Theoretical analysis is given of an experimental scheme that can perform individual photon operations such as the photon annihilation operation a, creation operation $a^{†}$ , and commutation operation $a{a}^{†}-a^{†}a$ , utilizing atom–cavity field interactions and conditional measurements. In order for the scheme to perform the desired photon operation, the atom–cavity field interaction times are generally required to be sufficiently short that photon annihilation and/or creation are dominated by the one-half Rabi cycle process. Such short interaction times, however, lead inevitably to a low success probability of the scheme. It is shown that this problem of low success probability can be overcome by preparing the cavity field in a superposition of a small number (two) of Fock states and choosing the interaction times appropriately.