google questions

I've been using google analytics to track my blogs stats - see how many hits it gets, how long people stay, what they view, things like that. One of my favorite features is that I can see what searches on google lead people to my blog. One thing I've noticed is that people often type a question into google trying to learn something about photography, but some of those questions aren't fully answered on my blog so I wanted to take a little time to answer them!

First search: "bland colors on photography websites upload" (related searches that have come up are "making photos look good for web" and "uploaded facebook photos look pixelated")

When uploading to the general web - your personal website, photobucket, deviantART, flickr or other websites that are specifically for showing photos or art, make sure you are saving in sRGB color space and high quality jpg before uploading. You can locate the color profile options in Photoshop by going to Edit > Choose Color Profile and selecting sRGB from the drop down menu. What will help as well is being sure to properly resize your photos before uploading them, that way the web service doesn't have to do it for you.
For facebook be sure to follow those steps, however no matter what you do facebook and myspace both tend to chew up photos.

Second query: "is talent6 a safe website?"

I discussed talent6.com briefly in this post. After my brief experience with them and reading other anecdotal evidence against them I would say to stay away from their website.

Third: "myspace modeling scams that request pictures"

I'm going to start by saying that not a lot of places use myspace to find models. There are enough agencies and other networking sites devoted to photography and modeling that myspace is very far down on the list of places to use. I was once contacted by an "ad agency" saying that wanted to offer me a job modeling bikinis for a client who was putting together a catalog, but the catch was that I had to send them two nude photos so they could see my physique. SCAM.
If you are looking into a career in modeling, don't bother looking for jobs on myspace. Use One Model Place, Model Mayhem, or go see a local agency.

#4: "portfolio sizes"

Covered here in this entry :)


Hopefully the next person who is googling for answers will find these helpful! And if you've got questions, please feel free to email me at stephanie.elizabeth.m AT gmail DOT com and I'll try my best to answer them or send you to someplace that can :)

Keeping Technologically Sane: After the Shoot

When I first started taking photographs, I would just dump the photos onto my computer (an old dell desktop at the time), delete any that I didn't like, and edit the other using ms paint. no joke. I could actually take out blemishes using copy/paste in ms paint.

Years later I've finally come up with a work flow that keeps me sane and a saving/backing up system that keeps my work safe. Right now I'm going to go over how I keep my photos organized so I can easily find them.

First step - open up Lightroom and download my photos to my computer using their "import" function. I have it set up so that when I download my memory card to my laptop, it's saving not just on my laptops hard drive but also backing up simultaneously on my external hard drive (a Free Agent 250gb drive). I used to just dump everything into folders and not really organize... BIG mistake. Now I have it set up into trees. For example, if I'm looking for a photo that I shot a guy named ben back in January to email to someone, I open:

Photography > Fashion > 2009 1.8 Ben > watermarked and webready

and there they are! My photos are organized by type (Nature, Art Portraits, Commercial, Events, Fashion, Glamour and Nudes, and Headshots) then further broken down by the date along with the subject name or a brief descriptor. Inside each of those is a folder for RAW files, a folder for photoshop files, another for high resolution jpegs and a final one for webready images. I keep the original numbers attached to all the files so that they are easily referenced. So if for instance I upload the photo of Ben to dA, and someone makes a suggestion on ways to improve the retouching, I can easily consult the webready folder to figure out the file number. Then, knowing that it's file xyz2 I can go to my photoshop folder and look for file xyz2 to edit. This has saved me SO many headaches you can't even imagine!

What's great about Adobe Lightroom though is that it gives me even more power over how I file my images. When I import from my memory card to Lightroom I have the option to assign every photo a set of keywords. I have roughly 3000 photos cataloged on Lightroom, and a good chunk of those have keywords tagging them.
This means that if I decide I want to show someone all the concerts I've ever shot, I can type in "concerts" into the search field and every photo tagged with that word will appear.

I generally tag my photos with the date, name of the model, place it was shot (inside/outside, studio, location, a town or city name and sometimes the state if I feel like it, though that's not really necessary), and descriptors (female, blonde, blue eyes, tall, fair skin, black dress, high heels) and some words to pinpoint what kind of shoot it was - fashion, event, headshot, etc.

I also make sure to back up my work as I go. Every time I'm done with a project I back up the photos and other files onto my external drive.

Overall I've found that taking a few extra minutes to organize your photos and back them up in multiple places as you bring them onto your computer can save a lot of time and hassle later on, and I highly recommend everyone to come up with some system to keep track of their own - feel free to borrow mine :)

Tip o' the Day! Making Photos Look Good Online

There are some places online where photos are pretty much doomed, most of those places being social networking sites. Myspace will resize photos, and facebook is even worse - photos that looked fine on your computer will appear desaturated, pixelated, and just generally crappy once they're uploaded to a facebook gallery.

The most annoying thing though is when sites that are SUPPOSED to be for showing photos, seem to mess them up as well. To keep your photos looking great, make sure you are resizing them properly, using a moderate amount of sharpening if needed, and converting them to the correct color profile.

In Photoshop when you resize an image (Image > Image Size or ctrl+alt+I on a pc) you will be presented with a dialogue box. At the bottom of the box you'll see a small drop down menu with several options; most of the time this is set to "Bicubic Smoother (Best for Enlargements)" but since we aren't enlarging we want to choose a different setting. Click the menu and choose "Bicubic Sharper (Best for Reductions)".

When making an image smaller, it tends to get softer and lose it's crispness, so this helps preserve some of that.

Even using Bicubic Sharper you may still need to sharpen your image more. Duplicate the image, and on the top layer use Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen or Unsharp Mask. I prefer Smart Sharpen most of the time because to me, Unsharp mask just brings out black edges too much and I don't like the look; you might like Unsharp mask the best, it's really personal preference or what your client wants.
After you apply your filter, you can adjust the opacity of your top layer to achieve the amount of sharpness you want. You can also use masks on the top layer to control which areas get sharpened (when I retouch portraits, I mask out the sharpness on skin, so that just the eyes and hair gets sharpened).

Now you're ready to convert to the correct color profile for the web. Go to Edit > Convert to Profile and choose sRGB as your destination space. This will keep your colors retained on your image, so that they won't get all wacky once you upload them.

Now you're ready to save as a high quality .jpg and upload to the web!

retake!

Sometimes when I learn a new post-processing technique I like to go back to previous works and redo them.

emily
http://www.modelmayhem.com/1047156

Basically if you ever are converting to black and white - PLEASE don't just hit "desaturate"! It may look fine but it most likely can be made better by using the channel mixer or making a few layers with different contrasts. The image above was converted to black and white by making a low contrast layer on top of a high contrast layer and changing the blending modes and opacity till I reached what I wanted. Experimentation is key :)


Taking my pentax and a few rolls of film to Boston tomorrow :D Can't wait to share the results!

A simple check-list to get you on your way to shooting models.

1. Practice with your camera on other things till you know it back to front.

2. Look at tons of photographs and figure out what you like and what you'd like to make. Talk to photographers whose work you admire, read tutorials, be a sponge and absorb as much as you can.

3. Find a simple model release - even if you're shooting your best friend in the whole world you'll need one and it can save you a lot of heartache in the end if you both agree IN WRITING as to what can be done with the photos. Be sure to show this release to your model before the shoot.

4. Shoot outdoors with a friend. Natural outdoor lighting is great to work in if you hit the golden hours (two hours before and right after sunrise, and two hours before sunset right up till sunset - or some approximation of those times, it depends on where you live, the time of year, and the weather).

5. Look up tutorials on how to retouch portraits, and try a bunch out to find a method that works best for you.

6. Develop a logical work flow and filing system, and always back-up your photos in two places.

7. Be timely about getting photographs back to your models. Nothing sucks more than collaborating on a project only to never get photos back. It's a bad habit to get into, and eventually it can ruin your reputation and make models not want to work with you.

8. Repeat steps 1-7 several times. My first seven shoots, which took place over the course of nearly a year, (not including all the times I took self-portraits) were of friends in a no-pressure situation. Four of them took place outside or indoors near windows to use natural light. Practice with friends till you feel good giving direction, experiment indoors with various lighting, and eventually you'll find your skill level, knowledge, and confidence photographing people will increase.


And don't forget the most important step of all... have fun! :)

Taking Better Self-portraits

Photography is an expensive hobby. A good camera can run in the thousands of dollars, and pro equipment for a studio racks up cost very quickly. I've run into people who think they can't ever take a good photo because they just can't afford it, so in this entry I'm going to give some tips and tricks for taking better pictures with the camera you have. I've also included some of my earliest photos that were taken with a small samsung point and shoot.

Attack of the myspace photos! (or: why aren't my photos getting attention?)

You need a photo for your [insert social network site here] or decide that you just want to take some self-portaits. You grab your digital camera and start snapping. You upload all 500 photos you take, and are rather upset that no one comments on them or pays attention. Why is this happening?

We all know what a myspace photo is - someone grabs their camera or cell phone and starts snapping away at a 45 degree angle to their head. This is not good photography. You can argue all you want but I am here to tell you that those photos are a dime a dozen and generally suck. If you are trying to take a good quality self-portrait and actually express something about yourself other than the fact that you can rotate your shoulders and raise your arms above your head, you have to move beyond them.
Variations of this include pictures taken above your head to let everyone see down your shirt. Don't be a slut, no one wants to buy the cow when they can get the milk for free. There are ways to be sexy in photographs without being cheap and trashy.

Other common mistakes are:
-Close ups of a body part (generally eyes) that turn out blurry. What is the point of sharing these? If you have beautiful eyes, turn on the macro function of your camera, stand next to a light source, and have someone else take the photo.



-Shots very close to your face with the flash on. Yes, this will wash out (over expose) your face and make your skin look flawless, but it also erases your nose and most of your features. If you feel self conscious about your face then get creative and find ways to cover it, or take this is a great way to work on your self-esteem and acceptance of your body (which is what you should be working on in the first place).

-The trout.
Pushing your lips out, pouting, and sucking in your cheeks. This doesn't extenuate your lips or make your face look slimmer... it makes you look like you've eaten a lemon and it's not attractive in the slightest. Try a gentle close mouthed smile for a classic and attractive portrait. Practice in the mirror, and you'll get it down.
You can also use the mirror to see what angles flatter your features (not the 45 degree above the head angle) and use this knowledge to your advantage. A good full body pose is to stand with your hips point slightly to the left or right of the camera and twisting your torso at the waist to face the camera more head on. It generally takes weight off your tummy and minimizes any extra jiggle you might have.

-Mirror picture with flash
Using a mirror isn't always a bad way to take a self portrait, you can get some very interested effects with them. However - TURN YOUR FLASH OFF. What would have been an otherwise good photo can be ruined by a huge white splotch over your face from the flash firing. If the room is dark, turn on lights, use a lamp nearby, and open shades to let natural light in (bonus: natural light makes your skin look better).



-Abusing photoshop
Photoshop is a very powerful tool, and a lot of fun to play with. That being said, don't go crazy with filters. They can turn a perfectly fine portrait into something that looks very unskilled and juvenile. Polarizing filter and sharpening are two drugs of choice I've seen people overusing.

-Sensory overload.
I generally upload one picture per day or one picture every two days to deviantART
Uploading two or more photos, let alone twenty, is a great way to make people ignore you. Uploading just one or two give people time to look at them and appreciate them instead of being bombarded with image after image. And restricting yourself to just a few also makes you more critical of your photos so you only chose the very best ones to share.


I hope this has shed some light on ways to improve your photos! Next time I'll talk about ways to DIY your own studio equipment to take great photos without spending lots of cash.