How to Achieve Lab Quality Print Results For Less

Do you print your own digital photos? In this article I expose the most common myths of digital printing, showing how you can achieve outstanding lab-quality print results, without the high cost.

5 myths of digital photo printing

1. You need an expensive heavily-featured printer. Not true. Printer manufacturers will want you to believe that you need a top-of-the range inkjet photo printer. You don't. It is possible to achieve lab-quality prints using standard low-cost colour inkjet printers.

Choose a printer that will deliver the size of prints you need, and at the speed you need. If you don't need a fast printer or the added features, why pay the extra.

2. You need a high megapixel camera. Yes, it is true that high megapixel camera produces better print results. However, you don't need a high megapixel camera for everyday use and printing. Only if you want to print large-scale: A4, A3 and larger. If you only ever need 6"x4" or A5 prints - you don't need any more than a 3 megapixel camera.

Choose a camera for the output you require. Opt for a high megapixel camera if you want large, very high quality prints. Opt for a lower megapixel camera if you want small prints or want to upload images to the web.

3. You need to use original printer manufacturer's ink. Not true. Inkjet printer ink isn't cheap. However, there are cheaper compatible printer inks and refilled ink cartridges that will do the job just as well as the printer manufacturer - or original ink cartridges. There are also suppliers of genuine brand-name printer inks that retail at a fraction of the price. They're cheaper because either the box is damaged, incorrectly packaged, or not branded.

Shop around for cheaper ink options, including refilled cartridges, compatible printer ink, or suppliers of damaged, re-branded, or re-packaged original printer manufacturer's ink.

4. You can use automated printer settings. Not true. Don't simply accept the automated printer settings. Make sure the printer is set to deliver the results you want. "Maximum DPI" is not a default print option - however your images and photos will look better if you set the quality setting to maximum rather than best. Before you print - adjust your printer settings to get the results you're looking for. If you don't need high quality prints, you can adjust the quality of the print accordingly - saving ink.

5. All photo paper delivers the same results. Not true. It is the paper that makes the real difference. However, there are major differences between premium photo papers. You would think that if you bought premium paper, you would get a quality print. That's not always the case. Most brand name photo papers are only suitable for printing at 1440 and 2880 Dots Per Inch - or DPI. Professional photographers find they achieve far better results by using premium German-manufactured photo paper that delivers over 5000 DPI. Ironically, this better quality paper is often equivalent in price to branded premium photographic papers.

Look out for the highest quality photo paper that enables you to print at 5000 DPI and more. Premium German-manufactured paper has the best reputation in the market for delivering outstanding 5000-plus DPI print results. It is therefore possible to achieve lab-quality photographic prints without expensive cameras, printers, ink, by using premium quality German-manufactured inkjet photo paper.

There are a number of good online suppliers of quality inks and photo paper. I buy my premium German inkjet photo paper, delivering an impressive 5760 DPI, from ink2paper in the UK.

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Tips to Make Money From Food Photography

This is quite a difficult field to get into and possibly one of the most challenging and demanding areas of commercial photography. It is quite similar to fashion photography where you have a team of people involved in the shoot, from the chef to a food stylist and an art director. So the pressure is on to deliver. Here's how to start.

You need to be able to get along with people and take direction. The client is the one who will give you the brief and expect you to create an image that is only in their mind. The ability to keep cool is essential and the ability to bite your tongue a great asset. Here's how to shoot great food images.

1. Know the trends and styles

This is where you need to do your research and keep up to date using the latest books and magazines. Many mags have a food section and this will give you a good idea of what the trends are. Get to know the lighting set ups so that you can duplicate this.

2. Detail is king

When photographing food you are trying to get a good representation of how the food looks and in the case of restaurants, what will be delivered to the person's table. Because you are shooting so close to the subject and often using close-up lenses you will see all the imperfections such as dust, hairs and fingerprints. So you need to make sure that everything is clean and free of any imperfections. With digital it is essential to review your images in high resolution while on set to check all the details.

3. Create a portfolio

Every food photographer has a portfolio of their work but what do you do if you don't? Create one. It's as simple as that. By studying magazines and books you will know the trends so setup dishes in you own kitchen of if you have a friend crazy about cooking do it in theirs. Copying the lighting, back grounds and techniques of top food photographers will give you practise and help create a portfolio of what you can deliver.

4. Do a workshop

We have a local photography school that offers a weekend workshop in food photography. This is the perfect way to hone your skills and refine your techniques. Most times they are offered by experienced food photographers from the industry and you will learn helpful tips and ways to get a foothold in the industry.

5. Market yourself

It's very difficult to market yourself if you don't have a track record so start small and approach local restaurants and non-chain fast food outlets and offer your services. Often they don't have big budgets and are looking for people to photograph their products. Offer your services to local cookery or chef schools where students are looking to create their own portfolios.

As I said, this is a demanding industry and you need to stay focused and work hard while looking for opportunities. Perseverance is key and the ability to endure rejection is essential. If you can stick it out and overcome the pitfalls you'll find your niche and achieve great success. Happy shooting!

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Where to Sell Photos Online

When deciding where to sell your photos online, there are a variety of options that are available to you. Every option has its own advantages and disadvantages and in order to make the best decision, it is important to understand which option is right for you.

Where to Sell Photos Online

1. Your Own Website or 3rd Party Websites

The first decision that is a photographer must make is whether to use a 3rd party website or to create and host their own website. The advantage of creating your own website is that you have total control over everything. Additionally, you get to keep 100% of your profits. The drawbacks are that you must maintain your sites by yourself, which can often become a time-consuming task. Additionally, you will need to get customers to find your website and choose it over the competition. With 3rd party websites, they work hard to drive traffic to your photos. In many cases, you only pay them a commission when they sell your photo. The downside is that you may be limited to how many photos can be hosted, and many have caps on the price you can demand.

2. Pay Per Download or Pay Per Sale

When using a 3rd party website to house your photos, there are two common methods of making a profit: pay per download and pay per sale. Pay per download websites will pay you every time your photos get downloaded. These websites charge buyers a monthly membership fee and allow them to download whatever images they want. If they download your photo, you get paid. The other option is pay per sale. This is fairly straightforward. Every time your photos get sold, you get a percentage of the sale and the hosting website gets a commission. Few websites have exclusionary rules, so you can even add your photos to a variety of sites to create multiple streams of income and find out which websites work best for you.

3. Commission or Monthly Fee

3rd party websites will either charge a monthly hosting fee or take a commission off of each sale. Often, it is financially beneficial to start off on a commission basis. Since you only have to pay when you make a sale, you can never lose money. Whereas, with a monthly hosting fee, you have to pay the fee regardless of whether or not you made any money. On the other hand, if you are making a large amount of sales every month, it may be cheaper to simply pay the monthly fee. The commission rates can get fairly high on some websites and if make $1000 in sales in on month, you could be paying nearly $200 in commissions, instead of a $50 monthly fee. Both options are great choices, depending on how many sales you average per month.

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Image Editing Services and Manipulation

A huge image takes a lot of space in the reminiscence of your PC. If you want to move the image it is yet again a bit intricate due to the huge size of the image. The traffic is pretentious as the huge image will entail a larger bandwidth and hence be time consuming. By using Image editing services you will slice the bigger images. This service not only will optimize your images, but also preserve the required equilibrium between volume and speed.

If the volume of the image is diminutive it will take less space of the memory and hence in the equivalent space which was earlier acquired by a single file can now be disseminated among the other files. The smaller file will take a smaller amount of bandwidth while the transfer of the file takes place and thus dipping the traffic. By using Image editing services you can slice the image that will permit you to generate the rollovers within the larger image. As it involves substitution of the images rollover is not probable with the larger images.

The pictures take us down the memory lane and always make sure a big smile on our face at whatever time we have a quick look of it and admire our near and dear ones in the picture or at times even our personality. Time is an imperative factor and photographs tend to be neutralize with the transitory of time.

A Digital camera provides us with appropriate resolution of the image but still due to inappropriate background or due to ordinary reasons like poor light conditions, weather condition etc. one does not get the preferred outcome. Image editing services are used to augment the digital photography and the picture perpetually comes out looking enhanced yet totally diverse.

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Wedding Photos

Wedding is the time which everybody wants to capture and store as the most precious moments of one's life. As mentioned by everywhere, it's a lifetime opportunity and experience, the memories of which define the eternity of the husband- wife relation. These photos are too strong and descriptive, that they have the power to take the person back to his wedding venue and recreate all the beautiful memories in his mind once again. The majesticity of the wedding album is also felt by the person who has not attended the marriage; he or she, sometimes actually regrets their reason for not attending the marriage.

Taking the photograph is in itself is a great art, which needs a lot of creativity and experience for the person to actually implement or practice his profession in a marriage. Photography is also divided into different fields and forms, according to which the styles and methods of photography vary, and there are different professionals for each field of photography. Same ways, wedding photography is a separate profession and experts are preferred to hire for the wedding photography. Immature or freshers, if hired can prove to be dangerous for the wedding album, as they don't know the techniques and intricacies of the procedures involved.

Wedding video is another form, by which one can store D- moments of his life, step by step, each and every minute as it is. It's an invention of science, which has proved to be a blessing for the marriage ceremonies. The marriages now - a- days are fully loaded with celebration and dances, the times which witnesses the largest gathering in a family function.

Here are some of the factors which should be kept in mind, while clicking wedding photos:

The wedding album should start with the photos of the bride and the groom, which are always clicking their traditional manners. Though some changes take place, with time in the creativity and the form in which these pictures are taken and presented, but the cultural values and ethnicity of the wedding photos remain same.

These days' people spend a lot of money in the venue of the marriage especially at marriages in India, so they want that the beauty of and the uniqueness of the place should be covered in the video or the wedding photos in the album.

A lot of importance is also given on the dresses of the groom and the bride; a lot of close up shorts of the bridal and the groom make-up are captured to keep them alive in the wedding photos

The use of flash, different lenses, camera body, zooms, should be done in a proper manner to improve the quality of the photo and add creativity and personal style to the wedding photos. Each wedding photographer has his own specialty and style, which can be seen in his work in the wedding albums.

Catching some humour moments, which are also the traditional customs or rituals in Indian weddings, is the main thing one wants. The bride or the groom always looks for the best moments, the traditions, which won't be performed by them, any further in their life time, so such rituals and practices are a must to capture.

Excellent technical knowledge of photography can make a person good photographer. Also immense interest and practise needs to be done by the photographer to understand the minutest details of the profession.

The beauty of the wedding photos or the album should be such, that, moments, like, should make bride and her relatives cry again, when they see those pictures. Such should be the majesty of the photos; originality and creativity are the fundamentals, following which one can become successful in making a happy wedding album.

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How to Increase Your Income With Family Portrait Studio

Family portrait studio is a unique business niche. All family members from birth throw early age and adulthood, children and parents want to keep records of their life. Adult members of the family will usually take their kids to the studio.

There is an average pattern to family portrait studio celebration. Some of them are birthdays and other are main holidays.

If your business heads the family portrait studio photography, then there is a way to enlarge your income. Like every business opportunity, the technique is to increase the amount of sales to the same customer even before you enlarge your customer data.

No need to move the entire studios set or carry around your equipment and create different locations, all you need to have is a greenscreen and an simply to use software. Using the greenscreen tactic will make it easy to operate family portrait studio. Are you ready to find out about three more income streams to increase your sales with the greenscreen tactic?

Ask the proud Mom or Dad to bring with them, a paint or any other art craft their kid had made. The idea is to create out of it a scene of art gallery where it can be used as a digital background.

After taking the portrait create with a greenscreen software the scene background, where you can post the kid picture standing near his art craft, integrated in it or posing in any way your imagination leads you.

Using the greenscreen software effects you will be able to create his perfect portrait with huge variations.

Another idea to stimulate parents imagination is creating a scene from children favorite books. Ask them if there is a special book their kid likes and creates the digital backgrounds for it.

You can place the child portrait (boy or girl) in the story. Fantasy stories, fairy tales and science fiction stories could be used to sky rocket your income via the family portrait studio sector.

The final idea that could be implemented in any family portrait studio is based on the knowledge that children live at their world of dreams, buy some inexpensive costumes for your studio set and encourage kids coming to your studio to masquerade, use the props and poses in front of the greenscreen.

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Video Production Business Tips

1. Find a way to add at least $200 to every video proposal you write.

You can write it in as a couple more hours of editing or add it to your day rate for a shoot. It doesn't really matter how you do it, just do it! I don't think I've ever lost a project because of a difference of $200.

The other thing to consider is that you shouldn't be so transparent in your proposals. I don't show how many hours its going to take to to edit a project anymore. I simply tell them that the edit fee is $X number of dollars. This makes it easy to build some profit in there.

Remember, as an owner, you want profits on top of your salary. If you pad your budgets by $200 or more per video, you can add several thousand dollars to your bottom line each year.

2. Renegotiate your fixed contracts such as cell phone, office phone, internet, etc. to reduce the monthly expense as much as possible.

Everyone is dying to keep customers these days so use that to your advantage. I ate lunch with a guy today who was able to cut his monthly high speed internet bill by $50 a month just by making a phone call and asking them what the best deal they could give him was.

I was able to reduce my phone bill by $200 a month just by asking the question "What's the best deal you can give me? There are a lot of phone companies asking for my business so I want to know what you can do to convince me to stay with you." That's $2,400 back to the bottom line each year.

Remember that I'm giving you ideas on how to boost profits....reducing expenses increases the amount of money you have left over at the end of each month. Don't ignore this.

Sure, you can sell more but in a down economy, its a great strategy to focus on negotiating new terms that benefit you 100% so that when the economy gets strong again, you'll be making more money and spending less of it. Both working together results in fatter wallets!

3. Don't include a lot of extras in your video proposals.

Having a lot of extras in the initial video proposal drives cost up which can drive customers away or leave room for your competition to bid lower than you. I recommend that you quote the shooting and editing part of a video and only include 1 copy of the DVD master.

Then, in your video proposal, tell them that additional copies and/or website files can be provided for an additional fee. Most of the time, they will forget about the copies or the digital files until the project is complete.

Then, when they are in a mad rush to distribute their video, they'll want/need you to make the copies. You quote them a reasonable yet on the higher side number and they go with it because they are ready to get the videos into the marketplace.

Plus, the duplication budget will almost always be treated as a separate cost than the original video so it doesn't bother them to create another PO number that they can assign your duplication fees to. If you add duplication to the original PO number, red flags go off because they are having to increase the budget for the initial video project.

It's not uncommon to generate an additional $500 to $5,000 in duplication/digital conversion fees within a week or two of completing a project when you treat video production and distribution as two separate transactions.

Keep in mind that everything mentioned here is completely fair. The client is getting great value and customer service at every stage of the project and you'll still be charging less than other high-end production companies in your area.

Clients are willing to pay more and they should pay more when you are willing to turn quality work around fast. Don't forget that.

Kris Simmons is a successful video business entrepreneur and coach whose purpose is to help videographers around the world learn how to grow, manage and sustain highly profitable video production companies. To date, thousands of videographers internationally have taken advantage of the business-building resources found at http://www.mindyourvideobusiness.com.

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The Art of Female

The next shot was a picture from the back side of 3 obese men sitting shoulder to shoulder in a diner eating their packages with syrup. It was a funny and exaggerated representation of men and woman's physiques but none the less the general consensus is that women are more vivacious then men.

Tip#1 The Job Of The Photographer Is To Make The Subject Comfortable

Shooting female form photography can be a bit nerve racking for both the photographer and the model especially if both are amateurs. The job of a photographer is to make the model feel as comfortable as possible. Try having refreshments or a light snack to calm the nerves. Make sure to keep the atmosphere fun, inviting, and professional.

Tip#2 Be Prepared For The Shoot

It is important to be prepared and make a list of the shots you would like to shoot. Having this list of shots will allow you to be prepared for any effect that you wish to convey. Nude shots can vary in flavors and can be sensual, romantic, abstract, artistic, or a combination of these moods. Good preparation means appropriate lighting, clothing, and props.

Tip#3 Sometimes more is more

In female form photography sometimes more is more. The model does not necessarily have to be completely nude to have a sensual shot. Often time draping the subject with a piece of linen as it flows over her body is very captivating.

Tip#4 Nude Photography Loves Soft Light

Soft lighting and dark foregrounds make for a very elegant and sensation female form photography. Soft lighting create a very alluring and seductive atmosphere and hides unattractive lines. If you are working within a studio you should use light diffusers, light reflectors, and drapes for the effect you wish to achieve.

Wedding Digital Photography was made for the first time wedding photographer as well as for seasoned pro to share their insights, tips, tricks, and techniques with the wedding digital photography world. Learn how to start a wedding photography business, learn the top 10 wedding digital photography tips, and much more. Take advantage of all our resources, articles, blog, and books on professional digital photography.
Source: http://www.digitalphotoweddings.com.

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Photo Restoration

Did you realize that there are several different photo restoration techniques that are available? Each one has advantages and disadvantages, so you need to do some research before rushing out and giving your photos to the first service that claims to be able to help you restore your photos.

Photographs are precious possessions, so you need to understand what the photo restoration technique involves, and what will be required. Some techniques may actually put your photographs at risk if the technique is not done properly.

Chemical Restoration

In a chemical restoration process your photograph is actually re-exposed to developing chemicals. Sometimes this process involves first bleaching the photo, and then re-developing it. This process can reverse some of the oxidation that causes old photos to fade, but it also irreversibly alters the photo.

Chemical restoration should only be attempted by a trained photographic conservator. It is a highly technical process, the results are not guaranteed, and it can be very expensive.

Copying

One of the simplest and least expensive photo restoration techniques is simply copying the photo. By adjusting the contrast settings on the copy it is possible to improve the look of the resulting image.

While you can get some improvement, this restoration technique will only work on images with very mild fading, and it will not do anything to repair any damage to the photograph. What you will have is a darker copy of the original photo.

Airbrushing

Another photo restoration technique that is sometimes used is airbrushing the photo. In the hands of a skilled artist this technique can get very good results, but the technique can also be expensive. An artist will not only be able to add the necessary contrast to your photos, they will also be able to cover up blemishes to the photo.

The drawback of airbrushing is that any alterations are done to the original photo. If a mistake is made, it can be very difficult to undo. It is also not possible to cover up any physical damage to the photo with this technique. Repairing tears or punctures are beyond the scope of what airbrushing can accomplish.

Electronic

One of the best photo restoration techniques today is electronic restoration. By scanning your photo into a digital file repairs and alterations can be accomplished without any changes to the original photo. This technique makes it possible to repair tears and creases, reverse fading or other damage to the image, and add or remove color from the photo.

Electronic restoration can repair most any type of damage to your photo. If the damage is not that extensive the repairs can often be done the same day. The downside of photo restoration is that many printers are limited in the quality of photo print that you can get. However, many photo shops offer digital photo printing at a very reasonable rate.

Photo restoration makes it possible to recapture the memories that the original photo represents. Consider all of your options, and then chose the one that is right for you.

Quality photo touch up, restoration of damaged photos, photo gifts, photo repairs and more from doctorphoto - professional photo editing and restoration specialist in the UK.

http://www.doctorphoto.co.uk/

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Be a Master Photographer

If you're a beginner photographer you may be wondering if your photography skills are up to par. Can you actually take a photo against a white or black background and make it look professional? Are there shadows on your white background that make the photo look less than professional? Or, does your black background end up looking gray? How do you become a master photographer?

You can perform miracles with your average photos once you learn the basics of photography and digital imaging. You do not need to be a master photographer to start. Think about turning that average photo into a masterpiece! But how? How can you take a simple photograph with a cluttered background and turn it into the wildly expressive and professional print of the masters?

The wonderful thing about digital imaging is that you do not have to use Photoshop to make a great print. When we think of Photoshop we think of the master photographers and digital imaging experts. However, and here's the good news, any type of photo software can do a great job. Gimp is a free software much like Photoshop. Scrap-booking software can easily be used to add that unique and creative touch to photographs. How cool is that and it's free.

Beginner photographers often think that to develop their skills they need to be an expert in lighting. That's not true at all! In time you will develop your skills to become a master at professional studio lighting. A good first goal is to not expect too much from yourself to start. By mastering free digital imaging software you can develop yourself into a master photographer in no time. Once your photos are selling you can afford to invest in more expensive studio lighting, photo courses, and digital packages. It's a learning game and no one became a master photographer overnight!

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