Reply To: Wife and I Photography Business Just Starting Out

[cameraclicker]

What people will do with your photos is a bit of a mystery.  My sisters-in-law drive me crazy by downloading family photos from Flickr and printing them.  It is particularly endearing when they provide us with a copy they have printed from a file with a third of the pixels I would use to print the same image at the same size.  That brightness, sharpening and mid-tone contrast would all be adjusted differently for printing makes the result even further from what my printer will deliver.  I have come to realize that those who are not photographers just want a picture with a recognizable image of someone, quality does not matter as much as it does to me.

From various forums I have also come to realize many people don’t understand that print sizes are different shapes.  This shows up at the local store that offers prints, too.  People take in photos from a 4:3 format P&S camera then order 4 X 6 prints (3:2 shape), and are surprised when half of everyone’s head, and their feet, have been cut off so the wide dimension can be covered with ink.

All of this leaves me wondering what happens if you just turn over a disk or thumbdrive full of JPEG files.  I think the average print kiosk wants a JPEG with sRGB colour space, so it is hoping for a small colour space instead of a larger space like RGB or an even larger one like ProPhoto.

I use DXO and Photoshop rather than Lightroom so for me, sharpening can be done in DXO, Adobe Camera Raw, or Photoshop.  Since sharpening should be done at the end of the process I use Photoshop.  Sometimes I use Unsharp Mask, sometimes I use a sharpening tool, sometimes both, sometimes neither.  It depends on the image, the intended output device, and my mood.  There are dozens of ways to sharpen, some are simple and some are quite complex.  I don’t see a huge difference in the result, so I use relatively simple methods that work for me.

This link has nothing to do with strobes, but you may find it to be a useful exercise

This link talks about posing and lighting, plus backdrop colour

Strobist is mainly a small flash site, but that which works for small flash also works for large flash

http://strobist.blogspot.ca/2006/03/lighting-101.html

I have bookmarked lots of others, but they are on my other computer.  If you like these, I can get you some more in the morning.