Come in! There are a few adventures I’ve written about, but most of the content offers classes in photography and mentoring for photographers, including photo theory, which, although a vital part in our profession, is largely an overlooked subject in all published media that profits from and feeds our gadget minded mindset today.
Welcome aboard photo enthusiast. I was reading Lucy’s article regarding her participation in the Small Vessel Security Conference. She mentioned that the number 1 defense against a terror attack always comes back to public involvement. One great tool for public involvement is your camera.
Terrorists aren’t the only ones who can use their cameras. They use them to make plans for death and destruction. You can do the opposite and help preserve life. Notice any suspicious activities on the waterways or by another vessel? Take pictures of potential terrorist’s activities and foil attacks. Photos are a tremendous source of information. Visuals have certainly helped the police in Great Britain on the latest terrorist attempts.
Hopefully you may never take pictures such as these. Nevertheless, you will take lots of pictures documenting things as discussed in a recent article, and surely of family, friends, places and fun. It’s inevitable, today with digital compact cameras it is easy to take thousands of photographs every year. What will you do with them all? How do you manage and work with your photo files? How do you best print and e-mail your files?
In previous articles I have detailed camera functions, storage and creative techniques. In the next few articles I will discuss the most common processing steps we can take after we have taken a memory card full of photos. This will help you stay organized and work with your photographs, make prints and/or send them by e-mail to others, and archive them all.
It’s all easy to do, and more of a challenge for me to put into words. Keeping it simple and understandable is my goal. The point of view is mine and your needs and experiences may have lead to other ways of doing things. If so, share them via e-mail me I’ll be happy to share it with The-Triton readers.
One way to deal with a full (camera) memory card is to hand it to a photo processor. This can be your local drugstore clerk or more secure professional lab technician. It’s simple and easy, but this approach has its cons.
If you’re not out at sea and anchored a few days it can be convenient, and you will not have to devote your time to processing your digital photos. To have them handle the workflow for you, simply remove the memory card from you camera, making sure you do so with the power off. They can copy your photos to disk and/or make 4×6 (proof) prints for you, and hopefully you will have a spare card to use in the interim.
The pricing for such services are very low. You may pay slightly more at a professional photo lab, but you would expect more services and safer handling.
If you love and cherish the photographs you have taken, I would always recommend putting the files from your memory card on not one, but two disks. Files can be corrupted; disks can be scratched, so having a duplicate back up disk for me is a valuable thing.
Personally I do not back up my photo files using disks, and I will be discussing how I like to store photographs, but using CD or DVD disk is one viable method. From this point, you do not even have to make the 4X6 prints of every photo taken, because you can use the disk at a kiosk and decide which one’s you would like to print and how many of each.
For me the con to handing over my memory card to a drug store clerk is their handling of my equipment, and loosing control over the processing. The equipment might break down or other mishaps may occur. I like control over the entire process, weeding out what I don’t like, securely saving what I do like, cropping, lightening or darkening and otherwise enhancing those I want to print or e-mail.
Now you can do this also at most photo kiosks straight from your memory card. You still begin by first backing up your photo files using disks or other means. Once this is done, you can go to most any photo kiosk with your memory card, and depending on the type, put it directly into a specific slot in the processing machine. I went to a CVS with my compact flash, and put a kiosk through the paces.
It first asked me what I would like to do. I had a half dozen choices, including making a scan, a CD, but I pressed wanting to review photos and make prints. It then told me to put my memory card and the proper slot, and I pressed the icon on the screen “download all the photographs from your memory card.”
From here all the photos on your card are downloaded and you can select photos want, and provides you options for making adjustments and enhancements. They included zoom and crop, remove red eye, brightness and contrast, adjust color, restore color, add text, and Sepia and Black & White.
Details on these options and more ways to handle a photo workflow will follow. Let me tell you there was a downside for me using a store kiosk, it would not read my memory card. No one new why, but I left without any selections, adjustments or results, and ask for permission to come ashore.
