Digital Photography Tips for Creative Projects

With a computer, a camera, some digital photography tips and a decent printer you can be well on your way to creating many of your own print projects like photo albums, greeting cards, collages, and more. To make the most of these projects, and to create a library of photos you can use for future projects, consider these digital photography tips.

Background Images

Whenever you are afforded the opportunity to take pictures of open spaces like water, wooded areas, fields, even city skylines, do so. Having a collection of different sceneries in your digital photography library can make creating projects easy, and will save you money if you don't have to purchase/download these images from other vendors.

Take pictures during the day in the sun, at night after the sun has set, in the rain, in as many different situations as you can. An added digital photography tip is that once you have amassed a nice collection of images you can create a profile on an image-vending site and make a few extra dollars if you choose.

Portraits

For personalized projects you will want to have good portraits of friends and family, or whatever you want to include in your project. Taking a good portrait with a digital camera involves little guesswork since you will be able to preview the picture on your camera directly after it is taken. Take a few different shots for each portrait to yield as many options as possible. This tip for your digital photography will help diversify your work, and won't leave you stuck trying to manipulate one image for several different uses.

Take some pictures at a close range, and grab a few with some background to frame the shot. Then when you get back to your computer you can edit the picture as needed to make it ideal for print. Make sure you save the unedited versions of each photograph for future use.

Lighting and Focus

To ensure that you capture the most natural pictures possible, make sure you pay attention to your camera's lighting settings. Most digital cameras will default to using an automatic flash, which can reduce the quality of some pictures. The flash can take a subtly lit scene and make your subjects look like they're being bombarded my paparazzi at the Emmy's. Play around with these effects to see what works best for you in different scenarios. Your camera will also have different settings for various focal points, like portraits or more panoramic shots.

The best digital photography tip is simply to have fun. Take advantage of the fact that with a digital camera you are not limited in the number of pictures you can snap. When you get home transfer your pictures to your computer to ensure they get saved, and also to free up your camera's memory for more use.