One major advantage of Digital Photography is that the photo can be manipulated readily on the computer. There are numerous software packages that can be used for this task, and usually a basic package is provided when you purchase a digital camera.

For serious or preofessional image processing though, one of the best and most popular software packages is "Photoshop". You can learn the basics of Photoshop in a thorough yet easy to follow distance education course with ACS Distance Education. Click here for details or to enrol.

Scanning 35 mm Transperancies (Slides)

Prior to digital photography a major form of photography for many people was 35mm transperancies; and some photo collections still consist mostly in this form.

Slides can be scanned on a simple flat bed scanner if an appropriate mounting is used; but the quality of such a scan will never be close to the quality of the original. To achieve a top quality scan of a 35mm transperancy, you need to use a "film scanner".

The whole process of scanning slides can be relatively slow, but once scanned it is possible to make copies and in theory, retain photographic images indefinitely with no loss of quality. The original slide on the other hand can deteriorate over  time. Dust, light and general wear and tear can all cause deterioration. In view of this, any valuable transperancy images are in the long term better scanned and stored digitally.