How To Save Photos From Your Digital Camera
Once you’ve taken photos with your digital camera, you need to store them somewhere. You could always leave them on the memory card, but that would get rather expensive, so let’s explore a few other options.
1. Transfer your images onto your computer. Most cameras come with a wire to connect your camera to your computer, a CD with a downloading program and an instruction booklet. Transferring the images is fast and simple. Once they are on the computer, you can delete the images from your memory card and start taking more photos.
2. Burn your images onto a CD. If you have a CD burner on your computer, you can make photo discs to store or share with others. When it comes to pictures, it is often best to use a CD that can’t be written over. This will save the heartache of losing precious photos. Label the CD and store it where it can be gotten easily when you need to see your pictures.
3. Store your images on a public web site. There are many photo-hosting sites on the internet. Some charge for the service, but many are completely free. You have the choice to password-protect your images or share them with the world. This option helps if your computer should crash. Your pictures are safe.
4. Print your images and place them in a photo album. Many people still like turning the pages of a photo album and reviewing the memories. This also makes it possible for those without a computer to view your pictures.
5. Create a photo gift. There are places out there that will take your digital image and place in on shirts, mouse pads, cups, calendars and numerous other items. These make wonderful gifts and provide a way to keep a cherished picture near at all times.
These are just a few suggestions. Using your creativity, you will come up with many more ideas.
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1. Using web graphics on printed material.
With many young designers coming from a pre-dominantly web design background the transfer over from web design to traditional design for print can bring with it a multitude of design sins. Images supplied at 72dpi and crunched down to load fast on a website are going to reproduce very badly in print you can get away with small thumbnails but blowing things up to any appreciable size is going to be pushing your luck. There are a number of online sites offering free or very cheap quality hi resolution images which are a good source for suitable imagery.
2. Forgetting about or not allowing enough bleed.
A very common error is to send to print a document or flattened image that has no bleed at all. Generally speaking you should allow at least 3mm around every cut off edge. Failing to do so will give the printers no leeway and will either crop off the side of the page or give you a white border. It is always a good idea when supplying image files to save layered psd files then if things need extending or cropping you can do this on the background layer and hopefully cut down your work.
3. Using obscure fonts and not embedding or outlining them for output.
We’ve all been guilty of this at some point and things are generally fine if you are going to be the only person accessing your artwork or documents. However if someone else needs to amend the files or use your vector logo on one of there publications. Unless you package up the used fonts, they are not going to be able to open the files correctly and some software programs may replace any unknown fonts with a default. This is a particular problem when you need to dig out stuff that was created several years previously and you no longer have your old fonts installed.
4. Supplying print ready artwork using spot colors or rgb.
There are valid reasons for using spot colors in artwork, logos that need to reference particular pantone colors for example. In general design work however most print is sent through on 4 color presses CMYK with occasional 5th color for luminoius or metallic color or for spot UV varnish. It is very common for lazy designers to just place rgb images into files and expect the vibrant colors seen on screen to reproduce in print.
5. Allowing design illiterate clients to lead you round the house.
The customer is always right, goes the old adage. However it is often said with gritted teeth and a sense of patience that recognizes that these morons will at some stage be handing over a fat check for your troubles. It is often a good idea when first submitting visuals to throw in a couple of stinkers to hopefully get them to appreciate the design you would like them to accept. There is the very real danger of course of them loving the piece of absolute gar-bage that you knocked up in five minutes to make them think you’ve been earning your money. Still it’s a living.
