Photo BestAdvice

It's the time of the year when meals are shared and holiday memories are made, but are you taking the best photos to share with friends and family? If you do not feel confident behind the lens and your pictures stay trapped on your camera, these tips will help you take photos you'll be proud to share with others.

Here are five tips to best capture and share your favorite holiday moments:

Tip 1: Use the flash indoors and out
For the best outcome, use the flash when taking photos outdoors. This applies to photos taken outside -- no matter what the season. The flash will lighten the shadows on the subject's face caused by the sun. If subjects are under a tree, or have a shadow cast on them, this trick is especially helpful to lighten them. A flash can help neutralize the lighting source even during the high noon period of the day when the sun casts deep shadows. Read more

The Holidays are here. It is a time of celebration, of lights, and color. A time for family and friends. And a time for memories. What better way to hold on to a memory than with a photograph? Every moment is unique and even the same scene photographed twice produces a different photograph each time. These are some things to keep in mind when taking holiday photos:

Never hesitate. Better to take one hundred photos and get one good one than to wait for that one incredible moment and miss it. Enjoy the moment even if the photo isn’t perfect. Memories fade over time. A photo – and the memories it evokes - can last forever.

We have all seen that effect we call red eye. Red eye is caused by the way the camera flash strikes the human eye. How can you avoid red eye? Read more

Hurricane Gustav chased an estimated two million people from their homes. Fires in Southern California and Yosemite Park areas destroyed thousands of acres and burnt hundreds of homes. Floods in the Midwest swept into homes despite residents’ best efforts. Every day natural disasters take their financial and emotional toll.

In Katrina’s Path
Donna Wilsker, a long-time scrapbooker and resident of Beaumont, TX, was partially prepared when Katrina sent her and her husband, Ira, to their daughter’s home in Houston two years ago. They fled the area with as many of their valuables as they could fit in their Honda Accord, including her scrapbooks and a stack of 20 CD’s, containing the family’s complete digital photo collection. Read more

Questions just keep rolling in at Verbatim’s user information site www.photostorageguide.com. General questions from people on how to gather, save, protect their family moments/memories photos and videos.

Here are answers to some of the latest questions (and answers) on archiving photos:

Q. Why are CDs and DVDs the best way to archive?

A. Since it is estimated that one out of seven computer hard drives "crash" within the first year, it could be dangerous to rely on storing irreplaceable photos on a hard drive alone. Optical discs (CD, DVD) are a very economical and reliable way to archive photos. For added security, write-once CD-Rs and DVD-Rs should be used and extra copies should be made that can be stored at another location. Users can add to the disc but cannot alter the content stored on the discs. The portability of CDs and DVDs also makes them easy to take with you in the event of an environmental disaster. Read more

Sarah is typical of most young women today, balancing her marketing career, running a household, and enjoying her 10-month old son, Grayson. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to complete daily chores, let alone additional projects. However, after Jack, her husband, accidentally erased the memory card with the family’s photos of their recent trip to visit Sarah’s parents in Maine, she decided to take on the task of organizing and protecting the family’s memories.

“It wasn’t as though we had lost our entire collection, but those photos were irreplaceable,” Sarah said. “Luckily, we were able to find a software program that recovered most of the pictures from the card. Otherwise, Jack may still be sleeping on the couch.” Read more

Questions just keep rolling in at Verbatim’s user information site www.photostorageguide.com. General questions from people on how to gather, save, protect their family moments/memories photos and videos.

Here are answers to some of the latest:

Q. I want to organize and archive my photos. Where do I start?

A. Start by giving your photos descriptive file names. This will speed the search process. If you name the files as you download them, you won't have to go back and view each one to name it. You can also use the tag capability offered with most photo applications to attach a keyword (or many keywords) to a photo file. You can also organize your photos by creating folders for various themes, i.e., family vacations, reunions, and various family members.

If the task seems overwhelming, start with the most recent photos and work your way back through the older ones. Read more

Since Verbatim launched their user information site www.photostorageguide.com, they have received a number of questions from people on how to gather, save, and protect family memories, photos and videos.

The following are some of the most commonly asked questions they received:

Q - What are the best practices for caring for images stored on my camera's memory card?

A - It is best to download all your photos from the card onto the computer. Then delete the ones you don't want. If you continuously delete them directly from your camera, you could accidentally delete a desired photo, or risk corrupting the files. One corrupted image file can cause many other images files to be lost. Keep a spare memory card on hand if you anticipate running out of storage space on your current card, to avoid having to delete photos just to make room for new images.

One of the most common causes of corrupt files is turning the camera off or removing the memory card before the camera buffer has completely transferred your files to the memory card. Read more

If you are one of the millions out there that have a camera phone and want to take the best picture possible, here are some tips to get you started.

1) Shoot lots of pictures. Pros may shoot hundreds of photos of a single scene trying different angles and positions. You then pick the best ones later and delete the rest. You can also try new things by taking photos you might not otherwise have taken. It's fun to let the kids take pictures to see what they get from their point of view.Read more

You may not be a Spielberg or Scorsese but with today's sophisticated video technology so readily available, you now have the tools to shoot like a famous director. Producing good home video takes a little planning and some basic shooting techniques. Here's a short checklist on some instant ways to improve your videos so that even your neighbors will want to watch your nauseous free videos.