There was a time when people used to depend on talented painters for getting their portraits made. These painters created magic with their brushstrokes on canvas and they were held as artworks. Thanks to the enormous growth and development of technology nowadays people can create samples of Fine Art Photography without knowing the art of Oil Paintings on Canvas.
Using computer and certain sophisticated image editing and manipulation software it is possible to create Photography Art Prints. The effects of oil painting and other brush techniques can be easily replicated in image editing software. Advent and evolution of compact digital cameras have made taking quality snaps a cakewalk for people. Most of these cameras have predefined settings ideal for taking photographs under varying light conditions and surroundings. The benefit is that these photos can be transferred to computers easily and be modified at ease. Thus the process of creating photography prints is definitely different from creating oil on canvas.
However a person needs to know the maximum size of the picture that he is going to take. This depends on the mega pixel rating of the cameras. The photos of friends and family can be easily contained in an 8 by 10 inch photo. But if a person wants to take a larger printout then he must take the photo at the highest mega pixel setting of the camera. Even the entry level digital cameras can take pictures that can take 10 MB space. The newer PCs can easily handle files of this capacity.
However for editing and adding special effects to the photos a person needs to use a machine that has sufficient amounts of RAM. Photography Art has evolved over the ages. Most of the photographers and veterans swear by the power and precision of the software Adobe Photoshop. It is considered as the de facto tool for image editing and retouching. However it comes with a steep price tag and the latest version is quite hungry on system resources.
As an alternative a person can try the lower priced image editing software available in the market. A good idea would be using the stripped down version of Photoshop named Photoshop Elements 6.0. This costs less than Photoshop Creative suite yet contains the necessary features a person needs for image manipulation. Black White Photography can be effectively modified by using this software for creating exquisite art prints.
After opening the Photo in Photoshop a person needs to check the image resolution. The default Photoshop setting is 72 dpi. This may be good for web use but way too low for large size printouts. Generally a resolution of 300 dpi suffices for print purpose. After setting the resolution it is imperative to set the print size. If a person needs to scale down a photo before taking the print he needs to maintain the proportion of the original to prevent deformation. Sometimes it might be necessary to crop the image.
After finalizing the digital adjustments a person should zoom to the full size and examine the image for any defects. The printers accept various types of file formats though TIFF is the most commonly used one.