WORKFLOW

DIGITAL SNAPSHOTS

By PETER WEINBERGER

The big advantage of using a digital camera is the flexibility when showing your images. With practice, it's easy to display your pictures in print, e-mail, even on a TV set. Because of all these options, having a consistent workflow when managing photos is critical. Here are some guidelines.

Shooting and importing

Do as little editing in the camera as possible. Unless your memory card is full, use the camera's monitor to check composition, not to delete images. When importing images on a computer, download all of them. It's far easier and quicker to delete images once you see the entire take.

Organizing

Most digital cameras come with software to import, view and edit images. Although this software is not very robust, you can do basic editing. For less than $100, you can buy far better software like Adobe PhotoShop Elements 3.0.

Correction

There are three key things you can do to have a big impact on your image quality.

• Adjust your contrast. Most digital images tend to be flat. The best way is by using "levels" on your editing software.

• Sharpen the image. You can increase sharpening levels in some cameras, but I recommend using editing software.

• Save the original unedited image. All photographers make mistakes, or try things that do not work when correcting an image. By using "save as" you save the original and the newly corrected photo.

Sharing your photos

Now you are ready to decide what method suits you best. Be prepared to reduce the size of an image if sending with an e-mail. Many programs will do this for you automatically.