Free tips on taking better digital photos

The difference between taking a good photo and a bad one is often down to simple changes that you can make before you take your photo.

The way that you fill your photo can make the difference between a 'snap' and a truly emotive image. If you want to wow your friends with you next set of photos rather than bore them then listen to these top tips.

The ideal way to take a photograph more interesting is to divide the image into 3 sections horizontally and vertically (much like a noughts and crosses board). By positioning your image subjects at any of the intersections of these lines will give you a more artful image.

Remember there are plenty of free image editing programmes on the internet (I recommend Gimp). In many cases you will not have a perfectly balanced image after you have taken it, so use an image editing programme to crop your image to achieve the balance required in the point above.

If you want your subject to stand out you can try and make your background blurred which draw your eye to the subject of the image instead. If the subject is wearing a colourful or busy pattern then make sure that your background it plain. If you don't have a choice of background you should adjust the field of depth to focus in on objects nearer you while at the same time blurring the background.

If you want to achieve depth in your photo and make your image take on a 3d effect you should include your subject near to you but have something in the background to create depth, an ideal example of this would be a statue.

In many cases taking a horizontal image is not going to give the best photo - especially if the subject is tall. If you are not sure what will work best for your image try taking the photo in both orientations and then keeping the best one.

In many cases photos can be taken to far away from a subject, try taking your phot close up – this adds intimacy and can make a photo tell a story instead.

Finally take advantage of physical structures to help frame your subject, trees, doorways, plants almost anything can be used.