So in the spirit of sharing, the following are some ideas  for those of you who haven’t got out with your camera in a while and made some photographs. Your challenge of sorts is to shoot take 10 different photos in the next month or so. These ideas and photos don’t take a professional camera, nor do they require you to travel to some exotic place to take better photographs. As you will see, these photos are the kind that can be taken nearly anywhere.

Start At Home

Start at home with everyday objects. Shoot something simple, but capture it as aesthetically as possible. As always, don’t settle for one shot. You’re shooting in the digital age, so taking several shots, from different angles and in different lighting conditions is simply not an expensive problem.

This photo represents a part of my morning routine. A cup of black coffee. Nothing special. But what captured my attention were repeated circles of the white cup and saucer, and the black coffee inside. The light coming from the kitchen window was overcast, so I was OK in that area. I took a few shots from above the cup, moved the spoon over some, and settled upon this photo.

Look around your house or apartment. Maybe there’s an interesting clock, bookcase, or musical instrument that you can photograph from an interesting perspective. Don’t let the ordinariness of the subject keep you from shooting it.

Capture Rain Drops

I must have shot photos for like five years before I realized the beauty of shooting rain drops. I’m not the kind of person who likes getting out in the rain. I don’t like the itchy feeling you get from wet clothes. But with this image, when that rain settled I took out my Canon Powershot G9, set it to macro mode and tried to hold the camera as still as possible. I was too lazy to get a tripod, which would have worked better. But since the shutter speed was 1/125th of a second, I was OK. I of course increased the sharpness using Aperture 2.0 software.

Shoot An Out-Of-Focus Shot

Following up on the rain idea, try another shot from your car window. But in this shot, don’t focus the shot.  Just raise your point-and-shoot or 35mm camera and take several shots. Look for some color or shapes to seep through the blur. If your camera’s automatic focus won’t let you take an out-of-focused shot, then turn that feature off. Don’t let your camera boss you around and keep you from getting the shot you want.

Shoot Some Art

Some critics say that photographing art is not really photography. It’s like you’re cheating by making an image out of an image. But that’s not so. You can capture art in context. Or you can ignore the critics and just shoot art for arts sake, plain and simple. Don’t shy away from using one artistic medium to capture another one. I took this shot while at a stoplight. My camera was on the car seat; I saw the photo in my mind before I raised the camera and fired off several shots.

Street Portraits

Okay, this one is for truly brave shooters. For a year, I committed to a self-project of photographing 100 strangers. That’s right, people I didn’t know and would probably never meet again. I discovered the project through a Flickr 100 Strangers group. It is the most challenging photo project I have ever done. It got me out of my comfort zone when it comes to people. Stranger portraits are not candid streets photos in which you take photos of people when they’re not aware of you doing so.  Street portraits are about photographing individuals you find interesting. To get these shots, strike up a conversation before you ask to take a photo. Tell the person about your project and politely ask to take their photograph. If they reject you, don’t take it personally. Just move on and find someone else. The best places to do these type of shots is in busy downtown areas or crowded outdoor events.

Go To The Zoo

Having a hard time finding good subjects to take that better photograph? Go to the zoo. Take your kid or significant other along and see what you can capture. If your city zoo is anything like mine, the animals aren’t going anywhere, and most of the time they can care less about about how many photographs you take of them. So bring along a long range lens of a minimum of 105mm, and see what you can capture in the “wilds” of the zoo.

Old Buildings

One the things I most dislike about where I live is that so much public space has been given over to commercial interests. Old buildings have been torn down, and there are few places that have survived from the demands of modernity. So when I’m out and about, I try to capture interesting old buildings, especially old churches and cathedrals. I’m not religious or anything, but I like capturing the architecture of these buildings.

I captured this photo by driving up to the top of a high-rise parking lot, which gave me a parallel view of the religious crosses. That little extra effort in driving made a difference in the image.

Shoot Slow

Sometimes photos should show the motion of something moving.  If you put your camera on what’s called Shutter Priority, you can set its shutter speed to like 1/25th of a second to capture the motion of a moving subject.

Try this out on moving cars or trains, kids playing, or at a sports event. This is a great way to learn about shutter speeds and an equally interesting way to capture motion.

Shoot Fast

In the same vein as the idea above, shoot to freeze action. Again, use your Shutter Priority, but this time raise the shutter speed to 1/400th of second or faster. If you need to, raise the ISO so that you get more light into the camera. See if you can free action of a moving subject. This shot is another one of my street portraits where I asked the skateboard rider if I could photograph him doing his thing. After I showed him some of the shots I took, he asked me to take a few more.

Paint With The Shutter

Okay, this is the last one in regards to Shutter Priority. I got this idea from reading Understanding Shutter Speed, by Bryan Peterson. This shot is about lowering instead of raising the shutter speed to say 1/5th of second, in a well lit area. Raise the ISO to about 400-600 if you need to, to let in more light. As you take the shot, you, as Peterson says, “twirl, arch, jiggle, or jerk the camera in an up-and-down or side-to-side or round-and round motion.” In other words, paint with your camera. Because the shutter speed is slow, the lens opening will not close up so quickly. Do this several times and you’ll really learn something about slow shutter speeds, plus make some great art.

Faceless Shot

People shots don’t always have to include faces of the people you photograph. Take some shots of someone’s legs, a hand or arm, or a person’s back. Get the face out of the picture and take on the challenge of shooting a faceless photo. This photo was taken very quickly as I crossed a downtown street. I saw these two bikes roll by and took the shot.

Mix Black-and-White With Color

This one involves doing a little Photoshop work after the photo is taken. Select a photo in which you convert it to black-and-white  and then brush back in some of the color. The process in Photoshop is fairly easy: Open the photo in Photoshop. Click on the adjustment layer at the bottom of the Layers palette. Select the Black & White adjustment. Make adjustments to your liking.

Next, set the foreground color to black, and then select the Brush tool. Re-size  the brush tool enough to paint back some color on the image. If you make a mistake, simply change the foreground color to white and paint back in the black-and-white part. This photo is of a dance class in which students a public performance.

Hope these ideas for taking better photographs are helpful. If you decide to try a few out, shoot me a link to your posted image results.  Or perhaps you know some more methods to shoot some really great photos?  Let us know what they are in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• [Google Picasa 101] – Master The Special Effects In Picasa (16)
• [Google Picasa 101] – How To Edit Your Photos (14)
• Tips For Taking Digital Photography Using Live View (24)
• Technology Explained: How Does A Digital Camera Work? (32)
• Stitch Panoramic Photos Together with CleVR (21)

This feature has been a part of most point-and-shoot cameras for quite some time, but many camera users don’t use the feature to its fullest extent. Also, in the last few years, Live View has been built into 35mm DSLR cameras. Latest models of both the Canon and Nikon 35mm cameras feature Live View.

How it Works

With traditional digital cameras, you look through the optical viewfinder at the top of the camera, and compose and take your shot. Then you look on the back of the LCD screen to see how the photo came out. But with Live View, you don’t use the small optical viewfinder. You use the actual LCD screen to frame your photo while at the same time getting a simulated preview of your exposure settings before you take the shot. Many users, however, basically use Live View as the viewfinder and but not for previewing exposure settings. That’s because many users don’t shoot beyond the automatic mode of their camera. The following tips for taking digital photography will guide you through the process of using Live View to it’s fullest capacity.

Live View on Non-35mm Cameras

Live View works best on point-and-shoot and compact cameras because there’s no mirror inside that needs to pop-up to reveal the sensor. So in Live View, if you change any of the exposure settings, including ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation or White Balance settings, you get a simulation of your settings on the LCD screen when you press the shutter halfway down. It works similar to automatic focus when you press the shutter halfway, you see the subject of your camera come into focus.

With larger monitors on the back of digital cameras, you can actually compose shots better using the screen as the viewfinder. The Canon Powershot series, especially the last three models (G9, G10, and G11) each sport a 3-inch screen that makes the traditional tiny viewfinder nearly useless. You can simply see more and compose better with the larger size screen.

The G9, for example, comes with the option to use Grid Guidelines that appears when you’re in live shooting mode. The grid is divided into 9 parts so you can use the traditional Rules of Thirds in photography to compose shots or just line up a subject.

Exposure Settings

Here are a few illustrations of Live View in action. In the first example, Live View mode is engaged and the shutter priority speed is 1/60 of a second, at f/2.8, which means there’s less light coming into the camera. In the second example, I changed the shutter priority to ⅙ of a second, and as you can see more light is allowed into the camera. Before the advent of Live View technology there as no way you could preview exposure in this way.

In another example, I’ve changed the White Balance settings to demonstrate another exposure simulation in Live View. With feature, you now can see if your White Balance is correct or what type of color cast you will have on the lighting before you take the photo. This takes a lot guessing on out the process, and makes for more accurate settings.

Live View on 35mm SLRs

Live View technology works best on point-and-shoot and compact cameras, but not as well on 35mm cameras.  Why is this? Well, Ben Long explains it best in his book, The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS/1000D Companion Book: “To create an image on LCD screen, the image sensor needs to be able to see out the lens. But in an SLR [35mm single reflection camera], there’s a shutter and mirror between the sensor and lens, so the sensor is effectively, blind. This means there’s no way for it…to show you an image on the LCD screen. The XS, though, provides a special feature called Live View that does let you use the LCD screen as the viewfinder.”

With Live View on 35mm cameras, the auto focus is slower and there’s a slight lag in the capture of the photo. Even Canon points out the disadvantages with Live View: “The disadvantage of the Quick Mode AF is that to perform it, the camera has to momentarily lower the mirror and Live Viewing will “black-out” for a moment, as you press the button to activate the AF. Once you remove your thumb from the button, when focusing is completed, Live Viewing instantly returns.”

I use Live View on my Canon 50D for difficult-to-reach shots such as at a dance recital, concert, or even sometimes for group photography photos using a tripod. On the Canon cameras, Live View also features silent mode shooting, which comes in handy in places like churches or wildlife photography.

Also, many Live View features include facial detection which helps improve image focus faces. Of course, this feature is best used for group portraits instead of candid shots where subjects are moving around or are not directly facing the camera.

Though Live View is being added to both consumer and top of the line professional 35mm cameras, I would strongly suggest not purchasing such a camera for that feature. If you want the full of advantage of Live View, you’re better off purchasing a compact camera with that feature.

Finally, I recommend Live View as an effective teaching tool for digital photography. I use the feature on my Canon Powershot G9 in workshops to show how exposure settings work in the camera. And because of the live simulation, students are able to grasp the concepts a little faster. The ability to view, compose, and evaluate exposure settings in the LCD monitor is another breakthrough piece technology that makes taking digital photos easier and better.

So is Live View a feature on your camera? Which camera do you use and how well does the feature work?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Technology Explained: How Does A Digital Camera Work? (32)
• How to Recover Deleted Pictures from a Digicam Memory Card (4)
• How To Easily Manage Photos from Multiple Cameras [Mac] (5)
• 12 Ideas On How To Take Better Photographs (7)
• 10 Features You Should Know About Your Digicamera (26)

The following tips may be best understood if you take out your camera and its manual and try out the suggestions as you read this article. If you don’t have or can’t find your camera’s manual, you can go online and download a PDF copy of it from the manufacture’s site.

The illustrations used in this article are based on the Canon Powershot G9, but I will point out features that are typically found in most point-and-shoot and compact cameras.

Basic Settings

1. Setup Menu: First off, know how to find the setup menu on your camera. Most cameras come with default settings that you can customize for your particular needs or the way you shoot. Look in your manual to find out how to access your camera’s setup menu. Notice what kind of menu changes can be made with the control dials on your camera and the menu settings that you can bring up and select through your camera’s LCD screen. Some cameras, for example, will allow you to change the exposure mode of the camera with a dial on the top or on the back of the camera, while smaller pocket-size cameras will require you to open a menu setting to make those changes.

2. Date and Time Stamp: Most cameras come with quick instructions for how to set the date and time stamp in your camera. If you haven’t already done so, be sure your camera is stamping the correct date and time on your image files. This bit of information (or what is called metadata in the digital photography world) can be very useful for archiving and managing your photos.

3. Review Time: One of the best features about digital photography is the ability to review photos after they are taken. The default time for reviewing an image may be only a couple of seconds, but you typically can change that time, making it longer or shorter. Look up the word “review” or “play menu” in your manual to find out how to change the review time. I have my photos display for 6-8 seconds. This gives me enough time to consider if I need to retake the shot.

4. Picture Count: If you never want to miss a good shot, you should know where to find the picture count for your camera. Typically it can be seen on your camera‘s LCD screen when you review the images stored on your image card. Based the size of your card and the resolution settings you’re shooting in, the camera will display the number of photos you have shot. When you set the camera to take a photo, the number of captures you have remaining that your media card can hold should be displayed on the LCD screen.

5. Format Your Media Card: When you fill up a media card, it’s best to reformat it instead of erasing the image files. Avoid filling up your card completely. Change the card when you only have 5-10 captures remaining that you can put on the card. Also, don’t allow your computer or software application to erase images for you. Reformat your card on the camera itself after you have securely imported and backed up your photos to your computer. Look up the word “format” in the index of your manual for specific instructions.

Advanced Tips

6. Turn the Flash On/Off: Most with cameras come with a built-in flash. Your camera‘s automatic features may cause your flash to fire when you don’t want it to; for example when you’re shooting in a shaded area. So learn how to manually shut off and turn on your camera built-in flash. If you’re shooting in Automatic mode, you most likely will not have the option to turn off the flash, and in that case you’ll need to choose another shooting mode (like Program, discussed later) in order to shut off the flash.

Likewise, if your photos are coming out a little blurred, it means that you may need the use the flash or increase the shutter speed on your camera. If you can’t do the latter, it’s best the turn on the flash for that will automatically increase your shutter speed to 1/60th of a second, which is a better speed for holding a camera than at say 1/10th of a second. (I will discuss flash later in a longer article in this series.)

7. Shooting Beyond A: Most beginning photographers shoot in automatic mode. There’s typically a dial on your camera with a green Auto icon indicating that mode of shooting. When you shoot in automatic mode you’re telling your camera to make all the decisions about exposure settings when you take pictures. Your camera will read the amount and type of light coming into the lens and hitting the sensor and it will make the best guess for setting the exposure.

But if you learn how to shoot beyond the automatic made, you can have more control about those settings. Even you don’t understand what aperture and shutter speed means, you can more easily learn how to use Program mode, which is discussed in the next step. But in order to do this, you need to know how to change the shooting modes of your camera.

8. Program Mode: The first step to getting beyond Automatic mode is to use Program or P mode. This mode is similar to automatic in that it sets the exposure settings for the picture you’re taking; however,  in this mode, you can control better how much light is allowed to enter the camera. If you shoot a photo in Automatic and then shoot the same subject in the same lighting condition in Program mode at their default settings, they should look pretty much alike. But in Program mode, you can use what is called Exposure Compensation to adjust for lighting. Look up in your camera’s manual how to change the shooting mode to P or program.

9. Exposure Compensation: Okay, here’s the hardest feature you’ll learn in this series of tips, but it can make a big difference in the quality of photos you take. If you noticed that some of your photos come out too dark or too light, or that they just seem flat, you can use exposure compensation to adjust for lighting. To adjust for lighting, you can use what is called Exposure Compensation. You can only use this feature in Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Manual Mode. It is typically deactivated in Automatic mode because, remember, you’re telling the camera to make all the decisions for you.

Look up the term, exposure compensation, in your manual and find out how to use it on your particular camera. It is typically a meter with a plus/minus scale for increasing and decreasing the amount of light coming into your camera.

In these two photos (both un-edited), the top one is shot in Automatic mode, and the bottom one in Program mode. In the first one, the image is slightly under exposed. With the second photo, using exposure compensation, I was able to allow more light in thus getting more detail on the subject (my daughter.)

Even if you don’t understand aperture and shutter speed, if you learn how to use exposure compensation then you can have more control over the lighting exposure of your camera. So right after you read this article, find a subject and practice with the exposure compensation feature. With digital photography, you’re not wasting film, so you can practice, practice, practice, and not have to spend a penny extra.

10. Self-Timer: Often times if you’re the main photographer in your family, you most likely don’t get yourself included in many of the photos you take. So learn to use the self-timer and a tripod so that you can take photos that include you, the photographer.

Also, the self-timer is a good way to shoot close-up shots of say, a flower or Ebay product shots. By using the self-timer and a tripod, you will get less camera shake in your macro shots and thus, less blurry photos.

In the next few articles on digital photography, I will share some advanced tips for taking pictures. But it will useful to hear back from readers what questions you have about using your camera and the art of taking photos. What problems do you encounter when taking photos?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Technology Explained: How Does A Digital Camera Work? (32)
• How To Easily Manage Photos from Multiple Cameras [Mac] (5)
• Tips For Taking Digital Photography Using Live View (24)
• How To Remove MetaData From Photos (Windows) (20)
• How to Recover Deleted Pictures from a Digicam Memory Card (4)

Except me. I have to know how things work. No good reason for that. Sometimes I have to read a bunch of technical jargon, ask a lot of questions and then relate the information to something else I understand, before I can truly understand what’s going on. That makes me a slow, but tenacious, learner. And really annoying when Jeopardy! is on.

The underlying technology of the digital camera is a light sensor and  a program. The light sensor is most often a Charge Coupled Device  (CCD) and the program is firmware that is embedded right into the circuit board of the camera. Kind of like the programs that help make your microwave oven or iPod work.

I’ll focus on the CCD first. Yes, there is another kind of light sensor that can be used and that’s the Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) type. The mechanics of how they do what they do differ, but the principles are the same.

Think of the CCD as being a grid of millions of little squares, each one kind of like a solar cell. You know that a solar cell takes light energy and converts it to electrical energy right? And you probably figured that the more light there is the more energy it makes and vice versa right? So you can see where we’re going with this whole CCD thing.

Each of those little squares on the CCD takes light energy and converts it to electrical energy. Each condition of the light – like brightness and intensity – generates a very specific electrical charge. Those charges for each little square are then transported through an array of electronics to where it can be interpreted by the firmware. The firmware knows what each specific charge means and translates it to information that includes the colour and other qualities of the light that the CCD picked up.

This process is done for each of the squares in the grid of the CCD – so now you can see the miracle that it really is! Now picture (pun intended) a million little squares, each one different as though they were puzzle pieces. The firmware puts those puzzle pieces together to form an image that is recognizable to the human eye.

The process of putting it together is very much akin to what happens with your television or monitor. It does this using pixels. Each pixel is comprised of three basic colours – red, green and blue. By varying the intensity of each colour within a pixel, the variety of colours that can be produced is amazing indeed. This is known as a Bayer filter.

Get up close with your monitor – to the point where you can see the pixels individually. Don’t worry, that whole thing about going blind from sitting too close to the TV is an old wives’ tale. Except when it comes to my kids.  You might need a magnifying glass. Neat, huh? Did you see how there were more green pixels than red or blue? That’s because somebody figured out that the eye is not as sensitive to green as it is to red or blue.

I digressed. The next step is for the firmware to record the information it saw into digital code. That code can be used to accurately reproduce the picture time and time again. Call it a recipe for that specific moment in time that you captured. Now, that code can be passed to the view screen on the camera, or to a monitor or printer to be reproduced.

And now you know how that all works. Hopefully taking the mystery away hasn’t ruined the experience for you. I hope you enjoyed this high level overview of how these things work.

Are you a digital photo enthusiast? Did this article help you to understand the process better? Share your questions with us in the comments, and I’ll try to answer them.

Photo Credit: ralphbijker

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Easily Manage Photos from Multiple Cameras [Mac] (5)
• 10 Features You Should Know About Your Digicamera (26)
• Tips For Taking Digital Photography Using Live View (24)
• How To Remove MetaData From Photos (Windows) (20)
• How to Recover Deleted Pictures from a Digicam Memory Card (4)

The Mac and the cameras

So I connect my digital camera to my Mac almost all the time; saving those precious moments to the hard drive.

There are two applications that I use to manage my photos: iPhoto (which always opens automatically), and the camera picture transfer software from my camera manufacturer – just for the sake of backup.

But the source of photos is not only my own camera. My wife has a pocket digital camera. My kids are still babies, but soon they too will start taking pictures. And I believe that there are folks who have several cameras for each of their family members. Over time, managing all of the devices and all the pictures taken by them could be mundane tasks.

Luckily, there’s Cameras – a little Mac app to help you manage all of your cameras including your iPhone’s camera.

Shoot, Cameras, Manage!

This camera picture transfer software from Flexibits is less than 1MB in size. So downloading it wouldn’t be a problem. The installation process is also a snap; you just double-click on the “Cameras.prefPane”. Cameras will then reside in your Mac’s System Preferences.

You will have a blank “Cameras” Preferences Pane window. Make sure to check “Enable Cameras” and choose “Ask what to do” in the options of “When you connect new cameras”. These option allow Cameras to always run in the background and ask you what to do if you connect new camera(s).

After doing that little setting, I connect my camera to my Mac and… a pop-up window appears and asks what to do every time that specific camera is connected. The options are: do nothing, open iPhoto, open Image Capture, open other application, and automatically download. Choose one according to your preferences.

The nice thing about Cameras is that you can set different things to do for each different camera. If you want to, you can choose to simply download all images from all of your cameras automatically.

But if you are a professional photographer who wants to edit the shots from your dSLR with Aperture while manage images from other cameras with iPhoto, you can do so. Just set your preference in Cameras and you won’t be bothered again.

With a little help from Image Capture

My personal preferences is to manage all my pictures with iPhoto and keep a copy of each for backup. To achieve this objective, I ask Cameras to open Image Capture.

In Image Capture, I set the option to download the image from my camera to a folder (as the back up) and set it to automatically opens iPhoto after the downloading process has finished.

I also dug a little bit deeper into Image Capture’s options and choose to

• delete items from camera after downloading
• automatically download all items from camera
• set the camera’s date and time

With everything is set, all that’s left for me to do is to continue taking pictures and connect my cameras to my Mac. No more manually opening several apps and downloading the images.

Final Note and Wish List

As the ’s’ behind the name suggested plural form, Cameras is indeed a useful little app for those who have multiple cameras.

But I need to point out that if you have only one camera, Image Capture could do a better job in automatic camera management.

So, I think Cameras would turn into a much better app if the developer adds the ability to:

• do several task for each device, for example: first downloads the pictures, then renames them, then opens iPhoto, and continues with the task of creating copies of the images in folder X.
• manage other cellphone’s cameras other than iPhone. Almost everybody has cellphones these days, and almost all cellphones have camera built in. iPhone might be very popular, but not everybody owns it.

Do you enjoy photography? Do you have multiple cameras? Have you tried Cameras? Or do you know better alternative application? Share using the comment below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Technology Explained: How Does A Digital Camera Work? (32)
• 10 Features You Should Know About Your Digicamera (26)
• Tips For Taking Digital Photography Using Live View (24)
• How To Remove MetaData From Photos (Windows) (20)
• How to Recover Deleted Pictures from a Digicam Memory Card (4)

Well, I am not getting into the criminal underbelly, but just jabbering about a long existing software that makes it possible to recover deleted files from a memory card used on digital cameras. PC Inspector Smart Recovery (v4.5) is a free, Windows only software that does one job (actually two… as we shall see) and does it well.

Primary job: PC Inspector Smart Recovery is a freeware data recovery program from CONVAR for Flash Card/USB Flash Drive, Smart Media, SONY Memory Stick, IBM Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.

Secondary job: While it goes about its first job, it also offers a way to check the memory type for any errors.

I call PC Inspector Smart Recovery a ‘doomsday’ software. This one and others of its ilk help us to recover from our errors or those committed by our digital devices. If you think that the chances of losing some precious photo or video among the thousands we shoot with our digital cameras is one in thousands then give this software a miss. Otherwise, let’s give it a rip…

The download size of PC Inspector Smart Recovery is fairly compact at 6.1MB. The software is compatible with Windows XP (not tested for Vista).

These are the formats and digital camera types supported by PC Inspector Smart Recovery:

JPG, AMR, TIF, BMP, GIF, AVI, MOV, WAV, DSS, MP4, Canon (.crw) , Fuji (.raf) , RICOH (.raw), Olympus E-XX (.orf), Olympus C5050 (.orf), Nokia (3gp), Kodak (.dcr), Minolta (.mrw), Nikon D1H/D1X (.nef), Nikon D2H/D2X (.nef), Nikon E5000/E5700 (.nef), Konica Minolta, Sigma – Foveon (.x3f).

Installation is a no-brainer. And so is the use – in five simple steps.

1. Connect your memory card through your computer’s memory card reader or connect the digital camera/mobile phone with the provided data cable.
2. Start PC Inspector Smart Recovery. Select the drive letter (Select Device) used by the memory device from the first dropdown.
3. Select the file type (Select Format Type) that is to be recovered from the second dropdown. The Enhanced Options is for JPG format only. The default Automatic setting recognizes the format on its own. The With Thumbnails option assumes that your picture format includes thumbnails; the Without Thumbnails option assumes that your picture format does not include thumbnails.
4. Select the destination folder (Select where the images are to be recovered). Create a specific folder as opposed tp recovering them to an area like the desktop because the sheer number of images might create a mess.
5. Click on Start and the software indicates the progress through the progress bar.

   

Change the search mode…

The Settings menu lets you change the way the recovery is done. The Fast Mode is the default mode. The Intensive Mode scans more thoroughly and takes longer to complete. The recoverable file size can be limited optionally.

Check Media found under Menu – Function is a way to check the memory device for errors. Once started, the progress is reported by the software under the Media Check section. Any read errors like a ‘Not Available’ alert could indicate problems in the memory device, the card reader or the driver.

So has it helped me avert my doomsdays?

On my 4GB memory card with a sample of 160 pictures, I recovered all but six. Yes, the process was slow – about 160 minutes for an intensive scan. But the success ratio was great so I guess I can live with the slow speeds. Getting the lost pictures back at no cost is a definite deal maker for me.

There are a few others which fall under the broad category of file recovery software. Check these out. They might save your day –

3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools
Recover Lost Computer Files with Undelete Plus
How To securely Retrieve and Delete PC files

So, what do you do when you unintentionally lose your Kodak moments (minus the teeth gnashing of course)? How do you recover deleted picture files from a memory card? Do you have your toolkit of ‘doomsday’ software?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Recover Lost Computer Files with Undelete Plus (10)
• 3 Remarkable File Recovery Tools (8)
• Tips For Taking Digital Photography Using Live View (24)
• Technology Explained: How Does A Digital Camera Work? (32)
• Restore Deleted Files Easily With Recuva (12)

In these kinds of situations, sending a fax for free as quickly as possible would certainly be useful. In this article, we’re taking a look at 4 websites that let you send fax online and come with a free or trial version.

1. faxZERO

The first one on our list is faxZERO. faxZERO allows you to send two free faxes a day, to the United States or Canada, as long as they don’t contain more than three pages each. Plus there is an ad on the cover page. Out of all the services we tested, faxZERO is the easiest to use and the only one that didn’t require creating an account.

faxZERO also has a premium service that charges 1.99$ for each fax and limits the number of pages per fax at fifteen. If you need to send more than two faxes a day and you don’t want to pay for the premium service, you could consider deleting your browser cache and cookies and using another IP address, either through the TOR network, proxies or simply by resetting your router.

2. Qipit

Qipit is a more comprehensive service when compared to faxZERO. Instead of being just an online faxing service, Qipit helps you upload photos of documents, business cards or receipts from a mobile phone or digital camera, and improves the image quality through a patented technology called Realeyes3D. Next images can be emailed or faxed.

The images you upload are stored online on Qipit’s servers and are also accessible online via the website.

You can upload photos via MMS, email or directly from your computer using the web interface.

Once your document is on Qipit, you can choose to either view a PDF version of it, email the document or fax it. Qipit’s image optimization technology proved to be quite powerful. I never expected that a photo taken with a mobile phone camera could actually be put to use.

The great thing about Qipit is that it’s free:

Qipit is a free service; this includes sending domestic and international faxes. The costs that you have to bare are related to what your wireless carrier charges you if you are using Qipit with your mobile device. –Qipit FAQ.

3. ScanR

ScanR, a service similar to Qipit. The trial subscription gives you only one upload and fax, but the premium account is only 4,99$/month or 29,99$/year. ScanR features OCR (optical character recognition), a slightly better designed interface and sharing capability.

An interesting quote from their help pages suggest that some fax numbers are restricted:

scanR currently sends fax to most phone numbers in East Asia, North America and Western Europe. scanR may block certain premium phone numbers and countries[…] –ScanR Help

You get the same uploading capabilities, via email, MMS or web interface.

Another cool feature of Scanr is that you can use is to convert document pictures that were obtained using you cell phone camera to a properly formatted document. Very useful for things like page captures from library books and lecture notes.

eFax

Another faxing service is eFax. With eFax, you can also receive faxes, but unfortunately it requires you sign up for a 30 day trial using a credit card.

Know about other free tool to send fax online? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• Snapter – Scan Your Documents Without A Scanner (48)
• 7 Ways To Make Use Of Evernote (28)
• 20 Apps That Should Be On Your Mobile (11)
• Turn Your Cellphone Into A Copy Machine (6)
• Mobipocket – An Awesome ebook Reader Which is Free (14)

Snapter is software that lets you use a digital camera as a mobile scanner. With the shots that you have taken, the software automatically crops, stretches, flattens images of documents into portable images and make them seem as though they have been scanned on a flatbed scanner.

Some of you may be wondering: since you already have a digital camera to take snapshots, why do you still need a software to do the conversion? Well, there are several advantages in Snapter. First of all, it comes with a perspective correction that can take a slanted/disoriented image and rotate it to the right orientation.

Secondly, if you are taking snapshots of pages of a book, it can be really difficult to read the text from the raw images. Snapter has the ability to split the pages into two different images and correct the curvature distortion.

Thirdly, Snapter enhances the images and make them easier to read.

Snapter supports images of different forms. You can use it to convert snapshots of documents, notes written on a whiteboard, namecards or pages from a book. The following screenshots show the tests that I have done with different materials and the results are very satisfying.

Here I printed out a copy of one of my articles that I wrote for MakeUseOf. I took a horizontal snapshot of the printout and input it to Snapter. It successfully rotated the image to the correct orientation, cropped the side and sharpen the image for easy reading.

Next, I took a snapshot of two pages of a book and input them to Snapter. It detects the curvature of the book and splits the pages into the left and right page. Similarly, it crops and sharpen the images for easy reading.

There are both free and paid versions of Snapter. You can download the free version and enjoy the full functionality for the first 14 days. After that, the software is still functional, but it will add a tagline and light watermark on your images. If all you need is to convert the images to a portable version so you can read while on the move, the free version is good enough for you.

If you want to use the result for your commercial project and you don’t want to have the watermark, you will have to get the paid version which cost $20 (Lite version) or $49 (Full version).

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

• How To Scan and Fax Documents Online for Free (15)
• Top Online File Converters (Video, Audio, Images …) (23)
• 7 Ways To Make Use Of Evernote (28)
• 5 Contacts to SUPERCHARGE Your eMail (6)
• 20 Apps That Should Be On Your Mobile (11)