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Photograph Artifacts

Good quality digital photographs will make your artifacts stand out.   Follow these steps to learn how to take and edit excellent pictures.

Taking Photographs
  1. Find the brightest place in the room.  Center your artifact on a dark or light sold color background.
      
  2. Turn on your camera.  You may choose to use the auto setting (which often looks like a camera) or the close-up setting (which looks like a flower).

  3. Begin taking pictures.  Try photographing the artifact from several directions so you have different choices of photographs from which to choose.


Choosing an Image Editing Program

  1. Do you have an image editing program that you use to edit images?  If you do, use that program.  If you do not, we will describe how to download and use Google’s free image editing software Picasa.

  2. If you are using Picasa and do not already have the program on your computer go to http://picasa.google.com/index.html and follow the directions to download. 


Uploading Photographs onto the Computer

  1. Once you have finished taking pictures, plug one end of your camera into the cable and connect the other end of your cable into your computer.

  2. Change your camera setting to playback mode (which can look like an arrow).

  3. After a few seconds a window should appear.   It will ask you to choose the program you would like to handle the photographs. Choose Picasa or your favorite image editing program. The photographs should begin loading onto your computer.

  4. After they are loaded, you will probably be asked to provide additional information about the photographs, such as a title for the group that you have uploaded as well as a date.

  5. Thumbnails of the photographs that you have uploaded will appear, and you can click on each thumbnail in order to view a larger version of the photograph.

  6. Several editing menus will appear on the left hand side of the page. One, entitled, Basic Fixes, includes a button to crop your image.

  7. Click Crop in the Basic Fixes menu.

    • Move your cursor to the photograph and place it on the spot where you would like to have the corner of your picture.
       
    • Press your mouse button and drag the cursor over the photograph. This will create a box that will include that part of the image you want to keep.

    • Once the box is the right size, release the mouse button, move the cursor over and click the Apply button.

    • If the area you cropped is not the right shape, click Cancel and begin the process over again.

  8. If you have clicked Apply but you are not satisfied, you can click Uncrop in the Basic Fixes menu and undo what you have done.

 

Saving Your Photographs 

  1. To save your pictures click on File and then Export Picture to Folder. 

  2. Choose the file where you would like your picture to appear. 

  3. Under Image Size Options click Resize To and change the number in the field underneath to read 500. Make sure Image Quality is set at 500.  Then click ok.