- Miscellaneous photo tips - by travel authority Howard Hillman

After your trip

photo tips for digital camera travelers

photo tips

What to do

when you return -

tips & insights

Megabyte emails

Some travelers not only email their friends megabyte photos, they also send loads of them. People using slow dial-up internet access hate this for good reason - it ties up their modems for lengthy periods. Even people with high-speed access seldom appreciate mega emails.

Solution: Choose only a few photos for emailing. Then, convert them into a medium-smaller pixel-sized photo (800x600 or 640x480 are popular sizes) - and use a resolution of no more than 72 dots per inch (dpi).

Finer specifications will not improve a photo's clarity on a computer monitor (but they will on a printer).

Moreover, a non-sized-down photo may be too large to be viewed on a monitor without scrolling.

Slide shows

Don't put your audience to sleep. Cull your photos and present only the very best. Make sure each tells an interesting story (one that fascinates your audience, not just yourself). And minimize the boring braggadocio shots of you standing in front of one landmark after another.

Inadvertent overwriting

If your camera assigns numeric filenames for your photos, be careful that you don't accidentally overwrite old photo on your computer disk with a new one because they both have the same numeric filename.

JPEG photo editing

Each time you save a JPEG photo, it loses some of its sharpness, even if you didn't make any changes. Therefore, make sure the JPEG photo you are editing is a copy of the original. Then, don't save that copy until after you have made all your edits. (Note: TIFF files maintain their sharpness even after numerous saves).

Printing

Glossy paper - It gives photos a snazzy look. However, glossy-paper photos require more careful storage than the standard-paper kind. They are more vulnerable, for example, to long-term fading. Store them in a cool, dark, place.

Print price - When choosing a photo processing service, don't go by price alone. Some services keep their prices low by using low quality paper and inks, which could detrimentally affect color, sharpness and print longevity.

Archiving

Do it promptly - The longer you wait, the fuzzier your memory becomes about the details of each photo.

Selectivity - Archiving all your photos creates clutter, making it more difficult to find the photos you may want to retrieve in the future.

Naming - Bestow meaningful names to your archived files - and, categorize them by place, date or whatever makes sense for your needs.

Location - Don't store your archived photos on a memory card or on your computer's hard drive. Save them on less vulnerable media such as a CD disk.

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photo tips & insights