Step One: Get Yourself A Photo Management Program

The Finder in Mac and the File Explorer in Windows both help a little when you’re organizing your photos, but if you have a whole bunch of them, it’s going to be really hard to find what you’re looking for when you need it. I recommend installing Adobe Bridge, which works for both Mac and Windows! But the iPhoto in Mac will do just fine.
What you do here is pretty simple; first you connect your camera to your laptop or computer, then on the screen a little box will pop up asking you if you would like to import photos, import them using Adobe Bridge or iPhoto.

Step Two: Put Everything in A Folder

After you’ve imported your photos, always create a new main album/ folder and label it by either the date, the event, or anything significant that will help you remember the folder contents. In that main album you have to make two different folders with the names RAW and Edited. Now for those of you who are new to photography, RAW is the original unedited photograph. After editing the selected photos save them in the edited folder.

Step Three: Tag Your Photos

Tagging your photos cannot be done by the regular explorer or the Finder, which is why you have to bring a specialized photo management program like Adobe Bridge and iPhoto. In these applications you’ll be able to multi-tag your photos by model name, event, place, and time. Once you’ve finished with all that tagging, you’ll be able to locate all your photos in an instant.

Step Four: BACK THEM UP!

After you’ve organized and tagged your photos, it’s always wise to back them up. Either save them on a hard drive or burn them on to CD’s or whatever makes you comfortable. This is a very necessary step, and should not be ignored or skipped!

Conclusion

In conclusion, doing all 4 steps will make it easier for you to manage all of your pictures. And that alone will save you a great deal of time and effort. Therefore getting a great photo management application, saving everything in separate folders, tagging, and backing everything up, are all necessary tools to organize and manage your photos in an efficient manner.

So, What is Exposure? And How Can We Get It Right?

Exposure is simply the period of time in which we expose the sensor of our cameras to light.
Light exposure is often dependent on 3 key factors:

1. ISO: The sensor’s sensitivity to light.
2. Shutter Speed: The speed of the camera’s shutter. Also known as exposure time.
3. Aperture: Is the opening that determines the cone angle of the lens.

These three elements, when combined together, form what is known as the Exposure Triangle. According to these three factors or elements, we can increase or decrease the exposure to light.

Caption: Exposure Triangle © Junkiee.Net

Let Me Elaborate…

Let’s say that you’re standing in a room that has a window with shutters.

Caption: Good Morning II by Patrick Ruegheimer

1. Aperture is the size of the window. A bigger window means brighter rooms, and a smaller window means less brightness in the room. Also, bigger causes a lower depth of field (DoF) and vice versa.
2. Shutter speed is the amount of time that the shutters of the window are open. The longer you leave them open, the more light comes in.
   When we take a picture of something that’s moving fast, such as photos in sports photography for example, we will need to adjust our shutter speed such that it’s high enough to capture the moving object or subject perfectly.
3. ISO is how your eyes receive that incoming light towards your eyes. (If you were wearing shades inside the room, the ISO would be lower). Keep in mind that the more we increase the ISO speed, the more we get some noise in our picture.

Therefore, you have 3 options: you could increase the time that the shutters are open (decrease the shutter speed), or increase the size of the window (increase the aperture) or you could takeoff your sunglasses (higher ISO speed).

Finally, to know how if our exposure is OK, check the light meter in your camera.
The (C) should always be in the middle.

Keeping in mind that + sign will give you an overexposed picture while the – sign will give you an underexposed picture.

In Conclusion

These three factors are responsible to get any exposure we desire, be it high or be it low.
But in order to fully understand the exposure triangle and the difference between each of its parts, I recommend taking many photos of one particular subject, and in each picture change something to see how it effects your picture.

You should never be too quick to judge your camera… This photo, for example, has been taken by a 2.0 Megapixel Canon Powershot A60 (a very regular digital camera)!

5 Tips To Get The Most Out Of Your Camera

1. Read The Manual

Reading the manual is extremely important to understand most of your camera’s settings. If you feel it’s too long to read, at least cover the important parts which tell you how to change basic settings or other main keys on your camera.
If you already hated your camera before and threw all its stuff away, then you should consider Googling for a soft copy of your manual! (Note: I recommend downloading a PDF version of the manual, because it’s easier to refer back to when needed).

2. Take It Out On A Date

You should always give your camera a ride outside, because you never know when the perfect shot may come. If you leave your camera home, you might have lost your chance!
When you go on a little trip, make sure you shoot everything that captures your attention! Find a way to shoot the strangest of things in a very acceptable and inspirational way!!

3. Pros Do It Manual Mode

It’s very helpful to switch to the manual mode every now and then. It helps you practice the different techniques of shooting your photos using different settings and options on your camera.

4. Push It To The Limit

Use all of your cameras memory! Take many different shots from the same angle until you feel you’ve got enough to choose from later. You should also use different settings when shooting the same angle, to help understand what each setting or option does for your shot. So, just take as many shots as you possibly can!

5. Home Sweet Home

When you get home, upload all the photos to your computer, and copy the most outstanding ones to a different folder. Do not delete the others, you might want to use them later!
When you’re choosing the best photos, don’t take a long time deciding which ones to choose, simply pick the best one! Sometimes, you will only find one perfect shot out of hundreds of pictures. It’s only normal that a photographer does that!

In Conclusion

Don’t get all mad about your camera simply because you’re not getting the right results. Start researching and do things the right way, and then judge whether or not your camera is good enough to take brilliant photographs.

1. Strong contrast is the key element in B&W photography! It gives your photographs more emotion and makes it much more impassive. You can, of course, achieve this contrast by any post-processing software.
2. Focus on textures and patterns. This will make your B&W photograph stand out in a more dramatic way, giving it the perfect appearance it deserves. This is often used more in Abstract Photography.
3. Shoot in low ISO Why? We all know that high ISO gives a photograph more noise, and it becomes even more obvious in B&W photos. It’s not always easy to remove or to reduce that noise!

Recommended Photoshop Actions for B&W Photography

1. ATNCentral.Com (I) (Link No Longer Available!)

2. ATNCentral.Com (II) (Link No Longer Available!)

3. DigitalArticulation
4. Lune-Tutorials
5. Jean31

6. Worthyg
7. EuphoricDesire-Stock (Link no longer available)

More Than 35 of The Best B&W Photographs

(Make sure you click on the previews to go to their original pages)