Taking and Posting Clear Photos

[Indycars]

...............................Taking and Posting Clear Photos
...................................It's Really to Your Advantage, So We Can Help You


Taking the Picture

When taking a picture, focus and lighting are very important to the overall quality of your photo. If the entire photo is blurred, it could be that you focused perfectly, but the camera is NOT being held still. So there are two conditions that are required.....focus and holding the camera still. Now there is no arguing with using a Tripod, it's going to give you the best stability.

Very affordable at $17.99 from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Concepts- ... 266&sr=8-3

Tripod01.jpg

But if YOU are holding the camera, then be sure to keep your arms in and locked against your side, NOT out to your side like wings. Another option is to rest the camera or your arms on something solid, such as a table.

If the camera is NOT stable, then the picture will NOT be clear.

CameraHoldingRight&Wrong01.jpg

CameraHolding02.jpg

Auto-focus is great, but it isn't perfect. Most digital cameras tend to simply focus on what's in the center of the picture. If your main subject is not dead center, point your camera at the subject, half-press the shutter button, re-compose to the desired scene, then finish pressing the shutter button. This will ensure that the main subject is perfectly sharp.

It's also very possible that only a portion of your photo will be in focus. This is called "Depth of Field" (DoF). Your vision has the same problem, it's just that you don't notice it until you shrink the world down to the size of a photo.

DOFSparkPlugs.jpg

The camera has two ways of getting light into the camera, shutter speed (SS) and the size of the aperture opening (ApO). The faster the shutter speed the less light and therefore you have to make the aperture opening larger to compensate. Well, just like building engines, there is always a tradeoff. With a larger aperture opening, the shorter or smaller the DoF. Most photos taken in a shop for the purposes of documenting your work, will need the largest DoF possible. Just one problem, most shops don't have near enough light to give you both a decent SS and a small ApO for a good DoF.

NOTE: The larger the aperture opening the smaller the F-Stop number.

Well you ask, what about a flash??? Flash is always a possibility, but it also gives harsh shadows sometimes and if you are very close it tends to over expose or wash out the photo. Even when you do use flash, the more ambient lighting you have, the better the photo will be by reducing those harsh shadows.

Typically I use at least one Halogen light and sometimes two in my lighting setup.

LightingExample01.jpg

To Summarize
- Take picture outside if possible, but not in the direct sun light.
- In the garage, always add as much additional light as possible.
- Use a tripod if possible.
- If you don't have a tripod, then brace yourself, hold your breath momentarily as you push the shutter button. Just like shooting a gun, stability is the key to success.
- Take lots and lots of pictures, use different lighting, and different camera angles, with and without flash.

I've taken over 1200 photos for my engine project build thread, but then I deleted more than half of those photos after looking through them to see which ones are useable.

Software

You will want the following features as a minimum; Text Tool, Cropping Tool, Resizing Tool, Drawing Tools and Saving with Variable Quality.

I spent some time looking for FREE software that would do the minimum and had good drawing tools, including lines with arrowheads. PaintNet software fit my requirements very nicely and seems to be made in USA; their mailing address is Kirkland, Washington. If you really like the software, you can send a donation of a few dollars.


Download Software Here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/790 ... nstall.exe

PaintNet.jpg

PaintNet Written Tutorials Here: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/f ... 0e732b2177
YouTube Video Tutorials Here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... ntnet&aq=f

Minimum System Requirements
Windows 7, or Windows XP SP3, or Windows Vista SP1 (SP2 and Platform Update recommended)
800MHz processor (dual-core recommended)
512MB of RAM
1024 x 768 screen resolution
200+ MB hard drive space


Preparing Photos for Posting

With the PaintNet software above you can easily size the photos down to 800 pixels wide for posting on the forum. Most digital cameras take photos at resolution exceeding 1600 pixel wide, which makes for a very large picture that requires paging your browser window to see the whole picture. This makes it not only hard to see the entire picture at once, but it will load much slower. Especially if you have lots of photos on one page. None of the photos in my project build thread are larger than 800 pixels wide.

With PaintNet you can also draw on the photo. Arrows pointing directly at the specific detail you are talking about makes it much clearer to the reader. It might be perfectly clear in your mind, but NOT necessarily to the reader. Text in the photo is also helpful and adds interest to your post.

Another detail to consider is file size and compression. With PaintNet you can set the Quality or compression level such that the photo retains great clarity and will reduce the file size by a factor of 8-10 times, for faster loading. I try to keep the file size under 100 KB by using a Quality setting of 20-30, I never use higher than 40.

To summarize:
1. Keep photos 800 pixel wide or less.
2. Keep photos 100 KB or less.
3. Use a Quality setting of 40 or less.


Posting Photos

1.) Click the "Upload Attachment" .
2.) Click on the “Browse…” button.
2a.) Click on the "File" to highlight it.
2b.) Click the "Open" button.
For steps 2a and 2b, see second graphic below.

3.) Click on the “Add the file” button.
4.) Click in your post where you want the picture to appear, and then click the " Place Inline" button.
5.) Decide you don't want that file, then delete the file here.

HowToAddPictures04.jpg

BrowseToFile01.jpg

Note 1: If you don't use "Place Inline", the picture will appear at the end of your post.
Note 2: Buttons 4 and 5 are NOT available until you have completed step 3.
Note 3: By posting the photo using the above technique, instead of using a other photo sharing websites like http://www.photobucket.com and http://www.flickr.com/, the photos will always be available to those using GrumpysPerformance forum.

[grumpyvette]

wow even I just MIGHT be able to improve my skills a bit!

[Indycars]

wow even I just MIGHT be able to improve my skills a bit!

I have some very high expectation for your future posts !

For your next post with graphics.... I will be posting comments like...

[larrym]

Great post!

Looks like my Black Berry is not going to cut it if I want to be a pro!

[Indycars]

Great post!

Looks like my Black Berry is not going to cut it if I want to be a pro!

Thanks for the nice complement !!!

You don't really need an expensive camera, a $60 camera will do everything you need for documenting your projects.
All I'm using this is very old Tank called a Sony Mavica MVC-FD200 like this one.

SonyMavicaMVC-FD200_.jpg

[grumpyvette]

I FREELY ADMIT I DON,T KNOW MUCH ABOUT POSTING PICTURES BUT HERES SOME INFO FROM A DIFFERENT SOURCE THAT MAY BE HELPFUL


You need a hosting site, whether you are posting a photo for the Forums or posting an Avatar.

There are many free sites...seem to be the most popular, since they allow you to show them on other sites with no restrictions on the number of times they are viewed.

http://www.picturetrail.com/

http://www.cardomain.com/login

Once you have a hosting site for your photos, you will need to upload them from your photo files to the hosting site, then you can post them on CT.

NOTE: Photos should be resized to 600 X 450 for best viewing and so viewers do not have to scroll side to side to view photo or read replies.

Decide what you want to do with the photo and where you want to post it. Photos and graphics of any kind are not allowed in your signatures, however, you may post a link or a TAG in your signature.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Posting a photo...

Place cursor on photo and right click

A drop down menu will appear with options for you to choose from. Scroll down to Properties

Once you get to Properties you need to left click to highlight the area you wish to copy. Place your cursor at the beginning of the http: and drag it until the entire address is highlighted.

Place your cursor somewhere on the highlighted area, then right click for the menu and click on copy.

Highlight the Address/URL making sure you have the complete Address/URL...it should look something like this...


Right click again and choose option copy.

When you get to the page you are posting it on...place cursor inside the reply box and click it...you'll see a blinking "|" now left click and on the menu choices...click on paste.

Go to Forum reply page and type in [img]and%20right%20click%20and%20choose%20option%20paste.%20At%20the%20end%20of%20the%20Address/URL,%20type%20in[/img] leaving no spaces.

You may also use Control V after the [img]instead%20of%20the%20above%20method...be%20sure%20to%20type%20in[/img] leaving no spaces.
Example:

[Indycars]

I have edited the first post in this thread to bring it up-to-date with the
new forum software. Only the last section called "Posting Photos" changed.

[87vette81big]

Very Helpful photo taking & posting tips.
Had to experiment & guess & retry several times in the past to post photos on Forums.
Thanks !

BR

[Indycars]

Thanks for saying something, it's always nice to know that it helped someone !

[philly]

thats really informative! i need to get with this and start taking better pics!

[Indycars]

thats really informative! i need to get with this and start taking better pics!

Thanks for the nice comment, and I did see your other comment in the post
about wheels, so thanks again !!!

When you save a file, that's where you can set the compression level, I
generally use 30%. It also shows you what the resulting file size will be.

FileSave&Compression.jpg

[Thomasot]

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[Thomasot]

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[Thomasot]

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