As everyone knows, May is National Photo Month. Okay, maybe nobody knows that. But someone who we’re sure knows is the Photo Marketing Association. In honor of National Photo Month, they have compiled a list of five tips on how to improve your photos. Their tips involve the following settings:

1. Flash adjustment – they offer up the basic but important tip to learn how to turn the flash on and off. Sounds simple, but it can make a big difference for certain photos. Many cameras have automatic flash settings, and that can cause the camera to use the flash unnecessarily. Sometimes the flash will come on when there is just a little less light than usual, and in situations like that you might not really need it. Other times, if you are taking pictures indoors, the flash can be too powerful and it can affect the picture too much. Finally, if you want to take long-distance shots at night, you aren’t going to want to use the flash or else you will end up with a picture of the area 10 feet in front of you lit up like a Christmas tree.

2. ISO setting – this is a light setting that most people usually don’t know about or else leave on auto. As the PMA notes, “higher ISO settings are best used for cloudy days, low-light indoor picture taking, or nighttime photography, since they are the most sensitive to light.” This is true, but most people don’t remember to change this setting when they are in these conditions. If you are taking pictures at night and they aren’t coming out, then they likely won’t come out much better even if you change the ISO settings. If you can see the picture fine but it is just a shade too dark, then the ISO setting might help. Keep in mind that the higher the ISO setting, the brighter that street lights, neon signs, etc. will appear.

3. Erasing pictures – because the price of memory cards has fallen so much, this isn’t as necessary as it once was. Still, although this might seem like another no-brainer, it is important to do every once in a while. There is no need to save all those shots you messed up on. Your camera might eventually slow down because the memory is getting full, and you will be left scrolling through three versions of that picture of a sunset you tried to take.

4. Image size – “the general rule is the larger you want to print a sharp photo, the more pixels you need” is what they say. If you don’t plan on printing your pictures, then you will probably be fine with a 1600 x 1200 resolution. Most people don’t go above 1280 x 1024 for their monitor resolution, so if you take pictures at a resolution above that, you are going to be left with something that doesn’t even fit on your screen. No one likes being emailed a gigantic picture from someone’s digital camera that takes forever to download.

5. Image quality – they suggest you “take some unimportant photos at different settings, to discover if you can see any difference.” This applies to the other settings as well. Just change them all all around and do a bunch of tests. You will see a difference between the lowest quality setting and the highest, but will you see a difference between the highest and the second highest? Maybe, maybe not. But if there is no difference, then you are just wasting time and space by taking your pictures at the highest setting possible. At the same time, you don’t want to take a bunch of pictures at the “normal” setting, only to find out too late that the results were less than stellar.

So, if you can find all these settings, play around with them and see what happens. What you find out might come in handy for a particular shot in the future, or it might just make things a little easier the next time you go to check out your photos on your computer.

If you have any tips about taking photos or using digital cameras, feel free to leave a comment.