Digital Imaging Course

The Aims of the Course

Welcome to our Digital Imaging Course.  We are Sheila and Peter Read; we live in Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK.

So you want to know how to produce a satisfactory print from your film or digital camera?
So we have written a course specially for Salisbury Camera Club.

The course is aimed primarily for people who want guidance in the control of digital images from the very start.  Maybe you have just acquired a digital camera and wish to get successful results from it.  Or perhaps you have lots of old prints, negatives or slides and want to know the right way to deal with these in the new world of Digital Imaging.  The course will also be useful to people who have been conventional photographers and want to move into the digital domain.

We will not be showing you how to take photographs or how to use a camera be they of the digital or film variety.

This course will show you how to use the Lightroom (formerly a Darkroom!).  We will explore how to load photographs into your computer and how to deal with them using Image Manipulating software.  We shall be using the Adobe Photoshop Elements [2, 3, 4 and/or 5] to co-ordinate the instructions. 

This is an interactive course in which you will use supplied images to learn various techniques as outlined in the units.  You will then e-mail your results back to us for evaluation.  Basic advice on equipment will be given.

The course will consist of an introductory unit and 8 units each covering various aspects of DI.  They will be interdependent units so that what you learn in unit 1 will be needed for unit 8 for instance.

The Units

1. Getting Pictures into your computer.  How to save, size, sharpen and print your images.  How to e-mail images.

2. The 4 C’s – Cropping, Cleaning, Cloning and Controlling your Image.

3. Essential Picture Correction – the use of Levels for Tonal and Colour Correction.

4. Further Colour Correction Ideas – the use of Colour Variations, Auto Colour Correction, Quick Fix and Hue & Saturation controls

5. Selections.  The how and why.

6. Filters, Effects and Painting.

7. Why Layers and Blending Modes?  Also putting Words onto your Picture.

8. Having Phun with Photos.  Making Cards, Calendars and Montages.

Digital Imaging Course

To partake in this course you will need to have the following equipment;

  1. A computer with Internet connection – obvious of course!  Dial-Up or Broadband is OK.  Your computer will need to have Windows 98/ 98SE or 2000 or XP or Vista.  You should have a minimum of 16Mb of hard disk space.  We think you will need a lot more than this however; say 1000 Mb or 1 Gb of memory.
  2. A Printer – photo quality A4 minimum.
  3. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 to 8.
  4. Possibly a Scanner.  Probably Flatbed scanner is sufficient.

Please take some time to read advice on buying computers, peripherals and software on http://www.css.msu.edu/PC-Guide/PC-Guide1.cfm
By kind permission the U3A (University of the Third Age) has agreed to allow us to run this course.  The course is based on one written by us for the U3A.
If you join our course we are sure that you will enjoy it and will learn a lot.  It will be great fun too!
The modest charge to take part on this course will go into the Club funds.

Sizing your images for Digital Projection Competitions.

Click HERE for one method that is quick and easy to do.