- Equipment Considerations
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Computers are
necessary, of course, to make digital alterations. To run most digital editing software,
we suggest a computer with a Pentium processor and at least 32 megabytes of RAM and a
large hard drive(2 gigabytes or larger). For Macs, we suggest you have a Power Macintosh
with Mac OS 7.5 or later, 32 megabytes of RAM, and at least a 16-bit video card.-
Scanners allow you to take real photos or drawings and scan them into your computer. There
are several types of scanners: flat-bed scanners, hand-held scanners, desktop paper-fed
scanners, photo scanners, and slide/film scanners. Flat-bed or photo scanners are the most
common ones available for student projects. The flat-bed scanners are large and can scan
almost anything, while photo scanners handle only smaller photos.
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Digital Cameras are
gaining popularity. Instead of using film, it stores digital pictures on a floppy disk or
to memory within the camera. The ones not using floppy disks must be cabled to your
computer and the images are transferred to your hard drive via the cable. Once on the hard
drive, the picture files can be used in other applications. The cameras that use floppy
disks allow the images to be used in any computer with a floppy drive.
Many different software
imaging packages are available today. We used Adobe Photoshop because that is what we have
available at both schools. Most inexpensive photo software programs offer options that
will alter or fix photos as described in the Photo Enhancement section. Morphing
requires an additional program. Constructing images from other photos requires more
robust programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel PHOTO-PAINT, which are more expensive.
For a complete listing of references and software programs used in this site, please see
our references page.
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