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E. Could you use a little light boost?

Sometimes the best uses of flash are at the very moments your camera doesn't pop it up. Take this sunflower picture, for example. Without assistance from the flash, the flowers would have been dark and the sky nicely exposed, or the flowers bright and the sky blown out. When you're looking at a scene that's very bright in the background and dark in the front, turn on that flash to balance out the scene.

You can also take years (or, at least, months) off the faces of your outdoor portrait subjects by adding a little extra light. Hide the shadows under their eyes by flashing them a bit. If you're getting too much or too little flash action, crank it down or up with flash exposure compensation.

F. Is your subject whizzing by?

There's nothing worse than motion blur when you want a freeze frame. If in your mind's eye there's a frozen cyclist, but on your LCD monitor there's a whooshy smudge, you should have adjusted that shutter speed before you clicked. Set it at a minimum of 1/500 to stop the action.

What if you're envisioning a calming, peaceful, and blurred-out waterfall, but all you're getting is a stilted stream? If you want to really capture motion blur, make sure you leave your shutter open long enough. And before you do, put your camera on a tripod. When that's not an option, set it down on something flat and use your automatic timer to get the photo without jiggling it. Then dial your shutter speed to 1/2 sec or more.

G. Is one element of your picture by far the most important?

When you were looking through the viewfinder at your beautiful grandmother as she sat at her kitchen table, all you saw was her face. Unfortunately, the camera picked up the cabinets, and the dishes in the sink, and the floral-patterned wallpaper behind her.

Next time, before you click, tune out the distractions by opening up your aperture. The smaller the number, the wider the aperture will be -- and the less of your image will be in focus. Don't go down to f/1.4 for a portrait, or only grandma's nose will be sharp. Try f/2.8 and focus on her eyes.

Wide apertures, up to f/3.5, are also great for dramatizing still lifes. Food pictures and flower shots have all kinds of impact when you focus on that tiny bud, and let the rest fade into the background.

If, on the other hand, you don't want to lose a bit of that sunny landscape, close your aperture down tight. At f/16, you won't miss much.

H. Do you love the light you have?

It's evening and the natural light of the setting sun is gorgeous, so you turned off the flash. But your pictures keep coming out blurry. You can still get the shot you want if you fix the ISO -- the higher it's set, the less light you'll need to get a steady shot. (Note: ISO isn't shown in every viewfinder, but you can always find it in your camera settings.)

Fiddling around with ISO can help when you need to curb the light, too. If that motion blur shot you wanted was coming out way too bright, turn your ISO down and take the picture again.

I. Do your colors look the way they should?

When the pretty golden glow of evening turns out way too blue in your photo, the culprit could be your automatic white balance. You can remedy that: Cycle through the white balance modes until you find one that replicates the real color of the moment. If it's still not right, see if your camera will let you set the Kelvin temperature. A higher one should do the trick -- to ensure a warm look, start at 5000K and work your way up from there.

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