Sliced Wikizine

In this photography online course we will be understanding some more image parameters and improving digital camera image quality.

Saturation: Saturation is the intensity of a particular color. An image with color saturation as zero is a gray-scale image. Some digital cameras have a high contrast setting that increases the saturation of all colors in an image. This feature can be used in Photoshop also. Some image viewers also permit this option.

This feature is helpful in the still images of flowers and fruits. It depicts the natural color of the subject better. If you reduce the saturation of an object digitally; it gives a rustic effect to the photograph. The rustic effect is particularly useful when you are photographing bus, train or truck. You could also reduce the saturation and increase contrast to give a grunge touch to the picture image. This is useful for portraits or the pictures of pets.

You can also use some filters along with digital camera lenses. These increase the saturation of a particular color. For SLR and dSLR camera, available filters are green, red and blue. Some digital cameras such as Nikon Coolpix P50 and Canon Power shot SD850 IS offer saturation controls for these colors as well as custom color options.

Hue: Some dSLR cameras have hue option, which shifts all colors by a certain degree. You can do this using an image editing software also. This feature can be used for surreal digital photography to match with the tone of the event.

Contrast: Contrast increases the clear element of a color in terms of its brightness. A high contrast in an image makes the subject in focus to stand out against a background or it brings into focus a wide array of subjects such as photo of a marketplace. The better the contrast, better are the details brought out.

Sharpness: It is also called as acutance. It is a measure of the sharpness with which a film can reproduce the edge of an object. A greater sharpness gives a grainier image while a reduced sharpness gives a washed out appearance. Sharp images are appealing in close-ups whereas it looks aberrant in portraits.

Tone: The tone in an image sets the mood of the image. The tone could be warm or cool. A warm tone tends to be more redder with predominant colors red, yellow and orange. A cool tone tens to be bluer with soft and mellow colors. Warm tone is considered masculine where as cool tone is considered as feminine.

Black and white: This is a standard feature in digital cameras and dSLR cameras. This color scheme does have a charm attached to it but it is often overused. It is always a best idea to take a color photograph and then convert it into grayscale on computer. You can increase contrast to improve detailing in grayscale images.

Sepia: In olden photographs, a chemical was used to make the photographs last longer. This generates the sepia tone in photographs. Modern digital cameras and dSLRs have this feature readymade in them

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