Here is a compiled list of digital photography related software you can find in the market today.

Alteration of photos/graphics

Irfan View – Free and simple program. With this program not only can you change the way your graphics look but you can also create slide shows, cut and crop your graphics and convert your graphics and more. Ideal for batch processing.

Kodak EasyShare Software – A popular software program for editing, sharing and printing your pictures is the new which makes it even easier to organize, print and share your digital pictures.

ImageForge – ImageForge is a freeware image editor with painting and editing tools. Allows you to import images from scanners and digital cameras, apply special effects filters, and create photo albums and slideshows. Although this is teaser program for the shareware ImageForge PRO, it’s probably a few steps above Microsoft Paint.

VCW Vicman’s Photo Editor – This award-winning graphic editor offers a variety of painting and editing tools and features including a text tool, gradients, selections by color or region, color replacement, editing in any scale, special effects and so on. This free version is an enticement to upgrade to the Pro version for $29.95 US, so you can expect to put up with nag screens.

PhotoFiltre – Although it’s fairly limited in features, PhotoFiltre offers a simple, but elegant user interface and a lot of one-click image adjustments, filters, and effects. There is a built in image explorer panel for visually navigating your file system, basic drawing, painting, retouching and selection tools, and batch processing capabilities.

Ultimate Paint – Ultimate Paint is available in both shareware and freeware versions for image creation, viewing, and manipulation. It has been designed to be fast and compact, and if you’re familiar with the old Deluxe Paint program from Electronic Arts, Ultimate Paint is said to be very similar. The freeware version is an older release of the full-featured shareware product.

Picasa – Picasa is free software from Google that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures ? you can email, print photos home, make gift CDs, instantly share via Hello?, and even post pictures on your own blog.

Sherif Photo Plus – Serif has long been giving away previous versions of their software to entice users to purchase the current version. Currently you can download a completely free, fully-functional version of PhotoPlus 5.5, or order a CD and pay only shipping costs. PhotoPlus 5.5 features an export optimizer, editable text, image slicing and image maps, selection tools, smart shapes, and image enhancement tools.

Pixia – This is the English version of a popular free painting and retouching software that originated in Japan. It features custom brush tips, multiple layers, masking, vector- and bitmap-based drawing tools, color, tone, and lighting adjustments, and multiple undo/redo. Like many freeware editors, there is no support for saving GIF format. Also available for many other languages. http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia/download.htm

ADG Panorama Tools 5.0 – This program lets you from a series of photos quickly and easily generate, edit & embed publish 360 degrees interactive panoramic composition on the Web. ADG Panorama can be viewed through ADG Java Viewer 4.0 that eliminates any plug-in installation and gives a platform independent use on the Internet.

Make 3D images from 2D graphics! – PhotoModeler Lite is a program that allows you to extract measurements and 3D models from photos. To use it, you simply need to take several photos of a scene or an object and open them in the program. Then mark each photo with the mouse, tracing and tagging features of interest. The program combines the photos and locates the marked features in 3D, and then creates 3D points, 3D lines, surface meshes, and cylinders. These may then be exported in DXF, 3DS, and VRML formats. Don’t worry if you don’t quite understand it, the included tutorial will help you through each step.

Picture Shark ? This program allows you to “stamp” visible logos or text on their image files. Features include: Wizard-like interface, making it easy to use; the ability to create real watermarks; the ability to choose transparent color, opacity, position and much more; a “feather”-feature to make the edges between the stamp and the picture smarter; very fast (processing hundreds of pictures each minute); support for different output formats and quality settings; and WYSIWYG preview-mode for all settings. http://www.picture-shark.com/index.htm

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Before Digital Cameras ever came to be, most of you probably owned a standard 35mm camera with an attachable flash, like my old Nikon F1, which I foolishly sold on Ebay. If you did own one of those, and you were very adept in photography, you’ll recall thatlittle nob at the bottom of the camera with a series of numbers from B1…to 4000 ASA/ISO.Simply put, when you bought film which was rated 400 ASA, as an example, you would adjust the nob to reflect an ASA reading of 400 in the small window pane aligned with a small, usually, red arrow.

The point of all this is the following; when you bring your knew digital camera to any large event, it is totally pointless to be using the built-in flash, although you see it all the time by the 100s of flickering lights. The built-in flash is much to small to have any effect when you’re 100s of feet from your subject.

Since cameras list the effectiveness of a flash measured in distance or range (3′ – 9′ etc.), you really have to be very close to the subject for the flash to be fullyeffective.

The ISO designation you should know, is a measure used for light sensitivity. For example, a film with a rating of ISO1000 (considered fast film) is much more sensitive to light than a film with a rating of ISO100, and therefore is better able to capture images in dark surrounding areas. Actually, if you were really good in the old days, we used this to our advantage in combination with the aperture opening of the lens for some really awesome effects. But we won’t go there and stick with digital.

So to be understood, digital camera technology uses the same ISO system, but since no film is used, the variable light sensitivity is accomplished by amplifying the signal.Sound confusing! In electronics, as you amplify a signal, you amplify noise levels, such as in a radio which has a weak signal. So you turn it up only to hear more static in the background.

So it was, when you selected a digital camera with a high ISO rating,because the quality of the image was less than desirable. In the early days of digital cameras, this constituted a real problem.

Today, however, this so called noise has been so controlled, that you can buy a digital camera with a high ISO rating reducing the need for a flash…in other words the capability of taking pics from far distances without a flash. In addition, when you set your camera to ‘auto’, the camera will automatically set the ISO, the aperture opening of the lens, and shutter speed to create the best picture possible.

For more information on understanding how ISO works, make sure you read your manual or check with the manufacturer of your camera. If you don’t yet own a digital camera, here’s a tip; make sure you buy the highest megapixel possible. It cost much more but well worth the investment. You won’t regret it!

Digital cameras are dropping in price and everyone wants one. As early as five years ago the prices were prohibitive for even a basic model. If you wanted more options, you’d pay even more. These days, even the upgraded models are affordable. Digital photography is so easy and great, that it’s the only way to go!

When you are looking at getting a digital camera, there are several factors you need to consider. Typically most people who are looking into getting a digital camera already have a home computer. This is not entirely necessary though. Many printers are now available (at a very reasonable price) that offer the capabilities of being hooked up directly to your camera. You can print the pictures directly off of the camera and there is no need for a computer at all. You should check to make sure that all your equipment is compatible before purchasing anything. The best case scenario is using a home computer to load the pictures from your digital camera to your home PC. This way you can manipulate the pictures, upload them to a picture sharing website so you family and friends can view them, and print them off as well.

Resolution is a major factor to consider in your camera. Mega-pixels vary by camera, so it depends on your needs. They range from 2.0 to 12.0 mega-pixels. The average buyer wouldn’t need anything larger than 4, unless you wanted to blow your pictures up to a very large size. In general 3.0 to 4.0 mega-pixels are fine for most consumers, as these resolutions produce clear, beautiful pictures.

The other major factor for your consideration is the type of zoom to invest in. Digital zoom is a common property of digital cameras, but isn’t necessarily the best zoom. In fact the pictures can come out grainy looking. Optical zoom, although more costly, is a better choice. It gives a much higher quality result. If you don’t plan to use the zoom much, then sticking with the digital zoom will save you some money.

You may want to purchase extra memory by getting a memory card. Often the internal memory isn’t enough, especially if you’re taking a trip. Without the card, you may end up with only 30 pictures or so. Memory cards aren’t prohibitive in cost, and with it you will be able to store hundreds of pictures.

Your digital camera should come with software to help you edit and manipulate your pictures. Usually this software is fairly basic, but you can do some cool functions such as changing a color photo to black and white or sepia tones. With more sophisticated software you can even edit objects and people out of your pictures.

Hopefully, these ideas helped you to decide what model digital camera to buy. Some people find new technology intimidating, but the new models are so easy and rewarding that you definitely should purchase one!

About the Author

Joshua Beecham is the webmaster for FREY Photography, the #1 source on the internet for information about Photography. For more articles on Photography visit: http://www.freyphotography.com/articlesClick here for other unique photography articles. –

Composition and cropping are very basic digital photography tools that you can use hand-in-hand to produce stunning results. First you use composition to arrange the main elements of your photo in a pleasing manner. Then you use cropping to fine-tune the image by removing unwanted elements and further adjusting the composition. With practice, you can refine your shots to look as good as you imagined them when you pushed the shutter button.

First, let?s take a look at the most basic rule of composition, the rule of thirds: Imagine your viewfinder having a grid on it that looks like a tic-tac-toe game. Then arrange the elements of your shot so that the main element is not in the centre square. This is the rule of thirds in a nutshell and a good starting point for basic composition.

Next, let?s consider leading lines: If there is an element in your shot like a fence or roadway, consider using this element to lead your viewer?s eye into the photograph. These kinds of elements work well when arranged on a diagonal to run from lower left to upper right, or lower right to upper left. You could also shoot from the centre of a roadway, and let it take up the whole bottom, tapering towards the upper centre?this breaks (or at least bends) the rule of thirds, but we will talk about that next.

Now, you know that rules are made to be broken, so let?s take a look at how to break the rule of thirds. The first thing to remember is to trust your eye and your instincts: if it looks good dead centre, shoot it that way. Certain types of shots lend themselves to centre composition. For example: shots of calm water that perfectly reflect the landscape above?quite often the reflection is just as compelling as the landscape, so why not give them equal billing?

Note: If there are any distracting elements in your shot?that you just cannot compose out?try to keep them towards the outside of your shot. This will allow you to remove them with post-shot cropping.

Another thing to keep in mind when composing your shots is variety?the more raw material you have to work with, the better. Compose your shots in several different ways: with your main subject in the lower third; in the upper third; left of centre; right of centre; with the camera tipped on its end etc. Digital photography is great in this respect: you can shoot as many photos as you want at virtually no extra cost, so why not take advantage?

Now, cropping: Once you have your digital photos home and are looking at them on your computer screen, take a look at each shot and ask yourself ?is there anything in this shot that doesn?t need to be there? If the answer is yes?and it quite often is?crop it out. If you have managed to keep distracting elements towards the outside of your shot (as recommended earlier in this article,) it is a simple matter of cutting away a bit on the outside of the image to get the shot you want.

It is also a good idea to take a closer look at the overall composition at this point: Is the image composed just the way you would like it? Is the image focused enough on your main subject? If not, don?t be afraid to crop it down a bit more. The beauty of working with digital image files is that you can experiment, if you don?t like what you get, you can start over and try again.

With today?s digital cameras sporting more and more megapixels of resolution, there?s no reason to be afraid of cropping, cropping, cropping. So compose with care and variety, then crop till you get that masterpiece you imagined when you pushed the shutter button.

With the acceptable image quality and the other advantages of digital photography the majority of professional news photographers have begun capturing their images with digital cameras. Digital photography has also been adopted by many amateur snapshot photographers, who take advantage of the convenience of the form when sending images by email, placing them on the World Wide Web, or displaying them in digital picture frames.

Also, one big advantage of digital photography is the instant review of pictures, with no wait for the film to be developed: if there’s a problem with a picture, the photographer can immediately correct the problem and take another picture (up to hundreds of photographs on the same media device). Digital cameras have also been integrated into many cell phones. The photographer is able to color-balance and manipulate the image in ways that traditional darkroom science cannot offer, although film users can utilize the same technology with a film scanner. But digital cameras also tend to be much more sensitive to moisture and extreme cold. For this reason, photographers who work in remote areas, such as those who work for National Geographic overwhelmingly favor film SLR cameras. Many digital cameras can deliver only JPEG files.

Another format that may be encountered is RAW, which contain unprocessed image data straight from the camera’s image sensor. Compact digital cameras usually include zoom lens and flashes that cannot be changed, but digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR), operates on the same optical and mechanical principles as a film single-lens reflex camera, and offers the possibility to change lenses. Recent manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon have promoted the adoption of digital Single-lens reflex cameras (dSLRs) by photojournalists. Lenses in digital photography can be Telephoto lenses, Wide-angle lenss or Normal lenss, used for landscapes, portraits and close-ups (macros). Digital anti-shake tools (also called Image Stabilisation) allow taking sharp hand-held pictures where previously a tripod was required. Digital SRLs work also with RAW images containing unprocessed image data straight from the camera?s image sensor. Since the data isn?t processed on the camera the photographer will do so on the computer in order to get it into more usable formats like TIFF or JPEG. This method offers flexibility of the results regarding exposure, lighting, white balance, contrast, colours and saturation as well as greater creative control of the image.

From Canon, good compact cameras the Powershot A series, such as A520, A620, A700 and others, main difference between them being their megapixel image resolution and optical zoom. Canon PowerShot S3 IS is a type of camera that moves a step forward from compact to dSLR. As for the SLR?s and dSRLs, Canon comes with the Rebels: Digital Rebel XT, Canon EOS 200D, and Canon EOS 30D. Nikon is considered to be as good as Canon but sometimes cheaper: Nikon D40, Nikon D200, and Nikon D70. Other notable cameras are Olympus E-330, Fuji FinePix S9100, FujiFilm Finepix E900, Sony Cybershot DSC-W100, HP Photosmart R967 and many many others. Choosing a digital camera can be very difficult and the techniques are in constant progress so that these cameras get better and better, more and more powerful but still smaller, therefore some of them received the name ?pocket camera?.

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One of the biggest benefits of digital photography over regular film picture taking is the fact these little devices actually give a photographer instant access to many different special effects. One of the most spectacular of these effects is the ability digital photography gives to switch instantly from color to black and white exposures. Rather than having to change out film types or drain color from a shot on a computer screen, digital photography does this on the spot.

The truth is black and white photography tends to be under-rated. When it?s used to create an impact with a shot, the resulting image can be amazing. Landscapes, portraits and even still life type shots can all benefit from an occasional switch over to black and white. Learning how to take full advantage of this digital photography technique, however, will take a little time.

This type of digital photography can be a little tricky to master, but since the cameras generally come equipped with monitors to instantly see results, the risk factor of walking away with a bad shot is minimized. Since pictures can be reviewed on the spot, anyone trying this digital photography technique will find they can see their pictures and make adjustments instantly if the shot isn?t quite what they?d hoped for.

To make the most of black and white pictures taken on a digital camera, there are several tips beginners can try. These tips do translate to regular film photography, as well.

See the shot
This is a very important technique for black and white digital photography and even color. It?s important to really pay attention to what the camera sees and shows before snapping the shot. In black and white digital photography, the monitor will likely switch over to black and white mode, which makes this even easier. Practice paying attention to the images as they are presented and make sure the image presented is the one you want before you shoot. If you learn to rely on the monitor or the view finder, you?ll know when more light is needed, when subjects need to be moved or even when it?s best if you move yourself.

Contrast is everything
Since black and white digital photography doesn?t rely on color to tell the story, the contrast of shades will need to be relied upon. This is one of the most important black and white shooting tips to learn. It is important to make sure subjects stand out even more so in black and white than in color. While a dark blue shirt might look awesome against a dark green setting in color, it will likely get lost in the shuffle in black and white.

Play with lighting
While that dark shirt and dark background can present problems in contrast, lighting can help fix the issue. The best way to master lighting for this type of digital photography is to play around and be willing to experiment to see what works and what doesn?t. Try using the black and white settings in all kinds of situations to really master what needs to be done under different circumstances to effectively light up a shot.