biodieselpictures.com

[graydonblair]

1- Take pictures that are in focus
When shooting pictures, be sure that it's focused. Get the camera lens too close to that mason jar of Bio & it's going to come out as a big blurry blob of yellowish something or other.

Most cameras have auto-focus functions. Hold the shutter button down half-way, let it focus & then push it the rest of the way. Whoala! Your picture will be in focus!

2- Compose The Shot
When you take the picture, imagine in your mind what your goal is with the picture and shoot accordingly. Are you trying to show a valve? Separation of glycerin from Biodiesel? Well, then take the picture of that, not of the bottom, left hand corner of the valve or so far away that we can't get an idea of what you're trying to show (remember, you'll be resizing the photo later, so getting the subject of the shot the right distance from the lens is important).

3- Edit The Pictures After The Shot
While most digital cameras come with editing software, it usually sucks (sorry, it just does--and I've tried a lot of them). So, get some REAL software! A good photo editing package can allow you to lighten, darken, or just mess around with the picture to make it look better. Shoot at night? If the flash fires wrong it's going to look really dark, but by using some good editing tools, you can lighten the shot right back up. Anyway, you get the idea.

Here's some of my favorites...if you have others, share em!
Free Photo Editing Software!
Google Picasa 3
Link: http://picasa.google.com
If you want to go the "Free route", I really am liking Google's Picasa software. It's extremely powerful, has a great set of powerful, intuitive, simple to use editing tools (key word being SIMPLE), and will allow you to organize your pictures as well.

I have been incredibly impressed with Picasa and it's become my new "favorite" quick & dirty photo editor. The collage tool is really sweet and I absolutely love the simplicity of the editing tools (be sure to check out the tuning options, they're amazing!). Best of all, it's FREE!!!

Non-Free Editing Software
Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE)
Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/
I've been extremely impressed with Photoshop Elements. Like Picasa, you can import (directly from your camera), organize, edit, and upload all from PSE. I especially like the SAVE FOR WEB feature. It'll take a 4-5 MB file and drop it clear down to under 200 KB (that's a HUGE drop)! I use it all the time.

It's not free (runs about $70 to $139 depending on the version you buy), but does have quite a bit of power. It has quite a few more bells & whistles than the free Picasa and can do some amazing things like photo galleries & such.

This is the one I personally use to organize all of my Biodiesel related photos (well over 10,000 of them). For small editing jobs, I use PSE's Editor, but for the big stuff I pull out "the big guns".

Adobe Photoshop
Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/
Not cheap, this software is the industry standard for commercial photo editing. It'll collect the oil, filter it, dewater it, make Biodiesel out of it, drain the glycerin, and wash & dry it...and do it in style (well, not really, but you get what I'm going after....) The software has endless possibilities.

I use this when I want to do high powered editing. The MSRP on it is pretty steep though ($699 for the latest version, I use CS3 & paid about $400 for a full retail copy). If you're really into photo editing, this might be for you, but, if you're like about 99% of the world, get Picasa or Photoshop Elements as they'll both do 99% of what you'd ever really want to do with your photos.

4- Resize The Picture For The Web
While your 10 mega pixel camera is great & all, it'll generate a HUGE file! Both in file size & file dimension. Upload that raw file from your camera right to the forum and it won't get looked at much (because none of us can look at a 2135 x 3080 image on a standard monitor all at once. All we'll see is the top, left-hand corner of the image. Even scrolling over the image can be difficult. So, it'll get ignored). So the secret? Pull the files from your camera into an editing program and resize them for the web.

Most software editing tools allow you to import pictures right from your camera and will give you the ability to resize them. I usually resize for a width no more than about 600 to 800 pixels for web forums. Any more than that & people end up having to scroll (which again means people won't bother looking at your picture).

My resize recommendations:
Pixels:
Height - No more than 1,000
Width - No more than 800
(ie. 600 width x 800 height is great!)

Also, don't go too small (below 200 wide or 200 tall) or else no one can see what you wanted to show.

6- Add A Description
Somewhere in your post, add a description of what the picture is about. Give specifics, it makes it more interesting and if you're asking a question about the picture you took, having a better description of what we're looking at is going to get you more responses.

7- Add A Descriptive Subject
In the Subject body of the post (you know, up where it says "Subject:" when you're making a post), add a description about what the post is about. You don't have to go overboard, but subject lines like, "Whats this?" isn't good enough. Something like "Picture Of My Biodiesel" or something that tells us what we're about to read will get more attention.

Enjoy the forum!
-Graydon
Biodiesel Pictures Admin