Michael [mahy-kuhl] – noun
1. A male given name. 2. A witty, charming professional wedding photographer who enjoys movies, exercise, romantic walks on the beach and large pepperoni pizzas.
Maven [may-ven] – noun
1. A connoisseur or trusted expert in a particular field who seeks to pass his knowledge onto others. 2. An intense gatherer of useful information. 3. An individual who demonstrates passion for learning and teaching a specific topic, particularly through a well connected social network.
Thank you for coming to my blog! I update it regularly, so if you ever want to know what I am up to, please come by and take a peek. Feel free to leave your comments below.
Why the "Crop to Resize Tool" in Photoshop is not the way to go for Prints.
In fact, the use of this tool is a phenomenally bad idea and I personally know at least 50 photographers that still use it despite my attempts to talk them out of it. I am not talking about the plain old crop tool. I am talking about the re-size options you can use with it, labeled 1. (for aspect ratios) and 2. "Resolution" in the image above.
The reasons we want to do this in the first place comes back to the whole 2 x 3 aspect ratio of a sensor not lining up to a perfect 8 x 10 (
See the 8 x 10 Dilemma Post). Photographers want their images to fit on the media they are printing and this is a very intuitive way to go about "resizing" their images. In nearly all cases, the photographer will type in the dimensions of the print, AND the "resolution", which is almost always 300, because they read somewhere that digital images print best at 300 dpi.
I recommend not doing it for the following reasons:
A. It's huge waste of time. Instead- spend the extra few hours of your life you would spend doing this with your family.
B. It creates unnecessary additional files and work flow issues.
C. And most importantly, degrades the file.
Let's address these each individually.
A- I know many photographers who will "crop to re-size" each and every single one of their images. Sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands. It takes hours to do. Why are they doing this in the first place? Well, they are burning a disk with the images for their client because they want their clients to be able to print them up at Walmart or other lab of their choice. While this is admirable, I don't believe this is a good reason to do it. If your customer has purchased the CD or DVD and you are providing it to them, they should be savvy enough to figure out how to have them printed. Another reason is if they run into problems with prints, I dunno, say the quality they are getting, it just gives them another reason to purchase quality prints from you, which is what we want in the first place. I know there is a lot of debate over whether or not the client gets images. In the cases where I sell them to my clients, there is very little if any Photoshopping done to them, that takes a lot of extra time and my time is valuable to me.
B. Instead of having say 100 images from a shoot, you now have many more, I've seen cases where this 100 becomes 600, 100 originals, 100 4 x 6's and 100 8 x 10's, and then backup copies of each. Photographers who do this are creating many extra files that just aren't necessary. You should have at minimum 2 copies of all the photos you plan to keep, and in some cases a third on a DVD archive. Resizing and re-saving takes up more space and more files on your HD.
C. The most important reason, it degrades the file. You remember when we talked about pixel dimensions of a Canon 7D were 5184 pixels x 3456 pixels? Well when we type in "300" for pixels, we are forcing Photoshop to make some decisions about how many pixels can fit in that space.
Check it out, when you crop to resize, say to 4 x 6 at 300 pixels what you get is: 6 x 300 = 1800 pixels & 4x 300 = 1,200 pixels, or new pixel dimensions of "1800 x 1200", in these cases you would be throwing away about 65% of your image information.
If you were to just print at original pixel dimensions you would have closer to 864 dpi (because 5164/6 = 864), and yes, most professional printers CAN print at resolutions higher than 300 dpi. The same is true for 8 x 10s just not as severe, 10x300=3000 & 8x300= 2400, still throwing away about 43% of your pixels.
So, now you are probably wondering what the best way to do it?
What I recommend is to always deal with the original size image . If you are ordering prints for clients, I strongly recommend ordering 4x6's (which are the original dimensions anyway) and 8 x 12's. Most labs support them now and they are often the same price as 8 x 10's. If you absolutely must have a print at 8 x 10 just use the "image to print" box that most professional online printers have and select from there. It is actually quicker than to do it in PS.
Common questions I get about this:
Michael, what if I am delivering a CD to my clients for 4x6 files only?
Well, what they are probably going to do is take those 4x6 images and print them up full size anyway and hang them all over their homes, yes, even at the lower quality. They will try this in different ways, either just printing to 8 x 10, or printing to 4x6, scanning and then reprinting. If you are providing your clients a disk with 4 x 6 sized images, you should rethink your delivery workflow. You are losing a lot of time in front of the computer and you are giving your client a sub-par product. In the end, you should absolutely be as concerned with your workflow as you are with product. The idea is to have more freedom and spend less time in front of a computer, not create more problems.
Michael, what if I myself am going to Walmart to print these myself and I have 200 images and I don't want to stand there for an hour at the kiosk resizing them?
:) - First of all, why are you printing these things at Walmart? There are several VERY good online labs that can print better quality products, for less, and can get them delivered to you in 2-3 days. Mpix.com is very reasnoable. I would much rather have that, then a lower quality Walmart image sooner. Second, its going to take you about the same amount of time to do it on your computer as it would at the kiosk, not considering all the other issues I mentioned (extra files, space, etc).
Photographers Contract Maker Makes Photoshop Magazine!
There is a really nice plug for Photographers Contract Maker in the new issue of Photoshop User Magazine (June 2010) on page 17! I also wanted to say thank you to everyone for their support in buying it, using it, and giving us ideas and feedback on how we can make it better.
This movie is getting a lot of bad reviews, and I don't think it deserves them. Granted there are a few parts here and there that are just lame, but overall I thought it was enjoyable. More of a classic summer family movie if anything.
Here are a few really great articles and videos on why SLR videos are amazing options for creating high quality video products. On the Canon Link you cannot link directly, but there are 3 great videos there and many more to come. Vincent is the guy who put on the workshop I attended last year.
Having established yesterday that most camera sensors follow a 2 x 3 ratio, we can now understand a very common problem digital photographers face these days.
If you double a 2 x 3 ratio, you get a 4 x 6 ratio. Which means any image you take with a 2 x 3 ratio camera will fit perfectly onto a 4 x 6 print. If we are to double this again, we would get a ratio of 8 x 12, and until recently, it was very difficult to find 8 x 12 size prints, frames or mats, what was more common was 8" x 10". So the dilemma became, how do you fit an 8 x 12 image into an 8 x 10 Print? There were a few strategies, none of them were ideal:
1. You could make an 8 x 10 print and cut off 2 inches. Many photographers intentionally shoot this way, knowing they will lose part of the image.
2. You could "fit" the entire image within the frame of the 8 x 10 print, such as using photoshops "fit to print" feature, and this would print the entire image with an extra white border on either long side of the print.
3. You could try to "fix" it in PS, using something like the Content Aware Scaling tool.
What do I do these days? I have been asked this question several times, and this is what I am telling students now: I just shoot for 4 x 6's and 8 x 12's. I don't do any resizing or re-cropping or any planning in camera if I can help it. There are enough print companies out there that are supporting 8 x 12 prints and any framing company worth their salt will be able to matte and frame anything of any size.
An interesting question is "Why was it so hard to find anything other than 8x10's for the first 5-8 years of the digital era (really becoming mainstream around 1997 or 1998). My understanding was this was that 4 x 5, which when doubled would be 8 x10, was the traditional print size for magazines, as well as the aspect ratio of Medium Format cameras, in fact its been this way for about 90-100 years.
So what I am suggesting is, don't stress it or fight it too much. If you are doing your own prints, take the time to find vendors who support the 8 x 12 size, it will make things easier for everyone and reduce your work flow time. Additionally, as the 8 x 12 is supported, vendors will lower prices and have more products available for this aspect ratio.
To some of you this may be a simple thing, but I am always surprised to find photograhers who know how many Mega Pixels their cameras are, but are unfamiliar with "pixel dimensions". Ill shortly have a few posts here that discuss problems and challenges photographers have in relationship to pixel dimensions, but in order to understand those problems, we have to be on the same page as to what Pixel Dimensions themselves are.
Pixel Dimensions are the number of pixels wide and the number of pixels tall of a sensor. They are multiplied to find the total number of pixels on a sensor. Here is an illustration showing how pixel dimensions of a Canon 7D would be determined.
Pixel Dimensions can also be found in most camera menus under quality settings. The Largest quality is typically the effective pixel dimension measurement. Additionally, it is important to note that these are referring to "effective pixels", or pixels which actually represent part of an image. In the case of the 7D (and T1i) there is an additional 1 Million pixels on the sensor, but they have more to do with the construction and operation of the sensor, than the actual recording of an image. These are not typically included in the calculation of pixel dimensions.
Come back tomorrow when we discuss the 8 x 10 and the 8 x 12 dilemma!
How to Get Young Children to Cooperate For Pictures..
You guys ever run into this problem: You are getting ready for a family shoot, everyone is all dressed up, looking nice and there is the one little boy who doesn't want his picture taken? I think it has happened to just about every photographer I have met, and there are a number of strategies you can employ to get them to co-operate.
The hardest age to photograph is from about 2-4. Once they turn 4 or 5, they can be reasoned with or at least they understand enough about photography to realize whats going on. Babies and very young children can be a little difficult simply because their movements are unpredictable, but as long as they haven't figured out how to run away you can keep them in the same general location and get lucky.
But the 2-4 year olds are the toughest IF and only IF you do not know how to work with them. I have decided to include a lesson on this specifically for the Advanced Photography DVD because there are many different strategies and what may work for one child will not work for another. In the case of Clark here, I simply told him he could stand there if he liked and took a family picture anyway. I then showed the image to all the family members and told them how good looking they were and what pretty smiles they had. He eventually figured it out all on his own.
Another really great strategy for family pictures is to play Hide-And-Seek. Even most very young children understand this game. You make the parents the "base" and as the photographer you start counting. The kids go hide and when you are done counting to 20-25, you go look for them- but its important to build the tension, let them escape, but be right on their heels telling them you are gonna get them. The kids run to their parents, jump in their laps, you grab a few shots, and do it again if necessary.
The most important things you can do to get young children to cooperate are:
1. Do not ask them to hold a pose for more than 30-40 seconds. Take just a few images at a time, and then change it up.
2. Play games with them they like and understand. Their parents will know. Children tend to be much more natural when playing vs using a forced smile. They will also like you more if you play with them, and this makes it easier for them if they like you.
3. Show them their pictures and tell them how good they look.
4. Most important- neither you or their parents should try to force them. It creates tension and makes it harder.
These last 2 images are of their cousins a little earlier in the day and were taken while we were "playing" not while we were "taking pictures". Children are almost always in a more relaxed, natural state when they are playing.
There are several other little tools I use, I will show on the DVD, but the main thing is to have fun! If you do, you don't even need to ask for them to smile. :)
Had a great shoot yesterday with my friends the Norrises. One thing I almost always do is get the basic traditional shots out of the way, these are the types of family shots that will never get old. Then I like to play around and experiment. These two images were taken within a few minutes of each other, same camera, same lens, and aside from basic exposure settings, and the obvious post processing, it was the angle of attack that makes them so dramatically different. One was taken from the sky cam, the other, just me laying on the ground. Yes, there is some obvious distortion in both, but sometimes that is what makes it fun.
And here is the basic traditional family shot....so easy when I have such great subjects!
A second game I picked up this week is called "Red Dead Redemption" for the XBOX 360. Ive played it for a couple hours, and it is very different than Alan Wake's linear format, I come to learn that gamers use the phrases of "Open World" and "Sandbox" to describe it's genre. As a photographer, it's easy to pick out actual images (as in real life stills) used for many of the backgrounds and textures, especially in the skies.
Why should this game matter to you? I realize many of you probably don't even play video games at all, but something that caught my eye was in the instruction manual. There are probably over 1,000 people who helped design and create Red Dead Redemption. While I will never have to the time to invest to even come close to finishing it, it totally gives you the feeling of what it would be like to be a "bad-cowboy-gone-good" at the end of the Western Era, taking place in 1911.
For those of you who are interested in video games, it rates at 9.7 out of 10 on gamestop's website, one of the highest ratings ever. Alan Wake comes in at 8.5.
I am absolutely astonished at how much detail was put into this thing, it is absolutely crazy and even more astonished with the fact they fit it all on one DVD. You will have the opportunity to do just about everything you ever imagined a Cowboy in the old west might do, from duels at high noon, to shooting a noose in half to save a friend. Additionally, your actions greatly effect how the game plays out- you can choose to be good, or not-so-good.
A few things I do not like about it, sometimes traveling between towns is tedious, you can ride your horse, which takes a while or set up a campsite and instantly travel, or ride a stage coach- it's just takes too long to do in any case, but I understand this is the idea of "open world" games and in terms of size, I have never seen anything like it. The next closest "open-world" game that could compare would be Assasin's Creed and then Crackdown. Sometimes the cinematic clips are long and I am definitely not a fan of the bad language- it's unfortunate there aren't some settings in the menu that you could adjust for this, but other than those- wow...what a game. I am seriously impressed.
Have a big family shoot this afternoon, should be a good time.
New App should be submitted to Apple this week- I haven't said much about it, but we've been working on it for 3 months, so I am excited to get that thing done.
I saw this video on a friend's Facebook page. It is titled "The Best Cry Ever" and is taken from the "Intervention" series. Does anyone know if this is for real or not? Because, it made me cry as well...... :)
