Chapter 3. Reviewing the images

One of the biggest advantages of a digital camera is that every image can be viewed and assessed immediately after the image has been taken.

Automatic viewing

As soon as we have taken a picture, we can see it on the LCD screen. The viewing takes about two to four seconds. With some cameras you can yourself select the length of the viewing:

As soon as you press the release button half-way down, the viewing is interrupted.

Longer viewings

You can also select the function playback. The camera then changes the mode and the LCD screen is used to display all the images, which are stored on the memory card. This gives a number of other options.

Many cameras have a button called ”info”, which can alter the display during a viewing:

The exposure’s different parameters such as diaphragm, shutter speed, ISO, etc. can be displayed at the side of the image itself.

You can often see a little histogram. This is a figure, which shows the colour tone distribution and which can help to assess the lighting in the photograph.  A histogram is an important tool for the more experienced photographer and is used to regulate colour tones in image programs such as Photoshop Elements. It can also be used as an aid on the camera’s LCD screen during a viewing.

Figur 8. A viewing where all the image’s exposure parameters can be seen on the left side. You can see the histogram under the image miniature, which tells us here that the image is a little underexposed. You can see this because the curve has been pushed over to the diagram’s left side.

Processing options

In fact, the camera consists of a little image program, which a photographer can use in between exposures. You can:

All this takes place on the little LCD screen and with the help of the little buttons on the camera.

Figur 9. Assessing the camera’s images. The camera here displays nine of the images, which are stored in the camera’s memory card. They are displayed in a miniature format to that you can ”flick through them”. All the pictures can also be displayed in their full size and with extra text information as in the previous example.

Figur 10. It is normally easiest to go through the exposures on your computer before deleting the superfluous ones. But if the memory card is nearly filled up, then images can be deleted with help from the camera’s own software.