Digital photos without fear

A beginner's guide to getting started

The people who test cameras for Consumer Reports often hear questions like this from friends or colleagues: "Can you help me with my new digital camera? I need some help figuring it all out." Or, "I got this new camera, but I'm afraid to use it."

Here comes help.

If you're used to a point-and-shoot film camera, digital will seem different—and possibly scarier. But at its most basic level, a digital camera also offers point-and-shoot simplicity, and the end result is the same: a color print photo.

Where digital and film cameras differ is in the degree of control they give you, from the time you press the shutter until the time you look at prints of the photos you've taken. Digital photos don't even need to be printed; you can keep them on the computer and stage electronic slide shows of your favorites or send the photos to friends and family as e-mail attachments.

Digital photography also requires more hardware than just the camera, but it's hardware that most households already have: a computer and a color inkjet printer.

Get to know your camera

If you haven't already done this, take the time to read the owners manual that came with the camera. In addition to explaining all the controls and features unique to your camera, it will most likely offer some good basic information about picture taking. Here's a general guide to camera layout.

Nearly all digital cameras have a built-in flash and a zoom lens, plus autofocus and automatic exposure controls. They also come with something film cameras don't: computer software that provides a place to store your photos and tools that let you adjust their size, alter the colors, combine parts of two or more photos, and send them to a printer.

On the top. On the right is the shutter release, just as on a film camera. A dial near the shutter or surrounding the button lets you turn the camera on and change certain basic settings: to switch from all-automatic exposure control to one or another manual setting or to preview photos you've already taken. Also near the shutter release on many cameras is a lever or rocker switch that moves the zoom lens.

On the side. You'll find a small hatch covering the slot for the camera's removable memory card—the "digital film," if you will. There are several types of cards, but all store the digital files representing the photos you've shot. You'll also find one or more jacks for cables to connect the camera to a computer, so you can transfer those image files from the memory card to the computer, for permanent storage, printing, and other uses.

On the back. Here's where you'll find the main feature that sets digital cameras apart from film: the small LCD viewer. When it's on, the screen lets you see what the camera "sees," to help you compose a photo. The screen also lets you see photos you've already taken, so you can decide whether to keep them or erase them. And on many cameras, the screen displays various menus of choices for the settings you want.

Other buttons and switches turn the LCD viewer on, let you scroll through the images, and erase the ones you don't want to keep; they let you transfer images from the memory card to a computer; and they let you refine the camera's settings.

Take your first photo

1. Set up the camera. Cameras have a "default" setting, factory-set choices for the type of digital photo file used and the resolution—the level of sharpness and detail—that the photo will have. They're sensible settings for a wide range of uses. So if you don't want to fuss, just turn on the camera, aim, and shoot.

You can also change the settings. Here's what most cameras let you do, and why you might want to customize the settings.

Pick the type of file. Digital photos, like any other computer file, have a name that identifies them and tells the computer how to handle them. The two most common digital-photo file types are JPEG and TIFF.

JPEG files can be "compressed," electronically shrunk so you can put more images on the camera's memory card and transfer the images quickly to the computer. TIFF files aren't compressed, so they can be large; a memory card that might hold, say, 48 JPEG files would hold fewer than 10 TIFF files. Note, though, that there's no inherent difference in quality between JPEG and TIFF.

Pick the resolution. The resolution determines the number of microsopic electronic picture elements—pixels—the photo will contain. These days, pixels are measured by the million, hence the term megapixel. A 3-megapixel camera may offer you three or four levels of resolution, from 640x480 pixels up to 2,048x1,536 pixels.

A higher-resolution setting will matter when you think you want a photo containing a great deal of detail, bettering the odds that the photo will look good even when printed in an 8x10 or 11x14 size.

2. Set the camera for "automatic." Until you feel comfortable with the camera, it's smart to let it do much of the work for you. Rather than fuss over shutter speeds, exposure controls, and the like, concentrate on what you see in the viewfinder, so you get good images. While not infallible, the camera's automatic settings can usually be counted on to deliver properly focused and exposed photos. On many cameras, "auto" will also fire the flash when there isn't enough light for a proper exposure. With experience, you'll learn what situations confuse your camera's automatic settings.

3. Zoom in and shoot. Leave the LCD viewer turned off (it drains batteries quickly), and use the camera's viewfinder to aim and compose the shot. Use the zoom-lens control to frame the subject to your liking, then snap. Many cameras make a distinctive beep, some even imitate the "click" of a film shutter, to let you know that you've taken a photo. It will take a few seconds for the camera to store the electronic information constituting the photo onto the memory card. You'll usually see a small flashing light when the photo's being stored.

4. Decide if it's a keeper. Turn on the LCD viewer and set the camera to its "preview" mode. The photo you just took will appear in the viewer. If you don't like it, press the "erase" or "delete" button to wipe it off the memory card. If you like it, do nothing. You've just taken your first digital photo.

Transfer the files

You have three ways to move files out of the camera:

1. By cable. Connect the thin cable that came with the camera to the proper jack on the side of the camera. Plug the other end into the proper jack on the computer, typically a USB or FireWire port. That will activate the software that displays the contents of the memory card. Then, as with any other computer program, you choose a destination for the files, name them, and drag-and-drop them to the proper place.

A card reader, an accessory that costs around $20, works the same way but transfers the photo files more quickly. To use a card reader, you plug it into the computer, then remove the memory card from the camera and insert it into the reader. That activates the software.

2. Direct reading. Some cameras from HP and Kodak work with a docking station (an $80 extra) that rapidly transfers photo files to the computer when you place the camera in the dock. Many Sony cameras work with a Memory Stick memory card. If you also have a Sony computer, all you have to do is insert the Memory Stick into the proper slot to transfer photo files. There are also a few new computers with slots for memory cards.

3. Straight to the printer. Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark make inkjet printers that have memory-card slots. Many are also designed to accept 4x6-inch photo paper. You can insert the card right into the printer and make snapshot-sized prints directly. Some printers will also produce an index print, a thumbnail image of all the photos on the card; others have a small LCD viewer, so you can preview photos and delete the duds, then print.

Canon, Kodak, Olympus, and Sony also make small snapshot printers that use dye-sublimation printing, a different technology from inkjet printing that can deliver very high quality prints. These little printers are strictly for snapshots. The printing supplies tend to be expensive, however.

No printer? You're away from home? No problem. A growing number of photofinishing outlets—places that also do one-hour film processing—are now equipped to make prints from a digital-camera memory card. You drop off the card, just as you would a roll of film, and return in an hour for prints.

Try out the image-handling software

Like digital cameras themselves, image-handling software programs vary in their level of complexity and clarity. But all the programs make it reasonably easy for you—yes, even you—to do the following:

• Get rid of "red eye," the telltale deer-in-the-headlights look in the eyes of people you've photographed who were too close to the flash.
• Crop the photo. That means changing the height and width of the image, or both, usually for a more pleasing or dramatic composition. Typically, you click-and-drag with the mouse to highlight the area of the image you want to use. With another click or two, the software will eliminate everything outside the area you've selected. You can also change the shape of the selection from rectangular to round or oval.
• Adjust the color to bring colors in the image more in line with reality or to create a special effect. You can convert a basic color image to sepia or black and white, or adjust the saturation of color to make it more or less intense.
• Adjust brightness and contrast to lighten or darken the overall appearance of the image, which may help if, say, the subject in the original was in deep shadow.
• Add textures and special effects. There are dozens of these effects, often termed filters. Among other things, they let you blur areas of the image to make the central subject more prominent, soften the edge of the image by making it fade to white, or add blurriness to denote motion or textures that imitate drawing or painting.
• Save, send, or print. Once you have finished with an image, you can save it as a JPEG, a TIFF, or often in one of several other formats that are tailored to Internet use or publication printing. You can also select the actual size of the image and make a final decision about the level of resolution. Then you can send the image to the printer, to a folder on the computer, or to the Internet or an e-mail program.

Fiddling is fun. The best way to gain confidence and skill using the image-handling software is to experiment. Take an image and try cropping it in different ways. See what some of the special-effects filters do to the image. Adjust the color, brightness, contrast, and sharpness to understand how those enhancements work. Use all the cropping, selecting, coloring, and moving tools the software provides to learn how they work. Print some test photos to learn which printer settings work best for photos. If the software's Help menu includes tutorials, take the time to work through them.

Show some restraint. Even the simplest image-handling program probably includes more tools and effects than you'll ever need to use. Avoid the urge to overuse any of the tools. Special effects can quickly lose their appeal, and they can often steal attention from the main subject of a photo.

In the long run, you'll enjoy photography more if you concentrate on the picture taking and begin with the best images possible. Use the software to make good pictures better by cropping unneeded detail, say, or bringing important elements out of the shadows.