Professional Photography

Boredom Can Be a Great Tool for Inspiring Creativity

Eileen Fritsch — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:31:00 GMT

We all get bored sometimes: bored with ourselves, bored with others, and bored with what we're doing. Boredom with our photography can be a great kick to a new start.

The other day I was bored. I was feeling somewhat agitated. I wanted to shoot something (with a camera), but had no idea what. After some hours of pacing around the house and annoying my wife I realized what was going on. I had the need to do something new. So I went into the studio, looked around and started brainstorming in my head.

Some time ago I had been experimenting with LED lighting and fiber optics. I didn't have those accessible at the time, so I kept looking for alternative ways to create the same effects. Then the light bulb went on in my head and I put it all together.

I grabbed some black thin cardboard, a craft knife, my camera and macro lens (also a lensbaby for fun) and my portable flash unit, along with some flowers. I cut slits in the cardboard to let light only to parts of the flower, then propped up the cardboard on books with the flash underneath. I used some aluminum foil to limit the light to just the holes and slits I had cut. With the flowers covering the holes completely and the camera above, the resulting image looks as if the flower is lit from within.

The technique works simply by allowing you to control exactly where the light goes to backlight your subject. It works with anything that is translucent. I used flowers, but this technique can work with other things.

You don't want the light holes to be directly visible to the camera. With many translucent objects the amount of light you need to pump through would only cause massive underexposure if any of the light source was directly visible to the camera.

The effects can be interesting. I was shooting white lilies, but if I put the green end of the flower through a small hole and lit through the stem, the green of this part of the flower acted as a filter on the light, turning the whole flower green.

Now the point of this post isn't the particular technique I've described above (though it is worth trying). What matters is that, having identified what was wrong with me, I set in motion a creative process that I know works for my personality. It not only got me out of my mental state, but also helped me find a new technique (new to me, at least) that worked well. In fact, it has opened up a new series of work that may be interesting. We will see.

Creative people are often at their happiest when they create. Conversely, they are at their lowest when, for one reason or another, they cannot.

Recognize this trait in yourself and find ways to overcome it. Build a file of good ideas you come across. Or clip out images you'd love to figure out how to do for yourself. Keep these files handy. Have stimulating books around to give you a creative kick. Do whatever works for you.

You will find ways to turn a negative day into a positive one. Your photography and your life will benefit.

Streamlining Your Workflow

Eileen Fritsch — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:07:00 GMT

By Jon Canfield

If you’re anything like me, you are probably spending more time on the road and doing more of your initial image processing on a laptop in an effort to stay on top of the hundreds of images a typical shooting session generates. I used to just copy my images to something like the Epson P-5000, but now I always travel with a laptop and prefer to upload to that every evening. I travel with a Western Digital 320GB external drive that all my images are uploaded to.

My workflow tool of choice is Adobe Lightroom, which lets me import images directly to a location I specify, in this case the external drive, and assign keywords and other metadata to the images. After importing, I do a quick pass to delete the obvious bad shots (which I always seem to have plenty of).This works great for my field work, and saves me hours of time when I get back home. But, at home I work on a desktop computer, not a laptop. This is one of the reasons I settled on Lightroom. I can easily export all of my images as a catalog, including folders, keywords, and collections, from the external drive and then import them into my master catalog on the server. So, none of my field work is wasted, and I’m able to immediately start processing images for submission or web use.

There are plenty of other options out there, such as Aperture (Mac only), Microsoft Expression Media, even Adobe Bridge which is included with Photoshop, just to name a few. The key is to find a tool that you’re comfortable with and use it regularly, making it second nature to process your images every time you shoot. It’s more useful when you work on multiple computers, but even with a single computer, you’ll find that you are spending more time on shooting and image editing and less time on sorting and organizing them.

Teach a Kid, Share the Joy

Eileen Fritsch — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:32:00 GMT

By Jon Canfield.

I recently had the opportunity to give a talk on photography to a group of high school kids. Walking into the room it was pretty obvious that a good number of them were there because they had to be, not because it was something interesting or meaningful.

By the time I was done though, most of the glazed looks had disappeared. Sure, there were still a couple of students who could have cared less if I was talking about photography or how to mash potatoes, but that’s typical of any group. It seems like everyone these days has a cellphone with an embedded camera in it, and kids are accustomed to snapping and sharing photos with their friends. I found that more girls in the group had pocket-sized digi-cams, while the guys were more likely to just have the cellphone.

What was really interesting though was how few of these photos, regardless of how they were taken, were ever seen in print. The kids view them on their cellphones, or maybe on MySpace, but none of them had printed their photos! I had a few cameras with me that I loaned to the kids, and we went around the campus doing some shooting while I explained things such as composition and what type of lighting to try for. Then we all went back to the classroom to review images. I showed everyone’s shots on the whiteboard with a projector, to laughs and in a couple of cases groans, mentally taking note of the best of each kid’s shots.

While talking some more about what drew me into photography, places I’d been, and such, I was printing these images out on the small photo printer I had with me. At the end of the session, I passed out the photos to the surprised group, and it was like they had rediscovered something new.There’s just something different about seeing your photo on paper than on screen that somehow makes it more real.

Will any of these kids get into photography? I couldn’t tell you for certain. But I do know two things: There were a lot of smiles when I left (hopefully not because I left!); and there was a good feeling inside me for having shared something I enjoy.

Getting Your Web Presence Right

Eileen Fritsch — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:27:00 GMT

By Wayne Cosshall

A website is a key part of any business and most hobbies these days, and especially so in photography. But getting it right is key. Even though the Internet has become an obvious and essential part of what photographers do, there are still many mistakes people inadvertently make.

Mistake number one is trying to do business using a Yahoo, MSN, or other free email address. These just stink of being either a spammer or an amateur. Because using these sites suggests a lack of stability (and thus unreliability), you can really limit your marketing opportunities.

Mistake number two is relying on the free or low-cost photo-hosting sites to present your professional portfolio. Yes, some people do this, hard as it might seem to believe. Again, it immediately conveys either that you’re an amateur or someone who has no idea of business.

Mistake number three is developing a totally unsuitable custom website. This might be unsuitable in many ways, as we’ll discuss later, but such a site can actually turn some potential customers away. So, how do you do it right?

Step 1: Register a domain name with a reliable and major domain registrar (so you will have no dramas later). The domain name is not critical but ideally needs to be something you can tell people over the phone without a strong likelihood of them getting it wrong. This can be your business name or something else, so long as it makes sense.

Step 2: Set up a website hosting service with a reliable company. This should not be your ISP, the service you use to connect to the Internet. Look for Linux hosting rather than Microsoft servers. This will give you more free options and is often cheaper. A good hosting account will allow you to easily create multiple email addresses and monitor traffic to your site (statistics). It will also make it easy to control other features, such as installing open source gallery software.

Step 3: Set up a number of email addresses for yourself. For example, you might want to have one you can publish on public forums and another address that you use for direct business contact. Multiple email addresses also allow you to create the impression that you have a larger organization than you actually have.Step 4: Do some research. Clarify why you want to have a web presence, who the most typical and most important users of your site will be, and what equipment they are likely to use to view your site. Keep in mind what information matters most to them, not you. Look closely at a wide range of other photographers’ websites, and not just the ones you personally like.

Step 5: Develop a website to suit your customers, based on the research you did in Step 4. When I look at photographers’ websites, I usually see a lot of over- engineered, fancy, and time-wasting sites that don’t work for the site visitors. Sadly, many photographers won’t listen to recommendations for improvement, because they think they know it all visually. But if you are a small-town wedding/portrait photographer, for example, your clients are likely to be local people with slow Internet connections, old computers, and small screens. The site must be designed accordingly, or you might lose business. Conversely, if you are a big-city fashion photographer, your clients are ad agencies and magazines, with fast Internet connections, larger screens and a sense of style (plus attitude). This requires a very different type of site than that required by the small-town wedding photographer.

Do you get the idea? It’s not you and your aesthetics that matter with a website, it is your clients. If you have diverse clients perhaps you need two websites that you market to appropriate audiences.This client orientation will help you determine elements such as: what screen size the site should be designed for, whether Flash (an overused technology on photographer sites) should even be considered, and whether you can stray too far from normal navigation conventions.

Unless you really know what you are doing, pay someone to design your website for you. Don’t skimp on this. During the design process, look for alternative ways of doing things. For example, many of the sites I develop now use a content-management system so that photographers themselves can upload new images or change text. This way they aren’t reliant on me to make changes to the site except to update the look. It costs them a little more up front, but reduces costs long term.

Finally, plan to revamp your site on a yearly basis. This doesn’t have to be a major overhaul every year, but a bit of a touchup keeps the site looking fresh and in line with current trends. If your site is well designed by your web developer, a yearly update shouldn’t be a costly exercise.

Step 6: Market your website. The website itself won’t bring you much work on its own. It actually just forms part of your marketing effort; it is not the complete answer. If you have followed these steps, your email address should help promote the site. The site URL (www.cosshall.com, for example) should be on your business cards, car, all ads, etc. Keep fresh content on your website and never put a visible visitor counter on your site.Done well, a website is a great asset. Done poorly it is a liability. Which is yours?

You can read more on this topic on my online magazine The Digital Imagemaker.

Follow Your Passions

warren.sander@hp.com — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:21:00 GMT

By Phil Borges

I got into my present line of work by following two of my passions-- traveling to remote locations and photographing people. This combination of attractions has led me to photograph many indigenous groups around the world.

I love everything about the process—planning the trip, finding the guides, meeting and interacting with the people, and making their portraits. There is a unique beauty that comes from living close to the land. It’s a patina or maybe a wildness that attracts me. But it’s a look that seems to disappear as we begin to rely on others to gather and produce our food.

In the beginning of my career I was just trying to capture the beauty that I saw in the people I visited. However, it didn’t take me long to realize the unique challenges that these people face. To bring awareness to some of these issues, I began to combine personal stories with my portraits. I actually silkscreened biographical information about the subjects on the Plexiglas of my framed pieces in my exhibits. I could then highlight an issue (i.e. the human rights abuses in Tibet) through the eyes and words of individuals directly affected by the issue.

Today I look for partners, mostly not-for-profit organizations such as Amnesty International or CARE, that are addressing the same issues that I want to help bring attention to. These partners usually support the production by helping with access and travel expense. However the greatest benefit from the partnership for me is in getting the work distributed. If I’m doing a book, these partners will often pre-order books, making it easier to get a publisher. If I have an accompanying exhibit, which I usually do, they help find venues for the exhibit. By combining forces with organizations you believe in you can set up a win-win situation in which the organization gets exposure for its work.

When I started out in photography I had no idea I would be doing the humanitarian work I now find myself doing. As I look back I find the things that served me most were the projects I did out of an attraction for the subject or a sincere desire to help address an issue. The efforts that served me least were the times I tried to approach a market for my images or guess which images would sell.

Humaria is an 11-year-old street vendor (selling eggs) in Kabul, Afghanistan. She has never gone to school and like all but 12% of the young girls in Kabul is illiterate. I took this photo on top of a hill overlooking Kabul. She is part of the Women Empowered project that was supported by CARE and promoted by HP.

Enjoying An Old Friend: The HP Designjet 130

warren.sander@hp.com — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:15:00 GMT

By Jon Canfield

As a writer focusing on printing and color management topics, I’m lucky to be surrounded by the latest and greatest tools. But, there is a downside. It seems that I’m constantly learning how to take advantage of this new feature, or that change in printing. Along the way, I’ve learned quite a bit, and gone through plenty of paper and ink.

So, it was refreshing to step back the other day and do some work for myself. I have an image that I’ve been using as a test piece with different printers. It’s highly saturated, so it gives the pigment-ink printers a good challenge. While I can say that pigments have come a long way in an amazingly short period of time, there’s still a little something lacking in the prints I’ve been doing. With this in mind, I set up my older HP Designjet 130 for a test run using dye-based inks.

The first thing that surprised me is that although I haven’t used this printer in a year, the initial calibration test I printed came out perfectly – no nozzle clogs, no head issues, nothing! The 130 just purred away, happy to be plugged in again.

Now, considering all that the pigment printers can do (wide variety of media types, 8- to 12- color ink systems, etc.), you would think they would have a huge edge over a lowly 6-color dye-based system. You’d be wrong though.

Sure, the newer printers do have many advantages, and I’m not about to give up my pigment printers for anything. But, the image I printed on the Designjet 130 had a dimensionality that I haven’t yet been able to equal with pigments. From the rich blacks to the vibrant and saturated purples, this printer did a better job with this image than any other printer I have used.

The moral of my post? Even if you have a printer that’s a little long in the tooth, don’t assume it can’t produce excellent results. Sure, there’s always room for improvement – it’s called progress. But sometimes, an old friend is just what you need.

Your Back Library Contains Gold

warren.sander@hp.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:24:00 GMT

By Wayne Cosshall

It is easy to get taken away by our latest images and forget to revisit our library of previous work.

All of life contains cycles and change. We read a new photography book, attend an exhibition, or go to a workshop and suddenly we are a bit different than we were before. Sometimes more than a bit. Over time we change substantially. And this is what we want, because if we are standing still we have either given in to ego or to stagnation and repetition.

An extremely interesting exercise is to revisit images we shot some time ago. And I don’t just mean the ones we have printed or exhibited. It’s also worth re-examining the great, unwashed mass of images that we never did anything with, at the time.

Suppose you look at images you shot five years ago. When you examine these in the light of five years of growth as an artist you will likely make different decisions. You may no longer like the direction you took some images during processing. Or, you may now see potential in some of the images you previously rejected, perhaps by using some new processing technique you have learned or with a changed aesthetic. And, you may find work that now fits perfectly into a new series you are working on.

Another great value in examining your back library is to reflect on your abilities. Sometimes it is easy to forget just how far we have come as artists, how much our tastes have changed, and how much our shooting and processing techniques have improved. When I look back at my body of work I find some images I still adore and others that I no longer value, no longer consider good enough to exhibit.

Sometimes we discover that we have gone backwards. Perhaps a line of work we started then dropped held huge potential. Or maybe a previous way of working (before we adopted a workflow recommended by someone else) was in fact better fitted to our personalities and aesthetics.

Digging through your back images is not easy. Most of us have large libraries of film and/or digital images. The sheer volume can seem overwhelming.

So part of your organizational skill should be devoted to making it easy (or at least reasonably possible) to re-examine images taken long ago. This might involve storing your trannies and negatives in film sheets that allow you to quickly examine a whole lot of images in one hit.

Or, it could mean storing your digital files on a large file server or cataloging your CDs and DVDs of backup images in a program that generates and stores decent- sized previews so you can examine a lot of digital images while the original files remain offline.

However you do it, make it happen.

Your back library can be like striking a huge vein of gold in your own backyard, something you can mine at your leisure. Cast your new eyes over the work and see what you can extract. Can you use a cropped section? Can you extract a component and montage it into another image? Can you improve an image using localized enhancements that you didn’t know how to do last time you examined the image?

Don’t get sucked into believing that since you have improved as a photographer that all your past work will be rubbish. Even if your work has taken a quantum leap in quality, such change is rarely an instantaneous event. Rather it is a process over time in which there will be hints of what is to come. Most likely, you’ll find the odd image or two that hinted at your future talent. It would be a shame to lose these images.

The best image you will ever take might be sitting in your back image library, untouched and unloved.

Previewing Black-and-White Conversions

warren.sander@hp.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:19:00 GMT

By David Saffir

Deep down, I’m in love with the look and feel of black-and-white prints. When I was 11 years old or so, I dove into photography in a big way. And because it was less expensive, black-and-white was my medium of choice.

The wonder of watching prints magically appear in the darkroom has never left me. I still experience many of the same feelings when watching a print I’ve worked on come off the inkjet printer. Perhaps it’s a bit less mysterious, but it’s always a thrill.

So now the puzzle: What’s the best way to make high-quality black-and-white images using digital technology? I’ve tried using the presets offered in some cameras, but the trade-offs in image quality are even worse than the ones involved in shooting JPEG instead of the RAW format. It just dumps too much image information to be really useful.

That means the best choice is to shoot in color, and convert the image to black and white later.

What’s the best way to do this?

One way is to use image-editing software such as Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom®. Lightroom comes with a number of presets that let you replicate traditional darkroom processes for toning, contrast, and special effects. These presets are remarkably easy, quick, and fun to use. And the previews are a snap! Simply roll your mouse pointer over the preset, and voila! The thumbnail shows you a preview (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

If the range of presets that Adobe provides isn’t sufficient, you can download other presets that have been created by individual photographers.

Or, you can try some of the conversion presets included with the black-and-white adjustment layer in Adobe Photoshop CS3. These presets are very useful, and many correspond to film-based techniques (i.e., they simulate the use of a colored filter to increase contrast, etc.)

One thing that has always troubled me when testing options for black-and-white conversions is the “before and after” issue. What’s the best way to visually compare the converted image to your original?

I’ve tried using duplicate windows, layer comps, and other techniques, but the pace was too slow. Recently I came up with another idea (which may not be new to many of you). The method is illustrated in Fig. 2, and involves six steps in Photoshop CS3.

Make a selection in the image.
Create an adjustment layer from the selection.
Experiment with different conversion settings.

Fig. 2

Working this way lets you see the changes side-by-side with the original, in real time. I have found that I prefer this method over other viewing options in Photoshop. And the new dialog box in CS3 includes six channels, up from three available in the Channel Mixer dialog.

Save the combined settings you’ve developed as a preset by clicking on the tool in the Photoshop dialog box in Fig. 3.
Delete the partial adjustment layer.
Create a new adjustment layer, and load your saved preset.

Fig. 3

Your image is now a custom-tuned black-and-white masterpiece!

Improving Print Accuracy

warren.sander@hp.com — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:25:00 GMT

By Jon Canfield

As photographers, we’re always concerned about how our images are reproduced, either on screen or in print. Sure, we learn about color management and how important it is to calibrate our displays and to use the correct printer profiles for output. But, how many of you have actually checked the accuracy of that output? Are you positive that your printer is giving you the best possible print in any given situation?

Most printers come with quality profiles for the paper that is sold by that company. HP is one of the few that I’ve seen that also offers profiles for popular third party papers as well. For the rest of your output needs, you’ll either need to find profiles, hopefully from the paper maker, or from a user group (Yahoo has groups devoted to almost every brand of printer). Or, if you’re the owner of an HP Designjet Z series printer, you can use the built-in spectrophotometer to make your own. The final option is to spend another $500 to $5,000 to buy the hardware and software needed to create your own profiles.

So, you’ve got the correct profile for your printer and paper, you’ve done your edits in Photoshop on your calibrated display. It’s as good as it’s going to get right? Maybe, maybe not.

Anytime I try a new paper, I go to the trouble of printing a test print to verify the quality of the profile for my needs. Many people will use one of their own images, sort of a benchmark, to do this. That’s fine and it gives you a good idea of how the printer does relative to other papers. But I find it useful to use a dedicated test file instead.

The advantage of using a test file is that it stresses all of the critical areas you need to be aware of when printing.
Test-file charts are available from a number of sources, but the two that I’ve found to be the most useful are from Uwe Steinmueller’s Outback Photo site and Scott Martin’s color and black & white charts. You can download these charts for your own use.

The advantage of using a standard chart is in having a known set of values. For example, you can evaluate how well your profile and printer produce gray ramps from white to black, color bars of different hue and intensity, as well as common subjects such as sky, skin tones. If you see problems, you can make adjustments prior to printing to get more accurate results.

Sure, it takes a little time, plus some ink and paper, but the overall time and cost savings can add up if the chart helps you find that your printer isn’t reproducing a particular range of colors as well as it could be.

The Dimensions of Photography: Realism, Surrealism and Abstraction

warren.sander@hp.com — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:24:00 GMT

By Wayne Cosshall

While many of us get into photography shooting realism, there can be far more to photography than attempting to capture realism.

The entry point for most of us is realism. We attempt to capture what we see around us in as realistic a way as possible. This remains the passion of many photographers, and that is fine, if it suits you. But realism is not the only way.

One danger of realism as an aim in photography is the risk of confusing an aspiration with an absolute. Photography can, at best, only create a representation of reality. This should be clear since it is only creating a two-dimensional representation of a moving, time-changing, three-dimensional reality. When you add all the manipulations of shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, selective framing, etc., the resulting image is only one of an infinite number of possible interpretations of reality.

Sadly, some photographers forget this. They set some arbitrary standard and define that as real photography, then use that standard and definition to limit other photographers with other viewpoints.

However once you come to terms with the interpretive nature of photography many creative possibilities open up. First, unless you are shooting for a specific form, such as forensics or reportage, where you need as straight a representation as possible, you can stop stressing about the ‘rightness’ of anything and just do what works. Likewise, concerns about manipulations, whether in the darkroom or desktop, drop away.

Your approach to actually shooting and your subject matter can also change. Freed from any pretensions to realism, you can shoot completely surreal scenes either by staging them or by shooting the components and assembling them together in the darkroom or Photoshop.

Surrealism offers you a kind of super-alternate realism that allows you to create your own realities, your own worlds. You are completely free to do what you will and create any type of reality you want. You can break any rules of reality you like. To pull it off requires as much effort and skill as any other form of photography.

This image, entitled Incorrect Conclusions, is from my "Road to Elysium" series about directions, choices, and wrong ideas.

Beyond surrealism you can step into abstraction either with your camera or by leaving the camera behind and working purely in the darkroom or on the computer. In-camera abstraction can use de-focusing, extreme close-up, extreme exposure or special equipment like the lensbaby.

Abstraction is the removal of one or more aspects to allow the viewer to more closely focus on what you have kept. So by removing all line, shape and form through defocusing, you allow a great attention to be placed on color and tone, for example. In this sense monochrome photography is a form of abstraction: we remove the distraction of color to better concentrate on tone, line and shape.

Abstraction is a great and wonderful approach for photographers, but, like surrealism, is as hard to pull off as a stunning ‘straight’ photograph or a surreal one.

So photography offers you the choice: realism, surrealism or abstraction. All are good, all are valid forms of photography and all are equally hard to do well. Isn’t photography grand?

Color Management in Web Browsers

warren.sander@hp.com — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:07:00 GMT

By Marc Aguilera

Understanding color management in web browsers is important if you want to directly sell more of your photos and artwork online. You need to know what is and isn't currently possible when it comes to ensuring that your images will consistently look as you intended when you display them in your online gallery.

First of all, know this: All devices produce color differently (we color freaks call it `device dependent color'). Even two of the same devices from the same manufacturer sitting next to each other will look slightly different. This can be hell—especially if you're trying to manage the color of your photographs on the web.

Second, applications can treat color differently. Have you ever wondered why images look a certain way in Photoshop and another way in your email program or the web? It's the same file and on the same computer but it looks different in various applications.

Mac OS X applications built using Aqua (i.e Mail, Preview, Safari, and iPhoto) all use the default display profile and recognize embedded profiles. This means images look the same in the applications

Microsoft applications such Picture Viewer and Outlook don't recognize embedded profiles, so when comparing images in Photoshop and Picture Viewer you will see a difference.

Adobe applications all have a common color architecture and if you synchronize working spaces the color will all look the same—but only in Adobe applications.

Internet Explorer 7 has can recognize embedded profiles in images, but the user has to enable it in preferences.

The current release of Firefox doesn't include support for embedded profiles in images but will do so in future versions.

So no matter what, if you plan to implement a color-managed workflow, your images will look similar in ICC-aware applications but different in everything else.

Secondly, if your display is not calibrated and profiled you will have even more trouble. Color measuring your display is crucial if you want a consistent appearance. (If you don't calibrate your display, you'll simply be experimenting with color rather than managing it.)

Here's how we manage color in at our creative-services agency, encompus:

All of the displays in our studio (5 Macs and 2 Windows) are all calibrated with a spectrophotometer to the same settings - D65 (6500° Kelvin), Gamma 2.2, and 130 cd/m2 Luminance. When we share files and view the displays under similar lighting conditions, these displays all appear similar. Then, the question then becomes one of application implementation.
We run Mac OS 10.4 for design work and Windows XP for web production work.
We all share the same color settings file (.CSF) in our Adobe Applications. sRGB is the working space for our web work and Adobe RGB is working space for our print work.
When a designer prepares an image for the web, we "save for web" via Adobe ImageReady. We embed the ICC profile when we really need to match colors and don't embed the profile when it's not as crucial.
We brief our clients on real-world expectations based on the fact that their customers will be viewing our design work on different browsers and on uncalibrated displays.
When we embed sRGB, it is really only useful for Safari since Safari has color management enabled by default and can recognize an image with an embedded profile. It does not help us with Firefox, unless you're running Firefox 3 Alpha 7 which has an option to use embedded profiles.

The concepts of the ICC (International Color Consortium) are still relatively young. ICC standards were written to be open in terms of implementation, meaning that OS, Applications, and Devices could use ICC profiles differently or not at all.

This concept makes it a nightmare for everyone because although the profile is a standard file type, the uses of a profile all differ depending on application and operating system. At least Apple has taken a huge step forward with Colorsync and Aqua, and Windows Vista has a new color management system called WCS (Windows Color System).

Still, I would prefer that all photographers, designers, and prepress professionals all follow the imperfect ICC color standards than try to invent new ones at this stage.

It really comes down to setting expectations within your devices and with the client. If you're considering selling photos or prints online, you may want to adopt a policy similar to that of the online
art gallery that gives customers seven days to return any artwork they bought that doesn't look like they had expected it to.

Let’s recap :

Calibrate your display to a standard (i.e. D65, G 2.2, Luminance 120 cd/m2). Recalibrate at least once a quarter.
Use sRGB as a working space for your web images. Make sure all your applications do the same (although this can be challenge for some applications).
When you save your images for the web, embed sRGB profiles. For now, they may not look right in Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, but there will come a time (sooner, rather than later) when all the major browsers will have color management turned on as the default, like Safari.

If you want to learn more about this subject, read Real World Color Management published by Peachpit Press. Better yet, take the X-Rite-sponsored Color Control Freak 08 seminar that I will be teaching at 24 cities throughout the US this spring. We will discuss many of these issues and more. Check out X-rite’s website or contact me directly at encompus.

Being Organized: Part 2

warren.sander@hp.com — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:41:00 GMT

By Wayne Cosshall

In part 1 of this article, we looked at how photographers could free themselves to be more creative by becoming better organized. In that post, we talked about organizing equipment, shoot planning, and contact lists. Let’s continue getting organized.

Tracking payments, debts and invoices. Tracking and managing all these business details is critical if photography is your business, either full or part time. You have compliance and tax obligations to meet, and must stay in control of your costs and income.

Here you have three choices: (1) do it all yourself; (2) do some of it yourself; or (3) hand it all off to a bookkeeper or accountant. The last is a great option, because most of us creative types find anything like bookkeeping to be instant death. However, an accountant costs money, so it may not be an option.

Alternatively, you can invest in some appropriate accounting software, learn it, and then use it either to do the whole job or just parts of it, with an accountant or bookkeeper doing the rest. This gives you more control and reduces costs. Accounting software such as QuickBooks or MYOB, can do the job for you.

Whatever solution you use, get an accountant to set it all up for you, including choosing the software. Then go to a training course or send the person who will be tracking your payments, debts and invoices. This is important, as even the simplest program of this type is quite complex. You need to get it right.

Planning image manipulations. In the old days of working in the darkroom I would do straight proof prints in 8x10 size and then, much later, sit with a chinagraph pencil and mark up areas of the print for burning in or holding back, dropping in another negative with masking, etc. I didn’t do this in the darkroom, but only after the print was completely dry and in the sort of lighting in which I would eventually be hanging the finished print. Free from the darkroom, I had my choice of lighting and could consider the image in comfort and over an extended period of time. I could even put the print on the fridge door so I could consider it over days.

Today, I do all my manipulation work on the computer. There is a great temptation to do all the work at the computer. I believe this is a mistake.

It is far better to mirror the darkroom approach and make a proof print in a smaller size. Then, consider it carefully and mark it up only after you’ve allowed yourself time with the image. It doesn’t all have to be a rush.

Getting things done on time. In today’s fast-moving 24/7 world, there is so much to keep track of. You need to keep track of deadlines, research, contacts, trips, websites, models, locations, timelines, client appointments and more. All of these can be tracked on paper. But as a computer nerd, I look for computer solutions.

Keeping track of everything you have to do is important. You can use a diary or calendar program but not all tasks are best kept that way.

I like to-do lists and I’ve tried a variety of programs to manage them. Most calendar programs have basic to-do capabilities, but these are very limited.

I’ve started using a program called iGTD. This is a Mac-only program, but it suits me because I work mainly on a Mac. The name comes from a book by David Allen called Getting Things Done, which describes a methodology for managing all the things we have to do. There are many other programs that implement these ideas for both Macs and Windows PCs.

iGTD lets me create tasks, and assign end dates, priorities and level of difficulty. I can also write notes about tasks, and set up tasks to repeat on a set schedule. When I complete such a task, it automatically reschedules to the next date.

iGTD is donationware software and works amazingly well. I love it, though I am still exploring all it can do for me. For example, it can also synchronize with a calendar program and generate alarms or reminder messages.

Tasks can be assigned to Contexts and Projects. Contexts divide tasks into those that need to take place in certain locations. Projects are particular activities. Both Contexts and Projects can be hierarchical, giving you further organization options.

Getting organized is not a burden. In fact, it frees you from worrying about all the things that must be done. Getting all that out of your head and off your shoulders frees you to create, and to enjoy the creating.

It can take time to turn something of little interest into something of beauty. This is especially true of creativity, which you can't do in a rush or with millions of other things on your mind. Get better organized and you are free to play.

Being Organized: Part 1

warren.sander@hp.com — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:03:00 GMT

By Wayne Cosshall

Photography is a business for many of us and a hobby for many more. Whether business or hobby, photography can become one of those all-consuming avocations that give us a reason to get up in the morning. Yet, because of the seemingly endless array of equipment, digital files, shoot logistics, and daily business requirements, many of us are often not as organized as we could be.

And that’s a shame. Although you can’t force creativity, disorganization can definitely put a damper on it. Lack of organization can make us feel adrift or as if we're drowning in sea of unrealized possibilities.

Getting organized empties our brains of needless distractions. The more organized we become, the fewer worries we have interfering with the creative process.

Among other things, being organized as a photographer requires:

Image organization and tracking
Organizing equipment
Planning shoots
Maintaining contact lists
Tracking payments, debts and invoices
Planning image manipulations before getting on the computer
Getting work done on time

In November, I wrote about using software to help organize images. Over the next couple of months, let’s look at some of the other areas that need to be organized.

Organizing equipment. Most photographers have collected a lot of equipment: cameras, lenses, bags, filters, step-up and step-down rings, cable or electronic releases, flash guns, tripods, and so on. Personally, I don’t have huge amounts of gear but the other day I counted five tripods, for example.

What system you choose to organize your gear isn’t as important as just making the effort to do so. I’ve always liked drawers of various heights for storing camera gear, so when I pull them out everything is all laid out in front of me. I place a non-slip rubber material in the bottom of the drawer and the gear mostly stays in place, too.

Other photographers love cabinets, filing cabinets, shelves, storage bins or whatever. Tripods can be hung from little wire brackets, as can camera bags, straps and USB, FireWire and flash sync leads.

Having all of your gear where you can easily find it definitely helps when it’s time to plan your next shoot.

Planning a shoot. This can involve looking at maps of the location, noting sunrise and sunset directions and times, figuring out what gear you will need, and determining the best way to carry it. You may even choose to make a preliminary list of subjects you might want to capture.

Shoot planning can seem like a task more suited for people with anal-retentive personalities than us creative types. But the fewer logistical glitches you have to hassle with on location, the more you can focus on getting the best shots.

Maintaining contact lists. To build a steady stream of assignments and photo sales, it’s wise to maintain lists of previous clients as well as people who have inquired about your services, attended your exhibitions, or subscribed to your newsletter. You also want to maintain a list of all of the other people and businesses you work with.

Mailing lists are a great tool, because they make it easy to send out invitations, special offers, or that newsletter you always meant to write.

The simplest and most effective way to keep a mailing list is in Microsoft Excel. Setting up separate columns for names, street addresses, cities, states, and zip codes is just a starting point. You can add extra columns for date of last sale or lists of images they have bought from you in the past.

Microsoft Word can draw the info from the Excel spreadsheet to print out address labels or print directly on your envelopes if your printer can handle it. If you use labels supported by Word, such as the wide range of labels available from Avery, and it can all work flawlessly.

That’s it for part 1. More next month.

Panorama Photography: It's Easier Than Ever

warren.sander@hp.com — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:14:00 GMT

By David Saffir

In earlier posts, I’ve commented about the progress we’ve enjoyed with regard to new tools for photography. Here, I’ll back up those statements by briefly describing an relatively easy system that I’ve developed to make highly detailed panorama photographs. (The only caveat: Everything old is new again. About 75 to 85% of the success with this technique comes from getting it right in the camera.)

In the past, most panorama-style photographs were either cropped from a larger frame, such as a piece of 4x5 film, or photographed using a specialized panorama camera, such as the Hasselblad X-Pan.

In recent years, I started experimenting with using a digital camera to shoot multiple frames that could then be merged into a panorama. Until the middle of last year, I wasn’t satisfied with the results. I had issues with variations in brightness in the scene, lens distortion and other problems.

However, with the release of some new hardware and software tools, shooting and merging frames has become impressively consistent and requires very little extra work in post-production.

Here is a brief rundown of the techniques I use. (Look for a more detailed version to be posted on my website within the next few weeks.)

Use a normal focal length lens, or slight telephoto lens that has good flat field characteristics and little or no change in brightness in the corners.

Use a tripod that has a reasonably good camera mount that can be rotated easily. Level the tripod before you mount the camera on it.

Use a slide mount to attach the camera to the ball head. You will use this to move the center of the camera back and away from the center point of the tripod so that the camera rotates around the optical center of the lens. This eliminates parallax. (The mount shown here is made by Really Right Stuff.)

To know how far back to move the camera on the slide, look up the lens optical center, or nodal point, on the manufacturer’s website. (This info is usually found in the technical specifications for the lens.) Move the slide back from the center of the tripod an amount equal to the number provided for the nodal point. (see photograph)

Mount the camera in portrait, not landscape orientation. You’ll get great top-to-bottom coverage and when the frames are combined the result is very impressive.

Use a bubble level to make a final check of the camera and tripod by slowly rotating the camera through the range of the scene you want to photograph.

(Right now I’ll bet many of you are saying “that’s going to take too long!” but with a little practice setup takes about five minutes.)

Use manual focus, and manual exposure. Try to pick an exposure that is close to the middle of the range of exposure measurements that you get from one side of the scene to the other. Set the camera up in Aperture priority, at a moderate f/stop (f/8 or f/11 is a good starting point).

If you are shooting RAW image captures (recommended) set your white balance to manual, or to one of the lighting presets, such as daylight, in the camera. Using “auto” setting will create headaches for you later in image processing.

Shoot from left to right and expose the frames you’ll need to capture the scene. Overlap the frames by 25-35%. Be sure to use RAW capture, and do not use a polarizing filter.

That’s it for capture – the next step is ridiculously simple.

In Photoshop CS3 use the new Photomerge utility (File>Automate>Photomerge) to merge the images. Set it on “Auto”, and click OK.

Photoshop will create a merged version of your group of images. It will look a bit like a bowtie, and it will have as many layers as you have frames. Flatten the image, crop it to the rectangular aspect ratio you want, and make whatever other adjustments you wish.

To summarize: get everything level from the ground up, use manual focus and exposure, shoot RAW, and overlap the frames. Load them into Photoshop’s Photomerge, and voila! The results are amazing!

After I shared this technique with photographer Ted Dayton, he sent me back this note:

“I processed nine RAW files into 12-MP TIFFs and merged them in Photoshop to create the finished image. About 30 minutes and 450 MB later, the results were amazing!! Anybody want to buy a 6 x 17 camera?”

Gritty Photos Made Easy

warren.sander@hp.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:52:00 GMT

By Jon Canfield

Last month I wrote about creating HDR (High Dynamic Range) photographs. This is a process in which you merge several different exposures together to get an expanded amount of detail. There’s been a lot of interest on the web lately about using HDR to create what many people are calling the “Grunge” look. These are images that are processed beyond the ordinary to have a nearly illustrative look.

While HDR still gives you the most flexibility in creating this type of imagery, you can create a similar effect with a single image. You just need to process it with extreme settings.

Please note that I make no claim as to creating this method, and I’m really not sure who did create it, but it’s a look that I found interesting and decided to explore.

I’m using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for this example, but you could do the same thing in Adobe Camera Raw or, most likely, many of the other RAW converters. I prefer to work with RAW images for this type of editing as there is more information to work with, and the edits are not destructive – I can always go back and process the image in a more normal fashion.

To start with, select the image you want to process. Now, do something you’d never otherwise consider doing:

Move the Recovery slider all the way to the right so it reads 100.

Move the Fill Light slider all the way to the right so it reads 100.

Move the Clarity slider all the way to the right so that it reads 100.

Move the Vibrance slider, you guessed it, all the way to the right.

Right now, the image is looking pretty bad, and you’re probably thinking I’m nuts. But, this is where the magic begins.

Move the saturation slider to the left (I threw you on that one, right?) to bring the saturation way down. It looks best if you leave a little color in the image, so don’t go all the way to -100.

Now, increase the Blacks to build some black back into the image. (You might have to play with the Exposure setting to get something that looks right.)

The final step for me is to use the Vignette control to darken the corners, which really enhances the feel.

While this works great with some images, you’ll need to evaluate what you’re trying to accomplish. The samples shown here were good subjects since they had an old and neglected look to begin with. I certainly wouldn’t try this on a portrait.

Finally, I print the image on a luster or gloss paper. This is one of the few times I’ll use gloss media, but I find that it gives a nice contrast and usually helps to show the fine details in the image