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How-To

Valuable tips, tricks and techniques for every step of the photographic process.

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  • RAW vs. JPEG

    Which format should you shoot?
    • By Michael J. Mcnamara on December 16, 2008

    Do you mow yourown lawn, wash your own car, and fix things when they break? Then you should shoot photos in the RAW! No, not nude. I'm talking about setting your digital camera to store images in its RAW file format instead of JPEG. If you're not even sure what a RAW file is, you're not alone-as we learned from a recent online survey of more than 2,500 visitors to www.PopPhoto.com: While a vocal minority of Pop Photo Forum members (and many pros) swear RAW is the only choice for real photographers, my own experience supports the survey results.

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  • Digital Toolbox: Bright Ideas

    Three quick ways to fix underexposure.
    • By Debbie Grossman on December 16, 2008

    Was your camera's autofocus tricked by a bright spot in the frame? Did you underestimate the exposure you'd need for your subject?
    Try these techniques to salvage those too-dark images.

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  • 25 Cent Fortunes

    How "ordinary" photographers are making Big Money shooting for small stock agencies.
    • By Kerrie Mitchell on December 16, 2008

    Stock photographer Jaimie Duplass likes to be surprised by where her pictures turn up.
    The 38-year-old mother of three from Russellville, AR, often uses her son James as a model. At the age of three, he's already appeared on several magazine covers, the Wal-Mart website, and-one of Duplass' favorites-a billboard in Poland.

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  • Camera Phones Come of Age

    Latest models dial up picture quality.
    • By Michael J. Mcnamara on December 16, 2008

    Do you have framed photos on your wall that were taken with a camera phone?
    We didn't think so. Most of those now on the market can barely capture a decent image to email or view on a tiny LCD screen. But that could change with the latest phones packing 2 Megapixels or more.
    In fact, amateur photographers shopping for 3 to 5MP digital cameras might take a phone alternative, especially if they plan to make just 4x6- to 8x10-inch prints.

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  • How to...

    • By Pop Photo Staff on December 16, 2008

    Pimp your ride
    If you're tired of the usual computer slide-shows and web galleries, consider Dub Wheels' PimpStar LED rims: wheels that look like disco lights when your car's stopped, then display images when it moves. You can even send the pictures to your wheels from your laptop- hopefully at a red light. Ranging from $12,500 to $19,500 for a set of four, street. (www.customwheel.com)

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  • Letters: Share your tips, questions, and comments

    Cold-Blooded Chillers
    • On December 16, 2008

    Cold Blooded Chillers
    The you can do it article "Buggin': A plan for those bitten by the macro bug" (May 2006) was wrong. Anyone who condones chilling insects to get a shot is inhumane. To take a crerature and endanger its life for a photo can never be right. I take insect macros, but the only chilling that is ever done to mine is by Mother Nature when one strays out into the winter.
    William Geddings
    Sumter, SC

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  • My Project: Tunnel Vision

    How photographer Duncan Gold shows what lies beneath.
    • By Lori Fredrickson on December 16, 2008

    "I've always been fond of underground places," says Duncan Gold. The 38-year-old Colorado Springs, CO resident spends his time hunting for places that are truly unseen: storm drains, abandoned mine shafts, missile sites, evacuation tunnels, even an entire ghost town buried in the mountains.

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  • Master Class: Pete Turner

    How jazz helped define the work of a legendary colorist.
    • By Monica R. Cipnic on December 16, 2008

    Photographers like to say that their medium's closest artistic equivalent is music. That assertion has more to do with their fondness for tunes -- many of them are frustrated musicians -- than with any critical rationale. But if any photographer's work bears comparison to music, the most abstract of all the arts, it is Pete Turner's. In Turner's highly graphic, supersaturated images, color and form are analogous to pitch and meter, and almost disembodied from physical substance -- like music, pure wavelengths of energy.

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  • The Fine Art Printing Process

    • By Jay Dickman And Jay Kinghorn on December 16, 2008

    Digital imaging has spawned more how-to books than film photography ever did, making it harder than ever to separate the instructional wheat from the chaff. We've found that the best of these books are often a joint effort, with two photographers filling in the gaps in each other's experience and knowledge. Perfect Digital Photography: Expert Advice for Capturing, Correcting, and Printing Exceptional Images (McGraw-Hill, $40) is just such a book.

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  • NASA Goes Digital

    A look at how NASA is using the Kodak DCS 760 to document everything from space shuttle launch damage to glacial melt, and capturing some breathtaking images in the process.
    • By Phil Scott on December 16, 2008

    For decades now NASA has been a huge fan of film. Would Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin's 1969 moonwalk, shot by Neil Armstrong with a Hasselblad 500EL, look as crisp in digital? Houston's Mission Control thought not, and kept the Hasselblad operational for years. But then came the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, and Houston realized it needed to thoroughly examine an orbiter before it returned to earth.

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