gmahler5th

<p>Alot of great responses, I appreciate everyone contributing their views. I haven't posted here in almost 3 years, and I see that not much has changed. Still a lot of fierce debating and when will you guys all learn to just be nice and respect differences of opinion? LOL People get very passionate about the art, so I guess it should be expected.</p>

<p>Luis, to answer your question what I like about this work is a few things. I like the warmth in the mid tones that the photographer applies (how it is accomplished whether in post or not is irrelevant IMHO) and the warmth invites me to linger awhile and take in the beauty that he is trying to capture and portray through his work. After I stay awhile, I notice other subtle details like the composition and selective focus help to appreciate the fine art quality of his portfolio. Again, how that is accomplished and whether it is right or wrong according to some of you is irrelevant except to photography students and art directors. I agree with MH -- this style is not for everyone, but isn't that what making a unique work of art is all about? Photography for the masses is too easily forgotten, but Neil's work here is distinctive and very memorable and likely will never forget my experience of exploring his work. <br>

Anyways, since Luis asked, I wanted to throw my $.02 in for whatever its worth. But don't let me stop you guys from arguing various POV, it is enriching and amusing at the same time! :) </p>

<p>Funny, MH! :) Not sure I feel the same way, but your point taken.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I have struggled to keep up with a hobby of mine, and recently stumbled upon the work Neil Buchan Grant which strikes a chord deep within about what I would like to achieve in my photography.<br>

So what is it that makes his work so special? Does his use of Leica differentiate his work to such a degree that he can achieve a nearly perfect balance of grain (realism) and sharpness and perfect composition (how he does that with mid distance lenses puzzles me) that makes his photos a work of art and eye candy for the aspiring photographer? </p>

<p>I look through his photos, like here <a href="http://buchangrant.com/blog/?p=623">http://buchangrant.com/blog/?p=623</a> all the while chanting to myself I need to make better compositions, apply more grain/film effect in post processing to achieve better realism, isolate my subjects better and apply expert sharpening techniques but is that really what separates the ordinary shooter from achieving work of this caliber?<br>

Lighting and contrast is another defining characteristic of this work which is perfect in just about every image I look at!<br>

Welcome your comments.</p>

 

<p>Although not without its on limitations, I found this to be a suitable process - and simply creating a Develop preset based on a variation of this recipe.<br>

<a href="http://x-equals.com/blog/?p=1792">http://x-equals.com/blog/?p=1792</a></p>

<p>I think the Nik sharpening tool produces more pleasing results. Can you share a sharpening approach in Lightroom that equals Nik Sharpener?</p>

<p>the composition is a little bit distracting to me, not being able to see the stem of the glass. Really all you can do to this image is get rid of the uneven background lighting to achieve better balance. This shot shouldn't be to hard to set up, why not set it up again and reshoot a couple times to get perfect lighting and either focus on the face of the coin, or eliminate it entirely? </p>

<p>Has anyone achieved decent performance while batch processing pre-sharpening to RAW or TIFF files using Nik in Lightroom? The "Edit Multiple Images" seems to work fine for a couple dozen images, but what if you are trying to do a batch of several hundred images? First attempt crashed the plugin and required restarting Lightroom. Desparately seeking an efficient way to batch process hundreds of images using this and other Nik plugin without crashing Lightroom.</p>

Define "cost effective" as my definition will be different than yours. Tell us what your current costs are and how much

you need you save to achieve your profit objectives. Any lab will do, so long as you markup to reach your profit

goals.

www.hostmysite.com -- Been using them for years for all of my websites, they have plans as low as $8.95 per month and world class support.

 

I wrote an article on web hosting providers for photographers. Link is on my website.

I think most do so the lazy way... Photoshop Actions or Lightroom Presets

 

Check out Azalia at http://actions.lilyblue.com/index2.php for Lightroom. The designer has the same for Photoshop.

They really are some of the easiest actions to use, and I like the results.

 

In technical terms, it's an boost to the levels/curves/contrast/saturation/lightness/vibrance, and the designer sets

have hue shifts that give a modern appeal to them. But who cares (anymore) what the technical answer is, when the

results are so fast and easy to achieve?

 

Kubota and Totally Rad actions have the same, but they cost more, but you get a lot more along with them. If you

are looking for the basics check out the Lilyblue actions/presets.

 

If you are a Lightroom user, and want to try out some free yet very useful presets, the following Jack Davis presets

are a must-have. It has various levels of intensity for everything from BW conversion, light/dark vignettes, etc.. and

produce simply amazing results. It even has a preset to perfect your Skin tones that are pretty amazing. Try them.

You and your clients will love the results and they will save you a ton of time in workflow automation!

 

http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=33

Forget definitions. Just go download one and give it a try. :)

 

http://www.bayphoto.com/bayweb/pro_roes.htm

It's software from soundslides.com for $69.95

 

It's not going to make you a better photographer and it won't significantly increase your sales or profits if you don't already have amazing images, excellent customer service and a kick a** marketing plan that you execute consistently.

 

IMHO you would be better off spending $24.95 by purchasing Dane Sander's Fast Track Photographer at http://www.fasttrackphotographer.com and use the money you save to buy lunch for the most influential person you know, who can be an ambassador for your photography business and give a great contextual reference for your work.

 

Good ideas trump bad software.

I pay $107.40 per year for my website and $25/year for my blog at Xanga. Those are my only "committed" expenses.

 

http://www.coffeehousephotography.com

BTW, I think Photocart is a GREAT solution, and will significantly help maximize your profits. Look now at your lab's ROES options. Bay Photo, Millers Lab, and White House Custom Color are all very popular choices.

Let me start by asking, what profit margin keeps you happy? :)

 

Most online labs offer ROES options, for printing to a lab from your desktop. Just google some labs, they are a dime a dozen. I use Bay Photo, and am happy with their quality. Nobody has ever told me that their print quality sucks, and if they do they are lying. Another option for smaller orders is to print them yourself using an Epson desktop printer, like the R2400 or R2880. A lot of clients couldn't even tell the difference between an inkjet print and a lab print, because the papers available are archival and lab quality, even quality on par with traditional air dried prints. The most economical way is to partner with a shopping cart solution that integrates with a lab, so you can automate fulfillment (if hands off autmation is a concern for you) -- then I suspect that you will have no problems paying a company like Pictage to print your orders and ship directly to your end customers. I don't prefer this method, as I like to have more control over my printed products and my customer information, there are definitely options either way you wish to go.

It will need more than a Lightness adjustment. If they are that horrible, toss them. If they are close calls, use Photoshop to Batch process using the Noise Ninja plugin to reduce the underexposure artifacts. Lightroom 2 has a feature to utilize external plugins which supports sending multiple photos at a time from Lightroom 2 to Noise Ninja. That is if you must recover some detail from the underexposed midtone areas.

 

If all else fails, convert to BW and clip the underexposed tones and create a high contrast fine art image in the Greg Gorman tradition. I think some clipping is in order to get these images up to a standard worth showing.

 

If you are shooting RAW, you should try to Batch some RAW conversions using PS or Capture One Pro to smooth out the tones and elimnate the blotchiness. It really boils down to how many images you have problems with, what software you currently own, and what you feel comfortable with using in your workflow.

$200 is NOT a bad price if it's a compelling design. I haven't seen it, but I trust you could spend hundreds, if not thousands on a custom design.

 

If you don't like Blu's hosting and think it's unreliable, then buy their template and take it to your favorite hosting provider.

 

Could it be any more simple than that? :) Of course, it's up to you to manage the costs and decide whether this is a fair investment. If it satisfies basic needs for having a portfolio site for the time being, then $200 is a bargain to free your time to work on solving other business problems, and spending time with your clients.

It's a good tool, but it' doesn't scale very well for large galleries. It's pretty useful for fairly static galleries that do not comprise multiple sub galleries, at least it's not ideal for those yet because it's not possible to publish sub galleries but it's on my wish list of features for a future release. What's even better is that the Web Module is open to 3rd party developers who do a better job, IMO, than Adobe does, and adds tremendous value to the basics that are provided out of the box. My favorite right now is the SlideShow Pro for Lightroom.

Will this be used for proofing or for a portfolio? how often will the content be updated? If it's for a portfolio piece, the

navigation can be fairly static and coded in an HTML wrapper around the Flash gallery. If you already own Lightroom,

you already own the best platform for Flash portfolio management without paying a ton of cash for custom Flash

development. Another benefit of using Lightroom is that you can use the SlideShow Pro plugin for added flexibility

with design and management.

 

If you are a pro shooter, you will need to set some budget for integrating the Flash gallery look and feel into your

current website, so it doesn't look like a hack.

 

For more ideas and examples, check out the articles "Online Portfolios For Photographers" and "Best Of

Photography Websites" on my website.

Print Shop is not intuitive. "Print Shop" means nothing to me until I read your comment about this link in your

original post.

 

Navigation once inside the store is confusing... E.g. links to client galleries should NOT be a part of your global

navigation scheme. You have 5 layers of navigation. Simplify and streamline to improve user experience and

minimize the confusion and frustration.

 

Use of button_details.png is cheesy... it's too artistic, and not enough business. Use a plain text link instead.

 

The black background color is not very effective. Let the background color remain white, and keep a gray or black

1px border around your images.

 

The SSL seal should link to the SSL certificate authority's assertion that you are who you say you are. Link to the

privacy policy with the text "Privacy Policy" and do not confuse the two.

 

 

Left<->Right scrolling issues even at 1280 monitor resolution. Should never force the user to scroll left to right.

 

Inconsistent image sizes in your gallery creates a navigation nightmare and unfortunately biases the user's attention

to images that you like, versus what they might find attractive. Use a uniform dimension for all the images in your

proofing gallery. This gives the user control, and helps improve the speed and efficiency of the browsing experience.

 

A note about your stores navigation. You should not display "My Profile" and "Checkout" to a visitor who hasn't even

logged into your store yet. This is beyond your control, but your shopping cart vendor should KNOW better than do

do this. With dynamic session controls, these contextual links should be displayed to a user only once they have

logged into your site.

 

Your free shipping offer is generous, but it is LOST in the sillyness of your store's navigation. I only notice it because

I gave a conscious effort to critique your store. otherwise I would have left your store before realizing this benefit

applied to me.

Vanessa,

 

Most hosts will not allow you to create/modify the .htaccess file directly. There are a couple options, however, for you to protect your content. Not only that, it's only viable for Linux platforms, and it's not as intuitively easy as you might think.

 

(1) Request your ISP's support staff to enable Basic Authentication for specific directories or files. This way you can put all your protected galleries into one protected folder, say /protected so that all your clients can access it that way. So you have a directory structure like /protected/customerA and you give that URL to customerA. Then /protected/customerB and you give that URL to customerB. The down side to this is that the password is shared, and if somone is saavy enough they can hack into another customers images. So this is a quick and easy solution, it has its own challenges.

 

(2) Implement a proofing gallery such as PhotoCart by PicturesPro. For less than $500 you can have a top notch proofing system with eCommerce enabled, and have fine grained security for each and every customer gallery. In my opinion this is the best and most efficient way to go. I blogged about this and write about it in Rangefinder, which shows you why I think this is the overall most effictive route.

 

(3) Add some code to your server, depending on your platform it could be ColdFusion code, ASP, PHP, etc... this is a flexible route and can offer you a high degree of customizations, but the cost is usually prohibitive to the average end user. You get $1000s of programming hours in a nice package like PhotoCart, or other shopping cart system. Even after the cost of customizing and implementing, you realize significant savings.

 

The rationale here is why reinvent the wheel when it's already been done before. Sure you can use the control panel or the tech support to password protect some pages, but the proliferation of content and passwords can become a headache if you do not design a scalable and workable solution for your growing business. That's why I think in most cases for most photographers, option (2) is the most effective and profitable route you can take.

I like the first one, in concept. However, the colors and typography are dull and uninspired. I see the most potential for innovation in the first template choice. Try with a modern to eclectic color scheme and font choice, use some drop shadows, and that would make a huge improvement.

 

To me, the 3rd choice is too cookie cutter and lacks any kind of distinction that you are probably looking for.

Change the location of Lightroom catalogs and cache files to anything other than your primary drive, E.g. drive C:

 

Your Lightroom cache and catalog files can grow to multiple Gigabytes quickly, and if you are running low on space on Drive C:\ it will make your computer slow as molasses in winter.

 

The cache files are located in the following location by default.

 

C:\Documents and Settings\<your acct name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\Cache

 

For more check this out http://tinyurl.com/6nune6

Looks great to me. Nice mid tones. I actually prefer the interface and ease of use of Alien Skin Exposure 2.0, and the results are comparable. Nik Software's U Point technology gives it an advantage for those who like to take custom BW conversions to the nth degree, as you can easily dodge and burn areas with more or less intensity with great precision. Although I see a learning curve with this U Point stuff, it's definttely got a lot of potential.

How many hours of work? like 3-4, or 40-50?

 

There is software you can buy to recover deleted files off your harddrive, probably in the range of $30-$50 for example check out undelete.com or just google for some other similar solutions. The problem is that your mileage may vary with any given product, and the trial versions always have limitations that force you to upgrade before you can recover 100% of your data.

 

If it's just a few hours I'd bite the bullet and redo the work you had already done. Otherwise, spend a half day or so evaluating some software that may help you recover your lost data files.