The Chronicles
September 2009
Salutations dear readers and fellow Laurentian neighbors,
Wwwwelcome back from summer vacation. Hope you enjoyed yourselves to the fullest. Now it's time to get back to our computers and in order to do so, let's begin with a short recap of the last articles.
Last March we began our exploration of Digital Photography. We looked at how to choose the Camera which best suits our needs. In April I shared with you the top 10 tips for taking fabulous photos and in May how to transfer them to our computer. As mentioned, I suggest to my clients/students to transfer the photos to a Sub-Folder in “Pictures” named “2_Organize” after having named them “Misc” during the transfer process. Why? Because the following phases consist of: Rotating and selecting the ones to keep, then Renaming and Organizing them.
You may wonder why I don't rotate and delete my photos in my camera but do it once they have been transferred to my computer. Quite simply it is just so that I may better visualize the photos on a larger screen than the camera's LCD, thereby making better choices of which ones to keep.
So, how does one rotate and delete? Go into the “2_Organize” Folder, right-click on the first photo of the group, then choose “Open with” and finally “Windows Picture and Fax Viewer”. This program will now open the photo which will appear in large format on the screen so you may assess it in detail. The objective here is not to spend a lot of time reminiscing ... but to rapidly go through the images using the buttons at the bottom of the window, deciding which ones need to be rotated and which deleted. Keep in mind, there is no need to throw out photos from fear they might take too much space in the computer (there's A LOT of space provided, for all your needs), nor to worry if part of a photo is not to your liking (e.g. someone making a funny face in the background!). The photos can be fixed in a later phase by cropping, straightening, lightening (contrast, saturation ...) etc ... Usually photos are thrown out because they are either completely black, fuzzy, over-exposed or simply of no interest whatsoever.
Finally, why do this NOW instead of at a later time? Rotating is obvious; it's just annoying to have to continually tilt one's head when looking at photos. As for Deleting, it is better to perform this task prior to renaming so as to avoid having missing numbers in our series of photos. E.g. Cuba_0902(1), Cuba_0902(2), Cuba_0902(6), Cuba_0902(9) ...
I'll go into more details in my next chronicle. For now, give it a go and you'll find you can do it with ease. Have fun!
Take good care of yourselves,
questions.monamilordi@gmail.com
This article originally appeared in Main Street – The Laurentians' English Language Community Newspaper.
