When you put your camera up to your eye in preparation for that special shot, you want to be sure that you have all the ingredients for a perfect image. You want to be sure that the scen in front of you is not only worth preserving but is preserved.

Don't you?

It doesn't really matter if you are taking pictures of a group of friends, grandma, the dog or that holiday destination, you can get better pictures by avoiding the most common pitfalls.

These include:

Blurred images

In the rush to take your photo, you must not forget to focus on the subject

Distorted Colour

Different scenes require different color balance settings

Red Eye

We have all seen pictures of people with devil-red eyes. This is easily avoided

Poor composition

Cluttered foregrounds and backgrounds make for a weakened shot

Relying on flash too much

Flash can be useful but you can get burnt out pictures easily

Being too close / too far away

Try to fill the frame - but not too much

Not correcting for highlights

Look at your scene and avoid subjects in shadow

Poor exposure

Make sure you expose correctly for the subject

Each of these areas can make for a bad photo. Some of them might be correctable. In future articles we will see how the faults arise and how to avoid them.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com

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