| Leader: Frank Woodhams and Frank Higginson | 2nd & 4th Wednesdays — Time:
9.30 - 11.00 am Location: Friends Meeting House — First session: 23 September |
The aim of this group is to help those new to digital photography to organise, email, enhance, and print their digital photographs. Help will also be available to get the most out of your digital camera and how to avoid the most common mistakes when taking photographs. No prior knowledge will be assumed. Topics covered will include: taking better photos, getting photos into the computer, organising photos and emailing them, cropping and making simple enhancements (e.g. lighten/darken, adjust colour) and printing. We will investigate the use of free software, such as Picasa and Gimp as well as the use of Adobe Photoshop Elements. Members’ photos will be used whenever possible. It is hoped to continue to exhibit the results of the members’ efforts during the year, for the interest of other U3A members.
Spring and Summer Term Dates
13, 27 January
10, 24 February
10 March
March 24 - NO meeting
April 7 - meeting to put together the exhibition for the monthly U3A meeting
on April 8
April 14 - NO meeting
We will then resume our regular meetings on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month before we agree to break for the summer, i.e.:
April 28
May 12, 26
June 9,23
Autumn Term Dates
23 September
14, 28 October
11, 25 November
9 December
Recommended book for Picasa: "Organzing and Editing Your Photos with
Picasa": Visual QuickProject Guide (Paperback) by Steve Schwartz (Author)
Available from Aamazon - Price: £7.48.
Posted 14/12/09
The next suggested challenge for the group is to take some pictures indoors,
preferably without the use of flash, and to take one portrait indoors, again
without the use of flash. Please send the pictures either to me
or to Frank H, or both, in time for the meeting
on the 13th January 2010.
Posted 24/11/09
Click here for the Christmas Card Photos.
Posted 23/11/09
Pixels etc.
Consider a 6 Mpixel camera.The camera's sensor contains 2816 x 2112 pixels (light sensitive detectors) = 5,947,392 pixels in total.
Each pixel has a filter - red, green or blue - so is sensitive to one colour. Each pixel has 10 or 12 bits, so is sensitive to 210 or 212, i.e. 1024 or 4096, light levels.
Each pixel is stored as 24 bits = 3 bytes.
The total number of bytes is 5,947,392 x 3 bytes, i.e. approx. 18 Mbytes (Mb).
Most point and shoot cameras store their pictures as jpeg files. These will vary in size but a typical one (6 Mpixel camera) is about 3 Mbytes, so there is a compression of about 18/3 = 6 times.
Note the ratio of 2816/2112 = 4/3 – a 6 x 4 photo = 3/2 (1.5)
How many pictures can………..
A camera memory card store? If the memory card is 1 Gbyte (i.e. 1,000 Mbyte) and each picture is 3 Mbyte say then 1,000/3 = 333 pictures.
A computer hard disk store? If the disk is 100 Gbyte then 100 x 1,000/3 = 33,300
A memory stick store? If the memory stick is 64 Mbyte then 64/3 ~ 20
How long does it take to email a photo?
If you have dial-up at say 50 kBits/s, then the time taken to send a 3 Mbyte file is 3 * 1,000,000 * 8 / 50,000 = 480 s = 8 min.
If you have broadband at say 2 Mbits/s then the time is reduced to 3 * 1,000,000 * 8 / 2,000,000 = 12 s
How many dots (pixels) do I need to print a photo?
Printing resolutions are normally discussed in dots per inch (dpi) or pixels per inch. To get a good print about 200 dpi are required.
So for a 6” x 4” print you need 6 x 200 = 1,200 pixels.
So maximum print size for a 6 Mpixel camera with 2816 pixels = 2816/200 = 14” or approx. A4.
How many pixels are................................
A typical computer monitor - 1280 x 1024
HD Ready TV - 1366 x 768
Full HD TV - 1920 x 1080
DVD - 720 x 576 (only!!)
Posted 12/11/09
The web site that Frank H uses is for ink is www.cartridgepeople.com
The ink cartridges are provided by Jet Tec whose inks were judged to be the
best compatible inks by a couple of photographic magazines.
Another site Frank uses is 7dayshop.com for getting peripherals memory cards etc.
Posted 18/10/09
The challenge is to produce by the next meeting (28 October), one
or more pictures which suggest Christmas to you. Please email the pictures to
Frank H (email: turnpike@tiscali.co.uk)
so that they can be viewed by all at the meeting on the 28th (if you can't email
them just bring them along on your camera card). After viewing and discussion
at that meeting you will then have until the 11th November to retake or create
new images. Please then email them to Frank W - (email: f.woodhams@uea.ac.uk)
so that we can use them to explore cropping, contrast, adding text, etc. using
Picasa at the meeting on 11 November. Finally the completed images could be
mounted on cards to be handed in for display at the meeting on the 25 November.
They could then be put on display at the U3A Social Meeting on 10 December.
Posted 5/10/09
Please note that future meetings will be at the Friends
Meeting House (opposite the Victoria Hall). Our next meeting will be
there at 9.30 am on 14 October. The other sessions will be: 28 October; 11,
25 November; 9 December.
Posted 3/10/09
To download Picasa go to:
http://picasa.google.com/
and click on the "Download Picasa 3.5" button. After the file
has downloaded double click on it to install Picasa on your computer.