Here is some quick info / recommendations for digital picture processing.

Digital cameras

If you want good quality digital pictures, first of all, don't expect them from a video camera or a cell phone that has the ability to take still pictures as a bonus feature. Buy a digital camera designed for the sole purpose of taking pictures.

There are two basic categories of digital cameras. The first contains compact "point and shoot" models that often fit in your jacket pocket, and can easily be obtained for $250 or less. These cameras are fine for snapshots and will produce acceptable prints from 4x6 to 10x15 sizes and look fine on your website. They typically have 8-14 megapixels, and contain small image sensors (the area inside the camera that captures the image is much smaller than for example the surface area of a 35mm film negative). Unfortunately these cameras are generally marketed based heavily on their megapixel count, with little or no mention of their sensor size. More megapixels can mean a better quality image up a to a point, but a small sensor can only record so much data without introducing "noise" which visually looks sort of like film grain.

The second category of digital cameras is the digital SLR. These cameras currently cost a minimum of $500 (body only). Digital SLRs operate in a manner very similar to traditional 35mm film cameras - with the addition of an LCD screen so you can see a preview of each picture as soon as you are done shooting it. The body of the camera can be bought separately from any lens, and you can re-use a lens that you bought for a 35mm SLR camera (generally needs to be from the same company). Digital SLRs typically capture images having 12 to 24 megapixels. More importantly, the image sensor of these cameras is much larger than in compact digital cameras - approaching the size of a 35mm film negative. The larger image sensor produces much higher quality images, allowing images to be blown up to larger sizes without visible flaws (assuming proper technique was used in taking the picture, e.g. keeping the camera as steady as possible). Digital SLR cameras can produce images of similar quality to those captured with 35mm film cameras.

A third category: Now there are also a few cameras designed to have the best of both worlds - a somewhat compact size with a larger sensor such as the ones found in a D-SLR.

Some current compact digital camera models

Don't choose any of these compact cameras on the basis of megapixels - 8 is plenty.

Some fairly compact cameras with larger sensors

Note the Sigma and Lecia cameras have a fixed focal length lens with an optional viewfinder accessory. The Olympus has an optional viewfinder accessory for the 17mm lens, but for the 14-42 lens there is no viewfinder option. The Panasonic G1/GH1 has a built in electronic viewfinder (so works with zoom lenses).

Some current digital SLR models

Besides Canon and Nikon, D-SLR models are available from Pentax, Olympus, Samsung, Panasonic, and Sony. I only list Canon and Nikon because they have the largest selection of lenses, and by far the most market-share in the D-SLR category.

Recommended digital camera info/review website: www.dpreview.com

Digital Darkroom (image processing)

Often you may wish to edit the images captured from your digital camera before printing them. While there are many image editing software applications on the market (you can easily find a big list using a search engine), I suggest one of the following: Corel Paint Shop Pro X3 ($100) (www.corel.com), Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 ($100) (www.adobe.com), Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 ($300) (www.adobe.com), or Adobe Photoshop CS5 (12.0) ($700) (www.adobe.com). These are the only tools I know of that support different color spaces (e.g. Adobe RGB), support 16 bits per channel editing, and support RAW format images (produced from digital SLR cameras). If you don't care about these features, then you might consider GIMP, which is completely free (www.gimp.org). The Adobe line of products is by far the most popular, so if you choose Adobe you will have the widest choice of books and online resources to guide you.

Recommended Books

Digital Nature Photography: The Art and the Science, (copyright 2007), by John and Barbara Gerlach

The Better Photo Guide to Digital Photography, (copyright 2005), by Jim Miotke

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS5, (copyright 2010), by Conrad Chavez

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers, (copyright 2010), by Scott Kelby

Printing digital pictures

There are four basic types of printers that can be used to print digital images.

1. inkjet
2. pigment based inkjet
3. dye-sublimation
4. digital silver halide

The most common for home use is an inkjet printer. Pigment based inkjet printers such as the Epson R1900 or Epson R2880 are better quality and more expensive. Dye-sublimation printers are basically obsolete.

Digital silver halide - only certain photo shops and mail order services use this type of equipment (and it's much too expensive and bulky for home use). The digital silver halide printing process uses photographic paper - the same stuff used to make prints from film negatives. The paper is exposed using laser light and then developed.

I'm currently aware of four companies that make digital silver halide printing machines. Fuji has the Frontier series. The bigger models can produce bigger prints. These machines can be found at some photo shops - see www.digitalcameradeveloping.com to search for a store that has a Fuji Frontier machine in your local area. A company called Noritsu also makes several similar machines, although Fuji seems to have a better reputation. Cymbolic Sciences (owned by Oce) makes the LightJet series of machines. LightJet machines are not commonly found in photo shops, but some mail order services use a LightJet. Finally there is the Durst Lambda series of machines, also aimed at large format professional printing and probably not easy to find except though mail order.

For high quality prints, it's best to either use a pigment based inkjet printer or the digital silver halide process. One significant difference between these two printing methods is that inkjet printers are halftone printers and the digital silver halide process produces continous-tone prints. Printer specifications regarding dpi (dots per inch) cannot be compared side-to-side for halftone vs. continous-tone. A continous-tone print at 300 dpi is about the same quality as a halftone print at 3000 dpi (10x the dpi value).

In order to get a 300 dpi (continous-tone) 4x6 inch print for example, you need 1200x1800 or 2.2 megapixels. Here is a table with more figures. 300 dpi is good target to shoot for, but for poster size prints that will mostly be viewed from a distance, 200 dpi is sufficient.

Notes:

• With a large print, it is especially important that the source image was taken with proper technique so that is is as sharp as possible. An image may look sharp when printed 4x6 but flaws often reveal themselves when printed larger.
• It is not practical for a 35mm format sensor to have more than about 24 megapixels - even a very high quality 35mm lens cannnot resolve any more information. For very large prints, a medium format camera (with a larger sensor and lens) is required. However, these can be more expensive than buying a car!

Converting 35mm film/prints to digital

If you've got a bunch of old pictures that you would like to convert for digital for storage purposes, it's best if you still have the original negatives and scan those instead of scanning the print. There are basically three types of scanners you can use for negatives:

1. Flatbed scanner with an attachment to scan negatives - cheapest solution but does not produce very high quality negative scans
2. Special purpose negative scanner. These are shaped much different than a flatbed scanner and ideally use LED-light instead of a Flourescent light to shine through the negatives. They also generally include an infra-red sensor to help eliminate dust/dirt/scratches while scanning. I recommend the Nikon Super Coolscan V ED.
3. Absolute best quality negative scanners are drum scanners. They use a more senstive type of image sensor. These are very expensive so you would never buy one to take home, but you can pay a service to do drum scans for you using their drum scanner. The expense of a drum scan is probably not worth it unless you want a high-resolution scan of your best photographs.

As far as making prints from a 35mm negative, of course you may get a better print directly from the negative, rather than converting to digital and then printing. The reason to convert to digital is for the long term - because 35mm negatives deteriorate over time (and take up space).