Digital Darkroom Basics
The inaugural meeting of our Digital Photography SIG was amazing. We literally had a standing room only crowd and as with all of your Users Groups meetings the information shared was nothing short of fantastic. Here is some of the information shared at the meeting:
Basic computer requirements
If you already have a computer and it is working great for your purposes, don’t take this as a suggestion to buy a new computer. However, if you are in the market for a new computer and want to know what to look for, here are
my suggestions from the meeting.
- Processor: (Basic User) Celeron or Duron 1 gigahertz (Advanced User) Pentium 4 or Athlon 1+ gigahertz computer.
- RAM: 128+MB for basic users and 256+MB for advanced users. We mentioned that Windows 98 and ME usually don’t handle more than 512MB very well but XP will pretty much handle whatever you put into it.
- Hard Drive: At least a 20 gigabytes.
- Monitor: 17” plus or dual monitors with a Radeon VE card.
- Other Drives: CD-ROM, CDRW, Zip (optional)
- Misc: 2 USB ports in front and 2 in back, 2 firewire ports, 1 ethernet port
“Photo quality” Printers
- Don’t buy a “photo quality” printer based on what the sales man says in the store or the claim on the side of the box.
- Make sure that you see samples and find out how fast the ink dries and that it will print on any type of paper.
Scanners
- Optical DPI is the most important aspect of a printer. If you plan on cropping or enlarging a lot of photos, go for a 600+ dpi scanner.
- Ignore the interpolated resolution because it doesn’t mean anything.
- If you buy a scanner with easy access buttons, don’t be surprised if they suddenly stop working or if they don’t work the way they are supposed to.
Features of a Digital Camera
- Viewfinder – Using the viewfinder instead of the LCD panel will save batteries.
- LCD panel – Allows you to view and maintain images once they have been taken. It also displays the image immediately after the photo is taken.
- Optical zoom – Digital cameras use both optical and digital zooms. Ignore the digital zoom number because it doesn’t do anything. A higher optical zoom will always produce a better image.
External Storage
The type of storage doesn’t make much difference but if you can’t store you images on removable media then you risk running out of “film.”
Media Reader
Using a media reader will save batteries and wear and tear on your camera and won’t break the bank at $25-$40.
Transparency Scanner
- A transparency scanner allows you to scan slides and negatives at an extremely high resolution.
- This is the best option for serious digital photographers.
- They are very expensive though. Starting price is around $450 for a good one.
