awhitt99

<p>Haha! I might have you beat...I received a couple sets of 3's myself after a break from here.</p>

<p>I probably havent used this site regularly in about a year and a half. Do you have any idea how the critique forum works now? I see that you can filter it by category now, but the images don't stream from newest to oldest anymore. It seems that every time I go to the gallery, it is a different set of images....some I know I have seen days ago. </p>

<p>I don't get it. Can someone please explain why this changed? It almost seems as this site got to big to really be helpful on the critique side now.</p>

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Thanks everyone for the advice. The stuff that I got to read before I had to take the test was indeed very helpful. I also did manage to do a little research on my own and fortunately was lucky enough to find the techniques quickly to get done what I had to get done. Whether or not I did it the "correct" way, the fact is that I did it acceptably to the employer and got the job, so thanks so much!

I'm a candidate for a design job which requires a high volume of photo

retouching. I'm ok with that, as that has been my profession for over 7 years.

But I have to go tomorrow for a photoshop test, and the employer is adhement

about color correcting with the CMYK process, as the images are going to be used

in a publication that's going to be printed 4 color litho. The way I have

learned to prepare files for 4 color process is by just converting the color

space to CMYK, where there will be a very slight color shift, but the color

correction never seemed to be any different than with RGB.

 

My question is...am I missing something? Is there a completely different

process for correcting in CMYK, or is just converting the colorspace the way to

do it?

 

The employer made it seem like it was a pretty complicated process, and that

many applicants did not know how to perform this kind of color correction. Yet

I have never heard of anyone doing anything different as I have been doing for

CMYK files.

 

Can anyone give advice?

 

Thanks

I don't think you should take the second-shooter position if you cannot negotiate the the terms more fairly. First of all, I do not believe in no-compete when it comes to wedding photographers. While you are starting to work for said "well-known" photographer as a second shooter, no offense but that would make you more of a novice as far as rank. If the photographer is a higher-end photographer, her clients which are spending top-dollar for her services, would not even consider going to a less-experienced, lower-cost photographer. Hence, you wouldn't exactly be competing with her. Then there's a second part to that. Say you get years of experience of shooting, and you're more on her level of standards, then you might be considered competition. I can somewhat understand a photographer's fear of training someone as a second-shooter, only to have them turn around and go out on their own, but that's the name of the game. The top photographers all had to start out somewhere too. But I'm sure that there are other great photographers in your area you could probably contact to second-shoot, without having to sign away your own livelihood...and you would still end up as "well-known photographer's" competition.

 

Also, be careful of how you use the images no matter who you shoot for. Yes, the images you get as a second shooter are from your camera. Yes, the images you get are from a different angle. And yes, the images are probably your own style. But, while you are getting these images, you are contracted by the company to do so for their client. From what I understand of Copyright law, you are entitled to use anything you take for your own personal portfolio, which you can use to show to your own prospective client, but you must explain that you were working with another photog, and the people were not actually your own clients. Say you open your own studio someday. You definitely cannot use the images to hang on the wall, and make into albums. The other photographer might have the exact same images in their studio as well. A couple might go to both studios, and be confused as to who actually took the image. Also, you might get a couple who would like a reference from the people in the images hanging on the wall. That wouldn't exactly work out, as they were not your clients.

 

Hope that all helps, and good luck!

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I'm going to be going out of town next week, and would like to try my hand at

some IR photography (no, I've never shot with it before, yes, I've read all the

tips on the forums) I've searched forums on how it will do through airport

security, but could not find anything about it. The place I'm going to isnt a

very big town, and I'm not sure if there's a place to buy it there. Does

anybody know how I could get it safely through the airport?

One benefit you have, is that they are friends, and not family:) (been burned by the family before). If they are thoughtful friends, they will know that you might have to turn down business on that day to shoot their wedding. Maybe give them a 20% discount or something to what you normally charge, or charge them full price, but upgrade their album for free and do something really nice for them that way.

 

Do you have an assitant that you shoot with? The only downside to shooting a friends wedding is that it will be work, and you wont get to enjoy it much as a guest. If you had an assistant, that would take some of the work off of you, and you could relax and enjoy their wedding a little more.

Thanks everyone for the input. I agree looking at #2 that the "photographic" is a bit illegible. The few people I have showed these to have also been partial to #'s 2 and 3, and suggested possible making these work together, such as #2 for business cards, and ads, and brochures, and using #3 for something like letterhead, stationery, envelopes, etc.

 

Heather, I'm glad you looked at the site. It is pretty outdated, and that was actually redone less than a year ago. I am taking some web design classes this semester, and this summer when I'm back to full-time, that will be my next big project.

 

Thanks again everyone.

Yes, it is indeed another logo design critique:)

 

I am both a full-time graphic art student, and I work at a photo studio. The

business is a small family owned place, and has its ups and downs. In the past

couple of years I have developed a fine-tuned critical eye for marketing styles

and what a company's logo says about their identity. The studio I have worked

for the past 6 years has always struggled to make much of a profit, and even

though we do a fair share of weddings, we could always get more and rarely get

the higher-end clients. I am afraid that our identity, logo, and marketing

aesthetics (although fine i'm sure for 1976) is screaming budget-oriented

low-end, and appealing to those brides as such. Now in the slow-season, I

finally talked my boss into letting me try my hand at revamping our image, and

here are the preliminary results. My goal was to be of course more upscale and

elegant, and instead of using just typography, playing with some kind of visual

branding element as well. I have not presented these to my boss yet, and would

like to get input from other pros with your finely trained critical eyes.

 

Thanks so much :)

 

Allison<div></div>

I dont care too much for the layout on the first page. I think that it is a bit understated. Perhaps make the image of the ocean a little bigger, and/or play around with different fonts for the names and date. I really liked the layout of the rest. Very simple, and nothing's too crowded. I thought page 7 was very nicely done, and the only other criticism is the fingertips being cut off of the hands on page 5. Other than that, great start....a heck of a lot better than the first album I ever designed!

Wow, you really have a mess on your hands. There are possibly quite a few sides to this story. First question is, are the pics bad? IF they're not representational of the quality of work that was shown to the bride, she may have an argument. As for certain family members not being around for pics, its usually the bride's responsibility to at least delegate a person to round people up....you are a photographer, not a cattle herder. You may have a list, but you should not have to search out aunt Mary and uncle Joe to be in the pic, you do not know who they are.

 

How low of light are you talking about? Would you be able to pull something out from those images, and what did the proofs look like that you gave to the bride? Were they worked on much, or did you do the best you could with them?

 

As for her being unhappy, how many shots did you take? What percentage are bad to her...are there any that she does like. Irrational people will claim that you have ruined their wedding when they have 399 excellent pic, and 1 bad one. The studio I work for had a bride back in the film days complain that she only liked 175 out of the 250 pics taken enough to want...and if we were going to compensate her for what she didnt like. Beings you usually put no more than 100 or so images into an album, we told her that if she liked that many, she had more than enough to fill an album plus some.

 

<Then she proceeded to say that she did not want to give any of the images back and that she had to come to terms with the whole thing.>

 

Its a shame you couldnt get that in writing, because if the images are good enough for her to insist on keeping, they should be good enough to pay for...not to say that you shouldn;t offer her an upgrade to quiet her down, but that just seems mighty suspicious of her wanting something for nothing.

 

If you are afraid of losing business with the wedding consultant, contact her. Get the opinion of a neutral third party person. If she thinks that you did not properly fulfill your end of the service, then get her advice on how to compensate the bride fairly. Chances are that if you're working with an irrational bride, then the consultant has gotten a taste of her attitude as well.

 

Hope that helps, and good luck!

ok, here is my try.

 

The color cast in this image is terrible. I probably went to much trouble than its worth to correct for this stuff, but here goes:

 

1. duplicated layer, adjusted color balance and levels for skin tones on bride and groom.

 

2. lassoed flowers and boutennir and adjusted levels, and gave more saturation.

 

3. lassoed bride's dress and desaturated approx 70% to get rid of red/magenta color cast.

 

4. applied gaussian blur, soft-light blending options, dropped opacity down to about 50%, and erased blur from bride and groom's faces.

 

5. cropped wide to add more window to the left. lassoed the right side window and layered via copy, mored copy to left side, and fliped it.

 

6. same for candelabra on the left wall.

 

7. cloned wall and floor on left side to fill in crop space

 

8. lassoed windows and gave more saturation. also adjusted levels to brighten and add contrast.

 

9.finish with a little bit of a bevel, flattened, saved, and finally done.<div></div>

I think the original is still the best out of them all. Is the image not supposed to be improved?

Oh, come on David.....spending the most beautiful, romantic, and precious day of a person's life, and capturing their memories to cherish and hold for ever and ever is the most rewarding feeling a person can ever ever hope for.......I hope you got the sarcasm, I was trying to lay it on thick.

 

 

Believe it or not, some wedding photographers really do get their kicks from that sentimental stuff. I on the other hand am one-hundred percent with you. When I was in my early twenties, I went to work for a wedding photographer as a film printer and album assembler. I was really about to fork out the money for good equipment (good thing I didnt, because it was right before the big digital boom, and I'd have been so pissed right now) But it did not take long to see what bull it is, and I've met my fair share of mediocre wedding photogs who think they are artists. Truth of the matter is, is that they were only wedding photogs usually for the two reasons you mentioned...money, or a job to fall back on because they couldnt cut it anywhere else (my boss being one of them, and admitted freely). This is why I chose not to be a wedding photographer, and in my later twenties have decided to go back to school, get my design degree, and become a real-world artist. So good luck to all those out there who want to pursue the field...its a difficult and time-consuming career to do. I am not much of a people-person, so I find it extremely unrewarding, but I am in the post-production business, so I try to get all the info I can from here to make my job a little easier for now:)

Charge whatever you can get away with.

 

About a year and a half ago, I had a man walk into the studio I work for. I was working by myself, so I was the one who took care of him. He was driving a 500 series Benz, came into the studio, and plopped down a box of negatives on the table. He and his wife had gotten married in San Franciscoa few years ago, had a somewhat famous photographer who just handed them their negatives and said happy trails. He had just come from Tiffany's with an upgraded ring for his wife. He showed it to me, it was at least a 3 ct. stone surrounded by tons of diamons....easily a 30 grand ring. He said he wanted the biggest, nicest, most expensive album that we had to offer, and they didnt dislike one of their pictures, so put in as many as I wanted, and design it as I wanted. I told him sure, but its going to be pretty expensive. He said he didnt care what it cost.

 

After talking it over with my boss, she thought I was nuts for suggesting to charge him $5000. We compromised on charging $3500. When i called him, he said great, here's my credit card #. I had the job done in a couple weeks, and he surprised his wife by bringing her in to look at it, and I made her cry. Not just cry, but ball, she was so happy with it.

 

Point is, charge what you think is fair, because wedding pictures really do mean a lot to people, and they mean more to some when presented in the best way possible. But it is a lot of work, and the materials can be expensive. So dont sell yourself short.

 

Now, dont you all wish you had clients that easy to please?

Do you want to make money off of final prints? It depends on what kind of business you want to offer. A lot of people are giving out edited high-resolution disks and the name of a good lab to send their clients to. These people are usually running a photo business from their home, and do not have an actual storefront with employees and overhead to support. The place I work at is a small storefront studio. We used to print 4x5 prints from film several years ago. When we started digital, we printed 4x6 prints from the files as proofs. These were never watermarked, as that was a huge selling point back in the day. But people got scanners, and we lost HUGE dollars from lack of sales. Now we use a company called Photostream (www.photostreambooks.com) for our proofing. It is a really nice 9x12 perfect bound book, you can customize the cover, and it contains thumbnails of each image, with the filename underneath it. They also have mid-range and high-end coffee table "magazine" style books. This has stopped people scanning our images, and has increased sales ENORMOUSLY in the past year, because if people want an image, they have no choice but to pay for one. We also offer proofs to view online, but watermark those. With that, we usually dont get a request for proofs on CD, but we do offer it at low (72dpi) resolution for those who want it.

 

As far as your question for film and printed proofs, are you still shooting film? I know the lab we use for printing charges a high price for scanning the film, and all their photographic prints are all printed on photographic paper and chemical processed. If you still use film, you'd probably be better off just having them printed the old fashioned way, but not a very large "proof" like no bigger than a 4x5 print.

 

As far as the meaning of "proof" being dead with digital, I dont believe it is. It would take many many many hours on photoshop to correct 500 wedding shots absolutely perfectly, fix all flaws and blemishes, and so on. I just quickly lighten/darken/color correct, but do not spend much time on it. The photos the client wants, I spend way more time on.

All the more worse of the offense if it was not a previous employee. I really do strongly suggest you find out who it was, perhaps ask the bride to try to remember harder about who all the photographers were that she looked at. Plagarism is a big deal, and not only does it hurt you, but the customers as well. It is very deceptive and highly illegal.

We have a photographer that left and used images she took while working for the studio I work at to represent her business. We have not gotten any brides yet who have been to both companies or seen the same pictures used for both, but its a matter of time because she's operating her studio within only a couple miles away. I say that if you can back up your information with the raw files or the contract to that specific wedding she saw at both places, the ownership lies with you. I would make damn sure I checked out the website of EVERY photog around your area to see if you could find out who it is, and make sure you hit them hard. What they're doing is not just stealing an image like some advertising agencies do to save a buck or two, but its blatant plagarism, which is a severe federal offense.