Taking Digital Camera Photos
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios

If you’re one of the millions upon millions who’ve purchased the next word in photography, then you’re probably also busying yourself with taking gobs of digital camera photos. However, while focusing and clicking may be exciting, if you truly wish to spice things up, you’ll want to step into the “darkroom” of photography enhancement.

The truth is that digital camera photos can be enhanced in ways limited only by the imagination. We’ve all seen the amazing things that Hollywood has done with innumerable movies. Everything from people flying, to transforming into giant insects or other strange creatures (we’ve come a long way since the golden era of movies when a man turning into wolfman, while worthy of our temporary awe, was still a bit hokey looking). This latter-day Hollywood technology, much of it developed by George Lucas and other ‘wizards’ of cinematography is merely an advanced form of what we can do with our digital camera photos.

The first thing you’ll want to do is ensure that you have the proper software. This is relatively inexpensive and can best be determined by what type of camera and type of computer you own. Ensure that whichever photo (let’s start with just one initially) is not changed in any way once you’ve downloaded it to your computer and erased it from your camera or memory card. The reason for this is that your digital camera photos are unique and by changing the original, you’ll always have to work from a copy that you may not be able to remedy back to the exact form of the original. Thus, for all of your new, reworked digital camera photos, keep files with names that are distinctly different from the names of the originals.

With a copy, open your digital camera photos’ editing program. My recommendation is that you play around for awhile, without any expectations. Very quickly you’ll learn that you can add and remove many things. This includes lines, colors, streaks, bubbles, wrinkles, patinas of every color imaginable, whatever your heart fancies.

One nice affect is to convert your photos to black and white. This can be for artistic reasons, or simply to age your digital camera photos. Ways in which you can add to this are by adding “noise,” specifically graininess, and even contrived “mistakes” in developing that older photos were so prone to.

Another effect that is common is to add a single color to the overall photograph, as though it were photographed with a color filter, such as a winter scene that has a fine blue aura throughout. In fact, any filter effect that you can think of can be replicated on your computer. For instance, starring, in which lights are made to radiate rays of light out from their source. As well, haloes and rainbows are two other popular effects.

Further, you can crop your pictures so that they can fit into any medium that you desire –this is to say, with any outline shape, rather than a traditional square or rectangular shape -such as that of a bird or a bat. Additionally, shadows can be lengthened, darkened, or lightened. Blemishes on the faces of people can be lightened or even removed. Or they can be added, for comical effect. The limits of your imagination are the only demarcation to possibility. And the greatest aspect to all of this? You can save the changes that you so desire to keep.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.