Sharing Photos, Technical Question

Submitted by Diane Metzger

Question:

Dear Andy and Michael, Thank you so much for your photographs, for the book and for passing these teachings on to all of us. It's been very inspiring. Using my first digital camera (Canon SX220, a compact), I've been doing the exercises in the book. Not being technically inclined, I've used only the auto setting, which until yesterday seemed great. Following the instructions in your book, I made a few small adjustments to the colour balance of some of the best photos, using my computer's iPhoto software (no PhotoShop), and took those images to the camera store that sold me the camera, to see how they would look as prints. Maybe I got a little ahead of myself, because they didn't come out well at all. They look very little like those very clear images when viewed on my computer. The camera sales people said the camera needs to be set up a certain way (at least for size) before taking any photos, that it needs to be manually adjusted for each photo outside a limited range of light, and then each photo usually needs to be adjusted in PhotoShop to balance the colours, darks and lights, etc. So my question is this: How far can one go with Miksang as an arts practice, using a non-DSLR camera and without mastering the technicalities of using a camera and purchasing and learning PhotoShop? I realize this is beyond the basic view of Miksang as a practice of seeing. But you seem to be encouraging readers to share our vision and delightful discoveries with others. So that's what this question is about, both sharing online and as prints on paper.

Answer:

Thanks for this interesting question. There are a lot of variables involved in printing photographs, so it will be hard to give a comprehensive answer, but it sounds like the people at the camera store exagerated the difficulties.
You do need to make sure the file size is sufficently for the size of print you want to make. You should be able to find out how to set the size in the camera's manual. You should also read the second appendix in the The Practice of Contemplative Photography, to learn how to adjust the levels of your images. That should help a lot.
There is no problem using iPhoto for preparing images for printing, in fact, Photoshop is probably overkill for most of us.
Fianally, you might need to adjust your expectations. The inherent differences between the way images appear on computor monitors and on paper make the computer images seem more luminous.

Sharing Photos, Technical Question

The Book