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The Digital Photography Book

The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos

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PC Photo Digital SLR Handbook

Photoshop Elements 5 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter Series)

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How to Use a Zoom Lens

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Common Digital Photo Pitfalls

How to Take Great Digital Photos

The key to taking photos that people really want to look at (as opposed to dull snapshots) is learning composition, the technique of arranging objects in the frame, or two-dimensional plane, of your photo. Once you’ve learned composition, you’ll have a stronger sense of which of your photos deserve to be edited and shared with others. The following six-step approach will help you develop your eye for good photos and make your own shots look more professional, interesting, and unique.

Step 1: Select a Subject

Most people take very similar photos, such as close-ups of loved ones, or snapshots of special events, such as birthday parties. To take more interesting photos:

Choose different subjects: Take photos of subjects you wouldn’t ordinarily consider shooting. For instance, shoot food, objects in nature, or strangers you encounter in public places (ask permission first, of course).
Put familiar subjects in new situations: If you always take photos of your pets, for example, take them somewhere new with interesting surroundings.
Choose a theme: Photographers often find it helpful to impose some structure on the subjects they shoot. For example, the photographer William Wegman has built his career photographing Weimaraner dogs almost exclusively. Pick a theme and stick to it for a while, then change it up to vary your subject matter.

Step 2: Frame the Subject

Photographers use the term framing to refer to the arrangement of:

The borders, or edges, of a photo
The objects within those borders

Taking great photos often requires veering from conventional framing approaches, such as centering every subject you shoot or always using a horizontal frame (shooting with the camera parallel to the horizon, rather than rotating it to create a vertical frame). To improve your framing, consider:

Vertical vs. horizontal: Take into account which parts of the scene will be included (or excluded) if you shoot horizontally or vertically. If you can’t decide on a frame, shoot both and assess the results later.
Perspective: The physical position from which you shoot can affect the feeling expressed in your photograph. Don’t be afraid to move in extra close or get down on the ground to vary the perspective.
The rule of thirds: Imagine lines dividing the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically. The viewer’s eye is naturally attracted to the four points at which these lines meet. Photographers often place important elements of a composition in any of these four spots, rather than in the center of the frame.

Step 3: Take Lots of Photos

Since digital photography eliminates the expense and inconvenience of buying and changing rolls of film, there’s no reason to shoot sparingly. Buy a memory card that stores 1 gigabyte of data or more and carry an extra charged battery so that you can take hundreds of photos each time you head out to shoot. Shooting freely allows you to:

Get the right exposure: Since lighting conditions change and you (or your light meter) will make mistakes, taking lots of shots means you’ll probably get at least a few photos with just the right exposure.
Experiment with composition: Take dozens of shots from various perspectives and angles. Later, you can decide which composition you like the best.
Make people look their best: Photos are often ruined by blinking eyes, open mouths, turned heads, and so on. Take lots of shots to increase the likelihood of getting one shot with everything right.
Learn how to improve: Digital photos give you instant feedback on your composition and exposure technique. If you’re unsure of how to compose or expose a scene, take lots of shots and learn from the ones that work the best.

Step 4: Review Your Photos Onscreen

Never delete photos after reviewing them only on the camera’s tiny LCD screen. To review your shots fairly and effectively, you have to see them enlarged to their full size (or as close to full size as possible) on your computer screen. (To learn how to download and view your photos onscreen, see How to Manage Your Digital Photos.)

Step 5: Choose Your Best Photos

Professional photographers often take hundreds, or even thousands, of shots in a single shoot but keep just a dozen or so. Apply the same discipline to your own shooting and you’ll end up with a compact photo collection that features only your best shots. You always have the option to keep all of your photos (since today’s hard drives can hold millions of them), but focus your attention on editing, perfecting, printing, and sharing only the best.

Step 6: Edit Your Photos

Digital photographers use computers and photo-editing software to do the meticulous work that film photographers once did in the darkroom. The goal of editing your photos is to perfect them for display online or in print. This usually entails:

Resizing the dimensions of the photo
Adjusting colors
Removing flaws and mistakes, such as dust marks
Adjusting brightness and contrast

Your camera likely came with editing software that allows you to do basic edits, such as cropping and resizing. For a more extensive array of editing options, including various filters and special effects that can make your photos look more professional, consider buying software such as Adobe Photoshop Elements (www.adobe.com/products) or Corel Paint Shop Pro (www.corel.com).

Make Copies of Your Photos Before You Edit

Before you begin editing your digital photos, make copies of the original files and edit only the copies. This way you can always restore the original file if you need to do so.

Acknowledgments & Disclaimer