1. Chapter Four
Digital Photography Foundations (How to use the various settings on your digital camera)

2. Image Size

3. Image Size Large, medium, small, etc.
Choose whatever the largest image size gives you
the most flexibility (enlarging, cropping, high-quality printing, etc.)
Drawback: large image sizes mean less taking images on the same memory card
Comment: memory cards are getting cheaper all the time; get a spare one if necessary

4. File Format

5. File Format JPEG RAW RAW+JPEG Size
Compression (e.g. Normal, Fine, Extra fine)
RAW
Compression or uncompressed
RAW+JPEG

6. Compression: JPEG JPEG compression is lossy
The less compression, the higher the image quality
The higher compression, the smaller the image file size
Many digital cameras allow you to set the levels of compression
RAW file format has no compression

7. JPEG Quality

8. JPEG Compression

9. RAW vs JPEG

10. iPhone 7 RAW vs JPEG

12. ISO setting Typical settings: 50,100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
Auto ISO: the camera chooses an ISO value depending on lighting conditions, e.g. well-lighted scenes , dark scenes

13. ISO setting
High ISO settings (e.g or above) tend to cause noise in images

14. ISO 1600 Low-cost compact digital camera with a small sensor
Professional DSLR camera with a large full-frame sensor

15. ISO setting tips
For well-lighted “normal” shots, use for best image quality
For “action” shots, use 400 or 800 for faster shutter speed
For indoor or night shots without flash, use 1600 or above

16. How to check ISO on phones?
IOS
You need to download an app, e.g. Photo Investigator
Android
Open a picture in your Photos/Gallery app, select Details on menu

17. Color Temperature Light sources
2000K Sunrise
2500K Light bulbs
K Daylight, flash
9000K Overcast sky
Lower color temperature means “warmer” color (reddish)
Higher color temperature means “cooler” color (bluish)

18. Ambient light with different colour temperatures

19. White Balance (WB)
A piece of white paper would look pure white under broad day light.
A piece of white paper would look a little bit blue under fluorescent light.
We would “see” a white paper in both cases because our brains (not our eyes) already “adjust” the color in real time.
An image sensor would “honestly” record the slightly blue color in the second case.
It is up to the camera’s CPU to “adjust” the color of the image to compensate for the non-white light source.

20. Auto White Balance (AWB)
The camera evaluates the scene and tries to determine the white point(s) of the scene.
Not always successful, e.g. when bright colors fill most of the scene, or in low temperature lighting.

21. Presets and custom WB
Daylight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, flash, etc.
Best to take test shots to determine the most appropriate presets.
Most digital cameras allow you to manually set a custom WB for a particular lighting condition by taking a shot of a white subject under that condition.
Some digital cameras even allow you to set WB in terms of color temperature, e.g. 5000K

22. White Balance Presets

23. Try White Balance settings
On iPhone: VSCO
On Android: Adobe Lightroom (Professional mode)

24. Sharpening
Most digital cameras use in-camera sharpening to compensate for color interpolation.
In-camera sharpening of images may not give the most desirable results as sharpening could remove useful details of an image.
Some cameras allow you to set different levels of sharpening or even disable sharpening.

27. Color Spaces
A color space determines how many different colors can be recorded on a digital camera.
The most commonly used color space: sRGB
Some digital cameras provide other color spaces which are usually richer than sRGB, e.g. Adobe RGB

28. Miscellaneous settings
LCD brightness
LCD/system sleep
Date and time (when travelling abroad)
File-numbering
Formatting the memory card