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Toward a Better Computing Experience |
Wil Wakely, President, Seniors Computer Group, California January 2011 issue, Bits and Bytes, The Official Electronic Newsletter of the Seniors Computer Group www.SCGsd.org wilw(at)adnc.com |
The advent of the digital camera, about 1990, marked the demise of the film camera, much to the displeasure of Eastman Kodak. Digital technology allows the average amateur photographer the ability to manipulate the image very easily with his computer, even better than the skilled dark-room professional of yore.
Each digital pixel is a tiny area of the picture, so the more pixels available, the more detail the picture contains. Modern cameras have 10 megapixels or more (10 million pixels) which provide pictures almost as detailed as film, a difference hardly discernable by the naked eye. Also, the picture is shown on the LCD display on the back of the camera so you know immediately whether the shot is what you wanted. Automatic focus and exposure settings are welcome features of modern cameras and eliminate the confusing settings of film cameras. Small “Point-and-shoot” cameras now take great pictures with no operator skill required.
Even cell phones now come with built-in digital cameras.
Unlike film cameras, many more pictures are taken since the cost of each digital image is zero. As a result, the size of photo albums has exploded with the greater number of photos being stored on DVDs for posterity, or on a free Internet web site to be shared with friends.
There are now many computer programs available for modifying the image, from simple ones like “Picture-it” to powerful ones like “Photoshop,” with many others in between. Perhaps the most common one is Picasa, a free program from Google. It provides common photo fixes like cropping, brightness and contrast adjustments, along with many other more subtle controls. It also categorizes and stores your photos for rapid retrieval. Be sure to download this marvelous program from the Google web site.
We can now digitize older photos so they can be modified and stored with ease. There are many scanners on the market to convert your photo to a digital file, whether it is from a photograph, 35mm slide, or film. A scanner will also let you convert a page of text to a digital file that a word processor can read and edit. A separate program called an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is necessary to make the conversion from image to computer readable text file. These programs usually come bundled with the purchase of a scanner. A word of caution: scanning can be a very slow process so plan to do it while watching TV. A bevy of commercial scanning companies will convert your photos for prices ranging from five cents to fifty cents each, depending upon volume. Once they are in digital form, you can modify them at will and store them on DVDs.
Another word of caution: digital image files (JPG) can be huge and sending them by email can cause you to lose a lot of friends when their computer is tied up for a very long time while the large file is being received. Several programs are available that will reduce the file size suitable for email (<200KB) without losing much quality. One free program you can download that does this is called IrfanView: terrible name – wonderful program. Ain’t technology great!