Digital Photography Basics
Larger flat images or anything 3-D or otherwise hard to scan must be photographed. You can take a picture with a film (analog) camera and then scan the resulting negative, slide, or print (see Scanning). But with sub-professional scanning equipment (like we have here in the DML) as well as imperfections in the process of exposing and developing film, you are likely to achieve better digital results by taking the photo with a digital camera.
Lighting
Make sure your object is evenly, brightly lit - unless you are going for an effect.
Background
A blank white wall is a great background. In general the fewer colors in the background, the easier it will be to mask out (link) the object later.
3-D
If you plan to make a 3-D model of the object, you will need to take shots from multiple angles, minimally six: front, back, both sides, top and bottom.
Camera settings
Use the largest image size and highest quality setting available on the camera, limited by the size of the camera's storage device. Take one picture at highest quality, and see how large the file is. Multiply by the number of shots you will need (plus a margin for bad shots) and the result is the size of memory card you need in the camera. This is not the time to compromise - you may need to upload the files in the middle of your photo shoot.There are many other camera settings - we suggest you take a photo course to learn more!
Upload the image files. Most digital cameras come with a USB cable. If you plug this into one of the DML's Macs, iPhoto launches and you can import the set of photos. This is a good time to rotate the photos and check them for general quality, in case you need to re-shoot.
When imported into iPhoto, your images are saved to ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/<year>/<month>/<day>/<photo name>. You can open them directly from Photoshop (or another image editor) or copy them: Option-drag-and-drop them to your desired location.
Topic(s):digital media lab, faculty, labs, learn, staff, student
Brain Candy