with the camera may solve the problem. There may be a hardware problem – try using the USB port with another device. Or there may be a conflict between the version of the camera software you’ve been supplied with and the OS you’re using – check with the manufacturer’s website or email it. Another option is to use an external card reader (some printers have them built in). They’re cheap, simple, compact and sometimes do the trick, even if a camera connection doesn’t work.

2HOW TO FIX CONVERGING VERTICALS If your image-editing program has a Distort or Transform function, fixing verticals is easy

PC USE Downloading to Windows . . . .90 Improving scan quality . . . . . . .92 CAMERA USE Cropped images . . . . . . . . . . . .91 Flash photography . . . . . . . . . .91 Fuji’s xD card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Auto controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 Hot pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Field of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 MEDIA Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91, 93 Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93

090

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

We are looking up at the derelict mills of Ancoats in Manchester. The verticals are pointing inward and the facade appears to be narrowing towards the top.

01

Select the rectangle, apply Distort and drag the upper corners upward and outward. Using a vertical reference line we can tell if more Distort is needed.

02

Here we can see that the verticals are more or less properly aligned. There may be slight curvature due to the effect of your lens, but this isn’t overly noticeable.

03

We can now crop the completed picture – we have lost some picture information at the edges, but the arrangement of forms looks more pleasing to the eye.

04

8 WEBSITE REVIEW www.canon.co.uk Ease of use: unlike Nikon’s dark, flash-driven website with sound effects, Canon’s site is an all-white affair with a standard layout Content: the site has details on current and forthcoming cameras, and talks about the company’s Kyo-sei philosophy of ‘working together for the good of everyone’ Verdict: we find the simplicity and lack of gratuitous Flash appealing

2

HOW CAN I SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF LACK OF DETAIL IN MY PRINTS?

2 HOW AND WHEN TO CROP A PICTURE

0

You don’t need to rely on the good sense of your local photo processing lab

FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY 1 Avoid red-eye by using a flash that’s as far as possible from the lens. This, of course, depends on the camera you’re using but generally the further away and preferably above, the better.

IMAGE EDITING

■■ BEGINNER/INTERMEDIATE I’ve tried resizing my photos and printing them out, but they are completely lacking in detail. What have I done wrong? Tim Scott

Q

This photograph of Ile des Embiez, on the south coast of France, was captured at 4 x 3 aspect ratio. To print it at 6 x 4 inches (3 x 2 aspect ratio) we will have to crop the top and bottom of the photograph. The extra shaded border indicates the area that might be cropped when the photo is printed. The bottom edge of the nearest yacht is cut off – perhaps it might be better to crop off a wider edge at the top of the photograph

A

HOW CAN I AVOID CROPPING OFF MY PRINTS? CAMERA USE

■BEGINNER/INTERMEDIATE

First we need to uncheck the Resample Image box. Now when we change the print dimensions to 8 inches, the file is left unchanged, and the print resolution is set to 200 pixels per inch. The picture will print correctly

3 Don’t use the flash if there’s available daylight, it may well turn out better but you will need to hold the camera steady. 4 Do use the flash in very bright sunlight. It can fill in shadows and make faces look better.

This photograph of the cathedral in Marseille was captured at 4 x 3 ratio. To print at 3 x 2 we need to crop off part of the image. Here I’ve chosen to crop off the redundant lower edge. Unfortunately, cropping at print stage may cut into the left-hand cross – we will have to see how it comes out but, next time, leave a bit more sky at the top!

2 When we select Image8Image size to change the display dimensions of the picture, the resolution of the file is already set at 72 pixels per inch, giving a print size of 22.223 inches wide. The obvious thing to do is change the print size to 8 inches, but as the Resample Image box is checked, Photoshop will resample the image down, losing 85 per cent of the picture information

2 Switch on as many room lights as possible – this will have little effect on the lighting in the picture, but it will help to close the pupils of your subjects’ eyes.

I often find that parts of my photographs are cropped off when I send them to be printed. Please could you tell me why this happens and is there a way round the problem? Jeremy Bowman

Q

that is the pixel dimensions. A digital photograph is a certain number of pixels wide and high. Many digital cameras produce pictures at 1,600 x 1,200 pixels. The size you display the image is up to you. If you’re making a digital print, then 200 pixels per inch will give you good results. This resolution gives a print size of 8 x 6 inches. A problem lurks on screen when preparing the image for printing because most digital

Printing services often crop photographs, removing a strip off all four edges. A more serious problem may be a mismatch between the shape of the window or frame used at image capture to the one use at printing stage. Cameras use many aspect ratios, ranging from panoramic to square. If you capture an image using one aspect ratio and wish to display it using another, then you have two choices: either include the entire image with blank borders or crop it so it fills the new frame size.

A

cameras produce images that have a default setting of 72 pixels per inch (ppi), which is the resolution of the average computer monitor. At this resolution, our picture will fill the entire screen area of a large size 1,600 x 1,200 pixel monitor, which is approximately 22 x 16 inches – far too big to fit inside the dimensions of an 8 x 6 print. We need to change the picture dimension settings and shrink the display

5 Use an external flash without a synch cable. It can only be done in very dark conditions when the camera’s auto exposure settings leave the shutter open for a long exposure. Turn off the on-camera flash, point at the subject – hold the external flash above your head – fire the shutter, and then immediately after it, the external flash. Examine the result. If overexposed, reduce the flash intensity and keep trying!

We encountered this problem when we made a 6 x 4-inch print of a picture captured using a popular digital camera. Most digital cameras use an aspect ratio of 4 x 3 (that is, computer screen aspect ratio), but the smallest standard print format uses an aspect ratio of 3 x 2 (the same as 35mm film). If you don’t want blank borders, then you have to crop. If the picture was originally 1,200 pixels wide and 900 pixels high, you’ll need to crop the picture at the top and/or at the bottom reducing it to 800 pixels. See our print techniques article later on.

size down from large screen size to small print size, and this is where many people go wrong – they reduce the display size but keep the resolution at 72ppi. The computer, being the dumb machine that it is, will then resample the image from 1,600 x 1,200 pixels (5.5megabytes) down to 576 x 432 (just under three quarters of a megabyte) throwing away over 85 per cent of the picture information!

6

It sounds like you may have resampled the photograph down to a small size rather than changed the display size. Here we are dealing with the thorny subject of resolution and print size – one of the most misunderstood concepts in digital photography. When measuring the size of digital photographs, there really is only one sort of measurement that’s important, and

EXPERT TIP

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

091

PhotoHelp Got a question about cameras or images? Send your emails today to [email protected] and Aidan will do his best to help!

? EXPLAINED FUJI’S XD PICTURE CARD WHAT IS IT? The Fuji xD picture card is a new type of Flash memory card that is considerably smaller and lighter than existing cards. It was released in mid-2002. HOW IT WORKS: Similar to other Flash memory cards, the xD picture card is used to store image data produced by a digital camera or other image-capturing device. Inserted into the camera, it acts as the camera’s memory – the equivalent to film. The difference with the xD picture card is that 0.79 x 0.98 x 0.07 inches it is much smaller than existing cards and has a higher capacity – or at least it will have a higher capacity in future. Currently cards are available at 16, 32, 64 and 128Mb. 256Mb cards are reported to be shipping later in 2002. The card will feature faster read/write speeds and lower power consumption. DO I NEED IT? The card is an integral part in a number of new Fuji cameras, so if you’re buying one of them, you will be able to try it out for yourself. PCMCIA and CF Card Adapters will be available, so you will be able use a Fuji xD card in your existing camera. But why would you want to do this? Since an 8Gb capacity isn’t available – and won’t be for some time – there isn’t a compelling reason to change to xD. OUR VERDICT It’s great to see innovation and improvement in performance, but no matter how good the technology is, unless it satisfies an urgent need, it is unlikely to take over as the standard.

092

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

The solution is to change the display size without resampling the image. You can do this in Photoshop, but it’s important to make sure you don’t check the box ‘Resample image’. When you change the display size, you’ll see the resolution jump to 200ppi. That’s now the resolution (resolution is pixel dimensions divided by display size – 1,600 divided by 8 = 200 pixels per inch). Wouldn’t it be great if, when printing an image, the software automatically adjusted the resolution to the print size? Oh, and if it automatically adjusted the landscape and portrait settings to save a lot of wasted paper, too. The more intelligent software packages already do this but, for the rest of us, the solution is to understand resolution. We’ll talk more about this in another issue.

DEALING WITH AUTO-EXPOSURE 1 It was a cloudy and overcast day when I took this photograph in central Birmingham using the Nikon CoolPix 990 set to monochrome image capture. First I aimed the camera towards the sky to capture the clouds, but 2 the foreground was too dark to use. 3 So next I aimed the camera at the darker foreground – the sky came out

2

HOW CAN I OVERRIDE AUTO-EXPOSURE? CAMERA USE

■ BEGINNER My digital camera has automatic controls only, but there are times when I want to

Q

override them. Can you please tell me how I can do this? Jane Fu Auto-exposure is a marvel of camera technology, the result of years of development work by talented R&D teams. But there are times when we’d rather dump the auto-exposure technology and use manual settings. This

A

completely white but 4 the fountain and water surfaces were still a little dark, but the exposure was usable 5 I selected the top part of the first photo and pasted it onto the second photo applying a graduated fill in black to darken the clouds a little more. 6 I didn’t need to do much to the foreground. All the main details were clearly visible

may be under unusual lighting conditions or for creative work – roughly 20 per cent of the time for many users. The more expensive cameras have manual over-ride, but if your camera doesn’t have this facility, it is still possible to exert your control and get the camera to do your bidding, not the other way round! Auto exposure controls are generally adjusted for the average, but

2 IMPROVING SCAN QUALITY Even with scanning, there are ways to ensure your results are the best possible

2 HOW CAN I IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF MY SCANNED PRINTS? PC USE

■ BEGINNER

8

Whenever I scan a print I’m disappointed with the results – the colours are muddy and the picture lacks sharpness. Is there anything I can do to improve the quality? Dawood Al-Turiman

Q

The answer is not to scan prints, but to either use a film scanner or to have your film scanned by some of the excellent scanning services that are available. Despite advances in digital camera technology, film remains an excellent medium for the capture and storage of picture information. It doesn’t matter whether the film is colour or monochrome, negative or slide. A high-resolution film scanner will extract an enormous amount of information from the film and turn it into digital format. A print is a copy of an image on film. In the analogue world, every time you make a copy you

A

This picture of a tram in St Peter’s Square in Manchester has been scanned from the print. The automatic settings on the machine have made the print far too light, and there is a brown colour cast. Shadow and highlight detail has been lost

This is the same picture scanned from the negative using a film scanner. The colour is much closer to how it looks in real life – there is far more detail. It’s the same photograph, but how different it looks when the two scanning methods are compared

lose information. In the case of a print from a negative, it’s possible to lose over half the picture information – bright and detailed clouds burn out to patches of white, shadow detail is reduced to a dark pool of black and sharp edges are softened. If the colour balance isn’t right because the chemicals haven’t been topped up correctly, you lose colour information. So why bother making a print? Well, a print contains more than enough picture information for our eyes to extract and we tend not to notice the lost

information. We may not realise that it’s a bad copy of a negative or slide – after all, the film is too small for our eyes to read and you’re unlikely to be able to make sense of a negative. The problem starts when, often using a low-cost flatbed scanner, we make a copy of what is already a rather ropy copy. The best way to see the difference is to compare an image scanned from a print on a flatbed with one scanned from film. The answer is clear – always try to scan from film!

8 FANSITE www.panoguide.com Ease of use: the work of London-based photographer and IT professional James Rigg, the layout of this site is simple, unsophisticated and easy to navigate Content: the site provides comprehensive and independent information about making panoramas, particularly QTVR panoramas Verdict: good stuff

many routine pictures have characteristics that fall outside the average, such as a bright sky and a dark foreground. The average exposure is often below the correct level for the sky, so it comes out white, and above the correct level for the foreground, so it comes out dark. In this case, we can manipulate the camera and get it to do our bidding. To expose correctly for the sky, aim the camera at the sky, lightly hold down the shutter, reposition it and take the shot. To expose correctly for the dark foreground, aim the camera down, and do the same. We now have two pictures that can be merged into one in image editing later (see the box left for more details on this). Many cameras have auto-exposure compensation. However, if you’re aiming at a dark subject against a light background, then you can set the compensation to the plus setting, making it overexpose, and vice versa. Apart from switching off the flash, there’s not much you can do to manipulate the autoexposure settings, so if you really want to take control, then it may be an idea to get a higher specification camera.

2

HOW CAN I GET RID OF THE TINY SPOT? CAMERA USE

■■ INTERMEDIATE When I look at my digital photos, every image has a tiny spot on the right-hand side. What is this and can it be fixed? Ian Harris

Q

A

The so-called ‘hot pixel’ is probably generated by the

; READ ON PHOTOSHOP 7 KILLER TIPS

Published by ISBN Price Buy from

2UNDERSTANDING FIELD OF VIEW How to handle areas too big for your lens…

New Riders 0735713006 £30.99 www.amazon.co.uk

Who it’s for: expert Photoshop users looking for time-savers What you get: lots of tips and techniques from well-known American Photoshop expert Scott Kelby. It focuses on getting things done faster to a high standard.

camera’s internal electronics. On longer exposures, you’ll notice more of these pixels. More recent digital cameras have a noise reduction mode, but the problem is still there. In bright conditions with short exposure times, the problem of hot pixels is less but, as in this case, there may be a persistent offender – usually in one position. I usually sort out the problem of ‘the phantom pixel’ manually by using the cloning tool in Photoshop (create an Action to take care of particularly persistent problems). There’s also a shareware program that can cure the problem. You can find it at www.tawbaware.com

This is a composite image consisting of seven overlapping shots. I have managed to include the whole facade within the frame, but you'll notice that it appears to curve round. This was the result of the changing angle of the lens as I moved it from left to right

2

WHAT CAN I DO TO WIDEN THE FIELD OF VIEW? CAMERA USE

■■■ EXPERT As part of my job I often have to photograph buildings but I find that the lens on my Nikon CoolPix digital camera isn’t wide enough to take in the full width of the building. I don’t have the budget for a digital SLR. What can I do? Lochlann Coggin

Q

The Nikon CoolPix series has a set of screw-on lenses, including a wide-angle (0.66x) converter. This turns a standard lens at its widest setting, equivalent to 35mm, into a 24mm lens. It’s surprisingly

A

Here is the offending pixel, generated by the camera's electronics. It's small but annoying. If there's just one, then it can be cloned out fairly easily.

If you try to do a time exposure on many digital cameras, you get the ‘sky at night’ effect. The level of noise is low, but noticeable (see the right-hand side of the picture).

cheap at well under a £100. Sounds great, but there are problems with barrel distortion and chromatic aberration at the edges. It simply isn’t possible with a cheap screw-on lens of this type to achieve the quality of a 35mm SLR lens. At smaller sizes, or on web pages, you won’t notice the lack of quality, and the lens is small and easy to carry round. If you want to preserve image quality, it may well be better to move further back. We have been known to get our feet wet in a canal. If you want to include the whole of the building and use your camera’s built-in lens at its best, then that’s the only easy option. Or you can take a panorama. Holding the camera vertically, take a series of overlapping shots. Then simply stitch them together in an image editor like Elements or Paint Shop Pro.

Using the wide-angle teleconverter with the Nikon CoolPix 990 I have managed to capture the full width of Lyme Hall, Cheshire, but there is curvature

Moving back and to one side enables us to capture the full width of the house, but the effect isn't satisfying

Looking from the other side of the pond gives us a classic shot, with a reflection

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

093

FirstSteps

DISCOVER HOW YOUR CAMERA WORKS, PLUS PRINTING AND SCANNING

Email us your questions and we’ll help if we can. Contact [email protected] today!

Get started with digital Taking, sharing and displaying photographs has never been easier. Thanks to digital cameras, you can do what you’ve always done – but better. Jeremy Gray explains why you’re going to love digital photography…

* WEB LINKS EPHOTOZINE www.ephotozine.com An online magazine aimed at both beginners and more experienced users, with lots of reviews, tutorials and tips.

igital cameras are getting better and cheaper all the time. If you’ve been holding out for the right time to switch to digital, you’ve held out long enough! So what’s so great about digital cameras? A whole list of things. We look at these in more detail over the next

■ No more waiting: you can see – and check – your photos straight away. ■ On-the-spot editing: if you take a photo that goes wrong, you can bin it before you take another ■ Image quality: 35mm still offers the potential for higher quality, but less so with time – we explain why

■ Editability: you can do things with digital images that would be next to impossible in a traditional darkroom environment. ■ Convenience: you can print just the pictures you want and store a collection of hundreds on a single CD, which means they’ll never fade or get damaged.

four pages, but they boil down to the following things: ■ Running costs: you’ll never have to buy another film ever again. ■ Foolproof operation: reliable auto-everything.

later on in this article ■ Photographic control: digital cameras offer photographic control such as different exposure modes and sophisticated metering systems

■ Simplicity: you don’t even have to own a PC to use a digital camera or display your images, thanks to high street ‘developing’ services that can output your digital photos onto photo paper.

D

CAMERA BASICS: FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND

www.photoexpert.co.uk Website run by scanner and printer maker, Epson, offering professional photographers’ portfolios and digital photography tips.

There’s little basic difference between conventional and digital cameras ■ Flash: as with 35mm cameras, just about all digital cameras come with a built-in flash. This is connected to the exposure circuitry inside the camera so that the flash exposure is handled automatically. There are usually several flash modes, including automatic (the flash fires when needed), flash off, flash always-on, red-eye reduction (a series of brief pre-flashes that makes your subjects’ irises contract before the main flash) and slow sync (to balance flash with ambient lighting).

■ Viewfinder: like 35mm compact cameras, digital cameras come with separate viewfinders that work in just the same way. You compose the image in the viewfinder and press the shutter button. But with digital cameras, you can also compose the image on the colour LCD panel on the back, as we shall see…

■ Lens: just like a traditional camera, digital cameras need a lens to focus the light into an image. Cheaper digital cameras come with a fixed focal length lens; while more expensive models come with a zoom. The focal lengths of digital camera lenses are much shorter than those of 35mm cameras because they’re focussing the image on a smaller area, but the angles of view are similar. Indeed, digital camera zoom ranges are often quoted in terms of their 35mm camera equivalents.

094

BACK

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

0

0

0 PHOTOEXPERT

FRONT

INSIDE

BACK

0

0

0

FRONT

INSIDE

CAMERA BASICS: HOW EVERYTHING WORKS The main difference between digital and conventional cameras lies in the way light is captured, and images are stored ■ Viewfinder: the viewfinder (usually referred to as the ‘optical’ finder to distinguish it from the LCD panel on the back) does not show you the photo as seen by the taking lens, so there may be some positional difference (‘parallax error’) with nearby subjects where what you see in the viewfinder doesn’t quite match what the camera takes. However, the optical viewfinder doesn’t consume battery power (the LCD panel does), and it can be easier to use in bright daylight, because of lack of glare.

? EXPLAINED KNOW YOUR MEMORY CARDS Instead of film, a digital camera uses a memory card. These come in distinct flavours and sizes:

■ CCD: this is the heart of a digital camera. It’s a light-sensitive electronic chip that records images as a series of minute, individual dots of colour – pixels. Seen from far enough away, these pixels merge to form a photographic image. The digital image recorded by the CCD when you press the shutter button is saved to the memory card immediately, ready for you to take the next picture.

CompactFlash CompactFlash is the most widely-used memory card format. Measuring 42mm x 36mm, CompactFlash (CF) cards are just a few mm thick. They come in a variety of capacities, from 8Mb (Megabytes) to 1,000Mb. The number of images you can store depends on the capacity of the card and the resolution of the camera. Prices: 16Mb £15; 128Mb £66.

■ Memory card: where traditional cameras store images on film, digital cameras store them on memory cards. Memory cards come in different sizes that hold different numbers of images, depending on the camera. Once you’ve transferred the images to your computer, you can wipe the memory card clean and use it again, repeating this process indefinitely – digital photos cost nothing to take! A typical memory card can store 16-30 images depending on the image quality you want, but bigger memory cards are easily available.

SmartMedia

BACK

0

0

0

FRONT

COMPOSITE

CAMERA BASICS: HOW YOU USE IT

SmartMedia cards are a little smaller than Compact Flash. Like CompactFlash, they come in sizes of 8Mb right up to 256Mb, though 128Mb is the most readily available maximum size. Prices: 16Mb £11; 128Mb £70.

View pictures on the LCD screen at the back of your camera Memory Stick ■ Video features: an increasing number of digital cameras offer a ‘movie’ mode. In this mode, they shoot short movie clips of 20-60 seconds or so (depending on the capacity of your memory card), sometimes including sound. These movies can then be transferred to your computer for editing and playback. The picture and sound quality won’t match that of a proper camcorder, but on the better digital cameras the quality is still surprisingly good.

■ Navigation controller: digital cameras are more sophisticated than film cameras. They will often have more advanced photographic controls, and you need to be able to control the playback of images on the CCD. Many of these options are controlled by menus displayed on the LCD screen. To help you move around these menus and play back images, digital cameras offer a four-way controller on the back panel.

■ LCD: the LCD screen on a digital camera has a number of functions: when you’re taking pictures, it can display the images as seen by the CCD – in other words, through the camera lens itself; it displays images already stored on your memory card when you enter playback mode; and it displays the menus needed to set up your digital camera’s photographic options

■ Mode dial: this incorporates the on/off switch, set-up mode, record/playback, exposure modes and movie modes.

■ Other buttons: digital cameras usually offer a selection of buttons on the top plate and/or the back. Typically, there will be buttons for switching flash mode, focus mode (autofocus/infinity/macro) and exposure compensation (for difficult subjects or lighting conditions). You’ll also find a button for switching the LCD panel on and off, and another for displaying the menu system.

Memory Sticks are a proprietary format used by Sony. There are long, and a similar thickness to CompactFlash cards. They come in sizes from 8Mb to 128Mb. Prices: 16Mb £30; 128Mb £90.

Secure Digital (SD/Multimedia card) Secure Digital (SD) cards are growing in popularity among camera manufacturers. The smallest of all the cards, these come in a range of capacities from 8Mb to 512Mb. Again, there’s little operational difference between SD cards and any other, but CompactFlash and SmartMedia are more widely-used standards. Prices: 16Mb £20, 128Mb £135.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

095

FirstSteps Email us your questions and we’ll help if we can. Contact [email protected] today!

? EXPLAINED RESOLUTION One of the most important specifications to look for in a digital camera is its ‘resolution’, measured in megapixels. We’ve explained elsewhere how digital images are made up of arrays of tiny pixels, and the more pixels in your image, the finer the detail it will display.

MEGAPIXELS Megapixels means ‘millions of pixels’, and it’s the total number of pixels used by the CCD. For example, a camera with a CCD that saves images measuring 1,800 pixels x 1,200 pixels will be a 2.16 megapixel (1,800 x 1,200) camera. The higher a camera’s resolution, the more you can enlarge its images before the individual pixels become visible and the image starts to break up. A 2megapixel camera is about the bare minimum for snapshots; 3-megapixels is a starting point for enthusiasts; 4-megapixels is a good compromise between quality and price; and 5-megapixel cameras represent the peak.

WORKING WITH YOUR PC

Taking pictures with your digital camera is only the beginning. Your computer is the real hub of your digital photography system ■ CD-writer: essential for transporting large numbers of digital photos – CDs are cheap enough to buy, so you don’t have the worry of sending valuable items through the post, or not getting your discs back. They’re also ideal for backing up or archiving your photos. Remember, digital camera images have no physical form, and if your hard disk fails and you don’t have backups, they’re gone for good.

■ Monitor: this is often the weak link in any digital photography setup because manufacturers tend to supply low-cost budget models as part of PC systems. You need a good-size screen to start with – 17-inches is a bare minimum, but 19-inches is better. You also need a good quality screen. Look out for flat-screened Mitsubishi DiamondTron and Sony FD Trinitron models (many independent makers use these tubes).

■ PC: the faster and newer your PC, the better it will be at handling highresolution digital images. Any PC or laptop with a 1GHz processor or faster will be fine. If you’re running Windows Me, 128Mb RAM will be okay, but if you’re using Windows XP, you really need 256Mb minimum. A good-size hard disk is handy – we suggest 40Gb minimum.

IMAGE SIZE If you lack space on your memory card, you can adjust the size of the images as you take them, to fit on more or fewer images. To pack more shots onto your memory card, you need to reduce the size of each image, sacrificing quality. Conversely, to get the best possible image quality, you have to increase the image size, so you can fit fewer images onto your memory card. It’s up to you – but your camera makes choosing the appropriate setting simple.

do this is up to you. To print, one option is to take your memory card to Jessops, Boots and so on, who will then

CDs full of images for a rainy day. The advantage of using your PC for archiving purposes is that you always have a

output your photos onto photographic paper – in a similar

fresh, as-good-as-the-day-it-was-taken backup of a

way to the old developing process. If you have a decent colour printer of your own, you can print them yourself. There are lots of options for this –

treasured picture, which means if your printed version starts to fade with time, you an always dig into your archive and print out a fresh, new replacement.

see our lab test this month for more information on A4 inkjet printers. While some cameras enable you to display

There are many advantages to using digital cameras over the conventional sort, and we’ve looked at some

Print, store and share

your images on TV, all cameras now hook up, via a PC, to the internet, so you can share your pictures with friends

of them already in the opening section. The best reason, though, is the opportunity to improve the quality of

Once you have the images as you want them, it’s a matter of printing, storing and/or sharing them. How you

and family from around the world. And you can always use your PC to archive images onto its hard drive, or burn

the images, and then print or share them online with other people…

I

f you own a PC, you have the option to use

an image-editing program to remove any flaws, errors or blemishes from your freshlytaken pictures. Or you can use the program to take the individual pictures and create new compositions from them – it’s up to you. (We’ve covermounted Paint Shop Pro 5, a free fully featured image-editing program you can use for this purpose.)

096

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

■ Printer: for printing photos, inkjet printers are the only sensible choice. They’re inexpensive to buy, and while the special papers and the ink cartridges are quite expensive, the costs are still lower (and the convenience far higher!) than getting enlargements done at traditional photo labs. Dedicated ‘photo’ printers use six ink colours instead of the standard four, and the quality is that little bit better. See our Lab test on p49

■ Modem/internet connection: An internet connection is now pretty well essential for any kind of computing activity, never mind digital photography. Photographers, though, will find they can email images to friends and relatives, create online photo albums and their own websites, and browse other photographers’ galleries. There are lots of interesting and informative photography sites out there to look around, too. See our tutorial on p122

■ Scanner: scanners come in two basic types – flatbed scanners and film scanners. Flatbed scanners are the cheapest and most common. They can scan prints and documents, which you place facedown on the scanning bed. You’ll get better quality, though, by scanning your negatives and slides directly. Flatbed scanners can only do this with special ‘transparency adaptors’, and even then the image quality isn’t as good as that you get with dedicated film scanners.

DO YOU NEED TO UPGRADE?

■ Firewire ports: a newer, faster and more expensive type of connection than USB. Many new computers come with Firewire (also called iLink by Sony, and IEEE1394 by the techies), and you can get Firewire cards for installing in computers that don’t yet have it. It’s widely used in the digital video market for connecting camcorders to your PC, and some high-end scanners and storage devices (plug-in hard disks) use Firewire too.

■ USB ports: if your computer doesn’t have USB ports, it’s probably too old for digital imaging and you should think about getting a new one! USB is now the standard way to connect scanners, printers, digital cameras and other peripherals. If you don’t have enough spare USB sockets for all your gadgets, you can get USB ‘hubs’ for £50 or so, which only take up one USB slot but offer four more on top of that.

; READ ON DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY HANDBOOK

What kind of PC do you need, and what accessories and peripherals should you be looking for?

o get the most from your digital photographs, you need a computer in order to store and display your images, to print them, turn them into web pages, run slideshows, email them and edit them. The great thing about computer systems is that you

your printer, scanner and digital camera won’t be a problem, improving other aspects of your PC’s performance might be. In particular, if your PC is more than a couple of years old, it’s likely to have a pretty slow processor – by today’s standards, anyway. It’s possible to limp along

something a lot faster. An entry-level 1GHz machine will be fine for nearly every purpose, but if you can stretch to it, a 2GHz PC will really race along, and you shouldn’t have to think about upgrading again for quite a few years to come. Our annotated diagram on the previous page will show

can expand them as you go along, adding the devices and internal components you need. But while upgrading

with an old 500MHz Pentium III, but in order to work with today’s high-resolution images you really need

you what else you need to look out for when you’re planning your perfect digital photography system.

T

2 THE INTERNET AND YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS Sending photos There are a number of ways the net can help you share your photos. One of the easiest is to send pictures to other people as email attachments. This can be done using Microsoft Outlook Express, Outlook, Netscape Mail, AOL or whatever other email service you’re using. Watch out for the file size of your digital photo. Bear in mind that unless you and the person you’re sending the photo to are using broadband, file transfer speeds via ordinary modems are in the region of 5k per second. That means a typical 1Mb digital photo will take a little over three minutes to send and a similar amount of time to download when received at the other end.

Also remember that some email servers put limits on the maximum file size you can send to other people, so you may need to reduce the image first. If the photo’s just designed to be seen on-screen and not printed, you don’t need to send a full-sized version. Many beginner-orientated digital photo programs will resize a photo for emailing in a couple of easy steps. You can also resize photos manually. Emailing photos to other people is easy. You just attach your photo as a file, or resize it to fit the screen dimensions and embed it in the message itself

Online photo albums A number of companies offer online albums completely free. You set up your user account, then choose the pictures

you want to upload. They’re then transferred to the album site where you can organise them, rename them, add captions and more. You can then invite other people to come and look at your photos. One of the best examples is the service provided by MSN (Microsoft Network) at photos.msn.co.uk. Here you can upload full-resolution files, organise them into albums and slideshows, plus print and send them to other people. You pay for any printing you have done but the rest is free.

Your own website You have even more control over the look and presentation of your pictures if you create your own website. Nearly all Net accounts come with free web space just for this purpose, so you might as

well use it. You will need a web page creation program, and some information from your ISP about where you upload the finished pages, too, but it doesn’t take long to pick it all up. Some image-editing programs, like Adobe Photoshop, Elements and others, can automatically create web page albums from selected folders of images. If you don’t mind spending a few hours learning web design tricks, though, you can do it yourself. Serif’s WebPlus 7 (£30) is just one example of a program that makes website design easy, and you can even create web pages in Microsoft Word.

■ Matthew Richards shows you how to make the most of photo communities on page 122.

Published by Author ISBN Price Website

Argentum Tim Daly 1902538102 £10.99 www.amazon.co.uk

It’s by Tim and it’s good. In-depth guide to digital imaging with information on scanning too. There is a bit of a Photoshop bias, but many of the techniques can be adapted for other programs.

THE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHERS A-Z

Published by Thames and Hudson Author Peter Cope ISBN 0500542473 Price £11.96 Website www.amazon.co.uk Handy, spiral-bound reference to everything to do with photography and, of course, digital photography.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

097

Mobile Phone Offers…………. ………….Exclusive to Digital Camera Magazine Readers

FREE FREE FREE FREE PHONES

MINUTES

TEXT

GIFTS

Free carry case, In car Charger, Portable Hands, Holiday Vouchers & 3 months insurance WITH EVERY PHONE

Nokia 7210

Nokia 3410

Nokia 6510

Nokia 7650

Nokia 8310

Nokia 3510

Pick Your Phone and Choose your tariff and Free Gift

Tariff Choice FREE TIME 750 £13.99 750 FREE CALLS + 50 TXT

EVERYONE 30 £15 FREE CROSS NET CALLS

EVERYONE 100 £25 100 FREE CROSS NET CALLS

O2 150 £25 FREE CROSS NET CALLS

02 400 £45 FREE CROSS NET CALLS

BUSINESS FIRST £13.99

F OFFER 1 R Holiday E Vouchers E

F OFFER 2 R L'espion E Spy Camera E R I N G

F OFFER 3 R PhotoShop Elements 2 E Software E

LOW CALL CHARGES FROM 5P/MIN& TXT

F OFFER 4 R Spy Camera E +Elements E software

F R E E

OFFER 5 Fuji A202 Camera OR Sony Cybercam

0800 872 7123

Lines open

9am ‘til late Mon-Fri Sat 9am - 5pm or online at

www.bigwideworld.com

Subject to a new connection with a 12 month minimum term contract, £3.50 administration fee, monthly service charge and credit check. Monthly Line rental assumes payament bu direct debit. Free gifts subject to handset and tariff connected and available on redemption at month 3. This is a Digital Camera Magazine Offer only. Offer expires 31st Dec 2002

Getup&go Where to go, what to shoot

PLUS Detailed maps for easy-to-use navigation

NOVEMBER 2002

THIS MONTH

WILDLIFE Get yourself to the British Wildlife Centre and snap badgers, squirrels and more

BONFIRE NIGHT We show you how to capture brilliant fireworks at your local bonfire night

HOW TO CAPTURE FIREWORKS

LANDSCAPES Where to go and what to shoot in Dorset in November. Includes maps and local info

AUTUMN COLOURS Capture the glory of autumnal colours at Westonbirt Arboretum Detach this section and take it on your travels!

8

8

8

Fold out this guide to find 11 top tips

Light up the skies! EVENT Pete Martin uncovers the secret of how to photograph firework displays and bonfire night

utumn is a time for celebration. Many ancient customs take place at this time of year, most with one thing in common: a preoccupation with fire. And fire and fireworks are stunning subjects to photograph – if you know how to capture them. Bonfire Night may be the big one, but fireworks fill the skies every night for weeks, with public displays everywhere. One of the best displays, on Primrose Hill in London, is free. In Sussex, historic bonfire societies in towns such as Lewes and Rye stagger their celebrations from September to November, so they don’t clash. A simple bonfire and a few rockets can provide good pictures, but for

A

images full of whiz and bang, head for the large, organised displays – and take a tripod! Long exposures capture colourful overhead bursts, and a tripod ensures exploding trails don’t look ragged. Don’t overlook the bonfires, they’re a great source of light. For dramatic impact, silhouette onlookers against the flames, or use the glow of the fire to illuminate the faces of children waving sparklers. Snap them watching the brilliant swirls of light they create. At Hallowe’en, golden pumpkins glow with candlelight, and children dress in gruesome costumes and masks. In Scotland, pagan fire societies celebrate Samhuinn,

8

GET SOME INFORMATION Check the online listings at Firework magazine’s website [w] www.fireworks-mag.org for details of displays near you. SkyDreamz [w] www.skydreamz.com, has lots of picture

Getup&go to… ALTON TOWERS

MIDLANDS

8

8

ALTON TOWERS FIREWORKS

Alton Towers stage four nights of spectacular firework and laser displays around Hallowe’en – visit the adventure theme park on 26th-27th October and 1st-3rd November. The kids will be happy and you can photograph the rides as well as one of the best pyrotechnic displays in the country. Why not round off the trip with a stay at the Alton Towers hotel?

GO TO… ALTON TOWERS AIM FOR ALTON

HOW TO GET THERE

8

DETAILS

ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

8

8

By car: Alton Towers is clearly signposted from the M1. Travelling north, take Junction 23a Junction 15 off the M6. Travelling south, take Junction 28 off the M1 or Junction 16 off the M6

CAPTURE THE CARNIVAL ATMOSPHERE

Bridgewater’s massive Guy Fawkes Carnival is the biggest of its kind in the country, with over 100 extravagantly decorated and brilliantly lit floats to photograph. This year it’s on Friday 8th November at 7.15pm, but get there early – last year 140,000 spectators attended!

BONFIRE PARTIES

8

Lewes in Sussex holds its bonfire night on 5th November. Nearby Rye holds its celebration on 9th November. Both are part of county-wide bonfire celebrations around this time

WHAT IS IT?

8

EDINBURGH NIGHT

An adventure theme park

WHEN IS IT OPEN?

Edinburgh’s Beltane Fire Society celebrates Samhuinn on 31st October, starting at about 9pm in the Old Town. Visit its website (www.bfs.samhuinn.org) for more information, including the ancient traditions behind this pagan festival

Park season: 9.30am to 5.30pm from 16th March to 3rd November

WHAT ARE THE FACILITIES? Alton Towers Hotel (you get discounted tickets if you stay here), disabled access, school and corporate groups catered for

EXPERT ADVICE

res of fireworks plus links

MORE INFO [t] 08705 204060 [w] www.altontowers.com ■ To order Ordnance Survey maps for this location call 0845 200 2712

Try these settings: Forget automatic metering and set aperture and shutter speed manually. With everything happening so far away, set the aperture to about f11, focus on infinity and use the shutter to control your images. The longer the exposure, the longer the radiant trails will be. Experiment with times, using the camera’s LCD display to check results. With practice you’ll soon learn to judge where in the sky the bursts will appear and therefore where to point your camera. Get a tripod: It’s also vital to secure your camera properly if you are using long exposures, to prevent blurring. So use a tripod and ideally, a remote control if your camera supports it.

8

filling Edinburgh’s Royal Mile with macabre medieval processions, fire eaters and fireworks; while in Devon flaming tar barrels are carried aloft through the streets of Ottery St Mary. When taking photos, use a touch of flash to freeze the action and long exposures to capture the flames. Asian communities celebrate Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, most notably in Leicester. Fireworks increasingly play a part in the festival, and you’ll get unusual and colourful pictures. Or try the legendary Bridgewater Carnival in Somerset. Although there are few fireworks, 100 floats take part, each ablaze with thousands of light bulbs. ■

■ Adults £25 ■ Children under 11 £20 ■ OAPs/disabled £15 ■ Family (two adults, two children) £74

FIREWORKS PHOTOS SUGGESTED SETTINGS ISO 100, shutter speed 1-2 seconds, aperture f8, focus infinity, flash off. Check photos on your LCD as you take them and adjust as you go – a key advantage to using a digital camera over a traditional one ■ See tear-off factsheet for more tips

POST-SHOOT

8

Pete Martin specialises in travel and craft photos

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

Avoiding mistakes: The main reason for dull, disappointing firework pictures is exposure times that are too short. This is easy enough to rectify.

PRIMROSE HILL

One of the most popular London firework displays is free (donations are collected). It’s held on Primrose Hill on 2nd November

Use the contrast/brightness controls in your image editing program to ensure colours are bright against a dark sky

Getup&go to… THE BRITISH WILDLIFE CENTRE Badgers are nocturnal creatures so you'll need a flash to capture them

GO TO… THE BWC

8

NIGHT WATCH

SURREY

8 8

AT THE WATERSIDE You'll find otters in lakes, rivers and on rocky coasts

AIM FOR LINGFIELD By car: The British Wildlife Centre at Newchapel, near Lingfield in Surrey is ten minutes from M25, Junction 6

ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

8

8

HOW TO GET THERE

INTO POSITION Squirrels are easily lured with bait such as nuts and seeds

8

DETAILS WHAT IS IT?

© COLIN SEDDON / www.lastrefuge.co.uk

If you can’t get out into the wild, try a day out at the British Wildlife Centre, where you can photograph badgers, red squirrels, foxes, pine martens and other British animals in its collection

8

WHEN IS IT OPEN? This month it is only open 26th October to 3rd November, but it reopens for the Easter holiday. Contact the Centre for further opening times

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY Otter sanctuaries offer a chance to get close to these elusive creatures

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? ■ Adults £4 ■ Children £3

WILDLIFE WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

MORE INFO

WHO NEEDS EXOTIC WILDLIFE, SAYS COLIN SEDDON, WHEN YOU'VE GREAT ANIMALS ON YOUR DOORSTEP? Formby Point near Liverpool where they're tame enough to allow close-up photos without a telephoto lens. They're also evident on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour and the Isle of Wight. Urban environments attract foxes and badgers. You'll often see foxes feeding in gardens in early evening, with lots of young cubs around at this time of year. Badgers are increasingly found near modern housing developments because their setts have been built on. It's illegal to disturb their setts so you must contact your local badger group to locate the ones you are allowed visit. Alternatively, the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey has a number of animals in captivity. ■

EXPERT ADVICE

Colin Seddon specialises in wildlife photography

Lying in wait: Small animals photograph better if you get down to their level, so don't stand there and snap away, try lying down. You’ll get better pictures if you avoid making noise or movements. Set yourself up and wait for them to come to you. Using the camera: Avoid using flash. A tripod is useful in this situation – especially one with a flexible ball and socket head. Set an aperture priority metering mode, and wide apertures to defocus conflicting backgrounds.

8

utumn is the perfect time to photograph many of our smaller native animals at their best. Squirrels are out there busy stockpiling for the winter, and foxes and badgers can often be found in family groups as the year's offspring prepare to leave their parents. You’ll find grey squirrels in every park in the land, but our native and far more picturesque red squirrels are another matter. The demise of our woodlands and the aggressive habits of the grey interloper have caused a dramatic decline in their numbers. Though mainly found in the coniferous forests of Scotland (such as The Cairngorms), you'll see them at the National Trust's

A

[t] 01342 834 658 [w] www.british-wildlife.co.uk ■ To order Ordnance Survey maps for this location call 0845 200 2712

WILDLIFE PHOTOS KIT TO USE Long lenses at wide apertures (f2.8, f4) help separate an animal from its background, giving more definition and impact. If you're hooked on wildlife photography, consider upgrading to an SLR-type digital that will use these

POST-SHOOT In the meantime, if your budget doesn’t stretch to an SLR, try using Gaussian Blur in Adove Photoshop (Filters menu) to defocus the background slightly

WILDLIFE INSPIRATION [w] www.nfbg.org.uk The website of the National Federation of Badger Groups [w] www.mammal.org.uk The Mammal Society's website

■ Now send us your pictures! Email them to [email protected] with your name and a few words on how the shoot went, and we’ll print the best Because of the long exposure times, you need to ensure your camera is solidly supported. The absolute best way to do this is with a tripod.

01

TRIPOD

You’ll get good results with your camera’s built-in lens, but if your camera supports it, a telephoto lens produces even better results.

02

LENS

Variable shutter speeds let you get brighter images and streaking effects as rockets burn through the sky.

03

VARIABLE SHUTTER SPEED CAMERAS

to fold this booklet: 8 How This is side A. Turn over for side B

Side A

STEP 1: Detach sheet from rest of section

8

Side A

8

STEP 2: Fold this side in half horizontally

STEP 3: Now fold around into a square

scenery in the the UK: Dorset’s coastlines, villages and historic sites will inspire you...

Corfe Castle in Dorest. 5 Visit Capture some of most stunning ■ Detailed maps of how to get there

2

FIREWORKS/LANDSCAPE

EQUIPMENT: three items for better results

2 IN DORSET

SIDE B: OUT AND ABOUT are as spectacular as the events you’re watching

fireworks this autumn? 5 Shooting It’s easy to take pictures that ■ Tips ■ Equipment ■ Dos/don’ts

magazira ne ONE FREE BOW L OF SOUP OR CREAM TEA FROM THE COR FE TWO PEOPLE ORD CASTLE TEAROOM – WHEN ER (VALUED AT £3.25)

✃ ✃

COMPOSE THE SHOT Don’t restrict your view but Do use people’s silhouettes as an effective way of framing your overall shot CHECK THE WIND DIRECTION Do make sure it’s coming from your back so smoke gets blown away from your view

DigitalCame

FREE MEAL

INDEX:

PRESENT THIS VOUCHER AT CORFE CASTLE, AND GAIN DigitalCamera TWO ENTRY TICKETS FOR THE magazine PRICE OF ONE

2 PHOTOGRAPH FIREWORKS

TWO FOR THE PRICE

SIDE A: 11 TIPS ON HOW TO

OF ONE!

Money off vouchers to Corfe Castle on side B

WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE

TOPICS COVERED > FOLD ALONG THIS LINE SECOND

ADJUST SHUTTER SPEED Do adjust the speed so it’s open for longer, enabling you to get spectacular streaking effects

Dos and don’ts GETTING IT RIGHT: SHOOTING FIREWORKS

TEAROUT FACTSHEET NO.1

NOVEMBER 2002

Getup&go

.

FOLD ALONG THIS LINE FIRST

Getup&go FIREWORKS

8

We’ve all shot firework displays in the past and there’s no doubt that if you get it right the results can be spectacular. Conversely, it’s all too easy to fail to capture the sheer energy and dynamism of a cracking firework display, ending up with weedy bursts, limp trails and empty skies. No longer. Follow our guide below and you’ll be capturing fantastic firework displays perfecty – and make your friends wonder how you did it.

DETACH HERE

2

intense when it falls on the CCD, and not faded out as can happen with larger aperture settings. Good settings are f8 and f11.

DON’T JOG THE CAMERA

To get good results you need a tripod, and ideally (if your camera supports it) a remote control. If you don’t have a tripod, try securing your camera to a fence post or something similar and set the self-timer. The secret is to avoid doing anything that jars the camera because even the slightest vibration can blur the image. The results won’t be ideal, but if you’re lucky they’ll be good enough.

3

6

AVOID COMMON MISTAKES

1

If you’ve taken pictures of fireworks in the past and been disappointed that they never come out as bright or explosive as the firework display itself, you’ve been doing several things wrong. The basic problem is that light is not falling on your camera’s CCD for long enough. Rectify this in two ways: use an ISO setting that’s low – about 100 (better quality, less graininess); and adjust your camera’s shutter speed so that it stays open for longer (enough light hits the CCD to create a bright image).

5

8

SHOOT THE SMOKE

Smoke can reflect light, and you can potentially compose some striking pictures with it in-frame.

SWITCH OFF YOUR FLASH

9

You don’t need a flash because the fireworks supply enough light. If your camera doesn’t allow you to switch off the flash at night, stick some masking tape over it.

6

CAPTURE THE WHOLE FIREWORK

COMPOSE THE SHOT

Look around and see ways that you can use the landscape or buildings to improve your shot. Try shooting crowd shots as people crane their necks to watch the fireworks, or shoot kids with sparklers. If there’s

ice or water in the foreground, you may be able to capture the reflections of fireworks as they go off.

ILLUMINATE 10 FOREGROUND OBJECTS Although we just told you to switch off the flash on your camera, you can use it to great effect if you want to illuminate foreground objects as the fireworks light up the sky behind them.

TRY THESE CAMERA SETTINGS

Try ISO 100, shutter speed of 1-2 seconds, aperture setting f8, focus infinity and flash off. But don’t be afraid to experiment with longer exposures if your camera is rock-steady.

Use a slow shutter speed to capture the rocket trail and burst all in the same frame. Anything from one to four seconds should do the trick, depending on how long it takes the firework to shoot up and explode. Experiment a little to get the best results. If you want to capture the effect of a whole symphony of firework bursts, try leaving the shutter open for 10, 20 or even 30 seconds and see what results you get.

4

7

BE PREPARED

Try to get a good position so you’re not photographing the backs of peoples’ heads. See if you can set up your tripod on a platform to avoid this. Don’t get too close as you want to be able to get the rocket trail and explosion all in a single frame (unless you are happy to stitch together panoramas back home on your computer).

ENSURE AN INTENSE IMAGE

You’ll want a narrow aperture setting so that the light is

11

SHOOT MULTIPLE BURSTS

Capture a number of bursts in a single frame by locking the shutter open and covering the front of the lens with card – remove it when the bursts occur, and cover it up again when they fade. Ignore the rocket trails but use them to calculate when the explosion is likely to occur. With a bit of patience, you can shoot a symphony of bursts. Once finished, remember to close the shutter before removing the lens

PULLOUT NO.1

Getup&go... routeplanner The Isle of Purbeck Your guide to landmarks, places to visit, campsites and information centres on the Isle of Purbeck ollow our Landscape guide opposite and you’ll be visiting some of the most beautiful scenery in the UK. If you visit the Isle of Purbeck, there’s plenty to see and do, but if you want to make a few days of it, there’s a range of camp and caravan sites, nature walks, local landmarks, museums, woodland and even a preserved railway you can visit. It’s all centred on Corfe

F

Castle – as you can see below. Hopefully our Landscape guide will make you want to make a trip to the castle and fire off a few photos. If so, the National Trust has kindly offered every reader a ‘two tickets for the price of one’ deal, plus a free bowl of soup or cream tea (if two people order). Just show the coupons on this page, printed below and do send us your pictures!

2 1 SWANAGE RAILWAY Right by Corfe Castle, it’s six miles of track between Swanage and Norden. While you’re there: Trains run every weekend – find out the latest details of events and places to stay and eat at www.swanagerailway.co.uk. The railway passes right by Corfe Castle. Family-friendly? There’s a ‘day out with Thomas the Tank Engine’ week from 26th October to 3rd November.

2

1

3

Map key BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

2 2 CORFE CASTLE

✃ ✃

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! PRESENT THIS VOUCHER AT CORFE CASTLE, AND GAIN DigitalCamera TWO ENTRY TICKETS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE magazine

FREE MEAL

Lighthouse in use Campsite Caravan site Castle

DigitalCamera magazine

ONE FREE BOWL OF SOUP OR CREAM TEA FROM THE CORFE CASTLE TEAROOM – WHEN TWO PEOPLE ORDER (VALUED AT £3.25)

Built by the Normans to guard the road onto the Isle of Purbeck, it’s now owned by the National Trust. While you’re there: Visit the castle, then take a stroll along Corfe Common (walks leaflet available from Corfe Castle for 50p). Exhibition centre has interactive displays. Family-friendly? Baby-changing facilities at visitor centre; baby carriers, highchairs and children’s menu. Children’s guidebook. Children must be accompanied by an adult within the castle. Money-saver: See left for money-off coupons – show them when you’re there and get money off food and entrance to the castle.

2 3 KIMMERIDGE BAY On the South West Coastal Path, it’s a good place to visit for country walks. While you’re there: Visit Clavel’s Tower at the east end of Kimmeridge Bay, built in 1820. Originally a folly, it’s now ruined. See it before it vanishes into the sea. Family-friendly? Not specifically, but below the tower there’s an Information Centre for the Dorset Trust for Nature Conservation. Also the South West Coastal Path runs right through this area if you fancy a walk.

Country park Golf course Information centre Museum Nature/forest trail Tourist feature Picnic site Preserved railway Viewpoint Youth Hostel

Getup&go to… WESTONBIRT

GLOUCESTERSHIRE

8

GO TO… WESTONBIRT

8

AIM FOR TETBURY By car: Westonbirt is three miles southwest of Tetbury on the A433 Bath road in Gloucestershire. It’s 20 minutes north-east of M4 Junction 18, and 20 minutes southeast of M5 Junction 13

USE THE MACRO SETTING Use your camera’s Macro setting to zoom in on items

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM49/02

8

8

HOW TO GET THERE

COMPOSE YOUR SHOT

Notice how the trees and people have been framed in spaces of about a third of the width of the picture

8

DETAILS WHAT IS IT?

LIGHT AND SHADOW

WHEN IS IT OPEN?

A shadowy foreground frames lighter areas further back in the shot

DAY OUT AT WESTONBIRT It’s open all year round, but now’s the time to go, with the liveliest colours

It’s open 365 days a year from 10am to 8pm (or sunset if that is earlier)

© FOREST LIFE PICTURE LIBRARY

8

Run by the Forestry Commission, Westonbirt Arboretum houses one of the world's finest collections of trees

8

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? ■ Prices vary according to season. In October and November tickets cost £5 per adult, concessions £4 and children/disabled £. ■ In December entrance is free

NATURE A BLAZE OF AUTUMNAL COLOUR

WHAT ARE THE FACILITIES? Visitors' centre, restaurant, courtyard café, shop and toilets

PETE MARTIN TAKES A STROLL AMONG THE TREES AT WESTONBIRT ARBORETUM

MORE INFO

A

Holford brought his own knowledge to the project, experimenting with propagation and hybridisation, and laying out the great rides and walks that still exist today. Depending on the weather, in late October to early November Westonbirt has some of the finest autumn leaf colour displays in Europe, with its Japanese acer glades awash with brilliant swathes of reds and yellows. Commonly known as maples, these vibrant specimens compete with each other for your attention, and draw thousands of photographers to Westonbirt from around the country. Dull weather can be the best conditions for photographing foliage. There are softer shadows and highlights, and colours become more saturated. Keep the sky out of shot if it

is white and washed out, but make full use of it for colourful contrasts if it is blue and cloudless. And if the sun is out, go among the trees and shrubs where you can find brilliant leaves backlit against it. ■

GET SOME INSPIRATION [w] www.chrishoneysett.com has black and white images of forest light and shadow

EXPERT ADVICE

Pete Martin specialises in travel and craft photos

Patience is the name of the game. Go for wide angle shots and you'll have to contend with people wandering into frame, so set them up accordingly, and wait for the right person to be just where you want them before pressing the shutter. Better still, zoom the camera into its telephoto setting and look for tight shots – perhaps of a single specimen or branch.

[t]

01666 880 220 www.westonbirtarboretum.com

[w]

8

s bright summer colours turn to rusty hues, autumn is one of the finest times of the year to visit the National Arboretum at Westonbirt. Located on the edge of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, Westonbirt draws over 300,000 visitors every year. In over 600 acres of woods and 17 miles of walks, you can lose yourself for hours photographing some of the tallest, oldest and rarest trees in the world. The collection was started in 1829 by the Victorian arborealist, Robert Holford. In keeping with many of the great landowners of the time, Holford commissioned plant hunters to search for unknown and unusual trees from around the world, including China, North America, South America and Japan.

NATURE PHOTOS SHOOTING OUTDOORS A shower hat is useful to cover the camera in a sudden downpour while you keep shooting

USING A TRIPOD Make a lightweight tripod more substantial by hanging your camera bag under the centre column

POST-SHOOT It’s relatively easy to remove people using the cutout tools in Photoshop

[w] www.tonyhowell.co.uk/plants.htm has images shot at Westonbirt

Getup&go to… THE ISLE OF PURBECK

Islands in the mist LANDSCAPE Guy Edwardes explains why early morning starts are essential to capture dramatic Dorset landscapes

8

Bring Digital Camera Magazine to Corfe Castle and save £££s on the entrance fee, plus get a free meal when you’re there! See Side B of the ‘tear out’ factsheet opposite for the coupon and complete details

FIND A GOOD VANTAGE POINT

Standing high on West Hill enables you to photograph Corfe Castle from above, setting it against a backdrop of low hills rising from the morning mist. The brightly lit trees in the foreground help lift the design and add an extra splash of colour

CATCH THE SUN RISING

Shooting into the sun silhouettes Corfe’s church tower and trees against the mist. Work quickly because autumn mists don’t stay around for long once the sun gets up

DAYS OUT IN DORSET: [w] www.thedorsetpage.co.uk The best of the online Dorset Gazeteers, with loads of things to see and do, plus places to stay around the county

8

8 SAVE £££S

strong sidelight will pick out the contours of the land. Corfe Castle, the ruins of a Norman stronghold, was built to guard the road onto the Isle of Purbeck. The surrounding village nestles between two hills, so there are good views all day from a number of directions. Morning light is best for Old Harry’s Rocks, the cliffs and sea stacks beyond Corfe. Beaches are photogenic in low light, with long exposures blurring the waves into mist that drifts between the rocks. Kimmeridge Bay is another favourite for these moody shots – especially on the receding tide, when wet rocks reflect the rising light. Dorset is a county of contrasts so don’t forget the evening light. Head west down the ‘Jurassic Coast’ to where the wide bay and great sea arch of Durdle Door sweep out towards the sunset. Or turn back onto the Chase in search of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury. Captured in this ‘golden hour’, it’s a typical Dorset scene that can’t fail to work. Hovis certainly thought so! ■

8

arm days followed by cool nights bring early morning mists – perfect for atmospheric autumnal landscapes. And where better to capture them than the rolling Dorset countryside, with its downs and heaths, ancient beech woods and spectacular coastline? Two popular locations are Cranborne Chase and the Isle of Purbeck. The Chase, with its high chalk downlands incised by wooded valleys, is renowned for wide panoramas. Rows of hills stretch away to the horizon, but get here well before the sun rises because the early mists soon turn to haze. Emerging shapes make good monochromatic compositions, while

W

PURPLE MIST

A one-stop graduated filt control in this picture of C flare when shooting into the sun –

[w] www.jurassiccoast.com A mine of fascinating information a

8

© GUY EDWARDES

DORSET GO TO… CORFE CASTLE AIM FOR WAREHAM By car: Corfe Castle is on the A351 between Wareham and Swanage, Dorset

8

DETAILS

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM49/02

8

HOW TO GET THERE

WHAT IS IT? Now in the hands of the National Trust, Corfe Castle originally guarded the gateway through the Purbeck Hills. It is built from the local limestone for which this beautiful peninsula is renowned

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? ■ Adults £4.30 ■ Children £2.15 (Save money with our offer far-left)

WHAT ARE THE FACILITIES?

8

Family centre, schools resources, Braille guide, café, tours, shop and toilets

MORE INFO

ETHEREAL MIST

01929 481 294 www.nationaltrust.org.uk ■ To order Ordnance Survey maps for this location call 0845 200 2712 [t]

Beaches before sunrise are photogenic in low light. Here a long exposure of more than 30 seconds has blurred the waves into a mist that drifts between the rocks at Kimmeridge Bay

[w]

EXPERT ADVICE

8

ter helps bring the bright sky under Corfe Castle at sunrise. Look out for lens especially with zoom lenses

CROP YOUR SHOT

The graphic image seen here was cropped from one originally taken on Cranborne Chase as a vertical picture. Landscapes sometimes work well in either format so shoot both if you have the time

Composition: At sunrise and sunset, low light and the small apertures necessary to keep foregrounds and backgrounds in focus mean long exposures, so a tripod is essential. This will also help you refine your compositions. Graduated neutral density filters reduce the brightness of the sky and help you record detail without losing shadows; adjust the filter so its edge follows the horizon.

bout the geology of the Dorset coast, now officially declared a World Heritage Site. This may seem dry but it will help you understand the landscape

8

Guy Edwardes specialises in in landscape and travel photography

Camera use: Landscapes aren't just about horizontal pictures. Don't be afraid to tip the camera on its end for vertical shots. Patterns such as receding hills work well like this.

WIN FREE NATIONAL TRUST MEMBERSHIP GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT! CAPTURE CORFE CASTLE AND YOU COULD WIN SOME HANDY PRIZES The National Trust, in conjunction with Jessops, is running a competition for the best photograph of Corfe Castle. The winning image, as judged by the National Trust, will be framed, gain you free membership of the National Trust for one year, and a £10 Jessops voucher. ■ For full details of the competition, prizes, entry form and rules, see the file Corfe_compo.pdf on coverdisc 1.

Lowepro’s protective cases also for laptops and the latest digital cameras Top Right: Lowepro’s D-res 25 AW Lowepro DryZone 200 ...the world’s first fully waterproof photo backpack

F

ounded in the late 1960’s by the Lowe family. Ralph Lowe would regularly take his three children Mike, Geoff and Greg into the mountains, kindling a huge love of outdoor life in all of them. Over time, their interest became coupled with photography and Greg became particularly interested in cine photography. As his talents grew, so did his need to protect his expensive equipment in this rugged environment. The very first Lowepro bag was born, consisting of a modified rucksack with an internal tubular frame. This design evolved and eventually enquiries from fellow mountaineers convinced the Lowe’s to begin producing the bags. Lowepro has enjoyed 12 years of distribution within the UK. Recently set up as Lowepro UK Ltd we are now located in Wolverhampton. To match the standard of our products, we are dedicated to customer service, aiming to ensure that we meet the needs of

every customer. To be the best at what we do, we invest heavily in research and development. Designed by and for people that use fragile photographic and electronic equipment. Each product begins life as a concept, which is designed, redesigned and then perfected. This can be seen in our product and has created what we consider to be the most comprehensive range of protective cases available on today’s market. Across the range, special features are apparent. From overlapping zipper systems for extra insurance against rain and knocks to the All Weather cover that has become a legend of Lowepro design, ensuring virtually nothing can penetrate your bag to your gear. Innovations are born, and world firsts appear. Just look at the new Lowepro DryZone 200 fully waterproof backpack (opposite), and the incredible Street & Field modular system as living proof of our commitment in pushing the boundaries of accepted thinking. We recognise that the best design is only the beginning. Our products are constructed of only the very best materials with over a dozen types in

in association with

Competition Don’t miss your chance to win one of three superb Lowepro backpacks and to see the quality of the product for yourself!

st 1 PRIZE

Simply answer our three questions, pop your entry form (photocopies OK) off to arrive no later than December 31st 2002.

nd 2 R P IZE

Send your entries to: Lowepro UK (DCAM01 Comp.) Unit 6 Merryhills Enterprise Park Wolverhampton WV10 9TJ

rd 3 R P IZE

our portfolio. We research and rate materials on characteristics you may have never thought of. Things like abrasion resistance and quiet operation. A quiet buckle could be the difference between getting a shot and missing it. Lowepro side-release buckles are made from a flexible resin, which ensures the buckles slide into position very quietly and prevent breakage. Our metal snap hooks and D-rings are steel, welded for strength, plated with brass to reduce rusting and powder coated with black paint for extra weather protection. Zips are not all the same. We demand the best, and specify “self-healing” zips that can fix themselves if teeth separate under pressure. A coating on the metal sliders prolongs wear. The list goes on and on. Try a Lowepro bag for yourself to see the difference. Call into your local photo store, or call us on 01902 864646 - we’ll help you to locate your neares stockist. Lowepro. We’ll help take you places.

www.lowepro-uk.com

Questions Question one: Which member of the Lowe family inspired the first Lowepro bag? Question two: What are the side-release buckles used on Lowepro bags made from? Question three: How long has Lowepro been distributed in the UK? Name & Address details

email

Lowepro Nature Trekker AW - SRP £199; Lowepro Mini Trekker - SRP £99; Lowepro Orion Trekker - SRP £49

DCAM01

Synonymous with innovative, top quality protective cases & backpacks...here’s how Lowepro started

Tick box if you do not want to receive quarterly email news

ARTWORK COURTESY OF OUTDOOR PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE

TEL: 01273 402814

we’ll help take you places

16 The Broadway

115 Lower Church Road

HAYWARDS HEATH

BURGESS HILL

West Sussex, RH15 9AA Fax: 01444 245319 FOR MAIL ORDER CONTACT

West Sussex, RH16 3AL FAX 01444 450200 FOR USED EQUIPMENT CONTACT

Tel: 01444 245316

Tel: 01444 412181

Visit our website at W H Y

w w w . p a r k c a m e r a s . c o . u k B U Y

- Wide selection

F R O M

P A R K

- Fantastic Low Prices

C A M E R A S ?

- Exper t Advice (look at the proof!!):

EOS AND DIGITAL PRO DEALER DIGITAL IMAGING DEALER PROFESSIONAL DEALER PIX DEALER GO CREATE DEALER O U R

TO P

EOS D60 BODY

D100 BODY

- 6.3 Million effective pixels - accepts all EF lenses

O

SRP £1899.99

£1899.00 T

H

A100 £149 A200 £149 A30 £189 A40 £225 IXUS V2 £359 IXUS 330 £369 S30 £429 S40 £499 G2 Black £499 G2 Black + 1GB £749 EOS D60 £1899 EOS 1D £4299 EOS 1DS £phone

D I G I TA L

E

SRP £1499.99

£1599.99*

R

D

Slimshot £69 A202 £139 A204 £195 A203 £229 A303 £280 S304 £365 F401 £339 F601 £469 S602 £539 S602+USB Card Reader + 128Mb card £599 S2 PRO £1695 S2 PRO + battery kit + 1GB m/drive £1895

I

G

I

2000 £189 2500 £259 775 £264 885 £369 4300 £phone/ see web 4500 £529 5000 £699 5700 £879* D100 + MBD100 £1699* D1H PRO KIT £2949 D1X BODY £3450 D1X PRO KIT £3650

A

Canon NB 1LH Canon NB 2L Canon BP511 Canon NP E3 Fuji 2HR-3UF 2 AA NiMH batteries Fuji NP60 Battery Fuji NP80 Battery **SPECIAL PRICE** Kodak Travel Kit **SPECIAL PRICE** Nikon EN EL1 (775/885) Nikon EN EL2 (2500) **SPECIAL PRICE** Nikon EN EL3 Nikon EN4 Olympus BU60SE Batts+charger Pentax D-LI2 **SPECIAL PRICE**

£29.99 £35.00 £54.99 £99.99 £6.99 £39.99 £29.99* £19.99* £39.99 £34.99 £49.99 £89.99 £29.99 £24.99*

INDEPENDENT BATTERIES/ CHARGERS Hahnel 4 AA NIMH batts+charger £19.99 Hahnel 4xAA NiMH 1800 mAH batts £12.99 Uniross 6xAA batts+fast mains/car charger £34.99

C

please phone 01444 245316 for helpful advice and to order

WATERPROOF CASES Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Pentax

L

C120 £154 C220 + 64MB + case + batts + charger £229 C300 + 64MB + case + batts + charger £314 C4000 £399 C730U £449 C50 £phone/ see web C5050£phone/ see web E20P £979 E20P+wide+tele £1249

CAMERA ACCESSORIES

RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES

SRP £699.99

DCM PRICE

£979.00* T

WP-DC100 WP-DC200s (for A30/ A40) WP-DC300 (for S30/ S40) WP-DC400 (for A100/ A200) WP-DC500 (for IXUS 330) WP-DC600 (for IXUS V2) O-WP1 (for Optio 330/430/RS)

£149.00 £149.99 £149.00 £149.00 £149.00 £149.00 £199.99

OTHER SPECIAL PRICES Nikon MB D100 Multi Function Grip Fuji BC80 Battery Charger Fuji SC FX9 Soft Case (for 6900) Nikon SB80DX Flashgun Olympus FL40 Flashgun

£119.99* £39.99 £14.99 £269.99 £319.99

PLEASE PHONE

01444 245316 FOR ALL OTHER ACCESSORIES NOT LISTED

M

E

M

- 3.2 million effective pixels - 3x optical zoom - excellent build quality

DCM PRICE

A

M

230 330RS 330RS+batt+case 430RS 430RS+batt+case

E £249 £334 £364 £434 £464

SD9 Digital SLR + 17-35mm f/2.8-4 EX £1699.99 SD9 Digital SLR + 15-30mm f/3.5-4.5 EX £1799.99

O

R

xD-PICURE CARDS 16MB £9.99 32MB £13.99 64MB £25.99 128MB £49.99

S O N Y M E M O RY S T I C K MSA 16MB £24.99 MSA 32MB £29.99 MSA 64MB £38.99* MSA 128MB £59.90*

Y

DCM PRICE

was £449.99

£539.00*

S M A RT M E D I A FUJI 16MB £7.99 FUJI 32MB £12.99 FUJI 64MB £22.99 FUJI 128MB £44.99 TOSHIBA 128MB £40.00* FUJI FUJI FUJI FUJI

DSC P7

- 3.1 million effective pixels - 6.0 recorded pixels - 6x optical zoom

phone for great deals with converters

DCM PRICE

C A M E R A S

FINEPIX S602

- 4.95 Million effective pixels - 4x Optical zoom

NOW IN STOCK!!

DCM PRICE

D I G I TA L

CAMEDIA E-20P

- 6.1 Million effective pixels - accepts all Nikon AF lenses

NOW IN STOCK!! SRP £2199.99

S E L L I N G

THE ONLY UK DEALER WITH ALL THESE ACCREDITATIONS!!

C

R

£319.00* A

S

U10 £185* U20 £phone/ see web F77 £phone/ see web FX77 £phone/ see web P31 £189 P51 £209 P71 £269 P2 £299 P7 £319 P9 £389 S75 £389 S85 £419 F707 £699 F717 £839*

A

R

D

S

F U J I C O M PAC T F L A S H FUJI 16MB £11.90 FUJI 32MB £16.90 FUJI 64MB £24.90 FUJI 128MB £44.90 £59.90 F U J I 1 2 8 M B (20x speed) FUJI 256MB £89.90 £109.90 F U J I 2 5 6 M B (20x speed) SANDISK COMPACT FLASH 128MB ULTRA £59.99 256MB £89.99 256MB ULTRA £119.98 MICRODRIVE IBM 1GB £199.99 £229.99 I B M 1 G B TRAVEL KIT

Q U A L I T Y M E M O R Y C A R D S AT T H E L O W E S T P R I C E S I N T H E U K ? o n l y £ 3 . 9 9 fo r n ex t d ay d e l i ve r y - p l e a s e p h o n e 0 1 4 4 4 2 4 5 3 1 6

All prices include VAT @ 17.5% Opening times Monday-Saturday 8:30-5:30pm. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Switch. Alternatively, send cheque to Park Cameras Ltd, 115 Lower Church Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, RH15 9AA. Figures in Brackets Indicates stock level held at unrepeatable prices at time of going to print. NB Goods will not necessarily have been sold at SRP for 28 days prior to this. Prices correct at time of going to press, check on website for latest prices. E&OE. *ON MENTION OF DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

next day delivery memory cards £3.99 larger items £6.99

™

THE UK’s No1 INKJET COMPANY

Web. www.mx2.com Tel. 01481 740200 Fax. 01481 740300 Email. [email protected] NEW 10N0016 NEW 10N0026 17G0060 17G0050 13619HC 13400HC 12A1970 12A1975 12A1980 12A1990 15M0120

EPSON

BLK .............£17.90 CLR.............£22.00 CLR.............£17.99 BLK .............£17.90 CLR.............£23.90 BLK .............£17.99 BLK .............£17.99 BLK .............£28.90 CLR.............£25.90 PHOTO .......£27.99 CLR.............£26.45

BC01 BC02 BC05 BC06 BC10 BC-20 BC-21 BC-22 BC-23 BCI-3 BCI-3 BCI-5 BCI-5 BCI-5 BCI-6 BCI-6 BCI-6 BC-30 BC-31 BC-32 BC-60 BC-61 BC-62 BCI-10B BCI-11B BCI-11C BCI-21B BCI-21C NEW BCI-24B NEW BCI-24C BCI-61 BCI-62 BJI-201B BJI-201

NEW LEXMARK COMPATIBLE C-12A1970 C-12A1980 C-12A1990 C-13619HC C-13400HC C-17G0050 C-17G0060 C-15M0120

BLK .............£13.90 CLR.............£14.75 PHOTO .........£TBA CLR.............£15.50 BLK .............£14.75 BLK .............£14.65 CLR.............£14.65 PHOTO .......£15.90

INKJET PAPERS MX2’s comprehensive and best selling range of compatible inkjet papers, provides high quality output and ultimate value for the enthusiast.

NEW MX2 Papers The UK’s No 1 choice for the digital enthusiast introduces a professional range of bright white Glossy & Matte inkjet papers for top Quality Photo printing and the Ultimate value. TBA NEW NEW NEW NEW

M270G M240G M200G M220M M160M

BLK...............£13.90 BLK...............£13.75 CLR ..............£15.90 PHOTO .........£13.99 BLK...............£23.50 BLK .............£16.90 Print Head....£29.99 PHOTO ........£15.90 BLK...............£17.99 BLK.................£7.90 C/M/Y ...each £5.90 BLK.................£6.99 C/M/Y each....£6.90 PM/PCeach ...£6.90 BLK.................£6.90 C/M/Y each....£6.50 PM/PCeach ...£6.50 BLK...............£22.90 CLR ..............£23.99 Photo............£24.99 BLK...............£17.99 CLR ..............£17.90 PHOTO .........£29.99 BLK x3............£9.50 BLK x3............£6.99 CLR x3 .........£11.00 BLK.................£4.99 CLR ................£9.90 BLK.................£5.90 CLR ................£9.90 CLR ..............£12.99 PHOTO .........£17.90 BLK.................£5.80 C/M/Y ...each £5.50

NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW

MX2 is the UK’s largest seller of EPSON Inks & Photo papers.

Hewlett Packard Paper NEW 6818 NEW 6984 6832 6951 6040 1847 51634Z 1853 6945 6050 6042 3832

A4 Brochure & Flyer Gloss 160g (50)£8.99 A4 Photo Quality Paper 160g (25) ....£6.90 A4 Premium Photo Glossy 230g (20)£9.50 A4 Premium Photo Matte 230g (20) .£9.50 A4 Premium Photo Paper 220g (15) .£5.99 A4 Photo Glossy Paper 160g (20).....£5.99 A4 Premium LX 95g (200)................£10.95 A4 Photo Matte 2 sided 135g (100)£10.50 15x10cm Prm Photo Paper (20)........£5.99 A4 Iron-on Transfers (10) ..................£9.99 Greeting Cards + Env. (20) ................£5.49 A4 Transparency Film (20) ..............£12.00

H.P. COMPATIBLE

PR-101 GP-301 HR101 HR101 HR101 TR201

C-1823D C-51625A C-51626A C-51629A C-51633M C-51645A C-51649A C-6614D C-6615D C-6578A

A4 Glossy Photo Paper (15) ..............£8.90 A4 Glossy Photo Paper 165g (20).....£6.90 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g (200).....£16.50 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g (3x50)...£12.00 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g (50).........£4.99 A4 T-Shirt Transfers (10)....................£8.50

CANON COMPATIBLE

Photo Glossy Papers

BLK.................£TBA TRI -CLR ......£17.99 PHOTO .........£16.90 BLK...............£13.50 TRI -CLR ........£TBA BLK...............£17.99 CLR...............£23.90 CLR...............£38.83 BLK...............£17.90 CLR 30ml .....£23.50 PHOTO .........£22.99 CLR...............£17.99 BLK...............£17.99 CLR...............£23.50 BLK...............£17.90 BLK...............£17.99 BLK...............£17.99 CLR...............£23.50

QUALITY RECONDITIONED HP CARTRIDGES FROM KMP & IT IMAGE

A4 MX2 Pro Photo Glossy 270g (40) ...........£TBA A4 MX2 Pro Photo Glossy 240g (50) ...........£9.99 A4 MX2 Pro Photo Glossy 200g (50) ...........£9.99 A4 MX2 Pro Photo Matte 220g (100)..........£9.90 A4 MX2 Pro Photo Matte 160g (150)..........£9.99

NEW CP274 A4 ICI Photo Glossy 2 sided 270g (20) .....£13.99 CPR0A3 A3 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (20).......£17.75 CPR050 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (50).......£16.99 CPR020 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (20).........£8.50 CPRO64 6x4” ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (20)......£5.50 CS26A3 A3 ICI Photo Satin Paper 260g (20)..........£17.75 CS2650 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 260g (50)..........£16.99 CS2620 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 260g (20)............£8.50 CP22-3P A3+ Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) £17.99 CP22-A3 A3 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) .£15.99 CP22-50 A4 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (50) .£14.50 CP22-20 A4 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) ...£7.99 CARDS A5 Glossy Greeting Cards 220g (20) ..........£7.99 CP22-A5 A5 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) ...£4.75 NEW CP1750 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 170g (50).........£9.99 NEW CP1720 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 170g (20).........£4.99 CS50 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 170g (50)............£9.99 CS20 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 170g (20)............£5.99 NEW CP3P A3+Photo Glossy Paper 150g (20)............£14.99 CPA3 A3 Photo Glossy Paper 150g (20).............£11.99 CP100 A4 Photo Glossy Paper 150g (100)...........£14.99 CP50 A4 Photo Glossy Paper 150g (50)...............£8.99 CP20 A4 Photo Glossy Paper 150g (20)...............£4.25 CPA5 A5 Photo Glossy Paper 150g (20)...............£3.25

6656A 6657A 6658A 8727A 8728A 6615D 6578D 6578A 6614D 1823D 1816A 51649A 51645A 51641A 51633M 51629A 51626A 51625A

EACH...........DISCOUNT NEW C-BC01 BLK ..................£9.95......2 PK £17.50 NEW C-BC02 BLK ..................£9.90......2 PK £17.80 C-BCI-5B BLK ..................£3.99 C-BCI-5 C/M/Y ..............£3.99 C-BCI-10B BLK (x3) ...........£4.99 .....2 PK £8.99 C-BCI-11B BLK (x3) ...........£5.99......2 PK £11.00 C-BCI-11C CLR (x3)...........£7.50......2 PK £13.98 C-BCI-21B BLK ..................£2.75 .....3 PK £7.50 C-BCI-21C CLR..................£3.99......3 PK £11.00 C-BCI-61C CLR..................£7.99......2 PK £15.00 C-BCI 62 PHOTO ............£8.99......2 PK £17.00 C-BJI201B BLK ..................£1.99 .....3 PK £5.50 C-BJI201M Mag...................£2.50 C-BJI201C Cyn...................£2.50 C-BJI201Y Ylw ...................£2.50

STORAGE MEDIA MEMOREX CDR 80/700MB 24 Speed.each 65p/10 PK £5.99 80/700MB.............50 Pack Spindle £16.50 CDR Audio 80min..99p each /10 Pk £9.45 CDRW 650/74....99p each /10 Pack £8.99 Hewlett Packard CDR 80min/650MB.......79p each /10 Pack £7.50

Photo Matte Papers NEW CM314 A4 ICI Super Heavy Artist Paper 310g (20) .£13.99 NEW CA240 A4 Artist Watercolour Paper 240g (10) ......£6.99 NEW CM234 A4 ICI Photo Matte 230g (50) ..........................£9.99 CMH3P A3+ Photo Matte 2 sided 210g (20) ..............£11.00 CMHA3 A3 Photo Matte 2 sided 210g (20)...................£9.99 CMH A4 Photo Matte 2 sided 210g (50)...................£6.99 NEW CM1750 A4 ICI Photo Matte 2 sided 170g (50) ............£9.99 NEW CM17100 A4 ICI Photo Matte 2 sided 170g (100) ........£12.99 CANA3 A3 Canvas Photo Paper 140g (20)............£13.50 CANA4 A4 Canvas Photo Paper 140g (20)..............£5.99 CHR3P A3+ Photo Matte 2 sided 130g (50)..........£15.50 CHRA3 A3 Photo Matte 2 sided 130g (50) ............£12.50 CHR A4 Photo Matte 2 sided 130g (100) ............£7.75 NEW CM120 A4 ICI Photo Matte 120g (100) ........................£7.99

Vectorjet Refill Kits & Inks Refill your empty cartridges & SAVE £££s Black Refill Kit (50ml)....£4.90 (100ml)..£6.99 Colour Refill Kit (75ml)....£7.90 (150ml)..£9.99 Black & Clr Refill Kit (125ml)......................£9.95 Photo Refill Kit (150ml)...............................£9.99 Black Ink (250ml)...£5.90 (500ml)£16.90 C/M/Y Inks Each(250ml)..£6.90 (500ml).£16.99 Photo Inks C/M/Y(250ml).£9.90 (500ml)£17.90 Cleaning Fluid (125ml).£3.99 (250ml)..£4.90 Ink Jector Kit (Kit without ink).............£2.90

DIGITAL CAMERA FOOD

Maxell LS-120 120MB Super Disc ...£6.75 IMATION 3.5” DISKS NEW Black IBM 1.44Mb 10 Pack.......£2.99 NEW Neon IBM 1.44Mb 10 Pack.......£3.50

Specialist Products CMETAL A4 Silver Metallic Film (10)..........................£6.99 NEW CHOLO A4 Silver Holographic Film .........................£7.95 CTFR A4 Transfers for T - Shirts etc. (10)............£7.99 CLING A4 Cling Film 720 Dpi (10)...........................£7.50 NEW CMAG A4 Magnetic Photo Sheets (5) ....................£7.90 CLEAR A4 Transparencies for Projectors (20) .......£7.50 CLAM A4+ DIY Laminate for Menus etc. (10).......£6.99 CBUS DIY Laminate for Business Cards (50).......£5.99 NEW CDKIT CD & Zip Kit (50) Free CD Software.........£11.99 CDM2 Photo Matt CD Labels 2 per A4 (2x10) ......£5.99 CD2 Photo Glossy CD Labels 2 per A4 (2x10)...£6.50 CD3 Photo Glossy CD Labels 3 per A4 (3x10)...£6.50 CBC Glossy Business Cards 220g (10x10).........£5.75 NEW CAB Art Canvas Business cards 10 per A4 (10x10)£5.90 CAD20 Address Labels (adh) 10 per A4 (10x10) ....£5.99 NEW CMOUSEDIY Mousemat Kit (2) ..................................£5.90

MEMOREX DVD STORAGE NEW DVD-R 4.7Gb.................................£5.90 NEW DVD-RW 4.7Gb.............................£9.49 NEW DVD+RW 4.7Gb.............................£9.99 TDK 5.2Gb DVD RAM..................... £12.99 ePROMOCARD MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE NEW Multimedia Business Card kit £14.90 NEW Business Cards......................... £9.90 NEW Business Card Labels (120)...... £7.90

©

COMPACTFLASH CARDS

16MB .......................£11.20 32MB .......................£12.90 64MB .......................£17.90 128MB .......................£42.00 256MB .......................£79.99 512MB .....................£179.00

SMARTMEDIA CARDS

MEMOREX MINIDISCS NEW 80min 5 Pack................................£6.75 USB KEY DRIVES 32MB Key Drive ..............................£29.99 64MB Key Drive ..............................£49.99 128MB Key Drive ............................£79.00 IOMEGA CLIK 40MB ..............................each £7.99 ZIP 100MB PC or MAC............each £6.99 ZIP 250MB PC or MAC............each £9.75

CLR ....................£13.30 CLR ....................£12.99 BLK ......................£9.99 BLK ....................£11.90 BLK ......................£9.99 BLK ....................£11.50 CLR ....................£14.99 BLK ....................£11.90 BLK ....................£11.90 CLR ....................£15.99

16MB 3.3V .................£7.50 32MB 3.3V .................£9.49 64MB 3.3V ...............£16.70 128MB 3.3V ...............£46.99

SECURE DATA CARDS NEW 32MB........................£27.90 NEW 64MB........................£44.90 NEW 128MB......................£69.00

Digital Accessories Integral Dual Compact/Smart Reader/Writer...................£17.99 Integral Smart Media PCMCIA Adaptor............................£17.99 Integral Compact Flash PCMCIA Adaptor.........................£5.99

MULTIMEDIA CARDS 16MB ......................£11.90 32MB .......................£14.99 64MB .......................£36.99

Memory Stick for all SONY equipment 32MB Memory Stick ......................£23.50 64MB Memory Stick ......................£39.00 128MB Memory Stick ....................£52.50

DIGITAL VIDEO FOOD

©

SONY DVM 60min Premium (no chip)..........£4.90 SONY DVM 60min IC Excellence (with chip)£7.90 Panasonic AY-DVM 60min EK (no chip)........£4.90 FUJI Hi8 P5-90 Heavy Metal Particle............£4.99 FUJI 8mm P5-60 Metal Particle (2 PK).........£4.20 FUJI 8mm P5-90 Metal Particle....................£2.49

NEW T033640 Photo Mag..£8.70 NEW T033540 PhotoCyan£8.70 NEW T033440 Yellow .......£8.90 NEW T033340 Magenta ...£8.90 NEW T033240 Cyan..........£8.90 NEW T033140 BLK ...........£8.70 NEW T032440 Yellow .......£9.50 NEW T032340 Magenta ...£9.50 NEW T032240 Cyan..........£9.50 NEW T032140 BLK .........£17.90 T029401 CLR .........£15.90 T028401 BLK .........£17.99 T027401 PHOTO ...£12.50 T026401 BLK .........£14.90 T020401 CLR .........£14.50 T019401 BLK .........£16.50 T018401 CLR .........£13.99 T017401 BLK .........£16.90 T009401 PHOTO ...£13.90 T008401 PHOTO ...£10.70 T007401 BLK .........£12.50 T005011 CLR .........£17.90 T003011 BLK .........£15.99 T001011 PHOTO ...£15.50 20193 PHOTO ...£10.99 20191 CLR .........£14.90 20189 BLK .........£13.99 20187 BLK .........£12.90 20138 CLR .........£10.90 20110 PHOTO ...£10.90 20093 BLK .........£12.50 20089 CLR .........£14.90

See website for full range of Inks NEW 41620 A4 Photo Glossy Paper x50 ...............£12.00 NEW 41622 A4 Photo Paper x50............................£12.50 NEW 41624 A4 Premium Photo Glossy Paper x50..£17.50 41328 A3+ Premium Semi-Gloss x20...........£33.95 41316 A3+ Premium Photo Paper 255g x20£29.50 41143 A3+ Photo Paper 190g x20 ................£17.99 41264 A3+ Photo Matte 167g x50 ................£27.99 41334 A3 Premium Semi Gloss x20 .............£27.95 41315 A3 Premium Photo Paper 255g x20 ..£25.00 41261 A3 Photo Matte 167g x50...................£17.99 41142 A3 Photo Paper 190g x20 ..................£17.50 41125 A3 Photo Paper 120g x20 ..................£14.90 NEW 41330 Premium Semi Gloss Photo Roll.......£10.90 41071 A4 Photo Glossy Film x15..................£17.90 41332 A4 Premium Semi Gloss 251g x20 ......£9.50 41287 A4 Premium Photo Paper 255g x20 ....£8.99 41140 A4 Photo Paper 190g x20 ....................£6.90 41126 A4 Photo Glossy 120g x20 ...................£5.99 NEW 41560 A4 ColourLife Photo Paper 245g x20£11.50 NEW 41342 A4 Matte Archival Paper 192g x20 .....£9.50 41256 A4 Photo Matte 160g x50 ....................£7.90 41106 A4 Photo Matte Adhesive x10 .............£7.90 41061 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g x100 .........£7.90 41154 A4 Iron-on Transfers x10 .....................£8.90 41176 Photo Stickers 5x4 ...............................£3.99 41122 10"x8" Photo Card x30.........................£9.99 41121 8"x5" Photo Card x30...........................£4.90 41148 8"x5" Cards + Envelopes x10 ..............£5.90 41134 6"x4" Photo Paper 190g x20 ..................£4.99 41144 A6 Photo Stickers x20..........................£3.90 41054 A6 Photo Card x50................................£5.99 41147 A6 Cards + Envelopes x20...................£5.90

EPSON COMPATIBLE SAVE UP TO 70% ON EPSON INK

MX2 is the UK’s largest seller of EPSON Compatible Inks & Print-Rite Ink Products are our Best Performing Brand. EACH DISCOUNT NEW C-T029 CLR......................£6.90......3 PK £20.52 NEW C-T028 BLK......................£4.99......3 PK £14.52 NEW C-T027 PHOTO ................£6.99 ...............£20.52 NEW C-T026 BLK......................£5.99 ...............£17.52 C-T020 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T019 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-T018 CLR......................£6.90 ...............£20.25 C-T017 BLK......................£7.90 ...............£23.25 C-T014 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T013 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-T009 PHOTO ................£6.90 ...............£20.25 C-T008 PHOTO ................£6.90 ...............£20.25 C-T007 BLK......................£6.90...................TBA C-T005001 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T003001 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-T001001 PHOTO ................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T032140 BLK......................£6.99......3 PK £20.52 C-T032240 CYAN ...................£5.90......3 PK £17.25 C-T032340 MAGENTA ...........£5.90......3 PK £17.25 C-T032440 YELLOW..............£5.90......3 PK £17.25 C-20193 PHOTO ................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20191 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20189 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-20187 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-20138 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20110 PHOTO ................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20108 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-20097 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20093 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-20089 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20049 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20047 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99 C-20036 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20034 CLR......................£3.99 ......3 PK £11.50 C-20025 BLK......................£2.50........3 PK £6.99

CLEANER CARTRIDGES Cleans your Epson printer and improves performance. CL-20110.......£6.90 CL-20193 ........£6.90 CL-20108.......£3.90 CL-20191 ........£7.90 CL-20093.......£3.90 CL-20189 ........£3.90 CL-20089.......£6.90 CL-20187 ........£3.90

MX2 is the Best & Cheapest Place to Buy On or Off-Line Your DVD’S, MUSIC CD’S, GAMES & BOOKS... Game Food Music Food Music Food Music Food Food for Thought Film Food FilmFood FilmFood FilmFood Game Food Game Food NEW RELEASE NEW RELEASE NEW RELEASE NEW RELEASE

PAPA ROACH OASIS Heathen LoveHate By The Way Tradgedy Chemistry MONKEYBALL 2 MARIO SUNSHINE DEAD TO RIGHTS COMMANDO2 £8.99 £8.99 £8.99 RED HOT CHILLI

E.T £15.99

GOLDMEMBER MINORITY £14.50 REPORT £16.99

BLADE 2 £14.50

XBOX PS2 GAMECUBE GAMECUBE IMPORT £49.99 IMPORT £49.99 IMPORT £52.99 UK £34.99

NOW 52 Various £12.99

UK CHART CD’S from Only £8.99

THE BEST NEW COMPUTER & INTERNET BOOKS STOCKED...

P&P ONLY £1.95 PER ORDER. DELIVERY 3 - 7 WORKING DAYS MX2 Computers Limited supplies to Home Users Only (sorry we do not supply Business to Business). Prices shown include any VAT & duties where applicable and are Accurate at time of going to Press E&OE. MX2 Reserves the Right to Change Prices. Please check our Website or Phone Us for up-to-the-minute Prices. The above Trademarks are recognised and used for illustrative purposes only.

The best name and prices on the net Prices constantly changing- log on or call for the latest information

LATEST PRICES

MEGA DEALS £328.00&

£277.00&

INC. VATRY DELIVE

INC. VATRY DELIVE

Fuji Finepix F401

Fuji Finepix 2800

£465.00&

£125.00&

INC. VATRY DELIVE

INC. VATRY DELIVE

Canon Powershot S40

IBM Microdrive 340MB

£546.00&

£749.00&

INC. VATRY DELIVE

INC. VATRY DELIVE

Fuji Finepix S602

Minolta Dimage 7i

ABOUT US • Owned by the oldest family photographic firm in the world (est. 1862) • FREE Internet printing with each camera purchased • FREE delivery on all orders over £100 (UK mainland only)

Canon Powershot A200 Canon Powershot A30 Canon Powershot A40 Canon Digital Ixus V2 Canon Digital Ixus V3 Canon Digital Ixus 330 Canon Powershot S30 Canon Powershot S40 Canon Powershot G2 Canon Powershot G2 Black + 1GB Microdrive Canon Powershot G3 Canon EOS D60 Canon EOS ID + 1GB Microdrive Casio GV-10 Casio QV-R3 Casio QV-R4 Casio QV-4000 Casio QV-4000 + 340MB Fuji Finepix A202 Fuji Finepix A204 Fuji Finepix 2800 Fuji Finepix A303 Fuji Finepix F401 Fuji Finepix F601 Fuji Finepix S602 Fuji S2 Pro Body Fuji S2 Pro Body Pro + Battery Kit Kodak DX 3215 Easyshare Kodak CX4210 Easyshare Kodak CX4230 Easyshare Kodak DX4330 Easyshare Kodak DX 4900 Easyshare Kodak LS443 Konica Revio KD400 Kyocera Finecam S3 Kyocera Finecam S3X

£149 £189 £209 £277 £329 £289 £377 £465 £538 £667 £579 £1939 £4590 £229 £339 £379 £459 £539 £155 £199 £277 £279 £328 £459 £546 £1739 £1795 £137 £149 £189 £279 £319 £379 £346 £279 £299

Kyocera Finecam S4 Minolta Dimage S304 Minolta Dimage X Minolta Dimage F100 Minolta Dimage 5 Minolta Dimage 7i Nikon Coolpix 2000 Nikon Coolpix 775 Nikon Coolpix 2500 Nikon Coolpix 4500 Nikon Coolpix 5000 Nikon Coolpix 5700 Nikon D100 Body Nikon D1X Pro Kit Olympus C120 Olympus C220 Olympus C300 Lux Kit Olympus C4000 Olympus E10 SLR Olympus E2ON SLR Bundle Pentax Optio 230 Pentax Optio 330RS Pentax Optio 430RS Ricoh Caplio RR120 Ricoh Caplio RR10 Ricoh Caplio RR30 Ricoh Caplio RR1 Samsung Digimax 130 Samsung Digimax 230 Samsung Digimax 350SE Samsung Digimax 410 Sony Cybershot DSC-P31 Sony Cybershot DSC-P51 Sony Cybershot DSC-P71 Sony Cybershot DSC-S85 Sony Mavica MVC FD200 Sony Mavica MVC CD400

£369 £345 £289 £369 £499 £749 £179 £269 £279 £527 £697 £869 £1699 £3879 £159 £179 £309 £397 £799 £1299 £259 £326 £396 £199 £284 £257 £468 £125 £179 £299 £349 £199 £229 £309 £499 £427 £799

• Account facilities available (subject to status)

INTERNET PRINTING Your prints on photo quality paper from as little as 29p

Order Hot Line:

ACCESSORIES Smart Media Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji

16MB 32MB 64MB 128MB

Multimedia Cards £9 £15 £26 £49

Sandisk 16MB Sandisk 32MB Sandisk 64MB

Secure Digital

Compact Flash (Type I&II) Fuji 16 MB Fuji 32MB Fuji 64MB Fuji 128MB IBM 340MB microdrive IBM 1GB microdrive

Sandisk 16MB Sandisk 32MB Sandisk 64MB

£15 £19 £29 £52 £125 £249

£23 £32 £49

Memory Sticks Sony Sony Sony Sony

16MB 32MB 64MB 128MB

0870 777 8550 Unit 10, The Pines Business Park, Broad Street, Guildford GU3 3BH All prices include VAT

£19 £27 £49

E&OE

£29 £39 £49 £89

“Professional quality at affordable prices ”

www.consumablemad.co.uk For more fantastic offers visit our website now!

T028401 T029401 T032140 T032240 T032340 T032440 T026401 T027401 T015401 T016401

Model Stylus C60 Black Stylus C60 Colour Stylus C70/80 Black Stylus C70/80 Cyan Stylus C70/80 Magenta Stylus C70/80 Yellow Stylus 810 Black Stylus 810 Colour Stylus 2000P Black Stylus 2000P Colour

Quantity 1-4 5+ £8.25 £7.99 £8.50 £8.25 £9.99 £9.25 £6.75 £6.50 £6.75 £6.50 £6.75 £6.50 £8.25 £7.95 £8.50 £8.25 £8.99 £8.50 £10.99 £10.49

Special offer - Buy 5, and get 1 Free (of same type)

Compact Flash Cards Ref STI CF16 STI CF32 STI CF64 STI CF96 STI CF128

Description Compact Flash Memory Card Compact Flash Memory Card Compact Flash Memory Card Compact Flash Memory Card Compact Flash Memory Card

Size 16mb 32mb 64mb 96mb 128mb

On Sale £15.99 £21.49 £29.99 £60.00 £59.99

On Sale

Compact Disk Media Ref Description SONCDR1 Sony CD-R 74 Mins SONCDR10 Sony CD-R 74 Mins 3M15337 Imation 3M CD-R 80 Mins 3M15337/10 Imation 3M CD-R 80 Mins TDKCDR1 TDK CD-R 80 Mins TDKCDR10 TDK CD-R 80 Mins GBCDR1 Own Brand CD-R 80 Mins GBCDR10 Own Brand CD-R 80 Mins GBTHCDR1 Own Brand Ultra Thin Dual Case 80 Mins GBTHCDR10 Own Brand Ultra Thin Dual Case 80 Mins Unbranded in plastic sleeve. 1-19 3M15340 CD Recordable CD-R 80 Mins £0.44 3M15341 CD Recordable CD-R 80 Mins (on spindle x100) Brand New Product 3M15342 Printable Business Card CD’s

Quantity 1-9 10-49 1-9 10-49 1-9 10-49 1-9 10-49 1-9 10-49 20-49 £0.35 each

On Sale £0.69 £0.59 £0.66 £0.56 £0.69 £0.59 £0.62 £0.57 £0.64 £0.59 50+ £0.30 £0.27

each

£1.25

Lysonic Inks for Epson Ref G/8ELK/CRT/1 G/8ELT/CRT/1 G/EPHLK/CRT/1 G/EPHLT/CRT/1 G/ET8LT/CRT/1 G/ET9LT/CRT/1 G/ET7LK/CRT/1

Description Epson 800/850/860/1160/1520 Black Epson 800/850/860/1160/1520 Tri-Colour Epson Photo Ex/700/750/1200 Black Epson Photo Ex/700/750 Tri-Colour Epson 790/870/875/890 Colour Epson 1270/1280/1290 Colour Epson 870/890/1270/1290 Black

On Sale £13.55 £14.40 £15.25 £14.40 £14.50 £14.99 £13.50

Fotonic Inks for Epson Ref G/8EFK/CRT/1 G/8EFT/CRT/1 G/EPHFK/CRT/1 G/EPHFT/CRT/1 G/ET8FT/CRT/1 G/ET9FT/CRT/1 G/ET7FT/CRT/1

Description Epson 800/850/860/1160/1520 Black Epson 800/850/860/1160/1520 Tri-Colour Epson Photo Ex/700/750/1200 Black Epson Photo Ex/700/750 Tri-Colour Epson 790/870/875/890 Colour Epson 1270/1280/1290 Colour Epson 870/890/1270/1290 Black

Buy 2 or more Black Cartridges, get 1 Black Free (Of the same model No. does not include Epson Chipped Cartridges, applies to own brand Epson only)

Inkjet Cartridges for Epson

New Products for Epson Ref

Buy 3 or more Colour Cartridges, get 1 Colour Free

On Sale £13.55 £14.40 £15.25 £14.40 £13.50 £14.50 £11.99

Fax: 01983 872851

Orders can be placed using our freephone number

Ref

Model

SO20089 SO20108 SO20187 SO20189 SO20191 SO20193 TO03011 TO05011 SO20187 TO01011 T013401 T014401 T019401 T020401

1-4 Stylus Colour 400/600/800/850/1520 Colour £6.99 Stylus Colour 800/850/1520 Black £5.99 Stylus Colour 440/460/640/660/750 Black £5.95 Stylus Colour 740/760/860/1160 Scan 2000/2500 Black £5.99 Stylus Colour 440/460/640/660/740/760/860/1160 Scan 2000/2500 Colour £6.95 Stylus Colour 750 Colour £6.95 Stylus Colour 900 Black £5.99 Stylus Colour 900 3 Colour £9.25 Stylus Colour 1200 Black £5.95 Stylus Colour 1200 5 Colour £8.99 Stylus Colour 480/580, C20/40 Black £6.99 Colour 480/580, C20/40 Colour £9.50 Stylus 880 Black £6.99 Stylus 880 Colour £9.50

Quantity 5-9 £5.75 £5.25 £5.75 £5.25 £6.75 £6.75 £5.50 £8.75 £5.75 £8.00 £6.00 £8.75 £6.00 £8.75

10+ £5.25 £5.00 £5.25 £5.00 £6.25 £6.50 £5.00 £8.50 £5.50 £7.75 £5.50 £7.99 £5.50 £7.99

Special offer - Buy 5, and get 1 Free (of same type)

New Product

T036140 New Epson Stylus Colour C42, Black T037040 New Epson Stylus Colour C42, Colour

£5.99 £6.49

£4.99 £5.99

-

Products for Epson Ref

Model

T007401 T008401 T009401 T017401 T018401

Stylus Photo 790/870/875/890/895/1270/1290 Black Stylus Photo 790/870/875/890/895 Colour Stylus Photo 1270/1290 Colour Stylus Colour 680 Black Stylus Colour 680 Colour

Quantity 1-4 5+ £8.50 £8.25 £8.75 £8.50 £9.75 £9.45 £8.75 £8.50 £7.99 £7.50

Special offer - Buy 5, and get 1 Free (of same type)

Special Offer

Order ref: ICI01 Instant Dry Gloss, 2880dpi, 50 sheets, 180gsm While stocks last

ICI A4 Photo-Gloss Paper £8.99 Special Offer - Photo Quality A4 Paper Offer valid untill 20.12.02

Photo-Paper

SUP001 1440/2280dpi 100gsm 100 sheets SUP002 1440/2280dpi 100gsm 500 sheets

REF No. Description PP001 PP002 PP003 PP004 PP005 PP006 PP007

1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper 120gsm 1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper 160gsm 1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper Coated 2 sides 160gsm 1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper 120gsm 1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper 160gsm 1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper Coated 2 sides 160gsm 1440/2880dpi Photo Quality Paper 120gsm

£2.99 £11.99

Size

Quantity (sheets) 100 2-500 600+ A4 £5.50 £4.99 £4.75 A4 £6.50 £6.25 £5.50 A4 £8.99 £8.50 £7.95 A3 £13.50 £13.00 £12.50 A3 £16.00 £15.50 £14.50 A3 £18.99 £16.50 £16.00 A3+ £15.95 £14.99 £14.00

High-resolution photopaper with excellent photographic reproduction. All products packed 100 sheets unless stated otherwise.

Freephone: 08000 644222

www.consumablemad.co.uk (Green Business IOW Ltd), Unit 6A, Weavers Yard, Lane End Road, Bembridge, I.O.W. PO35 5US Customer Services & Accounts: 01983 875210

All prices exclude VAT E&OE. Delivery £2.50/£4.75 dependent on weight, UK mainland only. Free Delivery on orders over £85, excluding VAT. For next day deliveries orders must be received before 3pm.

Meet the MP3 killers The files are tiny and the sound quality is amazing. Discover Ogg Vorbis, the new digital music format that blows MP3 away. Only in magazine, on sale now

The Internet magazine

PLUS: SIX FULL PROGRAMS WORTH £190! ■ Robot-Manager Standard ■ Magenta II v3 PE ■ Pluckit 7.4 ■ HTML Executable 2.5 ■ NetTweak Pro 1.20 ■ Research-Desk 2.3

20 PLUS

OGG VORBIS TOOLS

Every thing you need to rip, encode, edit and pl ay your files

Includes

■ Sonique ■ WinAmp 3 ■ Deli Player ■ XMPlay2 ■ OggDrop ■ Audiograbber ■ CD-DC X-tractor ■ Ashampoo Media Player And more…

4

WINDOWSARCHIVINGPRINTINGNET

PC&Internet

100% authoritative Our tutorials are carefully crafted to give you more

Using a PC to get the most from your digital photos

I

f you’ve followed all our advice, your photos will be in fine shape. But that’s just the start – now you have to store them, archive them, locate old pictures on your hard drive or on CD and retrieve them. Each month we’ll bring you a series of tutorials on the best way to use your PC. We show you the digital photo support built into Windows 98 and Me. We also take an in-depth look at Windows XP, as this new operating system has a multitude of digital photography support features, including photo-transfer wizards, Filmstrip thumbnail views and handy one-click CD burning. This month we’ve taken a look at several image-management tools you can use on your PC, which can help you browse huge thumbnail archives in

WINDOWS

seconds, so you can find the picture you’re after easily. Once you have your pictures to hand, you need to print them. For most people, the default settings on their colour inkjet will often be enough, but if you’re after something more powerful, our new series on printing techniques on page 121 will show you how to get the best results. Finally, over the course of the next few months, we will look at how you can use the internet to enhance your digital photo experience. Not only are there quick ways to publish your images online with image communities at places like Yahoo! and MSN, but there are also tools for quick net publishing built into Photoshop 7. And, of course, there are internet-based photo printing services. Over time, we’ll cover it all…

PRINT TECHNIQUES

■ DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY AND YOUR PC P118 How to use Windows Me and Windows XP to transfer, view and organise your pictures. IMAGE MANAGEMENT

■ FINDING A STORED IMAGE P120 Find the image you want without having to open hundreds of files. PRINT TECHNIQUES

■ CREATING A TEST STRIP P121 In the first of a series on printing techniques, how to get perfect prints every time. INTERNET

■ PUTTING YOUR PIX ONLINE P122 Get your pictures published on a worldwide scale quickly, easily and for free with online photo communities.

IMAGE MANAGEMENT

INTERNET

P122

P120 WINDOWS

SEND ‘EM IN We want your contributions! Please send in your suggestions, article ideas, tutorials, pictures and more. See the box below for details on where to send your emails.

FURTHER INFO Get more from the program or technique under examination. EXPLAINED Any tricky jargon and concepts are explained in more detail here. WALKTHROUGH We don't just describe a technique; we show you how to do it, step by step.

IN DETAIL Here's where we talk about a particular idea or tool in depth, so you have a clearer understanding of the key concepts.

Your experts MATTHEW RICHARDS Matthew has edited several computer and internet titles, reviews digital cameras for worldwide specialist press, as well as being a keen photographer. JOE CASSELS Joe contributes to some of the UK’s leading PC titles. He specialises in the digital photo features built into Windows XP.

NICK MERRITT As well as editing Digital Camera Magazine, Nick also oversees Microsoft Windows XP: The Official Magazine, one of the UK’s leading PC titles. TIM DALY Tim is one of the UK’s leading digital photo experts. He’s written many books on the subject and his photographs have been exhibited across Europe.

OUR WEBSITE

4

CONTACT OUR TUTORIALS TEAM

If you have a comment, suggestion, idea or submission you would like to make, please email us at the following addresses:

P121

P118

P124

■ Talk about the magazine and our tutorials with other readers: visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk ■ For technical help/queries: [email protected]

Tutorials you can trust Our mission is to ensure that our tutorials bring you creative ideas, expert techniques, tips and quick fixes you can use in your own work.

■ Authoritative A leading professional in their field writes every tutorial ■ Valued added Where possible, we include image files, and full or trial software so you can try

the tutorial for yourself, delivering a complete package ■ Clear Our large page size means we can add extra elements, explanations and detail to each tutorial

■ For submissions to our gallery section: [email protected] ■ For general response and feedback: [email protected] ■ For suggestions, ideas for articles: [email protected]

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

117

TUTORIAL

USING YOUR PC YOUR GUIDE JOE CASSELS Joe Cassels writes regular tutorials for a wide range of computer magazines. He is an enthusiastic digital photographer with a track record of helping many people get more from their PCs

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO JOE CASSELS

Digital photography and your PC Windows Me and Windows XP boast sophisticated digital photo features. Joe Cassels explains how to use your PC to transfer, view and organise your pictures TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

WHICH WINDOWS? In this series we’re talking about Windows XP, as this contains a number of new image and archiving features especially for digital photographers

2

SKILL LEVEL

1

2

T

he joy of taking digital photographs is that you can manipulate them easily. Once your camera is full of pictures, you only need to copy them to your computer in order to free up space to take more snaps. This means that transferring pictures from your camera to your PC is an important skill to master, but how good at managing pictures are the various version of Windows? As Microsoft Windows has developed, its handling of graphical files has became better and better. There are next to no specialised photography tools in Windows 95. In Windows 98 there is a picture viewer, but you really

need your own photo-handling software (most cameras come with a suitable program). Windows Me includes the Scanner and Camera Wizard (which you can launch through the Control Panel), thumbnail views in picture folders and an enhanced picture viewer. When it comes to handling picture files, Windows XP is the best of the lot. Most common photography tasks are easily accomplished via simple wizards, and you rarely need to install a software driver – the program that tells your computer how to operate your camera. In this tutorial we’ll be using Windows XP to show you just how easy it is to transfer your digital photos

from your camera to your PC. Once you’ve got the cable correctly plugged in, the rest is a breeze. The Scanner and Camera Wizard is easy to follow with clear step-bystep guidance. However, there’s more to transferring photographs than simply moving pictures from camera to PC. You need to name the picture files suitably and place them in appropriately named folders so you can retrieve them at a later date without problems. Windows XP handles this job well, but you might have to adopt more discipline if you’re working with an older version of Windows.

TIME TO COMPLETE

20

MINUTES

2

THIS MONTH PART 1

2

NEXT MONTH

■ How to connect camera ■ How to transfer files to PC

With Windows XP it really is just a case of plug and play…

CONNECTING YOUR CAMERA

How to store and find picture files on your PC

8 ? EXPLAINED THUMBNAIL A small version of a photo, often used for indexing purposes. Viewing a folder of pictures in Thumbnail view is very similar to looking at a contact sheet.

118 DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

01

YOU NEED A USB LEAD

Most current digital cameras use the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard. The most technical thing you really need to know is which cable to use and where to plug it in. Basically, the wider, flatter end goes into the computer and the smaller end connects to your camera.

02

8 PLUG INTO USB SOCKET

This may be located in front of, or behind, your PC. It will normally be labelled, but your cable is unlikely to fit in any other socket. When the cable is plugged in and turned on, Windows should detect the camera. In addition, Windows XP might recognise which camera you are using.

03

THEN INSTALL DRIVER

If Windows detects but doesn’t recognise your camera, you’ll need to install its driver and photo-handling software. There’s little more to this than popping the CD that comes with the camera into the computer’s CD drive and following the instructions it gives you.

WINDOWS 98

4

SHOULD YOU UPGRADE?

Almost no digital photo support in Windows 98. There’s the Picture Viewer but that’s it

WINDOWS ME

A smidgen of digital photo support… the My Pictures folder and the scanner and printer wizard

TRANSFERRING YOUR PHOTOS

WINDOWS XP

Digital photography is a key feature: thumbnail views, new editing and print tools, new transfer wizards

How to use Windows XP to copy over pictures from your camera to your PC

8

0

8

EXPERT TIP JOE CASSELS WINDOWS XP EXPERT

FREE UP MEMORY

01

CONNECT THE CAMERA

02

Connect your camera to your PC, using its USB cable. Windows should detect the hardware and present you with a list of options. Choose ‘Copy Pictures to a folder on my computer’ using Microsoft Scanner and Camera Wizard. Click OK.

FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS

03

The Scanner and Camera Wizard starts. You can work directly with the pictures in your camera without copying them to your PC first, but you run the risk of deleting pictures before they’ve been copied so it’s not recommended. Click Next to begin.

SELECT THE PICTURES

You now see thumbnails of the pictures held on your camera. Scroll down to see all of them. If there is a picture that you don’t want to copy to your computer, clear the tick from the box at its top-right corner.

When copying photos, remember to select ‘Delete pictures from my device after copying them’. This leaves your camera’s memory free so you can take loads more pictures.

; READ ON THE COMPLETE MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HANDBOOK

8

04

NAME YOUR PICTURES

8

05

Click Next. You now need to provide a filename for the pictures and a folder to put them into. It’s best to name the pictures after the place, event or main subject that they depict. Type this name where indicated.

NAME THE FOLDER

You now need to name the folder that locates your pictures. By default, this is the My Pictures folder, but it’s useful to make a folder for each main group of photos. Click Browse and Make New Folder. Type the new folder name and click OK.

06

CLEAR THE CAMERA

You are now returned to the previous screen. To clear your camera once the pictures are copied over, check the box next to ‘Delete pictures from my Device after copying them’. This makes room for you to take more photos. Click Next.

Published by Future Publishing Available from WHSmith Price £12.99 Website www.futurenet.com Created by the team behind Microsoft Windows XP: The Official Magazine, it’s the only guide to Windows XP you need. Includes chapters on digital photography.

* WEB LINKS MICROSOFT

8

07

WAIT FOR THE PICTURE TRANSFER

Watch as your photos are copied from your camera to your computer’s hard drive. Each picture carries the name you selected, plus a number that increments with each picture copied. If you need to halt the process at any time, click Cancel.

8

08

DELETE AND FINISH

The wizard deletes the pictures from your camera. Once complete, you are given the option to publish to the web, order prints or finish working, which is selected by default. Go with this setting and click Next. Click Finish.

www.microsoft.com/ windowsxp/default.asp Home page for Windows XP at the Microsoft website. Contains links to digital photography features and forums where you can get extra help and advice.

09

VIEW YOUR PICTURES

You’re taken to the folder containing your pictures, which you can see as thumbnails. Double click on any thumbnail to see the picture in the larger Picture and Fax viewer. Here you can flick through the photos or view them as a slideshow.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

119

4

TUTORIAL IMAGE MANAGEMENT

BROWSING IN PHOTOSHOP 7

Adobe Photoshop 7 – the trial of which is on our CD – now includes a handy image browser. You can use it to overview and catalogue files – find it under the Recipe menu option

YOUR GUIDE NICK MERRITT Nick has edited, managed and launched some of the UK’s leading technology magazines for nine years, and has been writing about and using computers for much longer

[email protected]

WEBSITE www.futurenet.co.uk

Locating a stored image So your PC is groaning with thousands of digital pictures. How do you find the one you want without opening hundreds of files? Nick Merritt reveals some answers

3 IN DETAIL WINDOWS XP The new digital photo features in Windows XP are a big improvement on earlier versions of Windows. There’s the digital camera wizard that makes it easy to download photos from camera to PC. The My Pictures folder enables a range of useful thumbnail views. You can resize images prior to emailing, do ‘one-click’ attachments and view files large-size without opening them in an image editor.

I

t was a great trip. Beautiful scenery, fantastic weather – perfect, in fact, for reeling off hundreds of digital photos... to add to the thousands of pictures that already lurk on your hard drive from all the other great trips. How fast those happy memories can fade when you’re sitting in front of the PC, desperately trying to figure out if DIGIPIX0001012.jpg is that staggering picture of the Taj Mahal or the one of you chasing next door’s dog out of the garden. How, then, do you find a particular image in a file of thousands? The answer depends on the type of computer you’re using. Windows XP already provides thumbnail/Filmstrip views and has a built-in picture viewer. But the options on older operating systems aren’t as good. So it’s time to turn to one of the good file-viewing tools out there. There are a couple that are useful if you need to browse a smallish number of images. For the

PC, Firegraphic XP (www.firegraphic.com) is a decent integrated file viewer that enables you to view images, change file types and perform some basic image editing. A similar tool for the Mac is iView MediaPro for OS9 and X (www.iview-multimedia.com).

Video thumbnails Another good option is Firehand Ember 6 (www.firehand.com), which enables you to browse multiple folders simultaneously and perform simple editing tasks quickly. There’s an extension pack available for it as well, which adds various Windows XP-like features like slideshows. From the makers of PhotoImpact comes Photo Explorer Pro 7 (www.ulead.com). One extra is that is enables you to play video, which is handy if you have been using the movie features on your camera. If you are a fan of Paint Shop Pro, there’s a companion tool called Jasc Media Center

PHOTOMESA IN ACTION

(www.jasc.com), and if you’re a Nikon owner, you may be familiar with FotoStation (www.fotostation.com) – there’s a trial there for everyone but Nikon users get an upgrade deal option. But what do you do if you need to find an image in a list of 5-10,000? One of the most interesting tools we’ve found is a non-commercial piece of software created by Human Computer Interaction Lab, a research department at the University of Maryland. Called PhotoMesa (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/ photomesa), it’s been created as part of a project into how people use computer interfaces. As a result, it doesn’t quite have the slickness, speed or functionality of a full commercial piece of software, but it’s intuitive to learn and easy to use. If you move your mouse across the thumbnails it will expand each image like a magnifying glass. Left-click and it will zoom further into the image; right-click and it will zoom out. You can then select and drag the image you want – onto your desktop or into another folder.

It’s an interesting non-commercial tool, which shows the way file browers might evolve in the future

8

8

Firegraphic XP is handy if you are running an older version of Windows (98/Me) and need to find a file on your hard drive

01

BROWSE THE THUMBNAILS

When you browse a directory, images are presented as small thumbnails. Multiple directories are labelled and presented side by side. (Drawing the thumbnails can take some time.)

120

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

02

IMAGES EXPAND

Scan your mouse across the images to find the image you’re after. As you do so, each image expands so you can see what it is. Left- and right- click to zoom in and out of each directory.

03

DRAG AND DROP

When you’ve located the right picture, simply choose the ‘select’ tool (the arrow to the topleft, above) and drag the image onto your desktop. You now have it ready for use.

4

TUTORIAL PRINT TECHNIQUES PART 1

WHAT IS A COLOUR CAST?

Colour casts occur when one colour appears to dominate the print. Change the brightness of the image with your Levels controls, and print colours will look more saturated and free from casts

YOUR GUIDE TIM DALY Tim has written several books on photography including The Digital Photography Handbook, The Digital Printing Handbook and The Desktop Photographer, and he continues to write for The British Journal of Photography and AG. His photographs have been exhibited across Europe

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO TIM DALY WEBSITE WWW.PHOTOCOLLEGE.CO.UK

Creating a test strip A great picture needs great printing and often this is an area that lets digital photography down. No longer. In the first of a series on printing techniques, Tim Daly shows you how to get perfect printing every time TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR CD Photoshop 7 trial, plus our printer test file printertestimage.pdf

2

SKILL BOOSTER

5

2 2

TIME TO COMPLETE

30

MINUTES

NEXT MONTH How to correct a colour cast

3 IN DETAIL WHAT MAKES A GOOD PRINT?

I

f you’ve taken time to colour calibrate your monitor and worked out the best printer software settings for your paper, there’s still no guarantee of perfect prints each and every time. Test strips help you to solve simple problems quickly. Central to the craft of conventional darkroom printing is the test strip. When thin pieces of photographic paper are painstakingly exposed to different amounts of light, the photographer generates a useful selection of variations to choose from. Yet digital image-makers never print out variations and place too much trust in the self-correcting nature of printer software. When prints turn out wrong, most of us try another combination of printer software settings rather than modify the image in Photoshop. With this straightforward technique, there’s no need to copy and paste tiny image sections into a new

document for proof printing. Instead, you can print a selection area onto a small sheet of paper from the very image you’re working on. Any paper size can be used, but it’s much more economical to set up a custom paper size in your printer software beforehand. Every printer has its limitations on minimum media size, but an A4 sheet cut into four quarters will give you enough paper to test at least one image. It’s rare that you’ll need to make more than a couple of test strips but, if you do, label the corrections that you’ve made. Don’t adjust image size or resolution between tests and final print, or you’ll have to start all over again. When test strips are ejected by the printer, it’s important to let them dry before making your decision because some papers with sticky top coats can take a couple of minutes to absorb ink and dry. Always judge your results under natural daylight.

MAKING A TEST STRIP

The definition of a good photographic print is identical for both digital and traditional photos. Good prints exhibit a rich tonal range between small areas of full black shadows and clean white highlights; fine details are present and visible without needing to scrutinise at close distance. Finally, the principal subject should be clearly emphasised using variations in light and dark to direct the viewer’s attention away from irrelevant details. See our printer test file for more.

DEFINE THE TEST AREA

Make sure your selection includes both highlights and shadows. Once your image is ready to print, select the rectangular marquee tool. Make sure the feather value has been set to zero, then click-drag a rectangular selection that includes a cross section of highlights, shadows and midtones.

02

The Levels dialog is the easiest way to manipulate midtone brightness, the cause of most printing problems. Move the triangular slider to the left to brighten the image, or to the right to darken it.

Solve simple print problems quickly with test strips, and make better use of costly ink and paper consumables

8

01

Correcting problems with Levels

8

SEND TO THE PRINTER

Make sure your printer software recognises your selection. From the File menu choose Print and in the printer software dialog box, select the Print Selected Area option. This command will print your selection in the centre of your chosen paper size. Use the same paper for both test and final print.

03

ANALYSE THE TEST RESULTS

Monochrome or toned images often print darker than expected due to the way RGB image colours are translated into printer ink colour. Shadow areas can also start to fill-in and prevent image detail from appearing. To correct your image, cancel the selection, then use your Levels controls.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

121

TUTORIAL SHARING YOUR PHOTOS YOUR GUIDE MATTHEW RICHARDS Matthew Richards reviews digital cameras for worldwide specialist press, as well as being a keen photographer using both conventional 35mm outfits and digital systems. His main areas of interest are sports, landscape and people photography

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO MATTHEW RICHARDS

Putting your pix online Getting your pictures published on a worldwide scale can be quick, easy and totally free. Matthew Richards shows you how to make the most of online photo communities

TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR CD Full software – Arles Image Web Page Creator on Disc B

2

SKILL BOOSTER

4

2 2

TIME TO COMPLETE

30

MINUTES

NEXT MONTH How and where to order prints over the net

Y

ou’ve got some great digital photos, and you want to show them off. How are you going to do it? You could email them to all your friends, family and colleagues but, with lengthy download times for even medium-resolution files, people get upset when their inboxes are clogged up. Another way to share your photos is to create your own website. This is better than email because you can simply send people the address of your site and they can then look it up if and when they want to. However, there are two basic problems with creating a photo album as your personal website. First, most of us only have one website, as a function of the free web space offered by whatever ISP (Internet Service Provider) we’re using. Second, driving traffic to a personal website

is a nightmare in itself. Apart from the people you actually tell, nobody will know where to look, unless you spend a lot of time promoting the site.

Community spirit The best way to share your photos with an eagerly awaiting public is via online communities. By far the easiest to use is run by Microsoft, through its MSN service, but there are many others to try (see opposite). Online photo albums, or communities, have distinct advantages over other methods of photo sharing via the net. The design templates and mechanics for operating the site are already put in place on the net. All you have to do is slot your photos into the spaces that are already waiting for them – simple.

UPLOADING YOUR SHOTS

Most photo community sites are free to use, yet offer a reasonably generous amount of free server space for you to use. Another bonus is that communities are normally divided into categories so you can showcase your shots in areas that are most likely to attract the right attention. As well as providing a home for your digital photos online, most commercially run communities also provide services for ordering paper-based prints of your shots for delivery in the post.

Choosing a service There are many online community services available but most of them are based in the US. This poses no problem if you’re simply looking for someone to host

New MSN tools make uploading your photos easier than ever. Here’s how it’s done…

3 IN DETAIL TALK ABOUT IT!

8

Discussion boards and chat rooms, as well as email, are ideal for a little ‘constructive criticism’ of your photos online. Make the most of these additional features within MSN Groups.

01

CHOOSE YOUR PHOTOS

The first time you upload shots to MSN Photos, the system will download and install the necessary tools to your PC, which takes about three minutes. Once that’s done, a thumbnail preview helps you choose shots to upload.

122

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

8

02

UPLOAD YOUR SHOTS

Once you’ve selected all the shots you want to upload, click the Upload button to transfer them to the web. You can then rearrange the order in which photos are presented, rotate any shots as necessary and add meaningful titles.

03

SHARE WITH A GROUP

The final step is to share your photos in an MSN Group. This goes beyond simply storing your photos online, and gives access to your shots to the world at large. Click the ‘Share photos in this folder’ link shown on the previous step.

2 MSN PHOTOS IN ACTION

The MSN Photos at photos.msn.co.uk service includes some great tools for making everything easy and intuitive. Here are the most important ones

01 02

05 MSN Photos has everything you need and more besides for making the most of your digital photos online

06 03

07

01 Quick links

The quick links across the top of the window provide easy access to MSN Home, My Photos and Gifts & Prints, as well as the Tips & Tricks help section of the site.

02 Photo Tasks

Common photo tools are provided here, for adding photos to the web folder, sharing a folder in MSN Groups, ordering prints online, and running a slide show of pictures within the currently viewed folder.

03 More Tasks

08

This task pane enables you to organise your photos by rearranging them on screen, copying or moving them to a different folder, or creating entirely new folders.

Many online community sites for sharing photos have some great features, but most of them are only available in the US

04

04 Storage Meter

MSN Photos provides you with 30Mb of storage space for your online photos. Use the Storage Meter for a quick reference to how much of that space you’ve used up and how much is still available.

05 Selection

As well as the individual tick boxes for selecting or deselecting single photos, you can select or deselect all photos within a folder using these links at the top and bottom of the screen.

06 MSN Groups

Use this icon for quick access to MSN Groups from within the MSN Photos service.

07 Photo Meter

On a scale of one to five, the Photo Meter gives you information on the size and quality of photos stored on the online system. More bars, the better the quality.

08 Rotation

If you have a picture that should be in portrait mode and is displayed in landscape mode, use these rotation tools.

? EXPLAINED UPLOAD

your photos online, but if you want to take advantage of printing possibilities, you’ll need to pick a service that has a UK operation. As our pick of the crop is MSN, let’s stick with that one and see how to get started. The first thing you need to do is to get a Microsoft .NET passport. You can register for free at www.passport.com, but if you’ve already got a free Hotmail account, the chances are that you’re already registered. From here, it’s one short mouse-click to the MSN Photos site at http://photos.msn.co.uk. The main screen provides options for adding photos to your community site, sharing photos online, viewing your shots and ordering prints online. The free MSN Communities service initially gives you 3Mb of online space to use, which is enough for up to about 20 photos at a resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels, depending on the amount of JPEG compression you use when storing them. However, once you’ve started using the MSN Photos service, the storage space given to you is bumped up to 30Mb, which provides a lot more scope for creating multiple folders, or sets of photos and submitting them in a variety of community groups.

The only catch is that you have to remain an ‘active member’ of the MSN Photo service, which means that you have to view your photos, or add, share or order prints of them, at least once every six months, otherwise your photos will be permanently deleted. You can safeguard against this by signing up for the paid-for version of the service, available through the same website for £19.99 per year.

Keeping track The MSN Photo community site has some handy features for keeping track of your photos, and their online status. In a similar style to the excellent task panes that feature in Windows XP photo folder views, task panes within the site layout give you quick access to tools for adding, sharing or ordering prints of photos. Other tools for organising your online albums include those for rearranging shots, creating new folders, moving photos between folders or deleting old pictures to make way for new ones. Particularly useful is the Storage Meter, which gives a graphical display of how much space you’ve used and how much is still available, within your 30Mb allocation.

The best way to share your photos with an eagerly-awaiting public is via online communities. By far the easiest to use is run by Microsoft

Moving away from the task panes and into the main area of the page, further tools allow for simple rotation of photos and how they’re presented online, while a handy Photo Meter gives a bar graph indication of what you can do with your online photos, based on the image size and quality they’re stored at. Ranging from one to five bars, a photo with a three-bar display will be suitable for emailing to friends, sharing online, home printing, or ordering prints online at a size of up to 4 x 6 inches.

More fun Sharing your photos is the main aim of any community site, but many add a little extra fun to the mix and, again, MSN Photo leads the way. As well as enabling you to create pictorial puzzles based on your photos, you can order a wide variety of photo-based products online, bearing your own pictures. These include aprons, calculators, children’s watches, kit bags, mouse mats, mugs, sweatshirts, T-shirts and more besides. To sum up, MSN Photos provides a quick, easy and free way to store your digital photos online. However, you can also share them more effectively within the service by adding them to an MSN Group. In this way, your photo albums will form part of MSN Communities, and your shots can be added to a group photo album that already exists, or you can start a new one. Each group can also include other features, like a message board, chat room and email, helping to bolster the all-important community spirit. All in all, it’s the perfect way of making more of your digital photography online.

This is the process of transferring data (in this case photo files) from your digital camera or PC to the internet. Likewise, downloading is the process of copying data from the Internet to your own PC.

* WEB LINKS RECOMMENDED SITES For more general photo sharing sites, here’s a good selection… MSN Photos http://photos.msn.co.uk MSN Groups http://groups.msn.com Club Photo www.clubphoto.com FotoTime www.fototime.com NikonNet www.nikonnet.com WebPhotos www.webphotos.com Webshots www.webshots.com Yahoo! Photos http://photos.yahoo.com Photobox www.photobox.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

123

Visit Digital Camera Magazine online! The UK’s best digital photography magazine now has a fantastic community site on the internet – and we want you to join in today!

O

ver the next few months, we want to turn digitalcameramagazine.co.uk into one of the UK’s biggest and most dynamic digital photo communities, and we hope you’ll pop along to help us! We’ll be putting up articles from every issue of the magazine for you to download, plus you can meet the team online in our forums and talk about specific issues and ideas you want to share. You’ll be able to meet thousands of other Digital Camera Magazine readers, discuss each month’s

issue, swap tips and techniques, add your own kit reviews, read our tutorials, post your pictures and much more! Plus you’ll be able to click straight through from one of our camera reviews, to the relevant page at one of the UK’s top retailers, and buy it! Nobody else offers you such a simple, comprehensive service. In the meantime, why not visit www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk and start the ball rolling…

The most comprehensive digital camera site...

www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

Our homepage

4

Your magazine online Discover tutorials, reviews, buyer guides, tips and places to meet and discuss each issue with other digital photography enthusiasts and users.

01 Buy kit online Link through to retailer websites and you can buy your cameras via the internet, in several simple steps – it’s so easy!

01

02 Become a member and get more Don’t just look – become a member and you’ll gain access to all the magazine’s material and extras, too!

03 Search for a review We have tons of reviews up there already and, as we grow, there’ll be thousands more added. Start now and you won’t miss out.

02 03

Our forums

Our reviews

4

4 01 03

01 02 02 03 Join our community of enthusiasts

Comprehensive reviews from every issue

Each month meet up with other digital photography fans and let off steam, swap ideas, get help, add your own reviews and much more!

Looking to buy a new piece of kit – camera, accessory or piece of software, perhaps? We’ll put our reviews online so you’re fully informed

02 Chat on our forums 02 Talk about kit Add your opinions to our ongoing discussions about any aspect of digital photography that interests you – we want to hear it all!

Post your own comments on our kit reviews – it’s the best way to access both Digital Camera Magazine’s opinion of a camera, and the opinion of other users!

88888

03 Tell us about the mag We want to hear your thoughts about the mag – what you like and don’t like, and how you think we can do better. Get writing!

01 Clear kit pictures

02 Comprehensive

We make it easy to inspect camera tests We put each camera the kit you’re buying before you part with your through its paces so you know exactly what to hard-earned cash. expect if you do decide to buy it.

03 Clear verdicts We make it obvious whether each camera offers you good value for money.

Visit www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk today!

On your discs Two CDs every month! Here’s what we’ve lined up for you this November…

This November… Jeremy Ford is your host for this hands on, interactive section of the magazine. This is your chance to get to grips with the software we’ve supplied…

W

Jeremy Ford is both the online editor and disc editor for Digital Camera Magazine. Each issue he'll be gathering the best software on CDs for your digital camera. And you'll also find him on the website updating you with the latest news, reviews and features on everything digital camera related ■ Should you have query regarding the CD or website you can contact Jeremy at [email protected]

elcome to the Digital Camera Magazine disc section. Within the next few pages you'll find details regarding all the content we've provided on the two CD-ROMS. To help you get the best out of the magazine, we've included software featured in the magazine, plus additional test shots from all the reviewed cameras, and files to enable you to follow our magazine tutorials. And you'll also find lots of additional software to help you get the most out of your digital camera. For this first issue we are proud to present you with the fully working version of Paint Shop Pro 5. This application has long been regarded as a serious, cost-effective alternative to Photoshop.

START-UP THE DISC

To get started with the Digital Camera CD-ROMs simply insert them into your drive. The interface should run automatically. However, if it doesn't, click the Start button and select the Run option. Type D:\digitalcamera (where D is the drive letter denoting your drive) and press Enter.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

If you prefer a simpler way to enhance digital images, then take a look at ColorPilot on disc 1. This superb tool adjusts the colour balance of poorly taken shots such as where poor lighting has effected the colours of an image. The results

■ Don't miss next issue. Again we'll have two packed discs full of essential resources for your digital camera. On sale 21 November

STARTING UP

01

126

Enhance your images

are extremely impressive and most of the work is performed automatically by the software. Our third full product is called Arles Web Page Creator. If you've ever wanted to publish your own pictures on the internet, then this is the software for you. Using a simple wizard it takes you through an easy-to-follow process of taking a folder of images and building them into a thumbnail gallery, building all the HTML code ready to be uploaded to your web space.

Paint Shop Pro is fully loaded with all the facilities you need to edit your digital camera snaps. Crop, resize and image enhancement tools are within easy reach on the interface and more advanced users can use the software to add special effects to images. To help you get started you will find our extensive ‘get started’ tutorial starting on page 94.

Time to fire up your disc and see what’s in store for you. There’s a wealth of software at your fingertips and it’s ready to use…

02

USER AGREEMENT

Please read the first screen carefully and click the Agree button to continue. You will be taken to the main screen, for where you can progress to the rest of the disc contents.

03

BROWSE THE DISC

Use the menu bar at the top of the screen to navigate to the different areas on the disc – simply use your cursor to highlight the menu item and click the mouse button. Instructions on how you use each section of the disc are included on the interface itself.

Using our interface The CDs are crammed with information but navigation is straightforward Our CD-ROMS provide special interactive features to complement the five digital cameras reviewed in the magazine. The two discs also incorporate a multitude of software and resources that will help you to get the most from your digital camera. We’ve packed the two CD-ROMs with software, resources and exciting interactive features. Disc 1 includes a virtual tour section, providing a hands-on experience for each of the reviewed cameras. You can interactively rotate each camera through a full 360 degrees, inspect intricate features in close-up and compare the quality of example pictures taken with each camera. Next issue, you’ll be able to rotate up-and-over too! Disc 2 contains two full products ready for you to install, along with a library of software including drivers, plug-ins, utilities and demonstration products to enable you to complete the tutorials in the magazine.

Easy navigation Quickly and easily navigate both CD-ROMs using this intuitive multimedia interface. Click an item from the top row to select the main section and the relevant sub sections will be revealed in the yellow bar below.

VIRTUAL TOURS

Our virtual tour enables you to get a proper feel for the five digital cameras we’ve reviewed this issue

Software installation Featured software can be installed directly from the CD by clicking on the install icon displayed. In each section you will find a description of the software, additional installation instructions if required and a link to the product websites where appropriate.

Virtual tours Select ‘virtual tours’ from the main navigation bar to visit this special interactive feature. The new menu displayed for this section offers 3D Fly around, detail shots and test shots for each of the five reviewed cameras. Relevant website links are also provided.

01

FLY AROUND

Use the pink arrows to the left and right of each camera image to spin the camera around. Rollover the outside arrows to auto rotate the camera in that direction or click the inside arrows to manually rotate the camera to the position you want.

02

DETAIL SHOTS

Nine detail images of each digital camera have been provided for your inspection. Zoom in to the required close-up shot by simply clicking the thumbnail or pressing the number key shown below each one.

03

TEST SHOTS

We’ve taken test shots in four different lighting situations to enable you to view the image quality of the individual cameras. These include a detail picture, a skin shot, plus indoor and outdoor shots. See a large version of each shot by clicking the thumbnail or pressing then number key displayed below each image.

Test shots This section enables you to compare actual pictures taken using the reviewed digital cameras. Choose a test shot from the four provided and, using the simple drag-and-drop interface, you can select similar pictures from two cameras and compare them alongside each other.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

127

Color Pilot 3.86 Do your reds tend to be blue-ish, while your blues are mostly green? This program has the answer to all your colour-correction problems

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

PUBLISHER PRODUCT STATUS CONTACT INFORMATION AS SOLD FOR

INVENTION PILOT FULL VERSION WWW.COLORPILOT.COM $29.95

G

et the white balance or lighting wrong on a digital camera and your image colours could turn out to be less than realistic. So how can you make the sky more blue, the trees more green and remove that reddish tinge from granny’s face? One approach is to use an image editor, like PhotoShop or Paint Shop Pro. These programs can produce great results, but could be overkill if all you want to do is alter a few colours. (And the sheer number of colour models can make them intimidating for the beginner – should you use CMYK/RGB/HLS?) If you prefer the simple life, try Color Pilot instead. Just choose a colour to change, a reference colour you’d like to match, and that’s it. You can even use the same reference colours on multiple images – ideal if you’re preparing pictures for a catalogue.

01

OPEN AN IMAGE

04

COMPARE IMAGES

07

DEFINE A TARGET REGION

Select File8 Open Image, and use the Preview window to browse through the sample images. Double-click on swiss.jpg to open it.

Try increasing the Gamma value to 2.0, then click on Start again to create a new image. Choose Window8 Tile to compare the pictures side by side.

4

COLOUR CORRECTION

05

CREATE A REFERENCE COLOUR

08

COPY COLOURS

This picture has a very poor colour balance, especially in the sky. To try automatically correcting it, just select Start on the Color Pilot toolbar.

Close all your images, then open PIC41.jpg. This shot looks a little washedout, especially in the foreground – can we change the grass colour?

03

MANUAL TWEAKS

06

MAKE YOUR SELECTION

09

LEARN BY EXAMPLE

The program will correct both colour and brightness, then display the results in a new window. That’s a big improvement, but the house is still a little dark.

Open PIC38.jpg – that looks better. Click on the Extract new color... button (the one with the Enter arrow) and draw a box around an area of grass.

Visit the website where you can find out much more information about this product and how to use it

Now we've got a Grass reference colour, switch back to PIC41.jpg. Draw a region in the grass here, indicating the colour we'd like to change. 128

02

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Click on Start, then select Window8 Tile to compare the results. Color Pilot has improved the colours, but left the brightness untouched.

Keen to learn more? Just choose an option from the Examples menu – there are 15 different choices, explaining all the key Color Pilot features.

Arles Web Page Creator So you’re putting your photos on the web? Then you’ll want to create an index page – and here’s just the tool you need

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

PUBLISHER PRODUCT STATUS CONTACT INFORMATION AS SOLD FOR

DIGITAL DUTCH FULL VERSION WWW.DIGITALDUTCH.COM $49

A

fter much practice, you’ve finally got a collection of digital photos that are good enough to share with the world. Putting them on a website would seem to be the best approach, but beware – there are a couple of potential gotchas you’ll need to avoid. For example, it’s not a good idea to put all your images on one page. You might have ADSL, but lots of other people still have slow dial-up accounts, and waiting 20 minutes for all the pictures to download will really try their patience. Some people recognise this, and try to create a

4

At www.digitaldutch.com, you can discover some clever ways to use this application

page of ‘thumbnails’ – smaller versions of your pictures. Good idea, but if you just scale the image in your HTML editor, then it will still use the fullsized version. And your visitors will still have to wait an age for every tiny picture to appear. The solution? Bypass all these potential problems by using Arles Web Page Creator to do the hard work for you. Just point the program at your images folder, and it can create the thumbnails, HTML index and image pages with a single mouse click. And if you need a more customised approach, no problem – everything from the thumbnail size to index and image page layout can be altered to suit your needs.

01

LOCATE YOUR IMAGES

04

TWEAK THE THUMBNAIL SIZE

Arles Image Web Page Creator needs some images before it will work, so click on File locations and use the Source folder box to tell the program where your pictures are located.

Click on the Thumbnails tab, and change the height and width values from 100 to 200. Leave ‘Lock aspect ratio’ checked to avoid distorting the pictures.

Arles makes it easy for your website visitors to quickly find their favourite photographs

02

BUILD THE INDEX

05

MAKE HTML ADJUSTMENTS

Click on the All toolbar button, and the program will create the thumbnails and index pages automatically. This status window will keep you updated on what's going on.

For more customisation options, click on the Index page tab. Here you can give the page a title, or change the size and layout of the image table.

Get rid of the Nag screen by entering the free Registration key you'll find at www.digital dutch.com/arles/extern/netmag_special.html

03

VIEW YOUR RESULTS

06

CHECK YOUR CHANGES

Click on the Show toolbar button to see the index page in your default browser. Hmm, it all works as it should, but what if the thumbnails are a little too small?

Finished tinkering? Click on All again to recreate the thumbnails and image pages, using your new settings, then click on Show to see the new look.

Find out what other users have created with Arles, at www.digitaldutch.com/arles/ examples/showcase

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

129

Upgrade it! …and save yourself some money! Here’s how:

Upgrade to Color Pilot 4 If you want even greater control over image correction, Color Pilot 4 will be right up your street

L

4

You can fine-tune the reference colour you first choose to ensure perfect results every time

ike Color Pilot 3? Thanks to Digital Camera Magazine, you can buy Color Pilot 4.x now with a 5 per cent discount! Upgrading to Color Pilot 4.x costs $28.45 (about £17) and include six months worth of free upgrades! Poor colours can ruin the best photographer’s work, but Color Pilot makes it easy to compensate for poor lighting or other factors leading to unsatisfactory colouring. The same technique can be used to alter the colour of any subject matter – such as the colour of somebody’s clothing or hair. If you find that you are using the same colour or a number of colours repeatedly, you can create a colour collection using the Collection Management tool. The new batch processing option is a very useful tool if you need to apply the same colour effects to more than one

photograph. Once you have adjusted one image, you can save the changes you made to a ‘processing file’. This can then be applied to a number of images in the same folder. Another new feature of Color Pilot 4 is the option to create panoramas. This can be achieved by simply stitching together two or more images and then making the join invisible. Version 4 of the program has newly added support for non-24 bit images, PMG, PCX and PSD file formats. As well as all of these exciting new features, Colour Pilot 4 also includes a number of bug fixes and the improved interface will enable you to work even faster. You may not have your images already stored on your hard drive for editing, but TWAIN support enables you to capture photographs using your scanner beforehand. Visit the special order page at www.colorpilot.

com/offer/future_cp.html for full details of the software and the offer. If you'd like to take Color Pilot 4 for a test drive before splashing out on it, you can download a trial version from the website. At the website you will also be able to view a series of example, indicating just what Color Pilot 4 is capable of producing. - Create collections of frequently-used colours - Batch processing of images - New Collection Manager - Store successful processings for repeat use - Open several files simultaneously - Support for additional languages - New Panorama function - Email images from the program - TWAIN support - New interface

Upgrade to Arles Image Web Page Creator 4 If you liked version 3 of to Arles Image Web Page Creator, take a look at what’s on offer in version 4

T

4

The revamped Image Explorer makes it very easy to browse through your pictures and view a raft of information about them

130

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

he latest version of Arles Image Web Page Creator not only includes a number of bug fixes, but also a wide range of new features to make it even easier to publish your images online. The all-new Arles Image Explorer makes it easy to manage all the images you have stored on your computer. The Explorer-like interface makes browsing through your pictures very simple, and files can be dragged and dropped to re-order them or moved to another application. Any information you enter is automatically saved to a database which enables you to sort your files. No matter which image editing program you have been using to tweak your images, you should find that Arles Image Web Page Creator supports the format you saved the file. In total there is support for over 20 file formats including

JPEG images (jpg, jpeg), Kodak Photo CD (*.pcd), Paint Shop Pro (*.psp) and Photoshop (*.psd, *.pdd). There are a number of new options available for displaying your images. Framed galleries can now be created with just a few clicks of the mouse, and a slideshow effect can be created by configuring the next image page to be automatically loaded after a certain delay. Individual images can be customised by simply adding one of three different types of border, single pixel, button effect or 3D level. You can also protect your pictures by adding 3D watermarks to them. You can also add drop shadows to images, with offset, transparency, blur and colour all being fully configurable. Image EXIF information can be viewed in the Image Explorer, and it can also be

included in your galleries by using the EXIF tags. If you would like to find out more information about this program, you can view the full list of features by visiting www.digitaldutch.com. Readers of Digital Camera Magazine and our sister magazine, .net, can upgrade to the latest edition of Arles Image Web Page Creator for just £25 (that's a saving of £16 on the regular price). To take advantage of this offer, you will need to go to our special offer page, which you can find at www.digitaldutch.com/arles/extern/netmag_ special.html. Here you will find ordering instructions and a full listing of the great new features you can use. If you would like to try Arles Image Web Page Creator 4 before you buy, you can download a trial version from the website located at www.digitaldutch.com.

Adobe Photoshop 7 Hugely powerful and with more features than ever, this is the image editor used by professionals everywhere

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

PUBLISHER PRODUCT STATUS CONTACT INFORMATION FULL PRODUCT COST

ADOBE 30-DAY TRIAL VERSION WWW.ADOBE.COM £525

A

dobe has introduced so many new features to Photoshop 7 that we can’t cover them all, but some stand out from the crowd. The new File Browser, for example, lets you quickly view thumbnails of the pictures on your hard drive. Improved Picture Packages let you print multiple images on one page, and there are new web tools to simplify the creation of image maps, rollovers and animations. The new Auto Color option simplifies colour correction, and a scripting plug-in adds JavaScript.

IMAGE EDITOR

BROWSE FOR FILES

Got lots of photos stored on your PC? Select File8 Browse to navigate through them, and just double-click on one to open it.

PHOTO MANAGEMENT

Photo Impact 8

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

01

ULEAD SYSTEMS 30-DAY TRIAL VERSION WWW.ULEAD.COM £81

The new PhotoImpact 8 can acquire digital images directly from your digital camera, scanner or webcam. Once you've corrected any problems with the host of colour adjustments, you can enhance your shots with photographic effects like the star or spot filters. The bundled web tools are a welcome bonus, simplifying the task of creating banners, icons, buttons, and other web page components.

Photo Mail 4.0

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

GETWARE 30-DAY TRIAL VERSION WWW.GETWARE.COM $15

You’re proud of your digital photos (well, some of them, anyway) – so why not share them with your friends? PhotoMail 4.0 can acquire images from any TWAIN source (that’s most digital cameras or scanners), then lets you email them, or post your images to a website. You can even build a slideshow that others can view without having to install PhotoMail first.

02

USE THE HEALING BRUSH

Old photos often have scratches, creases or marks. Adobe Photoshop now includes the Healing Brush, to automatically clean these away.

PHOTO ENHANCEMENT

Professor Franklin

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

STREETWISE SOFTWARE, INC 30-DAY TRIAL VERSION WWW.SWSOFTWARE.COM $40

Turn ordinary digital photos into works of art, with this unusual and interesting tool. Once you've imported your image, just choose a painting style (watercolour, oil, chalk and more), then use the mouse to ‘paint’ directly over your photo. The results can be very impressive, certainly much better than the similar effects filters you'll find in image editors.

03

PROTECT YOUR COPYRIGHT

If you're putting images on the web, add a Watermark (Filter8 Digimarc8 Embed Watermark) it'll help prevent others stealing your work.

FILE MANAGER

PANORAMA BUILDER

Media Panorama Manager V6 Maker 3

PUBLISHER ACSSOFT INC STATUS 30-DAY TRIAL VERSION CONTACT WWW.INTERLOG.COM/~ACSSOFT FULL PRODUCT COST N/A

AcsSoft lets you build up an album of your digital photos, but that’s not all – you can add video and audio files, too. The completed album can be shared across the internet, or you can even distribute them on CD (assuming you have a CD writer, of course). A royaltyfree viewer ensures everyone will be able to see (and perhaps hear) the contents of your album.

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

ARCSOFT 15-DAY TRIAL VERSION WWWW.ARCSOFT.COM N/A

Who needs a high-resolution digital camera? Panorama Builder takes vertical, horizontal or tiled sets of pictures, then combines them to create a full panorama (even a full, 360 degree view). Colour enhancement and image matching are done automatically in seconds, so no skill is required (but you can tweak the results manually if they're not quite up to scratch).

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

131

PHOTO DOWNLOADER

cam2pc 2.0

PUBLISHER NABOCORP STATUS FREE/NON COMMERCIAL USE CONTACT WWW.NABOCORP.FIRSTREAM.NET FULL PRODUCT COST N/A

If importing pictures from your digital camera is less than easy, then take a look at cam2pc. It can auto-detect some cameras (see www.nabocorp. firstream.net/cam2pc for the details) when they're connected, then download any pictures to the folder of your choice, and open them in your favourite image viewer. Bonuses include support for image renaming and rotation.

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

IMAGE EDITOR

PHOTO MANAGER

Camera Paint Shop Enhancer 1.3 Pro 7

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

MEDIACHANCE FREE WWW.MEDIACHANCE.COM N/A

Do your photos sometimes look a little flat? Poor contrast, colour imbalances and other lighting problems can be corrected in an image editor, but it’s not always easy. This clever tool can enhance your pictures in seconds, and requires no special knowledge at all – just adjust a slider or two until it produces the desired result.

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

JASC 30-DAY TRIAL VERSION WWW.JASC.COM £70

One of the longest-running and most successful shareware programs ever, Paint Shop Pro is still one of the best image editors around. Whether you want to acquire images from cameras or scanners, tweak colour settings or add special effects, you'll find something to help here (and web tools like Animation Studio 3 are a welcome bonus).

PhotoAssist 1.2

PUBLISHER BURROTECH STATUS LIMITED TO 10 DOWNLOADS CONTACT WWW.BURROTECH.COM FULL PRODUCT COST £9.50

Don’t spend ages managing your digital photos – use a tool like PhotoAssist to keep things simple. After downloading all the images from your camera in a couple of clicks, you can freely arrange them into thumbnail galleries. You can email photos directly from the program, and it’s possible to print up to 20 shots on a single A4 page.

Full disc contents… Not sure what’s on which disc? Just check our full index below and navigate safely around both packed CD-ROMs

1

DISC 1 FULL SOFTWARE Paint Shop Pro 5.0 DEMO SOFTWARE Paint Shop Pro 7.04 DISC 2 FULL SOFTWARE ColorPilot 3.86 Arles Image Web Page Creator 3.3 DEMO SOFTWARE AcsSoft Photo Album & Media Manager 6.0 ArcSoft Panorama Maker 3.0 Digital Camera Enhancer 1.3 FotoStation 4.5 PhotoAssist 1.2

132

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

PhotoImpact 8.0 PhotoMail 4.0 Photoshop 7 Professor Franklin's Instant Photo Artist 1.04 XPhoto Lite 1.0 Color Pilot 4.42 Arles Image Web Page Creator 4.94 FREE SOFTWARE AhaView 1.1 cam2pc 2.0 Fine View 0.63 Gimp 1.2.4 IrfanView 3.75 Power Albums 2.04 SlowView 1.0 RC1 UltimateZip 2.7.1 VCW VicMan's Photo Editor 6.998

Fuji FISNet Color Darkroom 1.0 FotoPage Platinum 2.5 Harry's Filters 2.0 HotTEXT Image Doctor Melancholytron 1.02 PhotoFrame 2.0.1 Plugin Galaxy 1.5 Unplugged Nick Sharpener DRIVERS Kodak Easyshare

2

IMAGE MANAGER

Foto Station 4.5

PUBLISHER STATUS CONTACT FULL PRODUCT COST

FOTOWARE TRIAL VERSION WWW.FOTOSTATION.COM £40

It doesn’t take long to build up a large collection of digital photos, but FotoStation 4.5 is the ideal tool to help keep your collection organised. Not only can you create albums for your pictures, each displaying neat thumbnails, but you can also attach comments and keywords to each picture. (Note: requires a full install of QuickTime 4/5).

READER OFFER PAINT SHOP PRO 7

1

Reader offer

50%

off the usual price

Paint Shop Pro 7 Here’s your chance to enjoy a massive discount on the very latest version of one of the most popular pieces of home image-editing software in the world

T

he PC’s favourite image-editing program is enjoyed by over 20 million users worldwide. It’s the easiest, most affordable way to achieve pro-looking results fast. There’s no need to waste time learning a high-end professional-orientated product, or to use slow, clunky programs that are more akin to painting by numbers than proper PC image work – Paint Shop Pro can do everything you want and more. It’s packed with features and is robust enough for professional-calibre image-editing, as well as being easy enough for artists of all levels. This multi-skilled design program is perfect for creating banners, web images and logos, as well as drawing vectors and fiddling around with photos.

Seventh heaven Version 7 is stuffed with great features that make it a worthy upgrade from the version we’ve given you. The help system is wonderful – introducing you to Paint Shop Pro’s many features without having to dip into any jargon. Its interface is straightforward and fuss-free, with menu commands that

automatically remove red-eye and fix blemishes caused by dust and scratches.

And there’s more… There’s a new Effects preview browser that makes it easy to add special effects to your images – and you can fiddle around with over 80 filters to preview effects without committing yourself to a decision. The software also comes with an arsenal of colour-correction facilities, including channel mixers that enhance the red, green and blue channels in an image by adding percentages of the other two channels. You might not know what that means yet, but Paint Shop Pro 7 makes it simple to mess around and experiment with ideas. Paint Shop Pro 7 has a strong web graphics slant, with facilities to create and optimise images files for download over the internet. There are built-in web tools, artistic drawing and text tools. And we shouldn’t forget the bundled Animation Shop 3, which enables you to design impressive animations.

lt’s packed with features and is robust enough for professional-calibre imageediting, as well as being easy enough for artists of all levels

2 Paint Shop Pro 7 really is the image-editing application of choice – see the box below to find out how to save over 50% off the usual price

How to order

■ Get your hands on this magnificent software Now you own the full version of Paint Shop Pro 5, you’re eligible to upgrade to Paint Shop Pro 7 at a reduced price.

■ Call Digital Workshop on 0870 120 2186, quote Digital Camera Magazine, and you’ll be able to order the program for the special upgrade price of £41.07 – that’s over £52 less than the normal retail price. [w] www.digitalworkshop.co.uk

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

133

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE CLASSIFIED TO ADVERTISE HERE please email [email protected]

£24.95

SRB VIDEO/ DIGITAL COPIER

NEW MEDIUM FORMAT COPIER £CALL

DIGISCOPING MOUNT FOR DIGITAL STILL & VIDEO CAMERAS

TRIED & TESTED BY BIRDWATCHERS mounts from camera tripod socket 3 sizes available for eye pieces upto 35mm, 45mm, 55mm dia easy to fit money back g tee

£49.95

DIGITAL/COMPACT

FOR MOST CAMCORDERS & COOLPIX Fits to front filter thread (state size) via a stepping ring (extra - call for price)

SRB Copier supplied with full hints & tips, neg strip holder & correction filter.

SRB, 286 Leagrave Road, Luton, Beds LU3 1RB

HOTLINE (01582) 572471 Fax. (01582) 572535 E-mail: [email protected]. P&P £1.95 per order. Subject to availability.

134

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

£22.95

www.srbfilm.co.uk

COPY SLIDES/NEGS ONTO DIGITAL

CAMERA MOUNT

Allows use of 37mm filters (from £4.50) or auxiliary camcorder lenses on compact and digital cameras Bracket simply fits via tripod screw

FULL RANGE OF FILTERS & ADAPTORS

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

135

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE CLASSIFIED TO ADVERTISE HERE please email [email protected]

136

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

4

CAMERASPRINTERSACCESSORIES

BuyerGuide

Kit covered overleaf Here’s where to find the kit you’re looking for CAMERAS

PRINTERS

Ensuring you make the right choice

A

s with a traditional camera, the more you pay for your digital camera, the more features and better quality images you will get. Bear in mind that digital cameras are more expensive than their traditional equivalents so don’t expect to get printquality images from a digicam that costs less than £200. If you just want to try out digital photography for fun and only intend to use the images to email to friends and relatives or upload onto your website, then a simple point-and-shoot camera with relatively low resolution may suit you fine. If, however, you want to use your digicam as your main camera and intend to order prints of some of your images to put in an album, then you are going to need to consider one of the megapixel cameras currently on the market. These range from simple point-and-shoot cameras to fully featured SLR-style ones.

Resolution

Budget (£0-£199) Cameras in this price range are designed mainly for snapshots. At or below the £100 price level, you’re into ‘webcam’ territory – cameras designed to be used either connected to your computer as basic video cameras, or carried around with you for capturing short movie clips or still images. The photographic features are usually pretty basic. You point and shoot and leave the camera to sort out exposure and focussing itself. There’s little photographic control on offer here, so these cameras are only appropriate if you’re looking for cheap and cheerful results – though it has to be said that their simplicity of operation makes them ideal for kids or photographic novices. If you’re at all interested in developing your photographic skills, you need to buy at the top end of this price range or you’ll be disappointed both by the results and the lack of creative control.

Mid-range (£200-£599) It’s in this price range that you start to get ‘serious’ digital cameras. Towards the bottom of the range, makers are still selling point-and-shoot cameras that may not offer much in the way of manual

control, but you may be able to apply exposure compensation for tricky subjects. Once you get to the £300-£400 price range, lens quality improves, the CCD resolution increases and most cameras incorporate zoom lenses. Keen photographers should look out for cameras that offer a range of exposure modes, from fully-programmed auto to shutter-priority and aperture-priority automation right through to full manual control over both shutter speed and aperture. You’ll often get a choice of light metering patterns, too, from all-purpose ‘pattern’ or ‘matrix’ systems designed for the majority of subjects to ‘spot’ metering that reads the light from a central portion of the image only.

High-end (£600+) High-end digital cameras are designed for those people who want the ultimate in both picture quality and photographic control. You can expect the range of exposure modes and metering patterns described for mid-range cameras, highquality lenses and extended zoom ranges. You’re likely to get other advanced features, too, like ‘auto-bracketing’. This is where the camera takes a series of three photos of the same subject in rapid succession, but use different exposures – you pick the best exposure afterwards. Nikon cameras offer a clever ‘Best Shot Selector’ for low light levels – it takes a series of identical shots, but only saves the sharpest to the memory card. Your camera may also enable you to change the contrast, colour saturation and sharpness of your image before it’s saved, and some offer a RAW mode that preserves maximum-quality picture information for editing on your computer. It’s also possible to buy digital SLR cameras, but these start at around the £2,000 level and are aimed at professionals.

138 MEMORY CARDS

140 BATTERIES

142

142

5 steps to safe shopping These days, buying online isn’t the problem it used to be. Improved security and better knowledge have made buying online a pretty stressfree option. However, if you follow our checklist below, you’ll reduce further whatever slight chance there is of problems:

1

CHOOSE YOUR SITE

2

USE A CREDIT CARD

3

NEVER PAY IN CASH

4

KEEP A RECORD

5

DON’T USE A DEBIT CARD

You can’t go much wrong if you buy from one of the established retailers. We recommend Jessops.com, Dabs.com and Amazon.com for starters.

If you are buying goods worth more than £100 in total, use a credit card. This is because in the event of any problems, you are entitled to claim against the credit card company as well as the seller (you won’t get your money back twice but the company is there to claim against if the seller has gone bust.) You might also get extra insurance, so check with your credit firm.

If you can’t pay by credit card, use a cheque or postal order instead. Don’t send cash through the mail, even by registered post. Apart from the risk of theft, you can’t stop payment if you need to, and it’s impossible to prove how much you sent.

Keep records if you’re paying by credit card over the phone. Print off web pages after you have entered your details on them. Keep notes of exact times and the name of the person who took your order, if you’re paying by phone. Always keep your receipts.

Many debit cards don’t have the protection or insurance options afforded to credit cards, so avoid using one.

4

The resolution refers to the number of pixels captured by the camera’s image sensor or CCD. Early digital cameras and those at the low end of the market have what is known as VGA resolution with 640 pixels across the image and 480 down. At this resolution, an image can only really be used for email or for putting on a website. If you print the image out or try to enlarge it, it will appear pixelated. The term megapixel is used to mean a million pixels and refers to the total number of pixels in an image. For example, the Canon PowerShot A10 produces images with 1,280 pixels across the top and 960 pixels across the bottom, making the total number of pixels approximately 1.3 million or 1.3 megapixels. The greater the number of pixels, the more you can enlarge the

image before it will appear pixelated. However, the higher the resolution of an image, the bigger its file size and the more storage space you’ll need. Some cameras quote two resolution sizes, in which case the larger image size is usually interpolated. What happens is that the CCD has the number of pixels quoted in the lower figure, but some clever software adds pixels to the image by evaluating the surrounding pixels and producing additional matching ones. This enables you to print larger images without them appearing pixelated, but the quality of the image suffers.

CONTACT OUR TEAM

If you have problems ordering the kit you wanted, we’d like to know. Email our team at [email protected] with details of your experiences and we’ll do our best to help.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

137

BUYER GUIDE DIGITAL CAMERAS WEBSITE Visit www.dabs.com – the prices quoted below are accurate as we go to press

22

RESOLUTION VS. PRICE Not sure which camera to get? The following guide enables you to see how the type of camera you buy influences the pictures you take.

MEGAPIXEL The measurement of a camera’s resolution in millions of pixels. The general rule is the higher the better. Anything from 3-4 megapixels usually means good quality.

build quality will be better and the photos will be fine for web pages and postcard-sized prints.

Mid-range (£200-£599)

Budget (£0-£199) Cameras in this price range will have varying resolutions. Cheaper cameras may offer images measuring just 640 x 480 pixels, or ‘VGA' resolution. This might sound okay for screen display or for photos designed for web pages because they'll still take up a good proportion of the screen. In practice, though, the quality of the camera engineering and the chip that records the image combine to produce still images that aren't really fit for anything. You need to go for a 1-megapixel or 1.3-megapixel camera to get anything like a usable picture, and for this you're likely to be entering the £100-£199 price range. It's worth it, though, because the camera design and

1

BUYERS GUIDE DIGITAL CAMERAS

This price range is where the bulk of digital cameras fall, and one where you'll see nearly as much variation in image quality as you do in photographic features. At the bottom of the range are basic 2-megapixel cameras that offer reasonable picture quality – certainly good enough for 6 x 4-inch snaps. The image quality will start to deteriorate with prints of 7 x 5-inch and above, though. If you want to produce enlargements of this size, look out for a 3-megapixel camera. These are cheaper now, thanks to the arrival of 4-megapixel and 5-megapixel models, but the image quality is still very good. You can produce A4-sized prints which still look good, but if you get close up you will see a difference compared with the results from a 4-megapixel camera.

High-end (£600+) If you can get good 4-megapixel cameras for £599 or less, why pay more? Because lens quality, overall engineering and photographic features count for a lot. You can get good cameras in the mid-range price bracket, but if you can stretch beyond £600 you'll encounter some real class acts. Not only do the lenses get the maximum definition from the camera's CCD, the auto-exposure systems are more sophisticated and accurate, as is the autofocussing. Both help produce super-sharp, perfectlyexposed shots. But if you save up a little more cash still, you can make the step up from 4-megapixel cameras to 5megapixel models. With a 5-megapixel camera, sharp, smooth-toned A4 enlargements become a reality, and you reach a level of quality that's hard to beat, even with the best 35mm cameras, film and technique.

All the following cameras will be on the market from October 24th

1

CAMERAS GUIDE PRICES

FUJIFILM FINEPIX F401 Review on p32

KODAK DX4330 Review on p40

138

Category Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact zoom Compact zoom Compact Compact Camera Camera Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Brand SiPix SiPix SiPix SiPix NISIS NISIS NISIS NISIS Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hayes Hayes Epson Epson Epson Epson Panasonic Panasonic Panasonic Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony

Product name SC1300 & PC200 Bundle Stylecam Silver SC2300 Stylecam Blink camera QuickPix QP1 digital camera QuickPix QP2 digital camera QuickPix QP3 digital camera QuickPix QP3Pen digital camera HP 318 digital camera 2.3MP HP C200 digital camera AC HP 120 digital camera 1MP HP 812 digital camera 4MP HP PhotoSmart P130 HP 320 digital camera 2.1MP HP 620 digital camera 2.1MP ZM HP 720 digital camera 3.3MP ZM Photosmart P7150 Zoom USB camera ZoomCam for iMac PhotoPC 2100Z PhotoPC 2100z/Photo 810 Bund Image Presentation camera Image Presentation camera LC5 LC20 SV-AV10 DSC-P5 Cybershot FD75 Mavica DSC-S75 Cybershot MVC-FD200 digital camera DSC-P31 Cyber-shot DSC-P51 Cyber-shot

Inc VAT £229.12 £41.12 £163.32 £36.42 £29.37 £37.6 £69.32 £75.2 £139.82 £35.25 £88.12 £304.32 £123.37 £139.82 £182.12 269.07 £151.57 £57.57 £59.92 £319.6 £319.6 £2,673.12 £1,404.12 £586.32 £222.07 £280.82 £487.62 £821.32 £316.07 £433.57 £175.07 £222.07

Ex VAT £195 £35 £139 £31 £25 £32 £59 £64 £119 £30 £75 £259 £105 £119 £155 229 £129 £49 £51 £272 £272 £2,275 £1,195 £499 £189 £239 £415 £699 £269 £369 £149 £189

1

CAMERAS CONTINUED Category Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Mini Mini Compact Compact Compact Mini Mini Compact Compact Mini Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact SLR Compact Compact Compact Compact SLR Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact SLR Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact SLR SLR Mini Compact Compact

Brand Sony Sony Sony Sony Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Kodak Kodak Kodak Kodak Kodak Kodak Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta BenQ BenQ BenQ BenQ dabsxchange Toshiba Toshiba Logitech Logitech Logitech Casio Casio Casio Casio Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Olympus Pentax l’Epsion Olympus Olympus

Product name DSC-P71 Cyber-shot DSC-P9 Cyber-shot DSC-P7 Cyber-shot DSC-P2 Cyber-shot Digimax 130 digital camera Digicam 200 Digicam 230 Digicam 350SE Digimax 410 DX 4900 without dock DX 3500 without dock DX 3700 without dock DX3900 Without dock DX 4330 CX 4230 Dimage5 Dimage S304 Dimage X Dimage 7i Dimage F100 Dimage F100 – Indigo DC300 Mini digital camera DC1300 DC2110 DC3310 Pentax EI-2000 digital camera PDR-3310 PDR-T10 Clicksmart 310 Clicksmart 510 Pocket digital QV4000 Exilim EX-S1 QV-R3 QV-R4 E3 digital camera D1 camera bundle without lens Coolpix 775 Coolpix 5000 Coolpix 2000 D100 – digital SLR body only Coolpix 2500 D1X – Pro Kit Coolpix 4500 Coolpix 5700 D100 digital SLR kit FinePix A101 FinePix A201 FinePix 2800 zoom FinePix 30i Axia-ix 100 FinePix F601 zoom FinePix S602 FinePix 401 FinePix S2 Pro SLR Finepix A202 FinePix A204 FinePix A203 FinePix S304 FinePix A303 E-10 Camedia EI-2000 digital camera L’Espion Spy camera C-700 2.1mpixel 10x zoom E-20P

Inc VAT £311.37 £433.57 £386.57 £327.82 £116.32 £163.32 £175.07 £304.32 £351.32 £304.32 £163.32 £213.85 £257.32 £269.07 £175.07 £504.07 £327.82 £304.32 £821.32 £386.57 £445.32 £45.82 £75.20 £166.85 £287.87 £304.32 £374.82 £205.62 £49.35 £99.87 £88.12 £428.87 £264.37 £334.87 £381.87 £5,521.32 £4,052.57 £276.12 £739.07 £179.77 £1,878.82 £276.12 £3946.82 £551.07 £891.82 £2,231.32 £111.62 £143.35 £284.35 £287.87 £96.35 £457.07 £562.82 £351.32 £1,714.32 £135.£12 £10.32 £257.32 £374.82 £292.57 £1,009.32 £304.32 £36.42 £398.32 £1,408.82

Ex VAT £265 £369 £329 £279 £99 £139 £149 £259 £299 £259 £139 £182 £219 £229 £149 £429 £279 £259 £699 £329 £379 £39 £64 £142 £245 £259 £319 £175 £42 £85 £75 £365 £225 £285 £325 £4,699 £3,449 £235 £629 £153 £1,599 £235 £3,359 £469 £759 £1,899 £95 £122 £242 £245 £82 £389 £479 £299 £1,459 £115 £179 £219 £319 £249 £859 £259 £31 £339 £1,199

1

KONICA KD-400Z Review on p34

OLYMPUS C-4000 ZOOM Review on p36

TOSHIBA PDR-T20 Review on p38

USING A PRICE COMPARISON SITE The best way to ensure you get the latest, best price is to use one of the internet’s price comparison sites. These automatically search the web each day searching for the lowest prices on a range of consumer goods. There are a few worth looking at – as well as a number of handy digital camera-specific sites too: ■ www.pcindex.co.uk is worth a look. It’s pretty good on PC-related stuff, but its digital photography information is skimpy. ■ uk.kelkoo.com has a good range of digital photography stuff, including second-hand cameras. The major brands are represented but it’s weak on the smaller names. ■ www.simply-cameraprices.co.uk is probably the best of the three. Specialising in cameras unlike the above, its range is the most comprehensive.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

139

BUYER GUIDE DIGITAL CAMERAS/INKJET PRINTERS LATEST DRIVERS Here’s a site worth bookmarking: www.windrivers.com contains all the peripheral drivers you’re likely to need, in one simple location

CAMERAS CONTINUED Category Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Mini Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact Compact SLR Compact Compact Mini

Brand Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Konica Konica Konica Ericsson Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Kyocera

Product name C40 Luxury Kit C120 C3020 ZOOM C-4000 ZOOM C300 Luxury Kit Revio KD400Z KD-100Z KD-3000 MCA-20 communicam VC-C4 Communications camera PowerShot S30 PowerShot S40 Vizcam 1000 desktop camera PowerShot A30 PowerShot A40 Ixus V2 PowerShot A100 Powershot G2 B&W 1GB Mdriv MV5 MV5i MV5IMC EOS D60 digital SLR Powershot A200 Canon AV products XM2 Online backup, 1yr subs WinCD

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Inc VAT £96.35 £146.87 £428.87 £410.07 £299.62 £346.62 £92.82 £257.32 £123.37 £786.07 £468.82 £527.57 £1,291.32 £193.87 £216.20 £304.32 £151.57 £821.32 £675.62 £727.32 £880.07 £2,113.82 £170.37 £1,878.82 £452.37

Ex VAT £82 £125 £365 £349 £255 £295 £79 £219 £105 £669 £399 £449 £1,099 £165 £184 £259 £129 £699 £575 £619 £749 £1,799 £145 £1,599 £385

1

PRINTERS GUIDE PRICES PAPER AND LIGHTFASTNESS There are two basic types of printer paper and either can make a significant difference to the quality of your prints. Porous paper dries quickly and is scratch resistant. It’s not very glossy and is prone to fade. Swellable paper takes longer to dry but has a higher gloss finish and resists fading better. Each type of paper can affect lightfastness, which is the amount of time your photos will last without fading. This also depends on whether it’s behind glass and the type of ink used.

140

Category Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

1

Brand Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Brother Brother Brother Brother Brother Brother Epson

Product name HP DeskJet 1220C 11ppm USB/Parallel HP DeskJet 350C HP DeskJet 350cbi HP DeskJet 1220PS w. Adobe s/w HP DeskJet 990cxi HP DeskJet 990CM 17ppm mono HP DeskJet 350CBI includes case HP DeskJet 845c HP DeskJet 995C HP PhotoSmart P100 HP CP1160 colour inkjet printer HP CP1700ps colour inkjet printer HP CP1700d colour inkjet printer HP CP1700 colour inkjet printer HP LaserJet 1200 14ppm 1,200dpi HP LaserJet 1200n 14ppm 1,200dpi HP LaserJet 1220 12ppm 1,200dpi HP LaserJet 1000W 10ppm 600dpi HP LaserJet 2200 18ppm 1,200dpi HP business Inkjet 2230 Business Inkjet 2280 Colour LJ4500 Fuser HP DeskJet 3420c HP DeskJet 3820c HP DeskJet 5550c HP Deskjet 450CI HP Deskjet 450CBI HL-1650 – 8MB HL-1230 HL-1440 HL-1450 HL-1470N HL-1850 SC1520 1,440dpi 6ppm A3+

Inc VAT £232.65 £158.62 £180.95 £370.12 £178.60 175.07 £233.82 £52.87 £285.52 £99.87 £139.82 £428.87 £435.92 £339.57 £257.32 £381.87 £323.12 £175.07 £468.82 £304.32 £457.07 £186.82 £64.62 £91.65 £136.30 £222.07 £269.07 £446.50 £173.90 £210.32 £237.35 £360.72 £492.32 £370.12

Ex VAT £198 £135 £154 £315 £152 £149 £199 £45 £243 £85 £119 £365 £371 £289 £219 £325 £275 £149 £399 £259 £389 £159 £55 £78 £116 £189 £229 £380 £148 £179 £202 £307 £419 £315

1

PRINTERS CONTINUED Category Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Portable Desktop Portable Portable Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop

Brand Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Epson Panasonic Panasonic Panasonic Panasonic Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Sharp Sharp Sharp Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Lexmark Sony Sony Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Samsung Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita

Product name Stylus Photo 2000P Stylus Photo 890 Stylus Photo 1290 Stylus Photo 895 EPL 5900L EPL 5900 EPL 5900N EPL 5900PS EPL-6100 EPL-6100N EPL-6100PS C62 One Touch Bundle – C42Ux/660 Stylus Photo 925 Stylus Photo 830 Stylus Photo 915 KXP-7100 Laser KXP-7105 Laser KXP-7110 Laser SV-P10 BJC-5500 720dpi 7ppm A2 port BJC-85 720dpi 5ppm A4 portable BJC-55 portable printer USB CP-10 photo printer S500 S630 S6300 S200 S300 S520 S750 S900 S9000 S820D photo printer LBP -810 S330 photo S530D S830D AJ-2100 colour photo printer AJ-1100 AJ-2200 Z35 Z45 Z55 Z65 Z65n T520 E210 E320 E322 E322N DPP-SV77 digital photo printer DPP-SV88 photo storage printer ML-1650 electrophotographic ML-1651N ML 1220M ML7000/7300N/7050 lower feeder ML-1450 ML-1451N ML-1250 SM151P TFT Porsche designed 15 FS-1000N+ Drun Unit for FS1000 FS-1010 FS-1050T

Inc VAT £428.87 £130.42 £304.32 £130.42 £158.62 £233.82 £316.07 £351.32 £264.37 £351.32 £381.87 £69.32 £88.12 £217.37 £86.95 £156.27 £146.87 £198.57 £334.87 £143.35 £480.57 £198.57 £245.57 £163.32 £135.12 £104.57 £351.32 £56.40 £76.37 £123.37 £151.57 £313.72 £428.87 £304.32 £186.82 £76.37 £240.87 £292.57 £198.57 £76.37 £84.60 £55.22 £72.85 £92.82 £116.32 £163.32 £499.37 £170.37 £217.37 £272.60 £428.87 £292.57 £233.82 £245.57 £363.07 £193.87 £205.62 £233.82 £351.32 £193.87 £99.87 £481.75 £327.82 £240.87 £445.32

Ex VAT £365 £111 £259 £111 £135 £199 £269 £299 £225 £299 £325 £59 £75 £185 £74 £133 £125 £169 £285 £122 £409 £169 £209 £139 £115 £89 £299 £48 £65 £105 £129 £267 £365 £259 £159 £65 £205 £249 £169 £65 £72 £47 £62 £79 £99 £139 £425 £145 £185 £232 £365 £249 £199 £209 £309 £165 £175 £199 £299 £165 £85 £410 £279 £205 £379

CANON BUBBLEJET S900 Find out on p50

EPSON STYLUS 830 Find out on p50

EPSON STYLUS 950 Find out on p50

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

141

BUYER GUIDE INKJET PRINTERS/MEMORY CARDS/BATTERIES BUYERS’ TIP Try to estimate the cost of paper and ink over the prices below. This is because some companies charge less for the printer, but more for the consumables

1

PRINTERS CONTINUED Category Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop Desktop

Brand Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita Kyocera Mita Fujifilm Olympus Ricoh Optrox Optrox

Product name FS-1010N FS-1010T FS-1010TN FS-1050 FS-1900 Digital photo printer NX-500 P400E DYESUB photo printer RXP-10 digital colour printer 6e 600dpi 30bit parallel 6f 600dpi 30-bit ISA

Inc VAT £452.37 £393.62 £445.32 £346.62 £492.32 £233.82 £468.82 £351.32 £81.07 £92.82

Ex VAT £385 £335 £379 £295 £419 £199 £399 £299 £69 £79

Crucial Technology Crucial Technology Crucial Technology Crucial Technology Lacie Dynalink Hewlett-Packard (HP) Sony Sony Jenoptik Kodak Kodak Kodak Kodak Kodak Kodak Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta Toshiba Toshiba Toshiba Toshiba Toshiba Toshiba Toshiba Casio Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Olympus Olympus Olympus

16MB CompactFlash Type 1 32MB CompactFlash Type 1 64MB CompactFlash Type 1 128MB CompactFlash Type 1 Hexa Media Drive 6 in 1 USB USB card reader/writer HP CompactFlash reader USB Memory Stick floppy adaptor MSA-CUS1A Memory Stick reader Firewire Smart Media reader 16MB Multimedia card 32Mb CompactFlash memory 64mb CompactFlash memory 128MB CompactFlash card 256MB CompactFlash card CompactFlash card reader USB CompactFlash card reader 8MB CompactFlash card 8MB CompactFlash card 32MB CompactFlash card Dimage V Smart Media SSFDC 2MB Smart media 16MB 32Mb Smart media for PDR camera 16MB (SD) Memory card 32MB (SD) Memory card 64MB (SD) Memory card 128MB (SD) Memory card 512MB (CF) Memory card 48Mb Compact Flash card S1 Pro Firewire Card Reader 16Mb Smart Media 128Mb Smart Media x-D 16MB x-D 32Mb x-D 64MB x-D 128Mb M-16PIE 16MB Smart Media card M-64PIE 64MB Smart Media card M-128PIE 128MB Smart Media card

£13.07 £15.26 £23.98 £39.24 £45.82 £29.37 £37.60 £57.57 £54.05 £52.87 £23.50 £22.32 £34.07 £52.87 £111.62 £22.32 £81.07 £54.05 £54.05 £170.37 £11.75 £38.77 £69.32 £21.15 £34.07 £57.57 £92.82 £233.82 £57.57 £99.87 £17.62 £58.75 £11.75 £17.62 £34.07 £52.87 £17.62 £57.57 £123.37

£11.13 £12.99 £20.41 £33.40 £39 £25 £32 £49 £46 £45 £20 £19 £29 £45 £95 £19 £69 £46 £46 £145 £10 £33 £59 £18 £29 £49 £79 £199 £49 £85 £15 £50 £10 £15 £29 £45 £15 £49 £105

£35.25 £76.37 £41.12 £29.37 £29.37 £88.12 £57.57 £52.87 £428.87 £99.87

£30 £65 £35 £25 £25 £75 £49 £45 £365 £85

1

MEMORY CARDS GUIDE PRICES WHICH MEMORY FORMAT?

Almost all new digicams come with some sort of removeable storage, usually in the form of flash memory cards. Flash memory cards use solid state chips to store image files. Unfortunately, there is no standard format as yet although CompactFlash and SmartMedia cards are leading the market. CompactFlash cards, developed by SanDisk, are about the size of a matchbook whereas SmartMedia cards are smaller because they are no more than a flash chip on a card and contain none of the controllers or supporting circuitry. As far as performance goes there is nothing really between the different flash cards (Sony Memory Sticks, MultiMedia Cards and PC Cards also use flash memory), the main thing is to check that the digicam you buy will support one even if there isn't one included in the package. To be honest, even if your camera comes with an 8Mb card, you will probably want to buy at least a 16Mb card or higher for a 3megapixel camera.

CompactFlash CompactFlash CompactFlash CompactFlash Card Reader Card Reader Card Reader Memory Stick Memory Stick Smart Media Smart Media CompactFlash CompactFlash CompactFlash CompactFlash Card Readers Card Readers CompactFlash CompactFlash CompactFlash Smart Media Smart Media Smart Media SD SD SD SD SD CompactFlash Card Readers Smart Media Smart Media XD XD XD XD Smart Media Smart Media Smart Media

BATTERIES A(A/C ADAPTORS/CHARGERS/BATTERY PACKS) GUIDE PRICES Adaptor Battery Battery Battery Battery Adapter Adapter Adapter Battery Adapter

142

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Hewlett-Packard (HP) Canon Sanyo Sanyo Sanyo Sony Sony

HP AC adapter for 315 camera HP rechargeable Lithium-ion HP Lithium-ion battery C912 HP digital camera starter kit Powershot S10 battery Digicam 200 mains adaptor Digicam 300 XGA mains adaptor DigiCam 250/350/400 AC adaptor F950 camera battery Mavica Stamina battery charger

1

BATTERIES CONTINUED Type Battery Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Battery Battery Battery Battery Battery Battery Adaptor Battery Battery Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Battery Battery Adaptor Battery Adaptor Adaptor Battery Adaptor Adaptor Battery Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Battery Battery Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Battery Battery Battery Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Battery Battery Battery Battery Adaptor Battery Adaptor Battery Battery Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Adaptor Battery Adaptor Batteries Batteries Batteries Batteries Batteries Batteries

Brand Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta Minolta Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Nikon Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Fujifilm Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Olympus Konica Konica Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Canon Epson Epson Epson Epson

Product Name NP-FC10 battery For DSC-P5/P9 AC-LS1 AC Adapter Cybershot P ACVF50 F Series AC Charger BCVC10 C Series AC Dual Charge NP-22H NiCAD rechargeable battery Lithium-ion battery NP-F330 Lithium-ion CR2032 Electronic Lithium-ion AM4ST-E4 AAA Stamina 4 Pack AM3STE-BM BMW Stamina 2300/2330 Powerbox adaptor NI-MH Rechargeable batteries External battery Pack – Dimage MainsPower adapter AC Adapter – Dimage X CoolPix 900/950 mains adapter CoolPix 600 mains adapter Coolpix 880 Lithium-ion battery MBE5700 battery Pack EH-53 AC Adapter 4500 & 5700 MB5000 battery Pack – CP5000 BC-80 Fast battery charger 3V camera AC adaptor 2HR-3UF rechargeable battery BK-NH fast battery charger DX-9/MX-700 Lithium-Ion battery Rechargeable battery AR-FX9 adaptor ring NP-60 rechargeable battery DIMO Adaptor C-1400L AC adapter Battery charger + batteries C-1400 battery C2000/2500 AC adaptor C2000 CLA adaptor C-21 AC adaptor C960z AC Adapter E10 battery pack Grip&Charger E10 rechargeable battery NHE rechargeable battery pack Li-Po battery charger Kit C-6AC Adaptor for Digi cameras C-3AC adaptor for C-1 C-1 zoom BU-60SE overnight charger 4 x NiMH rechargeable batteries AA battery Holder (E-Series) Lithium battery (1 Pack) Lithium batteries (2 Pack) Battery charger (E Series) E10 battery Holder – B-HLD10 AC adapter for KD400z Spare battery for the KD400Z Rechargeable batteries A10/20 S30/S40 battery charger Battery charger for Ixus AC power adaptor for S30/S40 ACK500 power supply DC coupler MV550i battery Pack A40 – compact power adaptor Kit CBC-NB1 Ixus in-car battery XM1/XL1 – battery pack BP930 PhotoPC 700 battery PhotoPC 700 battery/charger pack PhotoPC 800 AC adaptor PC850 battery

Inc VAT £317.25 £45.82 £35.25 £69.32 £57.57 £41.12 £34.07 £1.76 £3.52 £3.52 £35.25 £12.92 £186.82 £49.35 £45.82 £52.87 £52.87 £38.99 £116.32 £41.12 £119.85 £52.87 £29.37 £9.40 £52.86 £41.12 £34.07 £25.85 £34.07 £81.07 £64.62 £69.32 £17.62 £64.62 £19.97 £61.10 £41.12 £581.62 £287.87 £52.87 £527.57 £45.82 £45.82 £29.37 £14.10 £17.62 £10.57 £17.62 £264.37 £19.97 £45.82 £29.37 £15.27 £34.07 £34.07 £34.07 £135.12 £61.10 £25.85 £37.60 £76.37 £17.62 £57.57 £51.70 £52.87

Ex VAT £270 £39 £30 £59 £49 £35 £29 £1.50 £3 £3 £30 £11 £159 £42 £39 £45 £45 £33.19 £99 £35 £102 £45 £25 £8 £44.99 £35 £29 £22 £29 £69 £55 £59 £15 £55 £17 £52 £35 £495 £245 £45 £449 £39 £39 £25 £12 £15 £9 £15 £225 £17 £39 £25 £13 £29 £29 £29 £115 £52 £22 £32 £65 £15 £49 £44 £45

MORE ABOUT MEMORY CARDS The number of photos you can fit on, say, an 8Mb card depends on the file size of the images; and the file size of the images depends on a number of factors such as resolution, compression, colours, camera model and the shooting conditions. For example, on the HP PhotoSmart 318 (a 2.2megapixel camera), you will get seven best-quality shots on the 8Mb card supplied, but, on the Nikon CoolPix 995 (a 3.4megapixel camera), you will only get one shot on its 16Mb card if you go for full size and highest resolution setting. Compression formats can reduce file sizes by ten-fold and more, enabling you to carry more images on your card, often with very little overall loss in quality.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

143

SUBSCRIPTIONS OFFER DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

24 issues free when you Everything you need to know about digital photography in one magazine! ● All for £11.22 every 3 months* ● Each issue comes with 2 CD-ROMs packed with complete software

● Never miss an issue – delivered to your door free of charge

● Money-back guarantee means you can cancel your subscription at any time – no questions asked!

2 Take advantage of this special introductory offer and call Order Code DCMP01

subscribe by Direct Debit! That’s a massive saving of £19.96!

We’re here to help you take and create better photos. We’re the only magazine that covers every aspect of digital photography from buying and utilising the kit, to visiting the best places to use it ● Yes, I would like to receive the next 13 issues of Digital Camera Magazine for the price of 9* UK Direct Debit – 13 issues for the price of 9 £11.22 every 3 months

Mrs

Originators identification number

UK £49.90 – 13 issues free for the price of 10

7 6 8 1 9 5

ROW £80.00

● Your details Title Mr

ES!

Instruction to your bank or building society to pay direct debit

Cheque/credit card – 13 issues USA/EUROPE £76.63

F O U R FREE ISSU

1. Name and full postal address of your bank or building society branch

Ms

Initials________________Surname___________________________

To: The Manager

Address _______________________________________________________________________

____________________________________bank/building society

______________________________

Postcode_______________ Country ______________

Address_________________________________________________

Tel no. (inc STD) __________________

Email address_________________________________

● Method of payment I understand that I will receive 13 issues over the next 12 months Direct Debit (UK only) I would like to pay £11.22 every 3 months

_______________________________________________________ ________________________________Postcode________________ 2. Name(s) of account holder(s) 3. Branch sort code (from the top right-hand corner of your cheque)

4. Bank or building society account number

Switch

5. Instruction to your bank or building society

Mastercard

VISA

American Express

Card no. Expiry date

/

Switch only: Valid date

/

Please pay Future Publishing Direct Debits from the account detailed on this Instruction subject to the safeguards assured by the Direct Debit Guarantee. I understand that this instruction may remain with Future Publishing and, if so, details will be passed electronically to my bank or building society

✁

Cheque (£ sterling drawn on a UK bank account payable to Digital Camera Magazine)

Issue no. Signature(s) ___________________________________ Date ____________

Signature ______________________________________________________________ Please tick here if you do not wish to receive mail from third parties

Ref No (Office use only)_____________________________________________ Banks and building societies may not accept Direct Debit Instructions or some types of account

Send to: Digital Camera Magazine UK: Future Publishing FREEPOST BS4900, Somerton, Somerset, TA11 6BR Overseas: Future Publishing, Cary Court, Somerton, TA11 6TB, UK Order Code DCMP01

Offer Ends 20.11.02 *Based on Direct Debit payment option

our hotline now on 0870 444 8680

Q

Overseas no: +44 1458 271100 Fax: +44 1225 822523

NEXT STEPS NEXT ISSUE On sale everywhere from 21 November

Why two’s better than one So you think you’ve mastered digital photography, eh? Time to take a look at this cool way of generating 3D images with two cameras and a bit of luck…

S

tereoscopic photography is one particular photo format which, in our opinion, shouldn't be off the beaten track, but in the mainstream. The principle is simple – it's the visual equivalent of stereo sound but, instead of a pair of audio channels, a pair of photographs are taken using a stereo camera, a pair of conventional cameras, or one camera. Two photos are taken 6cm (two-and-a-half inches) apart, corresponding to the distance the eyes are apart. The photos are presented side by side and can be viewed using a stereo viewer or, if projected, using special glasses. The viewer or glasses ensure that the left eye sees only the left picture and the right eye sees only the right picture. It's also easy to view them using the naked eye, similar to 'Magic Eye' pictures. The effect is a stunning sensation of depth and hyper-reality. Interiors appear as they do in reality, with a feeling of volume and depth. Shiny, shimmery surfaces look especially stunning. Our eyes are used to seeing things from two slightly different viewpoints – we are used to the effects, such as differing reflections. All in all, when you return to flat, or two-dimensional photography, the effect is, quite frankly, flat. Stereo photography dates from the earliest origins of photography. It was all the rage in the midVictorian era after Queen Victoria tried it at the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was bumped out of fashion by moving pictures. Stereo was brought back into vogue in the 1950s with the craze for technical innovations. Many stereo

PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTRIBUTORS (Where not credited inside) Future Network Photo Studio, Getty Images UK ART CONTRIBUTORS Andrew Mclaughlin/AMC Art, Boss Model Agency, Last Refuge Limited

Stereo photograph of the Angel of the North, Gateshead. Two photographs were taken around one metre apart, giving a hyperstereo effect cameras and the Viewmaster viewer are a product of this era. Again, they were usurped as a method of viewing the world by television, and later video. Stereo photography has always been hindered by the necessity to use some piece of gadgetry or other to view the pictures. Today, developments in digital technology present exciting new possibilities. Digital imaging is particularly well suited to editing and presenting stereo photography. Stereo photography is still largely a mystery to the mainstream population and its potential remains unexploited. We can remember the time when digital photography was seen in this light, so maybe it's time for stereo photography to make a big comeback…

Looking to buy a new camera? Look no further as we put a massive 21 cameras through their paces, and reveal the best. Plus we compare six of the newest CD-RW drives, bring you a bunch of essential Photoshop tips and show you how to take great Christmas photos

● Don’t forget to reserve a copy of Digital Camera Magazine at your newsagent, or subscribe

146

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

SPECIAL THANKS TO Peter Bargh and the team at ePhotozine.com, Minolta UK, the team at Longleat, Sally, Dabs.com, Gareth at Boss Models

ADVERTISING [t] 020 7317 2600 Michelle Blackwell Ad Manager [e] [email protected] Darren Gratton Deputy Ad Manager [e] [email protected]

NEW MEDIA

Experimental stereo camera setup using two Minolta Dimage X digital cameras mounted side by side

● 21 digital cameras on test, from £100-£700!

See page 144 for more details

EDITORIAL & ART Nick Merritt Managing Editor [e] [email protected] Dylan Channon Senior Art editor [e] [email protected] Richard Llewellyn Art Editor [e] [email protected] Elizabeth Raderecht Operations Editor EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS Steve Bavister, Rob Mead, Aidan O’Rourke, Pete Martin, Paul Pettengale, Alistair Dabbs, Will Smith, Rob Carney, Steve Jarratt, Nick Peers, Mark Swallow, George Cairns, Ed Davis, Tim Daly, Simon Danaher, Joe Cassels, Matthew Richards

2 Next month – on sale 21 November 2 2 2

Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW [t] 01225 442244 [w] www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk Customer services [t] 01458 271 100

James Brown Group New Media Manager [e] [email protected] Jeremy Ford Senior Disc Editor [e] [email protected] James Guest New Media Development [e] [email protected] Steve Pashley Online Editor [e] [email protected]

CIRCULATION AND MARKETING Clare Tovey Production Manager Diane Ross Production Coordinator Mike Thorne Team Buyer Jamie Malley Circulation Manager Fiona Tully Marketing Manager Marie Spicer Subscriptions Executive

SENIOR MANAGEMENT Dave Taylor Publisher John Weir Publishing Director Colin Morrison Managing Director Greg Ingham CEO Printed in England © Future Publishing Ltd 2002

2 FREE CDs Look out for 2 CD-ROMs, 8 pages of events and inspiration to Getup&go to, and 5 more tips cards!

Disclaimer Getup&go section, tear-out factsheets and gatefold covers are published in UK editions of the magazine only. All contributions to Digital Camera Magazine are accepted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide licence to publish or license others to do so, unless otherwise agreed in advance in writing. We reserve the right to edit letters. We cannot accept liability for mistakes or misprints, or any damage to equipment or possessions arising from use of this publication, its discs or software ■ Due to unforeseen circumstances, it may sometimes be necessary to make last-minute changes to advertised content, for mag and discs.

A photo opportunity.

iPhoto – Edit, share, print and organise. Picture your digital images beautifully organised

Combined with service

Digital cameras are revolutionising the way we take pictures. Now, Apple provides the missing link to the way we save, organise, share and enjoy them. iPhoto lets you import your pictures from your digital camera, organise them, edit and improve them, and share them in a number of different ways. And once you see what iPhoto can do with digital pictures, you may never go back to using a film camera again.

Our after-sales support service is designed to make your John Lewis experience even more positive. For example, the availability of installation professionals to help you set up your Apple computer and a free delivery service that saves you the hassle of carrying your purchase home yourself.

All under one roof John Lewis department stores stock the whole OSX iPhoto-ready range including the Apple iBook, iMac and Power Mac G4 series, in fact any Apple product, including a wide range of monitors, printers, scanners and other accessories.

Satisfaction guaranteed As well as the John Lewis reputation for quality and value to give you peace of mind, we offer a free 2-year guarantee with every Apple computer as standard*. * See in store for details

iPhoto is included with all OSX ready Macs

Apple trained Regular customers know that they can talk to knowledgeable, helpful staff at John Lewis. That is why we ensure that our sales staff are fully trained by Apple on an ongoing basis, so you can rest assured that you will get the best product to suit your needs.

If you want to know more, then visit your nearest John Lewis shop.

www.johnlewis.com

WHICH DO YOU WANT: STYLE OR PERFORMANCE?

WHY COMPROMISE?

■ Powered by the new 3rd Generation Super CCD sensor for outstanding picture quality and unrivalled movie performance ■ Unbeatable colour and low noise - even in the lowest light ■ 3.1 million effective pixels (producing 6.0 million recorded pixels) ■ High sensitivity (ISO 160-1600*) & ultra-low noise ■ Precision 3x Super EBC zoom lens ■ Full photographic control ■ High-resolution VGA movie capture ■ Easy picture transfer and battery recharge with included USB PictureCradleTM (Premium Kit) *1280x960 mode only

THE FUJIFILM FINEPIX F601 ZOOM www.fujifilm.co.uk/di | 020 7586 1477