Photography has always been an immensely popular hobby. The advent of digital photography has increased its popularity dramatically. In this first presentation I will keep it basic. I will talk a little about some big picture concepts to keep in mind regarding photography, tell you a little more about my interests in photography, give you online references for more information, and spend most of the time on getting you up and running for your hospital.

After this presentation I have an intermediate level slide show that goes into significantly more detail.

I wrote an article for this year’s May/June issue of Trends on digital photography. It was designed to give you a quick overview of how digital photography can be applied in your hospital. It is not as comprehensive as this presentation.

I have what I like to call 4 axioms of photography. They are big picture concepts, and are important to think about before I overwhelm you with information. Try to keep them in mind as we delve into the details later.

The best photo in the world is not on the cover of National Geographic. Its the photo that you take, that you like, and has meaning to you. I took the photo on the left in Tuscany last year with a 3 megapixel point and shoot camera. I printed it out at 8 x 10, had it framed, and put it in my bathroom. It looks great to me and brings back nice memories. To me its a great photo, and that's all that matters.

You need to recognize a good photo when it is figuratively, and in this picture literally, staring you in the face. My neighbor drove by in his pickup with his two French bulldogs while I was outside washing my car. As we chatted the dogs kept staring at me. Finally, after several minutes I couldn't take it any longer, and since I sometimes see life through the eyes of a photographer, I said “excuse me” to my neighbor, ran inside and retrieved my camera.

I took this photo in Borneo in 1991 at a place called Camp Leakey. We were photographing female orangutans that were feeding near this bridge when I noticed the lovely gesture this female was giving us. I just turned and shot without focusing, and luckily I got the photo I wanted. When you go on a once in a lifetime trip like this have your camera with you and be ready to shoot at all times. Forget about settings- just shoot . A big camera with a big lens is no better than a point and shoot if you don’t have it with you. To remedy this situation I have both cameras. The point and shoot stays in my shirt pocket at all times.

My goal is to spend as little time as possible in Photoshop, also know as editing or post processing. These two pictures with my friend are the result of my early days with Photoshop. After spending 15 minutes on the photo on the left the end result was the photo on the right, which is not appreciably better. I will be showing you some practical editing shortly that minimizes post editing time but maximizes outcome.

The photo of me and my new found friend were taken in Borneo also.

If you are still aligned with the the dark side and use only film, this monograph from Adobe will go over the transition you need to make to go from film to digital. Its on Adobe's web site.  Michael Reichmann from Luminous Landscape wrote this- one of the top 2 web sites I recommend.

Since some people do not currently own a digital camera lets go over a few pro’s and con’s in relation to film photography. Since all of the major camera and film manufacturer's have essentiallly converted to digital, the "Digital Disadvantages" side of this slide are diminishing, especially costs.

On the "Digital Advantages" side of this slide these are major advanages over film.

I first go involved with SLR camera photography in 1991 just prior to a trip to Borneo. At the urging of my clients I purchased a semi-automatic manual focus Minolta SLR (single lens reflex) camera in order to give them slide shows upon my return. I learned a lot about photography on this one trip. The major lesson I learned when I gave my slide shows is that when you take good photos and combine it with good narrative you can have a positive impact on people. This is a big reason why I love photography.

I also learned how many good photographic opportunities you can miss with a manual focus camera trying to shoot wildlife. Several other people on this trip had autofocus cameras, and even though I never saw how good their pictures came out, I knew I needed one.

The photo on the left was taken in Borneo at in infirmary for baby orangutans that were confiscated from private owners. Some of then had TB so I examined all of them. The other 2 are wild orangutans we encountered in the jungle as part of our research project.

I purchased a Canon EOS Elan autofocus camera for my next big trip to Africa several years later. This is a great wildlife camera, and I was able to utilize the autofocus much more effectively compared to manual focus, even though I still missed some shots. At this juncture I also started learning more about the art of photography. This is exemplified by the sunset photo of the elephant on the right.

All of these photos were taken in Zimbabwe. Do you notice the oxpecker (not the white cattle egret) on the buffalo's horn?

My first digital camera! I used it so much, and dropped it so many times, that I had to tape it together to keep the battery door shut. For $1000 I got a whopping 1.3 megapixel camera. I loved it! It had a macro attachment for close ups, and I used Photoshop 3 to edit. I stopped using this camera prematurely only because I could not find a battery for it when the original gave out.

So I purchased an Olympus 2 mega pixel, eventually went to a 4 mega pixel, and now I use a 5 mega pixel at my hospital for all my web pictures. For my travel photos of people I use a small 3 megapixel. The overwhelming majority of the photos on the web site for the Long Beach Animal Hospital were taken with these cameras.

For my wildlife photos I use a Canon 20D. And for my sports work I use my Canon 1D Mark II exclusively. We will talk more about these cameras in the intermediate lecture to follow.

There are many web sites dedicated to digital photography. Lets go over a few that I feel are useful. If you visit any one of these sites visit the Steve's Digicams and Luminous Landscape. At the end of this page I will give you direct links to all these web sites.

Steve's is a consumer oriented web site with practical information on many areas. Last year just prior to 4th of July a professional photographer wrote a short how-to on shooting fireworks.

Luminous-landscape.com is more concerned with the art of photography, although he reviews cameras also. He has great understanding of photography in general. He explains things in simple terms, and when appropriate, in sophisticated terms. In the intermediate lecture to follow I will be referencing this web site often.

There are a vast amount of wildlife web sites. This is a well known one. Moose is located near Mammoth California, uses only SLR cameras and Nikon exclusively. He has workshops and lots of good information.

Sportsshooter.com is a very popular web site for action and sports photographers. The web site is free and loaded with information. To be a member of the Sportsshooter organization you have to be sponsored and submit 10 photographs for their approval. If accepted it is only $25 per year. This is a superb site to learn how to take better photos of your children playing sports, although it is aimed more towards the professional.

Fredmiranda.com is a reliable and very extensive web site if you are interested in purchasing a used camera. As a general rule, lenses hold value, cameras do not. Overall, you save a few hundred dollars when buying good used equipment as compared to new. I have purchased from people on this web site numerous times with no problems. I NEVER send money to anyone without first looking at and testing what I am purchasing, which means I only deal with local people. Living in the Los Angeles area there are many photographers buying and selling good camera equipment so purchasing locally is no problem. You might not have this luxury in the smaller cities.

Robgalbraith.com is a professional web site for photojournalists, yet they still give you practical information. For example, this professional photographer does not use a SLR camera like most pro’s.

The manufacturers’ web sites should be on your list also. The provide a wealth of information on the specific camera/lens you use.

Many people purchase their digital cameras online. Well known ones are Roberts Imaging and B & H. In the back of the photo magazines at the newsstands are ads for many companies that sell cameras (17th St. Photo, Broadway Photo, etc.) that I have used successfully in the past. I make them fax me a purchase order ahead of time so that I have recourse with my credit card company if I encounter any problems. They tend to charge excessive shipping costs to make up for the low price that enticed you to purchase from them in the first place.

We already talked about purchasing used equipment for individuals on FredMiranda.com. There is a business called KEH.com I have used that reliably sells used equipment for a great price.

Some of my fellow photographers purchase from stores. You get better service and return policies sometimes, and often times the price is just as good as online, although you need to add tax costs and subtract shipping costs to compare accurately.

The lenses on this list are the best that Canon makes, and range in price from $3500 to $6500. You can rent a professional lens or camera for a special occasion and not have to incur all these costs if your needs are only for a short time.

They all work fine, and the manufacturer of your camera decides which ones it will use for your specific model. The most popular are CF and SD. The future is SD. Rob Galbraith.com  tests them for speed and reliability. In the camera in this photo you are looking at a professional Canon camera that takes both CF and SD at the same time.

I recommend purchasing the  2Gb - 4 Gb cards based on price and storage capacity.  An 8 megapixel camera ( high resolution) will hold 300 photos on a 1 GB card. Prices are very reasonable for the amount of storage capacity, and are the same for CF and SD.

Downloading your photos is one of the biggest bottle necks in the digital work flow. Use of a card reader will move your photos from your camera to your computer much quicker than directly from the camera via the USB cable that comes with your camera. A Firewire connection from your card reader to your computer is faster yet. The PC card slot is only for portable computers, and allows rapid transfer of files also.

Steves-digicams.com does a good job comparing the options on these point and shoot (also called digicams) cameras. These prices do vary, and change often because of the competitive nature of this industry. All things being equal, the more megapixels the better, but you realistically do not need to go beyond 3 or 4  megapixels unless you plan on printing larger than 8” x 10” photos.

Great all purpose cameras for business, travel, sports. The lenses are better and the cameras have more features than regular point and shoots. Of course that means they are larger, heavier, and more expensive. The lenses are not interchangeable like SLR’s, which is good or bad depending on your needs.

We will talk about digital SLR cameras in the Intermediate presentation to follow. They have numerous advantages over the point and shoot digicams, and are used by professionals. Their two primary disadvantages are cost and weight.

The biggest use by far for the photos I take with my point and shoot is for my web site. Our site gets over 5 million hits each month, and contains 2000 photos. Lets look at how we implement these photos for my web site.

We take client photos (with permission) on almost every new client. We put these pictures on the screen saver in all of our exam rooms and also post them on our web site in the new client section for 2 weeks. If you do just one thing with your digital camera this might be the place to start. Its a huge way to bond with your clients.

Most children take fantastic photos with their pets. This is a great way to bond with your future generation of clients.

There are many categories of photographs you can put on your web site or the screen saver on your hospital computers. These can easily be printed also. This frog photo gives an example of the good quality obtainable with a point and shoot camera on its macro setting.

Anything positive with staff or clients (with their permission of course) goes on the web site. Chuck Henry made it into the local newspaper, and one of our technicians was given an award from the local aquarium for all her work. Its a great way to give kudos for a job well done.

Showing photos of staff in professional and caring poses. Any time this opportunity presents itself you have a good PR opportunity

We also inform our clients of the animals that come into our wildlife program and how we care for them.

Some times we just plain old have fun with the camera. Boarding pets are given a chance to get their mugs taken also. The bird on the right is drinking a shot of tequila, or so we told the owner when they picked the bird up and we showed them this photo on our computer. These pictures show clients that boarding pets are not just thrown into a cage with water, but are given attention by our staff.

Pathologists greatly appreciate photos of lesions prior to receiving a tissue sample. You can print this out and submit the photo with your tissue sample, or email it to the pathologist if that is more convenient.

For the occasional radiograph you need to digitize you can rapidly obtain good quality images with a digital camera. You do not need to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a dedicated digital radiology unit.

Put the radiograph on a viewer in a dark room, turn the camera flash off, and set the camera to macro (close up) setting. Hold the camera steady and shoot.

They are readily transmitted to a radiologist for fast turnaround. Our radiologist knows us, and is comfortable reading our digital radiographs after viewing many of our plain films. We usually get a report within hours, almost always within the same day. We charge clients for this service. Confer with your radiologist on the size and resolution they prefer. We wil practice this in the lab.

You can show the professionalism of your doctors prior to any expensive surgery. This is one of our referral surgeons peforming a TPLO surgery.

This pre-existing fractured tooth was encountered during a routine dental. The client was unaware of it. When the client is present for their release appointment we just show them the picture on the screen on the back of the digital camera. You can also put them on your computer screen so they will show up in a larger size than the back of the digital camera. If this is an important case, or there might be legal ramifications, then print it out and put it in the medical record.

We can follow the progress of a lesion. In this case it is a mass on the inside uppper eyelid. I was not going to be present for the recheck appointment of this Iggie one week later, so I took a picture and put it on a computer we all share so the doctor performing the recheck exam could see the original lesion. We could print this out with one of those simple 4x6 printers and put it in the client record. If you are a paperless office, it would be easy to attach this to the file.

Take the photo and about 1 minute later you have a beautiful 4 x 6 in hand without the need of a computer.

Where can you put this printout?

Medical record

Give to client

Staff PR board

Every camera manufacturer bundles editing software with their camera. It works well, and for some people that is all they need. There are better programs though......

The gold standard in editing software is Adobe Photoshop, the most current version being CS 2 ( also known as version 9). It is a monster of a program, is designed for graphic professionals, and is way overkill for most every veterinarian (and anyone else but a dedicated photographer). The program called Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 is much easier to use and has the most important features found in Photoshop, but with easier implementation. Photoshop is $600 new, Photoshop Elements 4 is $79.95 new when downloaded from Adobe.com. Follow the New Product links from Adobe’s web site.

Lets look at these programs and some basic editing you should be doing in preparing your photos for your web site. From this point on I will be showing commands that are in both programs, and will be using the terms Photoshop CS 2 and Elements 4 synonymously.

These programs have the Bridge, a way to rapidly view and organize the photos on your memory card. After all the pictures have loaded as thumbnails you can click on one of them to make it appear larger.

If you take many photos you can easily color code the good ones from the bad ones as you rapidly view them. I use green for keepers, yellow for maybe, and red for the lousy ones I will not use.

Each photo has EXIF (EXchangeable Information File) data, a way to look at the details of the picture taking process. This will tell you time, date, camera, shutter speed, aperture etc. You an easily find this information in the Bridge.

You can filter the color coded pictures and show only specific ones. In this case we filtered out the yellow and red color labels and are showing only the green ones.

All view sizes can be changed. You make the larger picture and thumbnails any size you want.

You can even make the thumbnails appear vertically, allowing the larger size photo you select to become even larger.

Now lets show a few basic editing options that can be performed in seconds, and will prepare this photo for rapid downloading and easy viewing on a web site. Remember, one of our axioms of photography is to spend minimal time in post processing.

Cropping is a basic function that should be performed on almost every digital photo. I selected the crop tool on the tool palette in the left of this photo. The crop tool is the 3rd one down on the left and is gray because I selected it. I drew a box across the screen with my mouse on the part of the photo I wanted to keep, which in this case, were the 2 faces. In this photo the purse straps are not needed.

When I let go of the mouse button the cropped picture looks like this. This is the type of photo I want on my web site.

Cropping does more than make the appearance more pleasing and appropriate....

Cropping also significantly decreased the size of the file. In this original photo before cropping the file size is 14.1 megabytes. This is huge and far too large to even fathom putting on your web site because it will take so long to download most people will move on before it appears on their screens.

After cropping it has decreased substantially to 6.8 megabytes. Even though I cropped out the parts I don't want the photo is 21 inches by 21 inches, again far too large for a web site. So now we are going to make the photo more appropriate in size for the web. It will be large enough to easily see but the file size will be small enough to download instantly.

Before we continue note the resolution is 72 pixels per inch (ppi). This is a standard for viewing on a computer, and should be left at this number since a computer monitor cannot show a resolution higher than this. If you were to print this photo on your ink jet printer then now is the time to change this number, preferably between 240 ppi and 300 ppi. Be warned though that when you do this the file size will increase dramatically. It is not unusual to work on one photo in Photoshop that is 25-50 megabytes in size when you increase the resolution beyoned 72 ppi. Unless you have a fast machine, and large hard drive, and lots of RAM, you might bog your system down.

For most web photos a size in inches between 3-5 is plenty large. For all our client photos we make them 3 inches. For our surgery photos we make them 5 inches. For our occasional special photos we make them larger depending on the need, sometimes 8 inches or more.

In the slide abobe we made the photo 4 inches by 4 inches. Notice how the file size is now only 243 kilobytes. Prior to this the photo was 21 inches by 21 inches and 6.8 megabytes in size. We are getting closer to a size that downloads rapidly yet still retains the quality of the photo.

We are going to make the file sizes of these photos even smaller while maintaining their quality by using the "save for web" command. This feature of Photoshop is reason enough alone to think about purchasing it.

When you go to the File menu in Photoshop select the "save for web" option. Keep it at JPEG and select medium compression for all your photos. After doing this, the file in the picture prior to this one, which was 4 " by 4 " and was 243 kilobytes in size, stayed at 4" by 4", but went from 243K to 8K. This is a 30x reduction in file size. When compared to the original photo, which before cropping was 35" x 35", and had a file size of 14.1 million bytes, this final photo was 3" x 3" and had file size of 8,000 bytes. This is over a 1700 times reduction in file size. It is plenty big for someone's photo on your web page, and it will now download instantly. 

If you perform just one editing function with your digital photos you should crop, resize them to the appropriate size in inches, and and then "save for web". The whole process takes only seconds, and fits into our philosophy of minimal editing time. Lets look at some other editing tools you might want to use at times.

Sometimes the color tint on your picture is off. There are several potential reasons for this, the most common one being a lack of flash on indoor photos.  Almost all digital cameras impart a reddish or warm color tone to a picture. If this is excessive it needs correcting. For all of our indoor photos, except when we are taking a photo of a radiograph on a viewer, the flash is on, and this color tint problem is rare.

The hue/saturation command is one of several commands in Photoshop that will fix this.

The left side top photo is too reddish. The right side top photo is too yellow. They were both corrected in seconds with the hue/saturation command in the lower pictures.

Minor flaws can rapidly be corrected with the “Clone Stamp Tool”. It took less than 5 seconds to correct the blemish on this boy's upper lip, and made him a much happier campier when he saw his photo later on our web site.

Underexposed and overexposed photos can sometimes be saved with the Shadow/Highlights command. This command can be a lifesaver since a large number of photos we all take are not properly exposed. This is so important we will spend significant amount of time on this in the Intermediate lecture.

For now lets talk about how to correct an improper exposure in Photoshop using the Shadow/Highlights command.

I set it usually near 10% for each parameter and leave it there. You can make more adjustments than this, but it sometimes leads to articfacts in your photo. Like most everything in Photoshop you have to try different levels and see how it turns out.

The photo on the left is underexposed, and was salvaged with the Shadow/Highlights command. This giraffe photo was taken in the Masai Mara in Kenya. And yes, I am the one that underexposed it. I will explain how I accomplished this improper exposure in the Intermediate lecture. 

There are limitations to what this command can accomplish. The picture on the right, after correction, is still not properly exposed after the shadow/highlights command was used.

If a flash had been used in the photo on the left it would have been properly exposed in the first place and no Shadow/highlights command would have been needed. Somehow this message will escape your staff's thought process on some days!

All of the prior editing I have shown you only take seconds to accomplish. If you have an important photo it might be worth it to spend several minutes correcting it.

This photo has a yellow color tint from a lack of flash. The woman in this photo also wanted me to correct the freckles and blemishes on her skin, remove the dark circles under her eyes, and whiten her teeth. The next photo shows you the final picture after 15 minutes of working on it, using mostly the editing steps shown previously.

All of the edits are subtle, but add to the quality of the picture.Go back and forth between the two to see the slight difference. Editing people's faces like this is a greatway to make friends!

To learn more there are numerous books on this subject. Scott Kelby is the author of choice, whether you use Photoshop CS 2 or Elements 4.

Two new programs are in the works for digital photography editing and workflow. Aperture is from Apple Computer and Lightroom is a new program from Adobe. Both are high end programs made for professional photographers that shoot large amounts of photos at a time. In the future there might be simplified versions of these programs for the average photographer.

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Lets look at the settings on a typical point and shoot digital camera. This is an Olympus 5050Z. The picture on the left shows the top of the camera. The circular dial has numerous options. The setting we use at work is the "P", or Program setting. The "A" setting stands for aperture priority, the "S" setting stands for shutter priority, and the "M" setting stands for Manual. The other side of the dial has specific settings for portrait, sports, and landscape. To keep it simple I always tell my staff to put it on the "P" mode.

These are the typical settings for portrait and medical/surgical settings. The flash is on all the time (have I repeated this enough times?) for both of them unless you are taking pictures of radiographs on a viewer. In the portrait settings the autofocus is set to AF, while in the Medical Settings the autofocus is set to macro (close up). To keep it simple for my staff these are the only parameters changed.

The only two focus settings we change are shown on the left. the AF is regular autofocus, and the flower is the macro focus. On the right the icon that looks like a lightning bolt is the flash on, and the same symbol with the circle around it is no flash.

These settings, on this camera, took all the photos viewed earlier in this presentation. You need to work with your individual camera to tweak your camera for optimum photos.

Recommended Digital Photography Web Sites 

General Information on Point and Shoot Cameras

Steve's Digicams

http://www.steves-digicams.com/

The Art of Photography

Luminous Landscape

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/

Action and Sports Photography

Sports Shooter

http://www.sportsshooter.com/

Wildlife

Moose Petersen

http://www.moosepetersen.com/

SLR Cameras and Lenses

The Digital Picture

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/

Photojournalism

Rob Galbraith

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp

Buying and Selling Used Equipment

Fred Miranda

http://www.fredmiranda.com/

General SLR information

Digital Photo Outback

http://www.outbackphoto.com/

General Information

DP Review

http://www.dpreview.com

General Information

Photozone

http://www.photozone.de/active/news/index.jsp

Intermediate Digital Photography Lecture