In this article, I’ll teach you how to ensure the correct white balance when taking pictures.

Different types of light have different “temperature”. Cooler temperatures come out looking blue, while warm temperatures appear yellow or red in your photo. The best color for a shot is a neutral temperature. All this means is that white objects in the picture actually look white. If you can achieve a proper white balance, you’ll notice the coloring of your pictures comes out more like what it looked like to your eye when you snapped the shot.

With film cameras, getting the correct white balance means changing a filter, but with digitals, the camera does most of the work for you. The problem is, the camera doesn’t always know what white is, so you have to know how to use the features.

The easiest way to adjust your white balance is to let the camera do it for you using the “auto white balance” feature. This is just like auto focus or anything else “auto” on your camera; the camera determines what filter level it thinks is right for the shot. The problem with auto white balance is also the same as any other auto feature on your camera; the sensors just aren’t as good as your eyes. Start with the auto white balance on. If the white in the picture doesn’t look white to you, then you can start adjusting.

When you go into your camera’s white balance menu, you’ll notice a lot of choices that may or not make sense to you. Sunny and cloudy white balance should be self explanatory, but you’ll also find adjustments for different kinds of indoor light bulbs, called tungsten (incandescent) and fluorescent.

If you’re like me, you can’t look at the ceiling and say “ah, that looks tungsten, I should use that filter”. The easiest way to determine the correct setting is to take a picture and look at the color. If you’re picture is turning out blue, try using the tungsten or incandescent feature. For yellow or red hues, try the fluorescent option.

If none of the preset white balance options on your camera are working, many cameras now let you set the white balance yourself, although you may need to pull out your camera manual to find exactly how to do it on your particular model.

The manual function works by you telling the camera what color is white, just like you set a scale by telling it what weight is zero. Take a white card and hold it where you will be taking the picture; be sure the camera is zoomed so only the white card is in the frame. Set your white balance to zero and you should have the perfect coloring.

If you’ve tried all the above options and nothing has worked for you, don’t give up yet. Almost all photo editing software programs have an option for adjusting your image temperature. Just look for a setting that can make your picture “cooler” or “warmer”.

While perfecting the white balance in your pictures may take a bit of time, you’ll notice a significant improvement in the quality of your shots.

Picasa Homepage

There are plenty of photo manager software options out there, but the one I have to recommend is Picasa. This is the program I will use to describe the features photo manager software has. This software is fairly extensive and easy to use, but best of all it’s free from Google. It takes just minutes to download and install, and just a few more to find all your pictures so you’re ready to get started. It searches your computer (or just document and picture folders if you like) and finds all image and video files. You can also import images from a camera or memory card for all the new images you take.

After your images are all in the program, it then displays all your photos as they were ordered on your computer. If you move a file in Picasa, it will move the file in Windows as well. This way you don’t have to copy and paste files and navigate through folders. You simply click and drag. It couldn’t get any easier. I personally know the frustration of having files all neatly organized one place and a big mess somewhere else; this program takes away all the hassle.

Picasa also allows you to name, caption, and rate your photos for easy searching and sorting, which you can do by tabs in the program. Another feature that’s great for file organization is being able to search for pictures. You can search by file name, title, date, or even rating. That way you can easily find a picture to use or share, or quickly find the best you have to offer (so you know which ones to sell, of course). It also has a handy timeline that organizes your pictures in chronological order.

After you have all your pictures sorted and filed, you can then begin editing in Picasa. While it’s not a full photo editor, it has a lot of easily accessible and useful options. You can zoom in and pan your pictures to see what needs fixing. It has handy buttons to crop; remove red eye; fix the color and lighting; and much more. It may not have all the high tech tools, but it definitely has enough for most of the quick fixes you’ll normally need.

And once your pictures are all ready to go, you can then easily share them with family and friends (or anyone else who wants to see them). You can transfer then to an external drive, burn them to a CD, upload them to a photo sharing website, or email them using your email, Google’s g-mail, or Picasa’s built in client. This way no matter how you want to do it, you can share your pictures with the world.

Picasa is just one example of photo manager software. Go ahead and download it today so you can start enjoying the ease of photo management.

I have a laptop hard drive sitting in a drawer at my parent’s house; it’s been there for months. It’s sitting in a static free bag just waiting until I can save up enough money to get the information off of it. Let’s just say it will be there a while – quality data recovery services are pricey.

The moral of this story? BACK UP YOUR PICTURES!!! Unfortunately this is a lesson that most people learn too late. They only start backing up their information after they’ve suffered a catastrophic hard drive crash.

Fortunately, backing up your photos can be almost painless and quite simple. One easy way to backup your photos is simply to burn them do a CD or DVD (dual layer DVD burners can store 8GB+ on one disc, and a Plextor Blu-ray Disc burner can store 50GB on a single disc).

Of course, you can always just purchase a backup hard drive. Spare hard drives these days are cheap. I’m preferential to those made by Lacie, but any just about any external drive will work.

And then there’s always online backup which not only backs up your photos but also allows you to access your photos even when you’re not at your computer. Many people use photo sharing sites to save their photos, but if you’re serious about your photos, you probably don’t want to do this since few photo sharing sites allow you to save your pictures at full resolution. It’s better to go for the paid photo backup services.

Today I’d like to talk just a little bit about one of my favorite features on a digital camera – the articulating LCD screen – in fact I will not buy one without this feature.

If you were to ask me what my favorite advance in photography in the past few years was, I wouldn’t say photo editing, increased megapixels, or even DSLR’s. I would tell you about my articulating lcd screen (also called a “flip out and twist” screen), and I’d probably go on about it for another 10 minutes.

Not only is my lcd screen protected when I’m not using it (it’s folded into the body of the camera), but I can take pictures from almost any angle with out having to leave the framing to blind faith. This way, even if you don’t have an external flash, you can still bounce it and see what you’re shooting at the same time.

My dad’s favorite part is the great candid shots you can get. Who would suspect you’re taking a picture when your camera is sitting in your lap or on the table. You can get great realistic shots without posing or camera shyness. If you get really good, you can even take pictures of someone standing behind you!

While it’s a piece of cake to find a video camera with an articulating LCD screen (it comes on virtually all consumer models), for some reason an articulating screen is harder to find on digital cameras, and just because the previous model of a camera had one doesn’t necessarily mean it’s next version will.

Case In Point. The Canon Powershot G7. While it’s predecessors (dating back to the Powershot G1) all had articulating LCD screens, Canon didn’t include on in its most recent release with the G7.

So here’s a list of digital cameras with articulating LCD screens. You’ll notice a lot of Canon cameras in the list, and they do certainly make more flip out and twist LCD screens than any other manufacturer, but they’re not the only one. I tried to cover all the current models in this release, but its likely I missed some. If that’s the case, then please post any corrections or omissions in the comments below.

Canon Powershot G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6.
Nikon Coolpix 5000, 5400, 8400, 5700, 8700, 8800.
Canon Powershot S1 IS, S2 IS, S3 IS, S4 IS, S5 IS,
Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200
Canon Powershot A80
Pentax Optio 750Z
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50K (one of the best higher end cameras with this feature)
Canon Powershot A640, A650 IS
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 (flip out only, no twist)