Cleaned Up Some Small Ones

[NGtoothless]

I'm new to this but hooked on digging none the less.

It helps if I resized before I tried to post!

[Harry Pristis]

I'm new to this but hooked on digging none the less.

It helps if I resized before I tried to post!

Here are some things to try beyond resizing the image:

Do you have editing software that came with your camera or with your scanner? Use the image-editing software (or download shareware from the Internet).

You can be as creative as you want to be with the software, but the following basic things will improve anyone's images:

GROUP IMAGES of more than a few fossils are not effective. The more individual fossils in an image, the greater the amount of table-top is in the image. Viewers cannot see the details of a fossil that might take up less than five percent of the total image. Photograph a single fossil (or two or three, if they're tiny), and post that image.

LIGHT IT UP. Use as much ambient light as possible to reduce shadows. Halogen bulbs are better for photography than tungsten filament bulbs. The new compact flourescent bulbs come in a "daylight" (6500K) version that you can use in any (non-dimming) fixture and produce very little heat.

BRIGHTEN AND CONTRAST. BRIGHTEN the image until the fossil appears slightly washed, then adjust the CONTRAST until the fossil is bright and sharp and is a good color-match. Practice this until you get a feel for it.

CROP, CROP, CROP. Again, use the image-editing software to crop the image to only what is pertinent. Leave only a narrow margin around the fossil. The more of your kitchen counter-top in the image, the smaller the fossil image will be.

REDUCE THE FILE SIZE. The images directly from a camera usually are too large for posting directly to a forum. You can constrain the proportions of your image to produce exactly the size that works best (I routinely use 700 Kb - 1 Mb for my images now). Save in JPEG format.

[Auspex]

I see you're in San Diego; are those teeth from Shark Tooth Hill? Great colors!