Digital Photography

As your expertise in digital photography increases, you may wish to invest in accessories that will make life easier and increase your enjoyment.

Graphics tablets

These input devices are an evolutionary step up from the mouse. Comprising a flat tablet, like a solid mouse mat, and a penlike stylus, graphics tablets give you excellent control over hand-drawn lines because of their high spatial resolutionthat is, they can detect tiny changes in position. They also allow you to increase the width of a line or the depth of a color by varying the pressure of the strokesomething that is impossible to do with a mouse. A tablet can be small, about the size of a mouse mat, or large enough to need a desk to itself. It is good practice to alternate the use of graphics tablet and mouse to help avoid repetitive strain injuriesfor example, by using the graphics tablet for image manipulation and the mouse for the Internet and word processing.

Removable media

Digital photography produces huge amounts of data, and removable media provide the essential storage space you need. In general, the bigger the capacity, the cheaper it is per megabyte of data. The smallest you should work with is the 100 MB or 250 MB Zip disk: these are inexpensive, and the 100 MB size is very widely used by both Mac and Windows owners. However, for digital images, even the 250 MB disk is limited in capacity.

Although not strictly removable media, portable hard disk drives are, all around, the best solution for the digital photographer. Not only are their capacities ample for most workersoffering from 40 GB to 120 GBthey are also cost-effective. Models of about the size of electronic personal organizers are extremely portable and ideal for working on location with a laptop computer, since they can be powered from the laptop. Larger, desktop hard disk drives are the fastest and can offer capacities up to 500 GB, yet are still relatively portable; however, this type does need an AC power supply.

DVD-RAM technology offers remarkable capacities for the lowest cost: a disk holding 9 GB of data (9.4 GB nominally) will cost less than three DVD movies. The disadvantage is that reading and writing speeds are relatively slow. The best choice of all are the DVD-RAM drives that can also write CDs. DVD-R disks can be written to only once.