"The Olympus Stylus 300 Elizabeth used is a highly automated camera, and this has pros and cons," Jack explained. "The camera looks to its center cross hair for focus, and in the case of this shot, it focused on a table in front of the couch, which was not desirable. Also, because of the poor framing, the principal subjects were just a narrow strip through the center of a square shot. But what a great expression on Jim and the kids' faces!"

Enter digital enhancement. First, Jack used Adobe PhotoShop to crop the entire picture except for the children and Jim on the couch to make it a rectangular image. Then, he kicked up the contrast to make the colors more vivid. To make a distinction between the subjects and the background, he selected the subjects and applied a Sharpen filter. Then he put a slight blur on the background to keep it from distracting from the subject of the photo.

"It's gratifying to be able to take a pretty good photo with potential and turn it into the great photo you had in mind when you saw it in the view finder," Jack said.