If you have never entered print or album competition or attended one before, this would be a great time to start! This year at the Michigan Photographic Expo, PPM will offer a $500 cash prize to a lucky winner, and JD is offering specials on competition prints.

• Order 4 16×20″ competition prints for the price of 3 – Use promo code PPM3-1 in ROES
• Order 6 16×20″ competition prints for the price of 4 – Use promo code PPM6-4 in ROES
• Next Generation Entries: Order 4 16×20″ competition prints for the price of 2 – Use promo code PPM2-2

This special runs January 29th from 12 noon until February 12th at 12 noon. Use the competition print category in ROES to order. Note that this promo pricing does not include mounting, coating or laminating.

More about the PPM Album and Print Competitions

The Michigan Photographic Expo will include both album and print competitions.

• This year, album category entries can include Wedding, Senior, Baby, Family, or any other type of album. In addition, this year, albums may be submitted on CD. Please refer to the album rules to learn more.
• Entries must arrive between Monday, Feb 15th and Friday, February 19th, at 4:30 PM at the Mariott to be eligible. Judging will take place Friday night. Please include a CD of your images ( 4×5 @ 300 dpi) to be projected during the banquet.
• To qualify for the $500 prize, you must enter a print case. For each print case you enter, your name will be submitted into a drawing to take place during the awards banquet.

If you have any questions email dave@masters-photo.com or call Dave at 810.733.8888.

The new Simply Elegant Photo Book software Version 3.7 is available at SimplyElegantPhotoBooks.com, and has several new features that make it worth upgrading. However, the new program is not compatible with any previous version.

If you use Simply Elegant Photo Books, you must upgrade to the latest version 3.7 before starting a new photo book. Older photo books created in previous versions will not longer automatically upload to the lab.

If you have a photo book created in a previous version you want reprinted, you have two options:

1. Print a preview copy of your old photo book, install version 3.7, and use the printout to re-design a new book.
2. Contact customer support at 888-858-8084 and tell them you need an older photo book reprinted. In most cases they will be able to help you.

Note that once you install the new version 3.7, you will no longer be able to review old photo books in the new software.

A lagniappe (pronounced lan-yap) is a creole word from Louisiana. It means “the gift.” It refers to the small token or unexpected service a store owner gives to a customer. The idea of a lagniappe has been embraced by the natives in Louisiana, but there’s no reason you can’t use it too.

Let me give you an example.

Recently a realtor friend of mine needed to attend a final closing on a residential property. After several weeks of hard negotiations, the buyer and the seller were angry at each other, the other realtor felt cheated, and the mortgage company where the closing was held wasn’t happy with anyone. On her way to the closing, she stopped at Panera Bread, picked up four hot loaves, wrapped them with some red Christmas ribbon, and walked into the closing with gifts for everyone.

All four of them are now her customers – even the other realtor recommends her to clients.

So what’s the recipe for creating a marketing lagniappe? It needs to be

1. Unexpected – a surprise
2. A benefit to the recipient – not just a generic gift
3. Unique – not something they could get anywhere else
4. Authentic – it comes from your heart

As a photographer, nothing could be easier than turning images into lagniappes. Here are some ideas:

• Baby/child photography – order a wallet of mom’s favorite pose and put it in a key chain, or pick up a cute little frame at the discount store.
• Senior photography – give a fridge magnet to mom, or give the senior a box of business cards that can be used when they apply for a job.
• Wedding photography – make a 4×5 album for the bride to carry in her purse. Give a single box of thank you or Christmas cards (will encourage them to call back later and order more).

The idea is not to spend a lot, but to wrap it and give it as a unique gift that they could not get anywhere else, and one that says that you’ve connected with them as a client.

Here’s another example: When we were designing the packaging for our photo books, the team wanted each book to be a gift that you could present to your clients. That’s why our books are wrapped in tissue, placed in a custom gift box, and tied with a golden band. It would look perfectly in place under a Christmas tree. Our goal was to make each photo book a lagniappe, from us to you, and more importantly, from you to your clients.

We hope you like it.

In 2010, create your own “economic stimulus” by providing a profitable and much-needed photographic service where there’s little competition: Learn how to market and produce Portrait Directories for churches, country clubs, homeowner associations and any other group in your area.

Chris Wunder will present his “Learn to Earn $100,000 a Year from Portrait Directories” workshop on Wednesday, February 17 from 9:30am until 6:30pm at JD Photo Imaging on Corunna Road in Flint. Cost is $20 per person or $30 per studio, which includes a catered lunch and snacks. You can pre-pay by credit card or charge your lab account by calling 810-239-8671. Seating will be strictly limited, as this is usually a sold-out event wherever Chris goes.

As a proven successful Portrait Directory photographer for 30 years, Chris is in high demand to present this program to photographers across the United States. During the workshop, Chris describes step-by-step:

• How you can earn $100,000 without a retail studio
• Why this is the perfect business to fill-in the gaps in your current one
  
• What clients expect, how to negotiate the best deal
• How to beat the “national” competitors
• How to conduct a profitable promotion
• Equipment and software suggestions, high-volume workflow options

Still not convinced? Consider that many of your potential customers will call out-of-town companies to provide Portrait Directories. This diverts family portraiture away from you. By tapping into this lucrative (but misunderstood) market, you can use directories to build your entire photographic business.

This is one workshop you can’t afford to miss.

Linda Houston will present Equine & Pet Photography at the PPNO meeting January 20th.

The January meeting will be at the Owens Community College in rooms 127-128 of the Audio Visual Classroom Center (AVCC). Please plan to arrive at 6:30PM to get a tour of their wonderful facility and to view their gallery. Linda Houston’s presentation sponsored by JD Photo Imaging will begin at 7PM. This will not be a dinner meeting,

Owens Community College is located at 30335 Oregon Rd., Perrysburg, OH. 43551 and is conveniently located just off I-75. Here is a link to a map of their campus, with the AVCC being building #17 on the map. Free parking is available in Lots N,O & P. Rooms 127-128 will be located just inside the entrance from the parking lot. This facility is much more spacious, all set up for multimedia and will be easier to move around and network with other photographers.

January is the time to plan a Valentine’s Day promotion to launch the first of February. To help you get started, we’ve professionally designed a marketing kit for you.

First, we’ve offering a one-of-a-kind Valentine’s postcard at a special price. The postcard layout is available in ROES as a press-printed product.

You should also download an HTML email layout to send out in conjunction with the postcard to maximize your exposure. The email has room for you to customize it with your studio name and special offer. It is designed to drop into VerticalResponse, or you can use your favorite email program.

Third, you can right-click on the image on the right and save it to your hard drive. Use it in Facebook or on your website as a link to your special.

If you have ever had to fight with a list of image file names in a folder that wouldn’t stay sorted, you have to blame Bill Gates.

When Bill was writing the DOS operating system for the first PC, to save time he used the old “8.3″ file naming specification: eight characters (no punctuation or spaces), a period, and three characters on the end to tell you what kind of file it was. So for years, files could only have names like Lotus.exe (an executable program) or data.dbf (a database file). If you tried to name a file Aunt Millie’s 80th Birthday Picture #2, the computer would refuse to open the file.

But the worst part of 8.3 file names was that PCs sorted files according to a strange rule where numbers came before letters, and “11″ came before “2″. For example, say you had four files on your computer in the order you want them printed in LabPrints:

1. Page 1.jpg
2. 2.jpg
3. 11.jpg
4. Back page.jpg

LabPrints will store them alpha-numerically, so what you will get is this:

1. 11.jpg
2. 2.jpg
3. Back page.jpg
4. Page 1.jpg

Notice on the screen on the right. I made this as an experiment. You can see four files alphabetically sorted in Windows on top, and the exact same four files sorted alphabetically in DOS on the bottom – both on my PC! Although Mac people have never had this limitation, us PC folks have been fighting with it for years.

If you are a Mac user, you have a different set of problems that you don’t even know about. Mac files are stored in 2 parts: the file itself, and a hidden file that has the real file name, the extension, what program opens it, etc. That’s why when you copy just the image file from a Mac to a PC, the PC can’t open it. Newer Macs have solved this problem by including a check box that you should use that makes sure the files can be read by both Windows and Mac.

So what’s the solution? My suggestion is, when naming lots of images, put a number in front, and pad it with zeros so they line up. Then the rest of the file name can describe the image. For example:

1. 001 Front cover.jpg
2. 002 First page.jpg
3. 003 Mother Father.jpg
4. 004 Bride.jpg

Obviously, you only need the extra zero if you have more than 99 pages. However, these images will always sort correctly, no matter which computer (or CD or DVD) you save them on.

A couple of other “rules” for file naming that will make your life simpler:

• Keep file names short. “Katrina and Jeremy Dompulskis Wedding on December 12 2009-001.jpg” is so long it will always be abbreviated when it  is viewed.
• Don’t use punctuation. “Bill and Martha’s Wedding @ 1:00p.m.” will work on a Mac, but not a PC.

So what’s an easy way to rename files? Both ROES and LabPrints have automatic file renaming built into them. If you’re looking for something that can batch process images, try Bulk-rename. I was able to rename this sample group of four DSC files automatically less than 10 minutes after I installed the utility. Best of all, the basic version is free.

JD Photo Imaging will sponsor the Greater Flint Arts Council ARTWALK on Friday, Jan 8th from 6-9pm at the GFAC building on S. Saginaw in Flint.

The ARTWALK is an opportunity for residents to view the work of the best local artists in the area. All mediums will be featured in the January ARTWALK.

The cost is free to the public, with live Jazz music, complementary hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine provided.

If you have time, stop by and visit. It is a great chance to see art in a relaxed setting, and to support the local arts scene. Studies show that every dollar spent on local arts brings over three dollars back into the community.

For more information or directions, visit genesessfun.com

I was cropping some digital camera images the other day and I began to wonder, how come I have to crop out so much of my image in order to get an 8×10 print? After a little research, I found out why. I thought you might like to know too.

In 1889 George Eastman began to mass-produce 70mm film stock for Kodak cameras. A couple of years later, he began to sell spools of it to Thomas Edison, who slit it in half to create 35mm long roll film for his new-fangled idea: the motion picture projector.

Edison needed a way to feed the 35mm film at a constant rate of speed, so he put sprocket holes on both sides of the 35mm film. That cut the useable width to 24mm. Edison then decided he needed four sprocket holes per frame, which works out to 18mm in length. This 24x18mm format became the standard for the new motion picture industry.

Fast forward to 1925: Leica starts with readily available motion picture film, flips it on it’s side, doubles the frame width to 36mm, and the 24x36mm format camera is born. It is called 135 film by Kodak and 35mm film by everyone else. This becomes the standard for the still photographic industry.

Note that if you divide 24x36mm, you get a 3:2 aspect ratio, or 1.5. That makes a perfect 4×6 snapshot print.

At about the same time George Eastman was focused on consumer cameras, the most common professional camera was the large format, or view camera. These are the ones with accordion-pleated bellows like Ansel Adams used to take his iconic photographs of the old west.

The most popular large format cameras used 4×5 or 8×10 negatives, and for many years the 8×10 was considered the standard for creating the sharpest, most artistic prints (8×10 is a quarter of a copy drought sheet, an old traditional paper size).

Note that 8×10 paper has an aspect ratio of 4×5, or 1.25. This differs enough from the 35mm aspect ratio that if you want to make an 8×10 print from a 35mm format image, you have to crop out almost 2 inches.

But for years, nobody cared. Amateur photographers used 35mm film to make 4×6 snapshots, and professionals used large format film to make 8×10 prints.

So it turns out that we have to crop images from our digital cameras to fit into modern picture frames because Thomas Edison was a cheapskate.

Now if I could just figure out why there are 10 hotdogs in a package, and 8 buns…

With the tight economy many professional photographers I talk to are still pessimistic about sales.

They shouldn’t be.

As I walk through the lab today, I see more image-based products than ever before: press-printed photo books, photo merchandise, calendars, giant peel-and-stick vinyl wall prints, photographic wallpaper, metallic prints, dry erase boards, and gallery-wrap prints compete for floor space with standard 8×10 photographs.

Never has the professional photographer had a more creative and varied product line to offer to their customers. This is a great time to be in the photographic business.

Imagine you owned a clothing store. You don’t have any inventory, just sample photographs. A customer walks in and spots a photo of a jacket they love, but they need a different size and a darker shade of blue. With a snap of your fingers, the jacket is re-sized and the colors matched.

Why couldn’t you make every sale? In fact, I believe you’d have the most successful clothing store in the mall.

In the same way, once you have captured a great image, any product your customers can dream of can be made, limited only by their (and your) imagination. For example, using Lucis and Nik software, I’ve seen photographers create incredible works of art that would not have even been possible a few short years ago.

You can be pessimistic about the economy, or you can be enthusiastic about your profession. The choice is yours, but I guarantee it will show up in your bottom line.