Picture This

[WALABOOM]

Hi, I have a couple of questions I hope someone can help me with. I'm new to the digicam world (5-6 months) and I have some questions regarding the features of my canon a540. Last Sunday I went to my second airshow, this one in San Francisco, featuring the Navy's Blue Angel's. Outstanding!! My canon isn't powerful enough to get really good close shots but it does have a feature that is really great. I can when I scan the pictures push the zoom lever and can focus on individual parts of a picture and blow it up x10 magnification. So shots that were not so hot can zoom in and become great.
Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something in the manual the shots don't stay on the blown up area, they return to the original. Otherwise I would make copies of the magnified spot. Am I missing something? If I have a CD made of the regular shots that are average at best, isn't there software that can blow up individual spots of each picture as my camera did, that can hold exactly what I want to be printed out? The PC's I use are at school and the library. Any picture editing software by name?? Any comments welcomed WALABOOM.

[Sintares]

What operating system is the library using ?

If its Vista then the inbuilt windows photo gallery can crop into where ever you want.

You can then print the cropped image.

If Xp , well not sure, never used it, so am not sure if there is something similar, though I suppose you can crop in MSpaint.

If you are allowed to run other programs then http://portableapps.com/ can be installed to a flash drive and that gives you GIMP portable which is an excellent if complicated image editor.

You could also use online image editors such as http://www.online-image-editor.com/ , or there are others, just google it.

[David Metsky]

On the camera, you are zooming in on a piece of the image using essentially digital zoom. All you are doing in the camera is viewing parts of the image, there's no mechanism to save that crop in the camera. You'll have to do that on a computer.

Any image editing software can do what you want. View the image at full size and use the crop tool. It's called different things on different software packages, but they all have the ability.

Keep in mind that the only reason those images look good to you is that you're viewing them on a tiny little screen. Put the same cropped images on your computer screen and you'll find out they are not very good. You're being fooled by the small screen size into thinking that you can zoom in and maintain quality. You may be very disappointed in the results.

[WALABOOM]

Thanks to Sintares and David Metsky for the info. I will try to find out additional information on my end. As usual, more questions later.
WALABOOM.

[WALABOOM]

I haven't been able to find out about the operating systems at the library yet.
I guess a safe and inexpensive thing to do would be make a CD at the local Walmart, cost ($2.27) get a friend or wait till I get my own computer to crop and print. Then see what I get. If even 25% come out good I will be happy. I was expecting 0%. I knew my camera wasn't powerful enough for the job, but I figured, "what the heck". I got to see the Blue Angel's, Sean Tucker, who has to be the best prop pilot on earth! Amazing flying! Some of the stalls, hanging in mid-air, hovering like a helicopter. Again, amazing! Any further comments welcomed. Thanks, WALABOOM

[WALABOOM]

Thought and a question. Some of my pix that I magnified x10 were very good, some certainly not. Does it all depend on the angle and distance of the original shot? Does this editing software crop an area (also) magnify that area as well. Does this editing software blow up or magnify an area? If so how much? Last question. On my Canon A540 does this have an attachment that will give it more magnification than it has presently??? Any comments welcomed. I'll do some investigation too. Thanks WALABOOM.

[David Metsky]

Some pictures are sharper then others, with more clear contrast. They will look better when you blow them up or crop them. Other shots could just have poor lighting, poor shutter speed for subject, bad focus.

Once you have the image in the computer you can do whatever you want with it. It's just pixels, zoom really doesn't apply as the image has no "real" size. You can't add magnification in any meaningful manner, they are just dots on a screen.

If your original image is 3000x2000 pixels, and you crop a section that is 300x200 pixels, then you have a 300x200 pixel image. If you print it postage sized or print it as a 30x20" poster it's still the same set of pixels.

The review (http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_a540-review/) on this very site has a list of adapters and lenses that you can buy for this camera. Adding lenses will require you to shoot in brighter light or keep the shutter open longer to capture the shot.

[WALABOOM]

Thanks again for all the info. I'll check out you mentioned. My next two assignments won't cause me to worry about large magnification issues.
Before the year is out I will take pictures of the local Veteran's Day parade and then a visit to the aircraft carrier museum U.S.S. Hornet. I'm sure, as usual, I'll have Q's regarding that . Thanks WALABOOM.

[SpecialK]

Canon's "ZoomBrowser" software should have come with your camera. That will do those basics, if you can find a computer to install it on.

[WALABOOM]

Thanks SpecialK for the info. WALABOOM