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Photo Tips & Techniques

A commonly experienced problem with point-and-shoot photos taken in high- and low-light situations is a washed-out look that lacks color depth and detail. This comes from your camera automatically overcompensating for light and not capturing enough detail in darker areas either because of overwhelming natural light or too much light from your flash. An easy way to avoid this is with the simple lock-and-shoot technique.

"Lock and shoot" refers to picking a point in the scene, usually your subject, or a darker area away from your subject but at the same distance, and locking the focus on them then recomposing the shot using the rule of thirds. (Locking the focus is done by depressing the shutter-release button down halfway and using the rule of thirds is the standard method for producing well composed shots.) By locking the focus in this way, you are also locking the exposure levels for the area immediately surrounding the focal point as opposed to the average levels in the entire photo. When you recompose the shot after locking the focus, the exposure levels will give it a more natural feeling and texture through proper color depth.

To make for a good composition, the rule of thirds was employed and the canoeist sits nicely at the transition point between the bottom and middle third, but the lack of focus locking has lead to the typically washed-out look of many point-and-shoot photographs. In the properly exposed photo, the lock-and-shoot method was used by focusing on darker area away from the subject but at the same distance and then recomposing the shot by using the rule of thirds and returning the subject to the transition point between the bottom and middle thirds.

If you remember to think of your camera as a lock-and-shoot camera instead of a point-and-shoot camera, you be well on your way to producing far fewer washed-out photos. Good luck!

Many over and underexposed images can be fixed right with ACDSee digital camera software.

Check out ACD Systems Community Page for more great tips.

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