What Can I Do With My Digital Photo?
Once you have the perfect image, it's time to output it. Digital photography permits a wide range of output options, from traditional snapshots to online slideshows. Digital photography gives you more flexibility to meet diverse needs, and you will be able to copy or print any saved photo anytime.
Images for the World Wide Web
Many photos are created for use on websites, as news photos, product shots, design elements, or people identifier. Software such as Photoshop or PhotoStudio make it easy to convert pictures into a web-friendly format. Such programs have a feature named something like "Save for Web," which allows you to see the quality of different compression levels and formats to find the right balance.
Many photographers build portfolios in image-cataloging programs. Professionals find photo albums useful for showing client work. The software makes it easy to create a portfolio in standard or slideshow format. Examples are Apple iPhoto, Adobe Photoshop Album, Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album, FotoStation, Photools Imatch, Camera Bits Photo Mechanic, and iView MediaPro.
Optical media
DVDs and CDs are referred to as optical media because data is burned into them with a laser, which is an instrument that produces a beam of light powerful enough to vaporize material. A DVD-R/CD-RW drive in your computer lets you burn DVDs and CDs.
DVDs offer creative flexibility. You can use a video-editing program to create movies or slideshows. You can build presentations with animation and sound. DVDs offer large capacity for archiving photos, slideshows, animations and video movies. A DVD stores up to 4.7GB of data. That could be 1,100+ images at 4MB each. On the other hand, some computers only have a CD-RW drive to write CDs, which store about 650MB. On those, you can archive stills, presentations or portfolios.
Examples of video editing programs are Apple iMovie and Final Cut, Avid Xpress, Vegas Video, Wildform Flix, Adobe Premiere, Ulead Mediastudio, ACD VideoMagic, and Windows Movie Maker. Examples of DVD-R/CD-RW drives include the SuperDrive built into many Apple Macintoish computers, including laptops, and the LaCie FireWire DVD-R/CD-RW drive.
Printing
A desktop printer is convenient for making proofs of sets of photographs as well as for making final prints of photos. Just as digital cameras have improved, desktop printers have improved dramatically in quality and affordability. They now are a worthwhile option for producing gallery-quality prints that resist fading. Examples of such photo printers are in the HP Photosmart, Canon PhotoPrinter, and Epson product lines.
For the highest-possible quality in photographic prints, you can send your digital files to a service bureau to have them printed on a LightJet or similar printer. That kind of printer uses lasers to expose photographic paper, resulting in true photographic quality. Even photographers who shoot film transparencies now scan in their photographs and have them printed on a LightJet for its superior quality to Cibachrome-type processes and consistently reproducible results.
Some companies provide creative print formats. For instance, users of Applešs iPhoto can order a hardbound book showcasing their photos. Individuals use such books for personal albums, while professionals use them to display sample portfolios to clients. Prints can be up to 20 by 30 inches.