andy_heffernan1

Note that in my experience, moving files with Lightroom 1.X is buggy -- I will find that this process will occasionally fail, complaining that a particular file cannot be moved because it is write protected. The file was never write protected in the first place, and I eventually find my files somewhere and restore sanity to the system. Not a wonderful problem description I know, but after the third time this happened (with the accompanying near-heart attack), I have always done it the way Benjamin does it -- move them using the operating system, then visit each moved folder within Lightroom to reconnect one file and get the rest all hooked up.

Keeble and Shuchat in Palo Alto sell seamless paper in their "pro" business on the other side of the street.

All you have to do is chop off the extra part of the image to get the proportions right. You probably want to save this to a new file and not destroy your original. You can do this in Photoshop, but I believe the free (and popular) program Irfanview lets you crop. I'm sure there are many more free programs out there to do basic image manipulation like this. Then give the printing service the cropped file instead of the original, and you're good to go.

Regarding metering, you should measure the light that will strike the subject, either with a handheld incident meter, or by your camera pointing at a grey card held where the subject will sit, then set your camera settings based on that. You can meter in partial mode if you like, but the final picture taking will be in manual mode. No need for auto-exposure, you will be making the exposure decision for the camera.

 

If the camera has a custom white balance mode, shoot a white piece of paper in the lights with the above exposure, and set the custom white balance based on that shot.

 

Then figure out how much depth of field you will need to get the subjects in focus, from nose to ears -- that will probably be more than f/2.8, f/5.6 might be OK, but f/8 would be better. If the background is too detailed, then move it back. Then figure out how low a shutter speed you need to avoid blur from any subject movement.

 

If your metered values are acceptable based on those requirements, then you win. Otherwise, adjust your ISO up and meter again. Keep doing that until the metered values are acceptable. If the final ISO value is so high that noise becomes an issue and you can't get any more light on the scene, then you have to pick something to sacrifice:

 

1) lack of noise

 

2) lack of subject blur

 

3) deep enough focus

From my notes from color class:

 

"To calculate exposure changes from additions and subtractions to your filter pack, you can roughly estimate the changes by ignoring yellow and adjusting exposure 20% for every 10M change, then adjusting 10% for changes in the number of filter sheets."

 

This was using Ilfochrome 6x6in filter sheets.

 

In practice, I always just got the density in the ballpark with a daylight balanced filter pack for the film being used, then color corrected, then fine-tuned the density.

Probably the white walls are a little bit bluer than the reference white used for the flash white-balance setting on your camera, and the girl's white top is a little bit yellower than the walls.

 

Bring a white card and shoot that with the flashes to white balance, or shoot a color-checker card so that you can color-correct later in post-processing.

Any LCD monitor has a native resolution, and you must feed that resolution to the monitor or else pictures will distort (unless the monitor has a 1:1 mode where it will add black bars to either the top and bottom, or left and right sides).

 

Exertus,

 

Looking at Samsung's website, I can see that the 226BW monitor has a maximum resolution of 1680x1050.

 

In Windows, right click on the Desktop and choose Properties from the menu. Click the Settings tab, and set the Screen resolution slider to 1680x1050. If that resolution doesn't appear, either your video card doesn't support it or its driver is out of date. Update the driver, and if that doesn't work, upgrade the card.

 

Elaine, you have to find the maximum resolution of your monitor and follow the same procedure.

Martha, I think we need more information. My guess is that the issues about TIFF and sRGB and AdobeRGB are not really relevant to your problem.

 

First off, your trouble is transferring your files from your computer to your website (this is usually called uploading; downloading is moving the files the other way).

 

What program or procedure are you using to download your files from your website to your computer?

 

What type do the files have when you first copy them to your computer?

 

What are you using to edit the files (You said Photoshop Elements and CS2)

 

What type do the files have when you finish editing them? (You said "Adobe JPEG")

 

If the files types before and after editing are different, maybe someone familiar with image processing on a Mac (where's Ronald Moravec when you need him) can explain why the edited files show up as Adobe JPEG. It probably just means just regular old JPEG, since there is no special Adobe-flavored JPEG to my knowledge.

 

Finally, what program or procedure are you using to upload the files to your website?

Phase One (the company that makes Capture) has a user-to-user forum at <a href="http://forum.phaseone.com/">http://forum.phaseone.com/</a> that might be worth exploring.

<p>

...inability to read grammatical marks and symbols <b>from Microsoft Word (probably)</b>

 

<p>

The original symbols are either not ASCII or not printable ASCII, and neither your browser nor photo.net know what program you are pasting from, and what the strange characters mean. So they show up as question marks. Maybe there is a "save-as" option in Word to make this not a problem?

Also, if you need scratch paper, just go to the restroom and take as many paper towels as you want. It's FREE!

One suggestion is to print from Photoshop as you work the image to get to the final result (this is an iterative process), and then when you are done and you have a final TIFF cropped and flattened, do printing from QImage. QImage will let you easily gang images together on sheets of paper, so you can load up the paper, start the print job, and go off and do something else.

As a data point, earlier this year I submitted inkjet photos (on Epson enhanced matte paper via an Epson 2200) for my son's passport, and it all worked out fine. Note that the actual pieces of paper I submitted did not wind up embedded in the passport -- they appear to have been scanned and the images reproduced on the final passport.

Does Margulis use the same writing style he uses in "Professional Photoshop" (as if he is writing to amuse himself and others who know the subject matter inside and out already)? In all the many times I've read through "Professional Photoshop", I find I never actually learn anything, because I find him way too obtuse. But maybe that's me...

Just avoid confusion, we want to talk about comparing scanning negative film against scanning positive film. Slides are film, too...

 

The argument I have always heard for scanning positive film is that since noise introduced by the scanning process will tend to show up in the darkest area of film, you would rather have the noise show up in the shadows of the final image (positive) rather than in the highlights of the final image (negative).

Just a guess, maybe the image needs to be flattened.

One simplistic approach that will probably get you 90% of the way there:

 

1) Use AdobeRGB 1998 as your color space.

 

2) Profile and calibrate your monitor.

 

3) Accept that a computer monitor and an inkjet page are different media, and an image on one will never look exactly the same as an image on the other.

 

Then work on your Photoshop skills to get the images you want on paper.

There is also the old trick of running the power cord from the strobe down the light stand and through the legs, so that any lateral pull on the cord will pull the bottom of the stand, and not the top.

If you are using an overmat, you can use photo corners and just leave off one of the top corners. The print will stay in place and if it expands, it will have some place to go.

Bernard,

 

That list of paper types you see is in the "EPSON XXX Properties" window that is part of the Epson driver. All it knows is the various types of Epson papers, and the profiles from the paper manufacturer or elsewhere are made with the most suitable choice from that list.

 

For example, I use Ilford's Galerie Smooth Gloss Paper and select "Premium Semigloss Photo Paper" in the Properties window as Ilford

tells me to do in the instructions for the paper.

 

The place to choose your paper profile is in the "Print" dialog you get from selecting "Print with Preview..." menu item. Select "Color Management" from the drop down menu, then choose your profile in the Print Space Profile drop down.

 

Later in the Properties menu, choose ICM Color Management and No Color Adjustment, as usual.

Well, how does the meter know the film speed when using it to measure ambient light? Any meter has to know film speed in order to recommend an exposure, no matter whether you are using a flash or not.

Unless I am deeply confused, this is a merely a composition and cropping issue, and has nothing to do with focal length. When shooting and planning on standard print sizes (5x7, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20) just shoot a little loose on the long axis and crop it off later. If you use a shorter focal length, you'll crop a little off all sides, then a little more on the long axis, gaining you nothing. Or you step forward to get the same framing on the short axis and crop on the long axis, but then you have a different image than what you started with because you're closer to the subject.

I don't know anything about their current status, but I made an order for a profile on 5 Jan 2005, and received it on 24 Jan 2005, so it takes a little while. But, it was worth the wait and the money, as it made a formerly useless paper quite useful on my Epson 2200.

I've had good results with Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss Paper. The profile from Ilford's web site resulting in too-green prints, but a custom profile from Dry Creek Photo fixed that up.

This does raise the interesting question of what is the best way to name a photography business. Someone commented that it might be good to pick a name that does not incorporate your own name, since everyone else seems to use their names so why not be different? But perhaps everyone else uses their names because it works...

 

One important difference between a scrapbook business and a portrait studio is that a studio generally represents the work of a single creative individual, and the personal connection between customers and that individual is extraordinarily important. The guy or gal who runs a scrapbook supply company could drop dead and the business would likely keep humming along. Not so for a portrait studio. A studio business doesn't have much value independent of the primary creative force, so it makes a lot of sense to base the name of it on that person.