gmahler5th

By the way, calling it a "digital image" or a "giclee" doesn't diminish it's intrinsic value. and digital prints are never going to be silver halide prints. They are a different asthetic and I'm not denying that. However you can't suggest that digital printing is inferior quality in any way whatsoever. It is, if anything, just a new way with a new asthetic. Tomato, Tomatoe.

 

To Amy and anyone else reading this, I'd recommend reading a book called Nash Editions. The history is all there and the perception is upheld that digital prints have come of age and are enjoying mainstream success from all the best in the industry.

Nobody here is taking the issue quite that seriously. So we will never call it a photographic print again, so thanks for sharing. :P

ProSelect from Time Exposure is the best IMHO. It's geard towards studios and perfect for the consultative sell. It will pay for itself after your first showing. It's amazing, too, to hook your laptop up to a 50" LCD and show your slideshow to your clients using ProSelect, the impressions are stunning!

 

http://www.timeexposure.com/portraitstudiosoftware.php

I am extremely happy with my Epson R2400, which has been replaced by the R2880 so you can either get a great deal on the R2400 as photographers sell them off to upgrade, or get the latest and greatest for about $800. The K3 inks are so far advanced and there are so many great fine art and traditional portrait style papers out there that there's nothing I can't print myself in B&W or color up to 13x19. The R3800 lets you get prints up to 16x20 if you need that size. For B&W work I find the B&W printer drivers offered by Epson (and fine tuned by Greg Gorman, and others) produces exceptional quality prints with neutral tones. Or you can use QuadToneRip if you want to maximize the performance of using a full time RIP.

 

My favorite papers are Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl, Crane Museo Silver Rag, Epson's Velvet Fine Art and Moab's Satine and Luster stocks. Epson Exhibition Fiber and Hahnemuhle papers are also really nice, but can get real expensive so make test prints on a proofing paper or on smaller sizes before eating up 13x19. But the enjoyment is in finding a paper that meets your expectations and matches your photographic style.

 

http://photoshopnews.com/2005/05/16/epson-r2400-and-ultrachrome-k3-ink-report/

 

Enjoy!

Hey Matt, I can appreciate that you are trying to make your point heard, but somewhere there is a misunderstanding and I won't perpetuate further confusion by commenting further on your post. Please touch base offline if you can, or would like to discuss this some more. I suspect there are some work arounds to the problem you are describing, as outlined here http://tinyurl.com/4eujjc, but if you are a glass half-empty kind of person as I suspect you are, and you are taking the philosophical (as opposed to the technical) argument to the nth degree, then you won't find any Flash SEO techniques that actually meet your expectations and consequently you are just being a curmudgeon about using Flash at all and that attitude, frankly, won't be helpful to anybody reading this thread.

http://www.syncmyride.com is a good case sudy. Flash has come of Age, as demonstrated by adoption rate such as Ford, Hollywood movie sites (take note), and is installed in 98% of the Web browsers. Those who don't have broadband or don't have Flash are likely not my target demographic as far as marketing/sales is concerned, anyways. GenX and GenY are those who are (mostly) getting married these days, whether they actually pay for the photographer or their (baby booming) parents do it's the bride and sometimes the groom who's heart/mind you must capture to close the deal, and Flash has the potential for far greater impact than non-flash sites. Most Gen Ys who grew up with the Internet (I'm placing my bets) have and use Flash in their daily lives, so there is no significant risk of using Flash for portfolios IMHO.

It's a good thing you don't work for Adobe or Google, Matt :P

The new tools that Adobe is working on will actually parse the content that is held within the .swf file. This is already happening, and today's announcement just legitimized the technique and thus, Adobe will develop tools for Flash optimization tools that makes it that much easier.

 

But we win one battle and lose another. Consider a large Flash website that doesn't have any content in the .swf file, hrmmm? Bad boy, bad boy, watcha gonna do when the crawlers come for you if the content is actually stored in a database backend, and there is no content to be indexed in the .swf file because it's all generated dynamically using calls to the database?

 

We don't have answers or solutions to this yet, at least without resulting to cloaking content. But let's give Adobe and Google some time, I think eventually we will have the best of both worlds and achieve the utopian view of SEO for Flash.

ProSelect Pro. http://www.timeexposure.com

 

It's so effective that I was able to close enough deals using the trial version to pay for the license.

 

The other's are fine, too. But if you are in a studio or home office setting in front of a 50" LCD, or at a Starbucks even, ProSelect blows them all out of the water.

 

I like (and use) Slideshow Pro for web galleries as well.

Ed: I won't argue with you, so believe what you want to believe.

 

http://www.google-secrets.com

In all honestly I think you might be relying too much on SEO, and not enough on word of mouth, or using your blog to build community and create mindshare to drive traffic to your site. In my experience the critical traffic I needed on my site did not come from SEO at all.

 

On the other hand, if you go with any of the big template vendors, SEO is going to be a challenge because they are heavily dependent on using Flash. If your main goal is Page Rank and Keywording then you will end up paying a lot of money to optimize Flash with deep linking and friendly page titles, or pay a fraction of that implementing the same thing with HTML and JavaScript, or a hybrid Flash/HTML site. The challenges of SEO and Flash websites are not new. Some claim to have figured it out (through what's called "cloaking") but is it worth the risk of being blacklisted? There are some still emerging techniques that can get you waht you want, but at what price are you willing to pay to keep Flash if your main goal is driving business through SEO?

 

The best performing sites (SEO or otherwise) I know of use HTML/JavaScript, or Flash/HTML. They are not exclusively Flash. Not to mention, SEO is an ongoing process, not a one time event. So better to take on that responsibility yourself or hire an SEO consultant than to trust some template vendor to do it for you. They have no motivation to want you to succeed more than the next customer, who pays the same price as you do for their services.

 

Just putting my 2 cents.

Sommer, you have some really realy great wedding shots, that I enjoyed at lot!

 

I don't need to say this, but your images are way to small and the site loads way to slow to be of use as a

professional. I think you would be better off focusing on perfecting your portfolio and get a few great collections of

images that speak volumes of your creative and photographic talent. I also think you could be better served by

throwing away your .Mac website and build your portfolio right here on Photo.net. Then, work with a professional to

help you clarify and refine the marketing message you are trying to send to your customers. Keep all website

building activities under wraps until it has been perfected to your liking. It sounds like a lot of work, but you can get

started with something really awesome for about $400, and I think the result would be a much more effective site in

terms of its ability to showcase your talent, and one that you would be much more confident and proud to show to

your clients.

Mostly agree with the others, if you have your own web host then the "Web" module in Lightroom is all you need to

organize and maintain a professional looking gallery. If that's not good enough for you, then buy the SlideShowPro

plugin for Lightroom which allows you to play music.

 

But what you really need to do is ask yourself what is the gallery going to be used for. Portfolio work? Proofing?

For example the link you shared doesn't really showcase your portfolio or offer the features found in proofing

galleries, like say Pictage offers. The best portfolio galleries I've seen wouldn't be good for proofing, and vice versa for

very good reasons. Make sure you are clear about your strategy (What am I doing this for? Who is going to be

viewing this? What do they need to see in order for me to move business forward?) first, and then write down the

more techie goals and requirements that you'd like to be able to afford and/or achieve.

 

IMHO the other free tools are just going to complicate your workflow, and can be avoided for practical purposes.

For simple, quick and inexpensive I'd go with BluDomain or liveBooks like the others suggested. It will save you time, money and spare you lots of frustration.

 

Once you have a few weddings accomplished this summer, hire a pro designer and developer to build one for you. Expect to pay anywhere from $800 - $2500 and in some cases more.

 

Best of luck!

David:

 

If you have to ask that kind of question in a photography forum such as this, then you really should try a BluDomain or LiveBooks site. It will save you time, money and spare you lots of frustration.

 

Once you have a few weddings accomplished this summer, hire a pro Flash developer to build one for you. Expect to pay anywhere from $800 - $2500 and in some cases more.

 

Best of luck!

<p>Do you or someone you know have a really cool photography website that stands out from the crowd? I'm

working on a feature article that will run this summer to showcase the Best Photography Website, along with

honorable mentions.

</p>

<p>If interested, post here in this thread, or email your submission to bestof@stevetout.com - Please tell me all the

reasons why the Website is cool along with your submission.

</p>

<p>You will have to read Rangefinder Magazine this summer to find out the results.

</p>

 

<p>Rules:</p>

 

<ul><li>Must be a professional photography website. (I.e. Not a vendor site)</li>

<li>Must be submitted on or by June 21st to be considered</li>

<li>Must have permission to interview the website owner (via email)</li>

<li>Must provide full name and contact info of the Website owner</li></ul>

<p>That's it! </p>

 

<p>Please note this is not an official contest, and submitting a site does not guarantee that it will be published.</p>

 

<p>Thanks!</p>

You are not only being generous by allowing the client to select their favorite 500 images, you are spending a lot of time manually managing this process. The thing is you should never have to copy an image to capture the clients selects. I think the best thing you could do, is to invest in a 32" or larger LCD monitor and use ProSelect software from http://www.timeexposure.com to capture the clients yes/no/maybe responses. Or you could use something like PicturesPro (www.PicturesPro.com) to handle the ordering and selection online. There are literally dozens of ways to automate these tasks, so it's really up to you to find a process and some tools that work for you.

Curious about your decision to shoot Xpan at a wedding. Where do you like to

use it at, and how do you market/sell those images? Can you post some samples

of your Xpan work, or show us your Xpan gallery?

 

The photographers that use (or have used) Xpan in weddings and use in their

marketing stand out like a sore thumb. When used effectively the results from

an asthetic POV are so stunning that I'm considering giving it a try.

 

On the business side, one would pretty much have to accept the fact that the

cost of using Xpan exceeds to return.... Unless, of course, it's used as a

status symbol of the elite photographers, like Leicas are :) And for those of

you who complain about vignetting, you are going to use a vignette in post

anyways, so who cares?

Okay, I'd like you to be honest. Has attending WPPI, celebrity photographer

workshops, or whatever events helped you to significantly add to your bottom

line? By significant, I mean by a factor of 2,5,10 or more.

 

Please, use concrete evidence. No guesses or theories.

Friends,

 

The business forum here on PN doesn't have a category specifically for the

question I intend to ask, so please hang in there with me. It seems that

everywhere I turn, we are bombarded by formerly successful wedding or portrait

photographers who want to help make you successful by selling you a DVD or a

book for "the bargain price of $$$" Now what stinks is that you don't get to

open up the books on their business, and you will never know whether they are

full of hot air trying to sell DVD and books, or if they really made more than

minimum wage as a wedding/portrait photographer.

 

Here's the quandary. Rangefinder Mag publishes an article, of a business that

can be summarized in the following fashion.

 

"The business has now grown to include a staff of one full-time photographer

and three part-time office assistants. In 2003, they photographed over 70

weddings and 150 family portrait sessions, with gross sales in excess of

$1,000,000."

 

I'd like to see the EXACT business/marketing plans that resulted in gross

sales of $1M after only 70 weddings and 150 portrait sessions. My curiosity

tells me that a.) it was a remarkable year, and b.) it probably is not

sustainable at that level of income.

 

I'd especially enjoy hearing from and speaking with any pro photographers who

have executed a business plan of their own which resulted in 6 figures income

in any consecutive 12-month period. For those of you who are ready to hit

reply and say "so what's your question" here it is: Have you executed a

wedding/portrait photography business plan which has resulted in excess of 6

figures? Did sustain that level for more than a couple of years? What did

you do differently that the nearest wedding/portrait photographer (earning

less that you) didn't? What do you have that he/she doesn't have?

 

Reference: http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/Jul07/138.pdf

 

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, J! Didn't realize I had selected multi-tiff.

In Epson Scan, I can check (or select) multiple previews (or images) in the previous pane. When I click Scan, I expect the end result are the same number of files on my hard drive as I selected in Preview pane.

 

Is that considered multi-page tiff?

 

I have no clue, i am baffled by Epson scan interface. I would expect x number of approx 70mb TIFF images, but instead a single 500MB + TIFF.

Using Epson Scan, does anyone know how to get files to save separately when

batch scaning with the Epson 4490? Currently it's saving as one huge singular

file instead of the number of images individually.

Sorry for the premature q&a

 

I really found this page to be useful.

 

http://www.flickr.com/groups/canondslr/discuss/72157601680369801/

 

Do feel free to chime in though.

I'm wondering what DAM or cataloging software you all are using, and of the

following if there clearly is a superior tool for culling and managing image

libraries for pro photographers.

 

ACDSee Pro 2

Extensis Portfolio 8

Adobe Bridge CS3

iView Multimedia Pro