Great Digital Photo Prints Require Great Digital Camera Files

Image : http://www.flickr.com

A great image has interesting composition utilizing leading lines and proper subject placement within the scene. The eye of the viewer is drawn to the darkest areas in high key images and to the brightest areas in low key images. The eye is also drawn to the meeting of extreme light and dark tones. A square is more noticeable than a triangle and the triangle is more noticeable than a circle. If you have to reduce the importance of any object in a composition you can crop into the object slightly, place something partially in front of the object or alter the lighting on the object. Tip: The Rule of Thirds is a good place to start your composition training.

A great image has wonderful lighting, the stuff that makes a two dimensional surface resemble three dimensions. Making your images have depth is a key to what you are trying to do. Tip: Study old Black and White movies for lighting and composition techniques. Speaking of Black and White photography, without good lighting it really is horrible. Much of today's Black and White digital photography is just poorly lit de-saturated color shots.

A great image has detail, clearly focused. It can have soft focus but do not confuse that with out of focus, two different things. The former is artistic and can convey a mood. The later is an accident, poor technique or faulty equipment but in any circumstance unacceptable and does nothing to enhance the image, throw these images away.

A great image is not blurry from vibrations or camera movements during exposure. Good quality tripods are very useful.

A great image has correct exposure.

A great image has full tonal range, shadows and highlights, both with detail. Tip: For photographic printing, black areas below 15 or highlights above 245 will not reproduce with detail.

Quality image compositions combined with excellent technical skills create winning photographs.