Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

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The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
capture at around 15 megapixels, still some way beyond the 10 megapixel threshold that
manufacturers in their popular ranges struggled so hard to reach. Acceptable image quality
for enlarged prints is made possible only by the ingenuity of the advanced techniques
of image processing.
The Software Revolution
Having inherited the rich legacy of image processing, digital photography has prompted
a new software revolution. For example, one effect of being able to capture images without
using film stock has meant that users are more inclined to take a greater number of
shots than they did previously. Some professionals (and quite a few non-pro enthusiasts)
take a few thousand shots in a single day. Inevitably, this has led to file handling,
sorting, and selection problems, especially for those who are reluctant to delete any of
their work. Exposure bracketing, with capture of three, five, or more frames at a time,
and JPEG+RAW shooting has multiplied the problem. The response of the software
industry has been a plethora of image viewers and sorters, together with cataloging,
archiving, and digital asset management systems. There is even a new breed of downloading
software that can take the initial captures, rename them, and sort them into
appropriate folders. All this before you even start to look at the images.
Some photographic errors, like camera shake, are best solved at source, at the capture
stage. Although you can acquire software to correct camera shake very effectively, it is
much better to use a tripod or equipment with vibration reduction built into it. Other
errors can be resolved completely in software. If you tilt the camera and cause perspective
distortion, no problem; software can squeeze the image at the bottom and stretch
it at the top. Crooked horizon? Software can level it. In fact, software can cure even the
most glaring deficiencies of the camera system, such as its miserable dynamic range, its
lack of depth-of-field in macro photography, and its never-enough megapixels. In this
book you can find brilliant software for addressing these particular issues, all of which
are solved by taking multiple shots, and then combining them on the computer.
The digital photo revolution would not have been so quick if photographers had been
obliged to jettison all their accumulated wisdom and techniques. Many of them were
surprised to discover that software could precisely simulate the effects achievable with
chemicals and film, even to the extent of imitating the characteristics of Velvia,
Kodachrome, Tri-X, and other old favorites. Somewhat unnervingly, it became apparent
that in some instances software could actually do it slightly better and certainly with
more convenience. However complex the procedure, software could imitate it in the
blink of an eye. Techniques like “bleach bypass” have been beautifully implemented and
even the need for optical filters has partly diminished now that software filters are available
to do the job.