Notes on Making & Working on Digital Photos

EOS DIGITAL REBEL
I am currently making most of my photographs with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel This is a (SLR) Single Lens Reflex camera that has the ability to use many different lenses and its complexity allows for a huge range of freedom from fully manual control to fully automated. I also have a large stable of film cameras that I enjoy using. The EOS cameras use Canon EF autofocus Lenses, I also have several adapters to allow me to use Nikon and M42 screwmount lenses.

DPP - Digital Photo Professional
I generally shoot in RAW format. This is a feature of higher end cameras and allows for you to have all the raw sensor data from the digital camera without the camera making any automated image enhancements like it would to make a .Jpg image. This RAW file really is raw data, think of it like a film negative, and must be processed in conversion software and made into a .Jpg file. This conversion software allows me to make decisions on brightness, tone, contrast, color temperature, color saturation, and grain sharpness. By allowing me to make these decisions I can fine tune my pictures, sometimes far better than the logic built into the camera. I use Canon's own free Raw conversion program Digital Photo Professional .

PSE 2.0 - PhotoShop Elements version 2.0
Once the RAW negative is processed I often use Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 to make some touch-ups. Photoshop allows me to make changes to smaller sections of a photo that might need a brightness adjustment or a color adjustment. I also use the Layers tools to help increase dynamic range (extend the details in the light and dark areas), also layers allows me to add the borders or frames to the photos.