kja

OK, you will not believe what my photo is today: Day 13 - meet Zeke. Canon 1DIII, Canon 135L f2.0, ISO 200, 1/500, f2.0; Lightroom edit A lady just came into the dive shop and asked if I had left my dog in the car. It's like 43C here today. I'm incredulous and tell her of course not. "well, there was a dog shut in a car across the road from you guys so I thought maybe it was one of your people's." I said absolutely not, that car hasn't been there very long. Well, she let doggie out of the car, tied him to the back door and then came across to ask me to give him some cool water as his was HOT. What is up with people leaving their dogs here? I'm sure they are in the pub next door. This dog has a collar on and the lady has rung both numbers and left messages. Dog is now out of the car, in the shade and with a new bowl of water. I'm looking out every few minutes and he seems just happy. Crazy. Blog post here

FWIW I've had some of my web size images reprinted at 8x12 ... did they look perfect? No. Did they look OK? Unfortunately, yeah especially to those just glancing at them! I hear you loud and clear on the only for ME thing - that's pretty much all I do for my underwater stuff despite egging on from outside forces. I have to have something that's just for me - no deadline, no expectation, no required output, no muss, no fuss. Just joy.

Be aware that if you send her files, she will print at any size she wants - so small files will look terrible. if you're going to give her files, just do it and chalk this one up to learning so you have all your ducks in a row next time. Unfortunately, you set a precedent with her by giving her the first two files. And unless there's more that you haven't added here, you never told her you were expecting to be compensated in any way. I think her expectations, as someone who asked you to do the photos and who wasn't told otherwise, are pretty standard - not a sense of entitlement. She doesn't care that you've put in a lot of work. She asked if you would, you said yes and you did it. You didn't arrange with her for payments or anything else. You chose how much work to put in and if you wanted to be compensated for it, you needed to tell her that and see if she agreed. I know it's not what you want to hear, but I just don't see anywhere in your dealings with her that she wasn't going to get the files or free prints or whatever? You really need to be clear and upfront when doing things like this. If you were upfront and clear with her, then you need to remind her of your agreement and only then turn over prints or files. I know, it sucks. Almost everyone does this ... ONCE

that's a tough one. I a friend had asked me and I said yes, I would supply the images on a disk to use. However, I would never just do that without nailing some other details. "yeah, I'd be happy to do that and I'll give you a couple watermarked web size for your facebook" "yeah, I'd be happy to. I'll do them, pop them up in your own gallery so you can see them and then let me know which you want printed. 4x6s are $x, 5x7s are $y etc - anything you want another size or on canvas or whatever, I can give you a quote for" "yeah, I'll do them and pop a few on a disk for you so you can print them wherever you want to" "yea, I'd be happy to! I usually charge $250 for that but I'll waive the session fee and then you can either get a disk of everything I finalize for $x or you can order at mate's rates of 4x6 $y, 8x12 $z etc. Or you can ask and I can get a quote to you for whatever quantity and sizes" When a non-tog asks a tog to shoot something for them and the tog agrees, mostly they simply expect you to hand over the files - they don't really understand that it's not like at a family gathering where everyone emails the images they took to each other. Once she asked for more, I would have again been clear on what I was happy with. I'd give over what I've done this time - maybe, depends on her attitude LOL - and chalk it up to learning experience. OR, thinking about it, I might say "wow, I'm glad you really like them. I'll get those others printed for you - just let me know what sizes and quantities and I'll get you a quote on them. If you don't want to mess with printing the first two I gave you, just let me know and I'll do those for you in the quote, too" If you aren't clear about what you are providing you can't expect the client/person to figure it out - they assume you shoot coz they asked, you give them the shots.

It depends on what was agreed or what I said I would do. I can't imagine even working on images without a conversation on what I was going supply. If there was no conversation, I'd only send a watermarked very small - 60/80kb ish - shot probably and then say if she did want prints that it would be X - Mates Rates if I wasn't on a job and hadn't agreed to anything before. That inconsistency is the biggest problem with auto-printing places. Their staff have no clue and the machines get calibrated whenever and usually by people who don't really care about the outcome. When you find a good El Cheapo (as I like to call them) stick with it and if they give you crap one time tell them - often it's because their staff have changed and the new ones don't care/don't know. The local Walmart near my dad's has had the same core employees for a few years and they do very very good prints consistently. The one in the next town sucks the big ones to try and get anything halfway decent. What did you guys talk about when you took these images? That's going to go a long way in determining what I'd do. btw working on dngs (or even a copy of the RAW file) instead of TIFFs will give you non-destructive edits and have smaller files in the end. Lightroom loves dng I couldn't tell you the last time I dealt with a TIFF - too big and cumbersome for no benefit.

FWIW printing at BigW etc should still produce fine looking images, they don't suck nearly as much as some believe they do. The big problems are consistency from time to time and having a colour cast that shouldn't be there. I advise my clients that they are viable print option, though I do not recommend them for these reasons. I further tell them that if they do choose one of these automatic printers and something just doesn't look right, to have the auto-printer redo them because the files should print correctly each and every time - if they don't it's who they used to print. The next issue is paper & ink quality, though some of these auto guys do use some OK papers. Advise that the prints will fade or colours will change over time (and usually "time" is a year or so). Strangely, I have found that Snapfish prints keep their colour very well - my test prints are over two years old and are still going strong. It really helps them understand what they should be getting out of the file and how to make sure that they can get a result they are happy with. Most simply decide that it's better for the long run to have them done at one of the recommended labs or to have me do them so they don't have to futz at all!

All of my pro prints are done from jpegs. I send mine over the web to them but many also accept disks.

Great stuff again for day 11, Everyone! I'm insanely busy so won't comment on them all this time. Thank you to those who said they liked my Dora shot Didn't get time to upload anything from yesterday so will do that and today's later tonight hopefully!

I'm on my laptop today and it's a bit, erm, quirky for editing - it's ok for my own coz I know what I mean, but I might not be as right with yours lol. I'll look when I get home if no one else does. If you didn't shoot in RAW - you said original is TIFF?? - then you won't be able to upload it. If you can upload the original file without edits and full size, we could edit it ready for printing. To do this you'll need to upload it to your website. I use WinSCP as it's free. It pops up two windows - on the right your destination (web page) and on the left your computer - then you just drag the file across from your computer file to the right-hand window. It needs to be in your main web site folder so the address looks something like this www.mywebsite.com/myimage1.jpg (or dng or cr2 or whatever your original extension is). Then we can click it, download it to our machines and have a go. Right now, this looks a touch orangey/pinky to me. How does it print that is different to what you want? Oh, and my camera is set to sRGB, too.

Are you shooting RAW? If so, you're likely bringing your images in to Photoshop with Bridge and you can do the same things in there. If not, in Photoshop, play with your brightness/contrast setting and then curves under the Image -> Adjustment menu. Tbh I don't use Photoshop much because a) many edits are destructive, b) Lightroom is so freakin much easier and c) Lightroom is SO freakin much easier and faster There's a free Beta version - which I'm told is really good - of Lightroom at www.adobe.com and it's valid until at least the end of April so now's an awesome time to download it and get a few months play time before you have to decide that you can't live without it! Oh and btw - if most of your images are turning out this underexposed, you need to look at your settings and start getting closer when you shoot: check your shutter speed (decrease it for more light, but watch it's too slow to capture the moment), open your aperture (you have more room for error when your subject is farther away) and try different ISOs (not sure what camera you have so you'll have to experiment to see how high you can go before you get noise you don't like).

Kudos to you on cloning. I hate it so much I will go to enormous lengths not to do it Looks like you did a good job! I think the first two are a bit flat and the doggies are underexposed, so I'd head into Lightroom and start playing until I had the balance I wanted and a little zip - this is season to taste, but here's a ten second fiddle: brightness (+64) & contrast (+57) & blacks to +5 I, too, like the second edit more than the original and for the same reasons as TerraNick

oink - definitely an oops! two spirit - that's some shiny icing!! kate - your first image's processing is funky pretty flower in #2

In order for your screen to match your print you must calibrate your monitor to match your printer. If you have an at home printer, then there are settings that you can enter to line em both up. The settings are called profiles and they vary from printer to printer and also with paper type. If you use a lab, they'll tell you the profiles to get the best from your prints. I use DigitalWorks with my Spyder calibrated monitors. I have never bothered with their profiles and my prints come out spot on every time so I know that my monitors are calibrated correctly and that this calibration plays nicely with my chosen lab. I have also had images printed at Snapfish, BrilliantPrints, TheEdge and several other pro labs - all came back very very close. Forget about what your monitor is, as it doesn't really matter. You need to use software/hardware to read what your monitor is putting out and then adjust so you are sure everything is as it should be. Monitors lie. What looks good on the screen may not have any bearing on reality At the very least you can use Adobe Gamma, though I found it screwed things up more than it fixed. rgb is a colour space. When you edit your images or even just shoot them on your camera, you are in a colour space. Most things on the web are sRGB colour space. If you put up a photo that has something else, it is likely that many people will see it as "off" as some browsers do not support other colour spaces. It's all very complex and blah blah blah, really. Basically, stay away from ProRGB and CYMK (this is used to print brochures and the like so it's a specialty colour space). sRGB works the best for so many things, AdobeRGB would be the next best but will be funky on the web and at some printing places (Kmart, pro labs unless specified etc) Some of these links may help you see where your monitor is screwing. Calibration needs to be done at regular intervals, too. LCD monitors Colour chart General test Brightness is often a culprit with either the blacks going blocky (not being able to tell them apart) or the whites blowing together. It can really muck things up. OK, crap, just reread this - I hope I didn't confuse you too much. What printer are you using? one at home? and what exactly is wrong with the image? If you upload your RAW file to the web I can download it and take a look. Pop your jpeg in here so we can see, too.

Yes, you can do what he does so if that's what you want to do of course it can be done I'm not sure what benefit you'd get from having to muck around - seems it would be harder than it's worth since you already have a speedlite, though. Do you need more power? Check out the small studio & lighting area on POTN and also head over to strobist - you'll find lots of information on it.

Yeah, the Metz units are good for 2nd and 3rd flashes if you have a Canon speedlite as your main/master. the other nice thing about the Metz units is that they are cheap

Doesn't matter what kind of monitor you have, you have to calibrate it. There are a lot of calibration software/hardware options available for a range of budgets. I use Spyder. you also need to be sure you're working in the right colour space for your output - sRGB for web use and for many printers, too.

Great service!! I guess I'm a little surprised at how many tiny dogs there are - I know it's not true, but i always envision mistreated doglets to be bigger, not these little toy guys.

Day 11 - My Dorable trying to be patient with me Canon 1DIII, Canon 24L 1.4 II, Canon 580II manual @ 1/128, Elinchrom Skyport triggers, ISO 200, 1/250, f2; edit in Lightroom white balance tweak

tlc for moving him out of the middle :rolleyes: now next time think about where he's looking in the frame (now that you've started, I'm to make you do stuff til you make me stop ) seriously, you're going great. Black and white can be tough to get how you want it to look. Sometimes, if you can see something that isn't quite right, go back to the colour version and OVERDO that colour or tone, then go back to black and white and fiddle - sometimes this will help you get it right.

tlc - if you have Lightroom, play with those sliders under HSL, Colour, Greyscale, with your clarity & black sliders, too. Don't forget your tone curves. Play play play! Oh and if you want a little tone? Go to split tone and play play play!

huga - nice find!

Getting an external flash, even just mounted on your camera, will open up all sorts of new avenues for you and your photography. Once you move that baby OFF the camera there are no limits. OCF rocks but it can be a pain and requires yet more gear. But it's well worth it. For OCF you'll need: - an external flash unit (if you are Canon look at the 580 as it can be a master or a slave and has lots of nifty features). - a lightstand (get a sturdy one, these suckers will topple in a breeze) - some sort of trigger system. Cactus triggers can be found on ebay are cheap (really!) and mine actually work. POTN has a couple of threads with how to make them even more reliable. Not a bad way to get into OCF at all. If you want more reliable & more bells & whistles head to Elinchrom or Pocket (Poverty) Wizards. I currently use Elinchrom and they not only work all the time, but their customer support here in Australia has been fantastic. Ash's studio uses Pocket Wizards. After you have those three things, in addition to your camera & lenses, of course, you're set to go...then you'll start to want to add more flashes, different types of attachments like umbrellas, softboxes, grids, gobos... Check out www.strobist.com as there are some very nice getting started guides and his blog has neat things happening. There is also a flickr group (of course) and assignments you can do.

Another thing that you have to learn to embrace - which is incredibly hard to do for most of us - is the inherent limitations of your camera. Your particular camera is never going to do well at high ISO. Some say 400, some say maybe 800 at a push. A well exposed shot at 800 should be fine for a small print and for web viewing. I use 800 on my SD1200 and it's got a smaller sensor than your S90 (so less likely to do well at high ISO). I've printed to 6x9 and use them on the web all the time. Perfectly acceptable noise, imho, but only if I get the exposure right - which you CAN control on your S90 while I just snap and pray Learn where your camera does a good job and where it doesn't do so hot, then learn to shoot within that range as best you can. No sense thumping your head against a wall over something your camera simply can't do.

SB - very crisp eyelid! I want to see her iris snap now so you'll have to get her to pose again evolving - ah, ok, the half press and reframe is your friend as that (and many other compacts) can be super slow to actually get the shot. SB again - can never have too many cute puppy faces, I say!

evolving - what camera do you have? we may be able to help with its quirks so you can get the most out of it darien - that lego cake is nifty!