Photo Storage

Have you ever wondered what all those resolution settings are all about on your digital camera? Have you wanted to get the best quality out of your camera but just don't know how to go about it? How about all those photographs stored on your computer? If these thoughts have entered your mind then this installment of Tips and Tricks is for you. In this entry I will be talking about what happens to the picture after you press the shutter button.

If you have been following along with my tutorials, then hopefully you are taking better pictures than you had previously. Now you are producing photographs with strong composition, good exposure, and vivid colors, but what now? First of all, we need to back track a bit...to before the picture was "snapped". You must determine how the file will be saved on the camera. This is not as easy as it sounds, until you understand what your choices are.

I will only be dealing with some of the basics that are likely to come up. Different cameras, and software will differ slightly, but if you know the basics, then you can adapt to your own specific set of variables. Lets look at file format first off. There are two basic types of file formats; lossy and lossless. Now don't go looking in your camera menus just yet...you won't find either of these words in there. They are broad groupings, not selections.

File Formats

Lossy formats are probably the most widely used file formats in digital photography for casual shooters. What lossy means, is that there is a certain amount of compression in the file when it is saved. You won't notice this on your camera LCD review screen, or on your computer monitor. Where you will notice it, is when you print the picture beyond a certain size. There is information that is lost when the file is compressed, and this shows as the print size gets larger. You will see less sharp edges, and blurring of colors.

Two of the most common lossy formats are JPEG and GIF. JPEG is the most widely used file format because nearly every program will read a JPEG file. It is quick to access and does not take up that much room. GIF is a limited use file format because it is limited to 256 colors and offers a lower quality image...even when viewed on the computer.

There are advantages to shooting JPEG in your digital camera. You will be ready to shoot much quicker than a photographer that is shooting with a lossless format. The camera doesn't need as much time to save the file. Downloading to the computer will be much quicker, and any editing will go quicker. The downside, will come when printing. You will probably not notice any degredation of quality up to about an 8x10, but beyond that, you will notice it. It will become more apparent earlier if you are printing from a heavily cropped image.

The other type of file format is the lossless type. As the name implies, this format does not lose any data due to compression. All the data that was originally captured will be in the saved file. Some common types of lossless formats are TIFF, BMP, and RAW. I have yet to see a camera that shoots in BMP, but it is a format that you can convert to later, as is PSD which is a Photoshop file format...also lossless. TIFF and RAW are going to be your primary selections when shooting. If both are lossless, then what is the difference you ask?...RAW captures the raw data without camera settings such as white balance, in camera sharpening, contrast, and saturation. All of this can be adjusted along with exposure values when converting. For the extra control you get with RAW, there is a bit more work involved.

The RAW file must be brought into a program that can "read" the RAW file. You then make you adjustments and convert it to one of the lossless formats. Those that enjoy working with Photoshop are more likely to reap the benefits of this format. Once converted, any other manipulations can be done with the image editor of your choice.

Speaking of conversion of files, just because you shoot in a lossless format doesn't mean you are stuck with a large sized file. For sending email, or even posting to the web, your pictures can be reduced in size and saved in a lossy format such as JPEG. This is how my workflow goes. I shoot in TIFF and then convert a copy image to JPEG at a much smaller size for posting on the web.

Compression Rates

Going along with file formats, you will be given a choice of rate of compression. These are usually "email", "normal", and "fine". There is not a whole lot of difference in these compression rates when it comes to the file size. Therefore I would recommend shooting at "fine" as it gives the least amount of compression to your file. You can compress more with post production if you need to, for email or web posting.

Camera Resolution

Now you know a little about the file formats, now what about resolution of the camera? The box it came in said it was a 5 Mega Pixel camera. So that means that it shoots at 5MP regardless of what resolution setting I use...right? Wrong. You are usually given the choice of several different resolutions to shoot at. The lowest is usually VGA (640x480 which represents the number of pixels present in the final image). This is just fine for viewing on the computer monitor, or a TV as this is the typical resolution of these devices.

You are also given the choice of 5MP and 3:2 aspect ratio. Both of these top choices are full resolution images, the difference is in the aspect ratio. The 3:2 will take a picture that will fit nicely in a 4x6 print with no cropping. The 5MP is more closely akin to an 8x10 print, and will also fill a computer monitor very well. These are the choices that use the top resolution of your camera and will give you the sharpest image possible when printing. If you plan on printing your pictures I would suggest you use one of these choices.

I have used a 5MP camera as an example, but it is not uncommon to see consumer cameras around 8-10MP now. You will still have two top resolution choices among several scaled down choices. If you are mainly shooting for web use, or a computer slide show, then some of the lower resolution choices will be fine. The bigger you plan on printing, however, the higher resolution you need to shoot at.

Storage

OK, so now I've convinced you to shoot a TIFF file at full resolution. As you look through your 8MP images, you see that instead of getting a bunch of 3.5mb images, you now have a whole slew of 28-33mb images. This is going to quickly eat away your storage. Something that I would suggest is that you start with the cheap storage...your memory cards. Shooting at high resolution will cause you to be able to fit less and less on a card. I carry 5 1gig cards that will carry about 36 images a piece.

As you do any editing on your photos, you will also want to keep them in a lossless format for archiving so you don't lose any of that detail you have now worked so hard to get. You have two choices here when it comes to final storage. The nice thing is, they can be combined and work well together. Your first choice is to invest in the biggest hard drive you can afford. Your second option is to become a critic of your work.

It is hard to begin with, but you need to toss those shots that are just not what you wanted. Honestly, most professional photographers only keep between 10-30% of what they shoot. I fall into that percentage for the most part. I realized after only a year that I could not keep everything I shot. I had to start weeding out those so so images and even some good ones, as long as there was a similar image that was better. I manage to keep about 9gigs worth of photographs on my computer at any time.

There is also removable media that you can store your images on. There are stand alone hard drives, CD-R's, and DVD-R's. The cheapest and most recognized is the CD. You can burn your images to a disk and then read them in almost any computer. DVD is catching up in popularity, but is not there yet. The stand alone hard drives are expensive and not very portable.

Whatever method you choose, be sure and use a backup. Like I said, I keep all of my current portfolio on my computer. I also have them backed up on CD's. The original photographs, are also on different CD's. In essence, I have three storage locations for each picture...four for my limited editions. Keep in mind that CD's and DVD's are not a permanent storage solution. They can rot, and data can be lost. It is a good idea to check the disks from time to time. I also make new copies about every other year to update my current portfolio.

By culling your photographs and keeping their numbers manageable, you can make better use of your storage space. With a good sized hard drive, you will be able to keep all of your favorite photos within easy reach.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of some of the things that control image quality. Thank you Helen for suggesting this topic.

Written by Greg A. Kiser