JD Photo Imaging will hold a “Raw Image Processing and Adobe Lightroom” workshop Monday, August 2nd from 10am until 2pm at JD Photo Imaging on Corunna Road in Flint. Cost is $59 per person preregistration or $79 on the day of the workshop, which includes a catered lunch and $20 lab credit to test what you’ve learned. You can pre-pay by credit card or charge your lab account by calling 810-239-8671.

If you’ve ever wondered how to get the best color from your camera, or if you’re considering changing over to a RAW workflow, this class is for you.

During the class we will cover:

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Accordion Mini Books are a great new way for your clients to show off their images.

• Each order includes 3 identical books so your clients can share with their family and friends.
• The magnetic cover on the mini book makes it easy to carry in a pocket or purse.
• Accordion Mini Books have up to 10 wallet-size customizable panels.
• Standard Leather covers in black or blue or custom photo covers are also available.

To order Accordion Mini Books, in ROES select the Press Printed catalog and click the Multi-Folded Cards tab.

It seems like every day we get a call from a customer who asks, “will file 1234.JPG look good as a 16×20 inch print?”

The simple answer is this: it depends. While some files are clearly too small to enlarge, others are in the “gray area” and might look good depending on the style you are trying achieve, and where the print will be displayed.

Here are the tricks we use inside the lab to help you answer this question. You can use them yourself, and in many cases make the decision before you place your order.

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I read an interesting article online entitled “The Lazy Rule of Thirds” by fashion photographer Jake Garn. He argues that the “rule of thirds” we’ve all been taught in photography is really just a shortcut to take photographs that follow the Golden Ratio.

Stick with me.

Over 2,500 years ago mathematicians figured out that if you drew a rectangle or a curve where the ratio of the height to the width was approximately 1.6, it just looked better. Without going into all the math, it turns out that nature uses this same ratio too: everything from flower petals to the branching of veins inside your body follows this pattern. Artists started using the Golden Ratio, and evidence of it is found in the Greek Parthanon, works by Leonardo Da Vinci, and even paintings by Salvador Dali.

Notice in the image above, if you draw a successive series of curves based on the Golden Ratio, the bigger rectangle on the left is approximately two-thirds of the total area. The logic is that instead of trying to teach us knuckleheads the Golden Ratio in Beginning Photography 101 class, the teachers simplified it into the Rule of Thirds.

Think this doesn’t work? After I read Jake’s article, I found a transparent .PNG file of the curve online (you don’t even want to know why it is called the Fibonacci spiral), copied it to my desktop, and opened it in Photoshop. Then I found a really nice image done by the folks over at Classic Concepts Studio in Durand, and dragged the curve on top of the image as a new layer. I resized the spiral by dragging the corner with the shift key held down so it wouldn’t lose proportion, rotated it, mirrored it, and colored it with a red stroke.

This is the result.

I always knew I really liked this image, but I never knew why. Now I’m going back over other images and dropping the spiral on top. I can’t say every good image matches perfectly, but I can say that the bad ones don’t even come close.

If I were making an image for a competition, I’d have this spiral file saved on my hard drive and use it to help me with composition and cropping. It might just be the secret ingredient I needed to create the perfect award-winning image.

Do you have any images to share that match up with the Golden Ratio? Send them to me as a 250×200px 72dpi JPG and I’ll post them here.

A Valuable Grand Prize:

• A custom framed certificate to display in your studio
• An award icon to display on your website
• A backlink to your website (Although your customers won’t see it, one-way backlinks build your Google page rank)

In addition, for each photo you submit, you will be entered to win:

• A private website analysis by JD’s online marketing team (a $300 value).

Entering is Easy:

• Any style photography or previous award winners are eligible
• Each photographer can submit up to 10 images
• Images should be submitted as a .jpg file at least 1Mb
• Images will be blind-panel judged by a group of industry experts
• You must own the images and have rights to display them commercially
• You agree to allow JD use your images for any marketing or advertising purposes, each time JD uses your image, you will be given credit.

You can submit your images in two ways:

1. As email attachments sent to Chelsea by March 14, 2010.
2. If the images are on your studio website, email Chelsea a link to the file.

Send in your images today!

Adobe Photoshop is the standard in our industry. Installing your first full-retail version will give you a feeling of pride almost as big as your first professional camera.

That’s why it is important that when you start using Photoshop, you don’t commit either of the two biggest mistakes most new users make:

1. Wrong DPI. When you click File -> New in Photoshop, by default your image is set at 72dpi (dots per inch). New photographers typically set a height and width in inches, then ignore the dpi.

For 99% of the work you do, you should set Photoshop to 300dpi first, then enter a height and width. For images that will end up as banners, you can set Photoshop to 150dpi, since this is the resolution of most large-format inkjet printers like the 52″ one we use to create wall graphics.

2. Wrong JPG Quality. When you save a final image for printing in Photoshop as a JPG file, by default Photoshop chooses 6 (medium) for image quality. This should always be moved to 12. In addition, if you are saving a copy that you plan to work on again later, you should save the image as a .PSD file. Only your final image that you plan to send to us should be saved as a JPG.

Making both these changes will result in very large files, which is why you should have a PC with lots of RAM (3-4Gb is a good start for PCs), but it will also insure that your images look their best when they are printed.

Did you know that:

• That China will soon become the #1 English speaking country in the world?
• That the average high school student sends over 2,000 text messages a month?

A fascinating new video is making the rounds on the Internet. Created by Karl Fisch, Jeff Brenman, and Scott McLeod, it describes how technology is changing our world.

The original version, created in 2007 is called “Shift Happens.” It focuses on how global changes (not just technology) are impacting our lives. According to the authors:

These videos have been viewed well over 20 millions times by audiences large and small, educational, corporate and everything in between. It’s been shown to the leaders of our national defense and to incoming congressmen. It’s been shown by university presidents and kindergarten teachers, televangelists and politicians, folks just trying to make a buck and those trying to save the world.

If you have 5 minutes to spare, I definitely recommend you watch the latest video. It will remind you where you need to focus your marketing efforts. If you have 10 minutes, watch them both. You won’t be disappointed.

You would think photographers could run out of anything else before they run out of quality images. But the fact is, even pros occasionally need to use stock photography for

• Graphics to use in advertising materials
• Backgrounds and textures for composites
• Shots from locations around the globe

This butterfly image is a perfect example. Why go to the trouble of taking this image myself, when their are a host of places online where I could get this image (legally) for free?

It’s called Stock Photography. Every designer and marketing person in America uses it, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t use it too.

I thought I’d share with you some of the stock image web sites I use most frequently to find excellent images.

Stock.xchng. This is where I start. The quality of images here is uneven, but I occasionally find a good one, and the price is right - most images are free in exchange for mentioning the photographer. Because Stock.xchng has partnered with iStockPhoto, in addition to the free images, you can see what paying a couple of bucks will get you.

iStockPhoto. A great site for very inexpensive images, but beware of image “over-use.” You can easily end up with an image that’s already been used by many other people. Image quality is also more of an issue, since many amateurs contribute to the site, so select carefully. All that said, there are still wonderful images to be found here, and it’s hard to beat the prices.

EveryStockPhoto. Another free image site, it searches the Internet for images that are available under the Creative Commons License (like flickr). This means you are free to share or remix the images, but that You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the photographer.

Getty Images. Over 80 million images, priced from $5 to thousands of dollars each. Huge and highly professional selection, and a very powerful search tool. If you want a photo of Elvis in your marketing brochure, this is where you’ll find it.

Jupiter Images. Like Getty, they have a huge, terrific selection and a good search tool. Because Jupiter has partnered with many of the best stock photo sites, you are guaranteed to find what you want here, even though some of the images can get pretty expensive.

Image*After. This free image site specializes in textures. It is a great place to find a piece of wood or fabric texture you can integrate into a background or composite. Note that most of the textures don’t require attribution.

If you have a favorite place to find stock photography for your business, leave it in the comments below and share it with others.

Butterfly photograph by Keith Syvinski

Drop shadows are one of the easiest to use and most powerful ways to make text stand out on a page. They are especially useful when you need to set dark text on a dark image. Just add a light drop shadow, and your text will immediately pop.

However, used improperly, drop shadows can also cause problems with your layouts. The biggest problem we see at the lab is drop shadows that extend off the edge of an image, which result in a hard edge when printed.

Look at the first two examples on the right.

1. In the first example, the tight drop shadow will print properly, but because it is dark it tends to make the text look muddy.
2. In the second example, the drop shadow is much more attractive, but when it is printed, the right edge of the shadow will have a hard edge, ruining the drop shadow effect.

How to solve the problem?

1. Make your drop shadow small and tight to the text by minimizing the spread, size and distance (in Photoshop), and instead lower the opacity to make the shadow appear softer. See JD Photo #3 as an example.
2. If you need a large drop shadow, move the text away from the image edges as shown by JD Photo #4. The easiest way is to drop down 1-2 font sizes, for example, from 24 point to 22 or even 20 point text. If the text looks too small, raise it back up, use a smaller drop shadow, and lower the opacity.

Have you ever wanted an easy way to visualize a headline in many different fonts at the same time to see which one you like better?

You need to check out a utility called the Font Thing.

Despite its strange name, The Font Thing does one thing incredibly well. It lets you organize all your TrueType fonts (Windows only - sorry Apple) into collections based on font type. For example, I’ve group all my fonts as:

• San Serif
• Modern
• Script
• Stereotypes (funny fonts)
• Symbols
• Times

Now, whenever I want to compare the look of a headline in say, Avant Garde versus Futura, I click the Collections tab on the upper left, click Modern, type my headline on the right, and click the Multiple tab to see the headline in both (or all) of the selected fonts.

When I need to mix text and images in Photoshop, the Font Thing is always open in the background (if you don’t want to jump back and forth, just use it to print out all your similar fonts on the same page). Give it a try, and see if it doesn’t become one of your most valuable utilties.