30 tips for taking perfect pics

In years gone by, photo labs would put quality-control stickers on poor-quality photos, with helpful tips on how to avoid making the same mistake in the future.

These days, digital cameras and photo printers offer the potential for a whole new generation of errors – and there’s no photo lab to help out.

Back in the days of film, autofocus was a comparatively young technology, white balance hadn’t been invented and ISO was simply the speed rating on the film carton.

However, the digital revolution brings with it a whole new raft of things to consider – and it doesn’t mean the old issues have disappeared, either.

Even with a digital camera, you still get fingers over lenses, slanted horizons and telegraph poles growing out of people’s heads.

The good news is you don’t need photo lab boffins and their stickers anymore – not when you’re armed with our top tips for avoiding 30 common photo problems.

1. Camera shake
In poor light, the camera has to expose the image sensor to light for longer. And when you use a shutter speed (the length of time the sensor is exposed for) greater than 1/30th of a second, you’re entering camera shake territory.

There are three things you can do here. First, you can increase the ISO (sensitivity), which will shorten the shutter speed.

Try bracing the camera against a wall or a door frame. Better still, use a tripod (although that’s not always practical, of course).

You can put your camera on a flat surface and then use the self-timer to fire the shutter rather than pressing it with your button and risk jogging the camera.

It’s advisable to switch off your camera’s flash when shooting at shows or exhibitions, but you may need to increase the ISO to avoid camera shake.

2. Automatic flash
Your camera’s built-in flash is designed to provide additional light when there isn’t enough natural light. However, this may not always be ideal.

Flash is best reserved for emergencies, and you should do without it when you can.

It doesn’t just spoil the natural lighting, it can leave you red-faced at public ceremonies or sporting events.

Your camera is probably set up to fire the flash automatically. You need to cycle through the flash modes until you get to off. Most cameras will retain this setting, even when you turn it off.

3. Slanting horizons
The human eye is very sensitive to slight changes in angles, which it expects to be dead-level such as horizons in landscapes or a seascape. After all, water’s not supposed to be on a slope.

You’re more likely to get the horizon level if you use the LCD screen on the rear rather than the viewfinder, although this doesn’t apply to digital SLRs.

Better still, see if your camera has an option to display gridlines on the display.

It’s also easy to tilt the camera inadvertently when pressing the shutter, so even though the shot was level on the LCD, it’s slanted in the saved image.

Even slight tilts in the horizon can stick out like a sore thumb so, take your time when composing shots and make sure they’re straight on the LCD.

4. Rampant red-eye
Red-eye ruins shots of people and pets alike. It is caused by a combination of flash intensity and the fact that the flash tube is on almost the same axis as the camera lens.

Some cameras have anti red-eye modes which fire off a series of pre-flashes to make the subject’s irises close, but that means your subject has to keep still.

It’s better to switch this off and fix red-eye on your computer. Photoshop Elements 5, for example, can automatically detect and fix red-eye as you import your pictures.

Some new cameras from Hewlett-Packard and Nikon can detect and remove red-eye in-camera as the image is processed and saved.

5. Grey snow syndrome
Snow is meant to be a brilliant white. But cameras don’t know this, and judge brightness by rendering what’s in front of the camera as a standard grey tone.

If you are photographing a bright subject – one that is bright-toned, not just well-illuminated – you need to use your camera’s Exposure Value (EV) compensation option to increase the exposure, typically by 0.7-1EV.

If your camera has this function, its manual should explain how to do this.

Changing the EV like this forces the camera to overexpose the scene, and reproduce snow and other light subjects as bright as they are in real life.

6. Indoor lighting
Artificial indoor light has a strong yellow/orange colour compared with ordinary daylight.

While your camera’s auto white balance will, in theory, attempt to compensate for this, in practice it never goes far enough.

Instead, choose the tungsten or incandescent white balance preset for domestic lighting, or fluorescent for offices. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes to your pictures.

If this still doesn’t produce satisfactorily neutral-looking colours, your camera will probably have a manual white balance option.

To use this, simply take a calibration shot of a white (or grey) card under the same lighting.

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