Enhancement Software

Sometimes a photograph needs a little editing in order to highlight some part of it. Typically upon purchasing a DSLR,it comes bundled with the manufacturers own photo enhancement software however the features in these pale in comparison to what is available commercially and for free in some cases. Software such as Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop offer the photographer regardless of their technical level the ability to tweak their photos. Adjusting various elements such as exposure, white balance, colour saturation etc. I use the Adobe Lightroom, which is my go to software for altering photographs. A personal goal of mine however is to capture photographs that require as little adjustment as possible. The table below highlights the various types of software that can be used. Below are screen shots of Adobe's Lightroom as well as the standard enhancement software supplied with a Canon Rebel T3i.

File Formats

I know what you are thinking, file formats!! How exciting....yawn. Believe it or not the format you decide to shoot your photographs in does play a significant role. It's importance is highlighted not so much whilst you are taking photos but after. Typically when talking DSLR's the file format photographers use mostly is called RAW. Think of it as the negatives that used to be produced with film camera's of days gone by. The other file format in popular use is the JPEG, which many people are familiar with. If you have any aspirations of being a professional photographer, then forget about shooting in JPEG, the file type just does not have the required level of detail to produce top quality photos. Also if you are doing post processing you should ensure that the RAW format produced by your camera is accepted by the software of your choice.