The Digital Photography Companion

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PHOTO EFFECTS

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Photo Effects

Many cameras allow you to apply creative effects—such as B&W, sepia tone, vivid color,

and low sharpening—instead of recording standard color images. (You might have to

check the owner’s manual to see what these are called. Canon, for example, will refer

to this function as My Colors.) You can apply those effects when you take the pictures,

using the camera’s effects settings, or convert your standard color images on your com-

puter after you’ve uploaded the images—it’s your choice. Here are the most common

effects modes and what they do (see the practical example for some example photos):

B&W Captures the picture as a grayscale image, eliminating all color.

Blackboard Underexposes the image, ensuring that a blackboard (with chalk writ-

ing) will appear black and not gray.

Darker Skin Renders skin tones darker than what the camera would normally re-

cord. Helpful for shooting subjects with dark skin because most cameras will render

those tones too light.

Lighter Skin Handy setting for fair-skinned subjects which often fool the camera’s

exposure system into rendering their tones too dark.

Low Sharpening Softens the outlines of the subject. is is a good effect to experi-

ment with for portraits. e effect isn’t as strong as with a softening filter that goes

over the lens, but this setting is effective.

Positive Film is setting attempts ...