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Subject:RE: Using digital camera for illustrations? From:"Barbara Philbrick" <caslon -at- alltel -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:37:50 -0500
I prefer illustrations because printing and copying comes out cleaner, plus
photographs can easily get junked up with confusing other stuff.
That said, I have used digital photographs with reasonable results. My
guidelines:
1. Get as high a resolution as practical.
2. Set up a studio, even if it's just three pieces of poster board taped
together to give a clean background.
3. Keep the unit as uncomplicated as possible --- for example, remove
connections if possible so you don't have a rat's nest of cables in every
picture.
4. Make sure displays don't show personal or confidential information.
5. Use good lighting and try to enhance contrast as much as you can. (The
last project I worked on, we were trying to show black fittings on black
boxes. I lightened the areas using a graphics editor as much as I could.)
Personal preference: Keep hands and fingers out of the picture unless they
are well-manicured. Use a scale or pen or something like that to show size,
not someone's grubby fingers.
Barb
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-199665 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-199665 -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
greg_ontheroad -at- hotmail -dot- com
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 3:15 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Using digital camera for illustrations?
Hi All:
I have a client that has a TV set up box the requires some documentation.
I
am ok with the software part of doing the docs, but it is the hardware
element that bothers me. I can describe the hardware (and have done so in
the past) but I have always had a technical illustrator to work with when I
did hardware documentation. My illustration skills are limited so I was
thinking about using a digital camera to take pictures of the hardware I
needed to document, than add call outs to the pictures once I added them
into the manual. I almost worked with a client that wanted me to do
something similar for them, so I have always had this in the back of my mind
as an approach I could use in future jobs.
Has anyone had any experience with using a digital camera to take pics of
hardware components they have had to document? Got any suggestions for best
practices?
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