SmugBlog: Pro Corner

We get the question a lot at the the help desk: “How do I hide the feeds button?” Don’t do it! If you are a pro, use the feeds to your advantage. Google loves the feeds, for example. I just searched for “Sierras Workshop” and came up with this as the #1 search result on Google. Click the link, and the search result on Google will take you right to a page that promotes a workshop I’m doing. Why would you ever throw away such findability?

Now many of you are gonna be worried about feeds and “right click protection” - I say, watermark your images, block the largest display sizes if you need to but get your name out there!

Feeds are also a great way for your customers, fans, and family to keep up on your work.

C’mon now, everyone: “Feeds are our friends!” As always, I’d love to hear from you if you have questions about this. Holler for me at our help desk and I or our team of Support Heroes will be there for you!

We get this question at our help desk all the time: “HELP!!!! I thought I was protected, but so-and-so was able to get a copy of my photo from SmugMug! What Happened?????”

Right click protection is a mild deterrent, and it’s one part of your overall image security on SmugMug. It should not be the only security that you use. It can be foiled by modern browsers and can be turned off by disabling javascript. Another thing to be aware of, is that when you are sending an image over the web to a browser, that image is in the viewer’s computer, in the browser’s temporary internet files. Savvy folks can find this. Also, SmugMug’s right click protection won’t carry through to images displayed in forums, emails or other websites, or to the thumbnails of your images on SmugMug.

What can you do? Use all the image protection available. Right click protect, add a watermark, and block the largest display copies. And add disabling of external links (they won’t be able to link to their myspace).

As always, holler to our Support Heroes if you have any questions at all.

We’re hopeful to implement coupons real soon. Come on over to Dgrin and weigh in with your comments, suggestions and feedback.

Thanks!

We’re soon to be making some changes to our shopping cart, and we’d love your feedback! You can see screenshots and more, here on Digital Grin.

Thanks!

Some of you are weekenders, making a few extra bucks in the field you’re passionate about. Some of you are full-time. Either way, post processing remains a big part of our job as professionals. Don’t worry, if you don’t get it right for some reason, in post, because, We’ve got your back!

Have a quick look at that link, where you’ll see that no matter what time, day or night, what day, holiday or trash day, we’ll be there for you to make sure YOU look good for your clients!

Our Guarantee.

Guys, let’s face it: Color, color management, and skin tones are make or break for us. It’s essentially right behind “too-dark” as the number one reason why prints get rejected. Complicate matters with a wedding, where every shot is going to not only be scrutinized closely by the bride, and the families, but they want them to look perfect! We as pros have come to the realization that shooting is 2/3s of the job and what we do in post, in the “digital darkroom,” is final 1/3 of the job. You can choose to become a nut about color, about color management, and about Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, i2e or other software apps. Or you can let SmugMug do it for you.

So here is an example - and one in which many folks need some help, based on the number of problems I see. It is very easy with digital to oversaturate African-American skin, as well as get too much yellow or green. Since there were several hundred shots, all with the same problem, I used i2e to remove the green/yellow cast, and lower the saturation. At the same time, I raised the shadows a notch, as well as the midtones. Finally, sharpening for print and done.

So why am I such a big fan of i2e? It just works, and works well. It cranks through hundreds of images, with stunning results, in no time. While I said that proper post-processing is 1/3 of our job, it doesnt’ mean it has to be time-consuming and a chore that we dread. Sure, I use Photshop every day in my work, both for my own shoots, as well as for SmugMug. But I won’t ever give up my i2e. I believe that tools such as this are going to become more important and more popular… not everyone has the time or energy to become Photoshop Masters!

We as pros have to remember that our job isn’t done after the reception. It’s done when we have prints that the B&G, the parents, the family, will be thrilled with. And order, and buy. But what if things go wrong? No worries, we’ve got your back. Just drop a line, Attn: Andy, to our help desk and I’ll take care of you!

A new year is upon us. Let us resolve to:

1. Improve our technique at time of shoot, so that we get the best possible image.
2. Remember that photography is all about the light.
3. Not post images for sale that are out of focus, too-dark, or otherwise flawed.
4. Put our email addresses and contact info prominently on our SmugMug pages.
5. Get a calibration print, and calibrate our monitors.
6. Use Proof Delay, for happy customers and to avoid cropping woes.
7. Let SmugMug’s Auto Color do the heavy lifting for great prints, if we can’t.
8. Use keywords throughout our sites so that our customers and buyers can easily find us.
9. Explore the many customization options available on SmugMug.
10. Learn from peer SmugMug Pros and make more money in 2007.

So here’s to a Great 2007 for all of us!  What are your resolutions?

So some of you are not yet using Proof Delay for your event or large volume shooting work. Let’s dig deeper into it, mkay? Today, I shot a Tae Kwon Do event. My preparation began yesterday, when I created the gallery for today’s event. Why? Simple, I needed the URL so I could put it on the flyers that I gave to all the parents. Make it easy and simple, and they will buy. OK, at the event, I set my camera to shoot RAW, plus a small jpg - yet the jpg is large enough to handle the biggest size I want to sell. But on my Canon 5D, this still resulted in JPGs of over 1mb, which makes for longer uploading times. So, I quickly made an action in Photoshop, to save the jpgs at compression level 7 (yes, 7…. remember, upon order, I’ll be replacing these with jpg 10 new files!), and I soon had file sizes of about 350-400Kb. Of course, you can also use Photoshop’s Image Processor. I’ve reached my happy medium. I have files that are large enough to support all print sizes, they look good on screen, and they’re small enough to upload fairly fast. BTW, 370 files, about 200megabytes, uploaded in 38 minutes or so. If you are doing events with lots of proofs, or have to upload many many photos at once, I highly recommend you try either (or both!) SendToSmugMug and Star Explorer. So, the first part of the workflow - make it easy for your customers to find the photos for sale, and make it easy for you to get the photos there!

OK now what? Well, the parents will now order And then, because I set a proof delay on this gallery, when they do order, I’ll get an email, telling me about it. And I can look in my control panel, pro sales, and see the order, and the crop that they customer picked. Whoops, look at how poorly the customer cropped…

Well, no worries! Proof and Retouch to the rescue Simply go to the crop button in your pro sales tool, and recrop the image. Of course, if you are retouching, or otherwise changing the photo, you’ll want to do that first, then “replace photo.” THEN do your crop adjustments.

There you have it. Hit the “ship it” button, and off it goes to our lab. Proof Delay is a wonderful tool. If you have any questions at all, just holler for me or any of our Support Heroes, we’ll be there for you!

Tonight, our guest was photographer Jim Fuglestad. Jim took us through his take on on-location portrait photography:

• choosing the location
• working with the clients to get them at ease
• engaging your subjects (not!)
• equipment, workflow, business

iTunes Link

RSS Link

You can also listen by telephone: Playback Number: (641) 985-5033.  Access Code: 1094243#

Next roundtable TBA in January 2007.

New SmugMug Pro? An old hand looking for a makeover? We want to help you with a fast start.