Tag: photographs

What Are ‘Rendering Intents’ and How Should I Use Them?

Posted on August 13, 2014 by - Photography Tips, Software Tips

Rendering Intents

I don’t know about you, but I love to print my favourite images. It seems such a shame that so many images today lie unseen on hard drives, when really an image is not fully realised until it is printed. There is just something about holding a well made print in the hand which brings out the full beauty of an image.

For many, though, printing is a bit of a dark art and there is much confusion about ICC profiles, paper profiles, gamuts and such like that can be daunting. One area that seems to cause confusion and is not well understood by many is ‘rendering intents’.

Before I begin, a disclaimer. I am not a colour scientist, not do I claim to be a world expert on colour management. My understanding is based on my own learning. I am sure there may well be much more to what I explain below and so if you are an expert, please feel free to add some comments below the post to add to (or correct) what I have said. I am keen to learn!

Rendering intents is a system built into ICC profiles that we see in print dialogues and we are asked to make a decision about which one to use. There are four main rendering intents and, in reality, only two are of real interest to us as photographers.

The usual advice we are given is to ‘try both and see which you prefer’ (I have even said this myself), but it is not really a very satisfactory way of working. Much better to understand what they are and what they do, then we can make a well informed decision and understand what effect they will have on the results.

Firstly, its important to say, we are dealing with the fine tuning of colour management here. Often you can print an image using both of the main rendering intents and it is hard for us to see any difference between them. At other times, though, it can make a huge difference to how our final print will look.

So what are they? As I mentioned, they are built in to ICC profiles. These profiles are the way different devices (cameras, computers and printers for example) communicate the colour (Hue, saturation and luminance) of each pixel an image to each other in an effort to maintain colour consistency.

Rendering intents are there for those situations when we have pixels of certain colours in our image which go beyond the capabilities of the ICC colour space we are working in. Briefly, colour spaces are, for example, sRGB or Adobe RGB, and each space is used for a different purpose. sRGB is the space used for monitors and ‘the internet’, for example, it is a smaller colour space than Adobe RGB, capable of displaying far fewer shades of colour. The range of colours a profile can display is galled its ‘Gamut’.

So situations arise where, if your image has a wide range of colours which exceeds those of the colour space you are printing in or exporting to (say, to upload an image to your website) then the profile needs a ‘map’. This map tells it what colours to swap the colours it can’t reproduce for. So, if you have been working in Adobe RGB (or ProPhoto RGB) and now are about to upload an image to your website which requires the file to be converted to sRGB so that it displays properly on the (uncalibrated) monitors of your websites visitors from all over the world, the profile needs to know how to handle these ‘out of gamut’ colours. You might have a green which displays fine in Adobe RGB but isn’t available in sRGB and so the profile asks you to choose a ‘rendering intent’. This is the map which tells it, when it sees this particular shade of green that it can’t display then change it to this other shade of green which it can show.

Its a bit like having a recipe book for Indian food. It might show a list of rare spices but, knowing they may not be available in your country, it says ‘if spice X is unavailable, then spice Y will do nicely’.

Its this ‘nicely’ bit that causes the issue.

Each rendering intent is a different type of map, a different way of substituting one colour for another, and like spices in a curry – we all have our own tastes. Some like them hot, others aromatic and so the substitute choice can be critical. So to make the right choice for us we need to understand how each rendering intent is programmed and how it is likely to affect the results in our images, especially prints or images uploaded to the web.

No rendering intent will be perfect and you can’t really say that one is ideal to use all the time. This is because each is a compromise and will affect the colours in our image differently. Depending on the image and our goals for that image, we need to choose the right intent, or map.

So what are they and what does each one do;

1. Perceptual Intent – This can compress or expand the full gamut of colours in the source profile in order to make them fit into the destination profile. What on earth does that mean in reality? Perceptual intent is designed to maintain the relationships between colours and often gives a more natural look to the final image. It should be noted that this can mean that it also alters colours which are in the destination profiles gamut already (so they don’t actually NEED to change). It does this to maintain the balance between all the colours in the image and to keep everything looking natural.

It should also be noted that each companies perceptual intent mapping in its own ICC profiles are unique to that company, so the same image put through different company profiles using this intent can produce quite different results.

Perceptual Intent, then, is often the best one to use if both saturation and the relationship between colours is of primary concern to us.

2.The second and other most common intent (indeed Adobe Lightroom ONLY allows a choice between Perceptual and Relative Colourmetric intents) is Relative Colourmetric Intent. This does not allow colours which are in gamut in the destination profile to be changed, they must stay unaltered. It only alters out of gamut colours. Additionally, it only alters these just enough to bring them in to gamut so the relationship between colours in our images change. (Most natural colours which have not been enhanced or played with too much in software, will fit into the gamut of inkjet printers – it is mainly colours which we have enhanced which cause issues).

This rendering intent does not reduce saturation, whereas Perceptual intent can. However, this intent can drastically alter the way an image looks to our eyes as regards the way the colours relate to each other.

Relative Intent is often the best to use if tonal relationships are more important to us in the image then the exact colours, and certainly in black and white printing this is probably the case.

(if you are making a big jump, from ProPhoto to sRGB profiles then, even if the profile offers you two choices of rendering intent, in actual fact it will only use Relative Colourmetric to do the mapping of out of gamut colours).

In the illustration above you can see an approximation of what is happening with each rendering intent. The white dots are the colours in the original image profile which are out of gamut in the destination profile. The lines lead from them showing how each is mapped into the new profile resulting in the destination colour at the black dot. In the left illustration we can see the Perceptual Intent at work. Notice how the colours all maintain their relationships to each other (spacings) for a natural look. In the right hand image we see the effect of Relative Intent mapping the colours. They are only pulled as far as each needs to be pulled to just get them in gamut and this alters how they look in relationship to each other.

It might seem from this that Perceptual is the logical choice in all situations, but it isn’t. Sometimes Relative does a more effective job, especially where tonality is more important.

The other two intents which are of less interest to us are

3.Saturation Intent – This is designed to give priority, as you would expect, to saturation of colour but in doing so, to get colours into a new gamut, will sacrifice hue and lightness of colours. It is of most use in technical printing when hue and lightness are not really important, but when saturation is, such as when printing mathematical charts and graphs.

4. Absolute Colourmetric Rendering Intent – This is a tricky one to describe but bases its calculations on the white point. It is used, for example, when converting to CMYK for images to be printed on papers which are below bright white (maybe a bit yellowy) and so it can show the effect of this on colours. Not generally something we, as photographers, have to worry about. But it is something that graphic designers and printers lay awake at night worrying about.

After all this is said, the only real way to know which is best for a particular image is to soft proof it in both relative and perceptual intents and choose the one we prefer for that image. In some cases the difference will be hard to see, in others it will be huge.

I hope this helps you understand a bit more about rendering intents and the need for us to focus on perceptual and relative intents in our work as photographers.

Remember – Perceptual is all about maintaining colour balance and saturation (and I think you will find in most colour photography this is the one you will find works best as it keeps your image as close to how you intended it to look as possible in most cases). Relative is more focused on tonal relationships and so will probably be your choice when printing in black and white or when printing in colour when the tones are more important than the exact shades.

(P.S. I will to be running another Print Masterclass workshop with master printer Jack Lowe in the New Year. These run over two days with Jack and I helping you to really understand and master colour management, soft proofing and printing. Jack has been a printer for over 15 years and is recognised world-wide as a master of his trade, used by many artists and professional fine art photographers for printing their work for exhibitions and portfolios. If you would like to join the no obligation shortlist, please just CLICK HERE to email me and I will add you to the list.)

My back up strategy

Posted on November 26, 2012 by - Photography Business, Photography Tips, Software Tips

back up

Lakeland River


It has been a while since I blogged about my backing up strategy and I have made some changes to make my systems more secure, so now seems a good time to update you on how I protect my data.
 
I regularly have friends and customers who tell me stories of how they have lost prized images, even their entire library, due to equipment failure or theft of their computers which they didn’t have backed up. They go pale as they speak about it. Some even break down and cry 🙂
 
If your system experienced a complete failure this minute, how much would you lose?
 
If your computer and the drives with it in the same room were stolen today, how much data would you lose?
 
How would that make you feel. Your wedding pictures. The pictures of your children growing up. The images of your loved ones who have passed away. Those landscapes you toiled so hard to capture. Need I go on.
 
Sobering questions, aren’t they?
 
It is crucial to understand that EVERY hard drive WILL fail. It is just a question of when, and they often don’t give any notice. One minute you are happily using your computer and the next you are looking at a blank screen. As with so many things in life, we think it won’t happen to us or we think we have time to back up next week. You just have to decide how much data you are prepared to lose and tailor your system to protect you to this level.
 
I had a brand new drive in a brand new computer fail completely just three days after buying it. I had just finished setting the system up with all of my programs, settings and data. I had also set up my back up solution and so was fully protected.
 
The issue is many people feel that backing up is a nuisance. They feel they don’t have time. Often, it is also because they don’t really understand how to do it, or how to set up a good reliable system which is easy to run.
 
I can’t afford to lose my data. As a freelance photographer my images are my business. If I lose them, I don’t pay my bills. They cannot be replaced so it that is a great motivation to have a good system in place.
 
So how am I organised and how do I make it easy to have a bullet proof back up solution working for me?
 
My first layer of protection
 
When in the field, especially on longer trips, I copy all my compact flash cards to my iPad. I don’t format the compact flash cards until the images are copied to my computer back at the studio. This gives me two copies of my images while I am away from home. I keep the compact flash cards in a holder with me and the iPad is left hidden in my vehicle. I may also copy the images on to my Mac Book Pro while I am away which then gives me three copies in the field.
 
My second layer of protection
 
My main computer is a 27 inch iMac with a 1tb  drive. I have a 1tb drive attached (I recommend this one – http://tinyurl.com/bs4vhcm – the WD drives have always performed perfectly for me). This is set up to use Apples Time Machine back up system which is built into all Macs. It has saved my life several times and is so easy to use. Just select the drive to back up to and the system backs up every hour. It deletes the oldest back ups once the drive is full. The most data you can lose is one hours work. Frustrating, yes, but not critical.
 
Layer three
 
I also have another two 1tb drives which are kept onsite, but away from the computer (in the hope that if we have a burglary and the computer and back drive which sits next to it are stolen, then this drive may be missed).
 
To copy files to this from my iMac I use a great easy piece of software called Superduper. You will find it HERE
 
(if you are a Windows user I would highly recommend using Microsofts free SyncToy which does a very similar job and is also so simple to use. You will find it HERE. Please note, I stopped using Windows a couple of years ago so this may not work with the latest versions of Windows or other solutions may now be available which I am unaware of).
 
This makes a carbon copy of your entire hard drive. The first back up you run with it takes a while as it is copying every file (as does Time Machine) but subsequent backups are much faster as only files you have added, deleted or changed are updated. This system does not hold on to old copies of files, so you can’t go back to a file which was deleted weeks ago in error  to restore it, like you can with Time Machine. The drive is always a copy of your computers hard drive on the last day you backed up with it.
 
Superduper can be set to run on a schedule so you don’t have to do anything as long as the back up drive is connected to the computer, or it can be run manually at a time you choose (this is how I use it as my drive is hidden and not permanently connected to the computer).
 
It is also fully bootable so in the event of a hard drive failure you can boot your computer using it and get working straight away. If you want to have several carbon copy drives you can. You give each drive a name and Superduper remembers each drive.
 
When I am on the road I take one of the Superduper drives with me. This gives me an offsite backup and it also means I have all my files with me so I can work on the road. If I do this I just have to keep a copy of the changed/added files and update my iMac with them when I get home.
 

Mist in the Woods


The final layer
 
The last layer of protection is the one which gets neglected by most people because it is the most difficult to manage. This is the offsite backup.
 
This protects you in case of theft or the destruction of your property by flood, fire and so on. I wonder how many people have lost all their files this week in the floods?
 
My old system, which was flawed, but better than nothing, was to have a third 1tb drive backed up to using Superduper which I then stored at my parents home. This is fine if you remember/bother to go and get it and update it regularly (and to be honest, this needs to be weekly as a minimum). I just didn’t do this often enough, it becomes too much hassle.
 
Prior to this year my new solution would not have been feasible as my broadband speeds were just too low. I now am blessed with BT Infinity 2 and this makes backing up to a Cloud service easy.
 
There are lots of options out there but most are very expensive for large amounts of data. They are really designed for smaller amounts of file storage and also geared for you to be uploading and downloading the files on a regular basis.
 
Amazon Glacier
 
Fortunately, Amazon has identified this issue and set up a brilliant new service to remedy this. It is called “Glacier”. Anyone can use it, from home users to world-wide corporations and it is purely designed to store large amounts of data you will probably never need again… unless something goes badly wrong with your primary layers of protection which I have described above. You can find it HERE
 
The basic things to know are;
 

  • The cost is very, very low, just $0.01 per gigabyte of data per month for storage, so if you have 200gb of data with them it costs just $24 a year. Compare that with the true cost of buying external drives and then keeping one off site and up to date!
  • There is a fee if you delete backups within 3 months of uploading then
  • There is a fee to download data, although you do get a free allowance per month, but as this is designed for long term storage (in fact, its for data you hope you will never have to download) it is not a major issue
  • Data that is uploaded takes several hours to be processed by Glacier and it takes several hours to start downloading back to you if you need it – this is how they keep the costs so low – so don’t view it like you do Dropbox, for example.
  • You need to break your data down into zip files that are no bigger than 4gb and this is a hassle when you first get set up.
  • You can’t update a backup zip file once it is uploaded. If you make changes to files at your end you need to upload them again and delete the old one if necessary. For this reason I am using it for archives. I back up the files I am working on all the time to Dropbox (or Skydrive etc) Sign up for Dropbox HERE
  • Glacier have yet to release a program to handle the uploading but two free programs are available from others. The Windows one is Fastglacier and the Mac client is Simpleglacier. I use Arc back up which is a paid for program.
  • Your data is encrypted using 128bit encryption keys – so extremely secure. The server farms also sit behind very secure firewall systems.
  • Glacier claims 99.999999999999% protection. The server farms are held in extremely secure bunkers and there are several of them around the planet. Your data will exist in three locations in at least two countries. So you are pretty much protected form everything except Armageddon, when, lets face it, the last thing we will be bothered about are our files 🙂

 
I am currently going through the tedious process of zipping all of my data (images and files) into 4gb batches and doing an upload overnight each night. I can upload about 60gb a night with my connection. I have done several years worth of files and just have 2010 to today still to do. I have just got my head down and started working through this methodically. It has also helped me delete over 200gb of useless and duplicated data which was clogging up my system – a really nice feeling having a spring clean 🙂
 
Once it is all there, plan to upload weekly the latest images although it may end up being monthly. I am expecting to have around 600gb of zipped data on Glacier by the end of 2012 with a cost to me of about £3.75 a month at current rates. I think that is exceptional value.
 
Conclusion
 
This all might sound like the ravings of an obsessive compulsive with a disaster fixation but I have my livelihood to think about and I hold work which is critical to my customers too. You can go as far as you feel you need to in order to get the level of protection you need.
 
As a minimum get Time Machine working for you if you are a Mac user, or something similar if you are a Windows user. I also recommend getting in to the habit of backing up each days work at the end of the day – let it run overnight. in reality, on most days, if you do it daily, an incremental backup will run in a few minutes. As a minimum get into the habit of having a ‘Backup Friday’ or similar so at least your weeks work is protected.
 
I highly recommend you also get set up with Dropbox – you can sign up here – as this will give you 2gb of free storage accessible world wide for regularly used files and for sharing files with friends and family. You can also access it from your iPhone, Smartphone and iPad etc It is brilliant and I use it daily.
 
Alternatively you can have the thrill of being a gambler and live life on the edge and not bother backing up at all (or have that back up you did months or years ago and always mean to get around to updating, maybe next week when your not so busy). Enjoy the ride! Me, as you can see, I am more a belt and braces kind of guy who likes to sleep well at night.

New Exhibition of My Work

Posted on August 8, 2012 by - News, Photography Business, Social Networking

Dark Light

New Exhibition - "Dark Light"

 

I have been to Gainsborough today to hang my new solo exhibition entitled, “Dark Light”

It is being hosted at the Trinity Arts Centre in Gainsborough and is an exhibition of monochrome photographs. The Arts Centre is a council run location dedicated to the promotion of the arts in North Lincolnshire. The gallery space doubles as a mingling and bar area outside the main theatre and so is ideally placed for people visiting for performances to browse the images. If you happen to live in or near Gainsborough I would love you to pop in and take a look, but please don’t make a special journey.

The exhibition consists of 16 images (it was planned for 22, but the gallery didn’t have enough hanging clips to put all of the images up, requiring an on the spot rejigging of my hanging plan – the joys of exhibiting!). Here are a few iPhone images from the venue to give you a feel for what it is like.

Trinity Arts Centre Gallery

Main Wall

Side Wall

The Curved Wall

Here is a quick montage of some of the images on display

Montage 1

Montage 2

 

If you would like to go and see the exhibition, the gallery is free of charge. Opening times are;

Monday – Closed

Tuesday – Closed

Wednesday – 10.30 – 3.30

Thursday – 10.30 – 3.30

Friday 10.30 – 3.30

Saturday – 9.30 – 2.30

Sunday – Closed

The gallery is also open for performances – see the Trinity Arts Centre web site or Facebook page for details.

The address is

Trinity Arts Centre

Trinity Street

Gainsborough

DN21 2AL

(There is a car park (free) at the back of the centre but its a bit tricky to find. Drive past the centre on your right and go a few more yards to the roundabout where the big Tescos is and turn right. The road bends around to the right as you go around the corner you will see a row of terraced houses ahead on your right. Immediately after them is the entrance to the car park).

If you ever get the chance to hold your own exhibition, what do you need to know?

The first thing is, don’t expect to make a lot of money from sales. Its a sad fact in the UK that most people don’t value photography as art and as a result are very reluctant to put their hands in their pockets to buy images. If you have tried selling prints from your website you have perhaps realised this. True, some do make a good amount of money from print sales but this is usually because they are a big name and their images are of the very finest available or their name alone makes the images collectable. In fact, expect to make a loss if you hold an exhibition. The costs to hold one are high. For a start, many galleries charge you a fee to exhibit, whether you sell or not. They also take a commission on any sales and this can be from 25% to 60% of the sale price. Now factor in your printing costs (whether home printed or outsourced), framing costs and your time getting it all printed and framed. You also have to make labels for each image (mounted on foamex board) as well as writing an artists statement, designing a poster and producing a price list. You have to drive to the venue and spend a few hours hanging the exhibition on your own, the gallery rarely help in this. Then drive home, perhaps drive back for an open evening (for which you provide drinks and nibbles) and drive home again. Then at the end of the exhibition drive back and take it all down and drive home again! You can see why it is difficult to make a true profit if you factor in all of the costs.

Before you exhibit you need to be clear about what the gallery provides and what they expect you to provide. Some of the better ones will provide the drinks and nibbles, for example. Most won’t. Many expect you to provide all of the packaging for any items sold. if people buy prints or framed prints you will probably be responsible for posting them to the buyers unless the buyer is willing to return to collect them.

You need to be clear on insurance. Some galleries provide a certain amount of insurance cover if works are stolen or damaged. Will this cover your work. If they don’t provide cover, you lose if anything happens to a picture or pictures.

Be clear with the gallery too, on what advertising they do for you. Do they have a website and will they use it to promote your exhibition? Do they use Twitter, Facebook etc. Do they have an emailing list and will they use it to mail their clientele? In reality, many galleries are poor at advertising on your behalf. They leave it all to you, so what is your ‘reach’ as regards advertising? Are you on social networking sites and if so are you suing them to promote the exhibition? Do you blog, use Twitter and have a mailing list? If not, who is going to know about the exhibition apart from your close friends? Do you have the gumption to ring the local newspaper and see if they will run a piece for you? Are you up for contacting the photography magazines to see if they will list your exhibition? This is all additional time you need to spend to make the exhibition a success while remembering you are still unlikely to sell any or many prints!

In smaller local exhibitions you are more likely to make sales if your images are of local scenes. Also seasonal scenes sell better, so if the bluebells are out bluebell images sell better, for example. More ‘arty’ and creative work has a lower chance of selling because it will appeal to a smaller audience, however will, perhaps, command a higher price.

This leads us to the age old question of what to charge. You can approach this one of two ways. Most people add up the cost of the paper, ink, frame and so on and then add a bit on top. This is called ‘cost plus’ pricing. If your frame, print etc costs you £25 and you charge £50 it sounds like a good 100% profit. But remember, the gallery will take a huge slice and you are unlikely to have factored in the true costs I have listed above. In reality, if you are charging any less than £100 or more you are making a crushing loss IN REALITY, whatever you are fooling yourself into thinking. The second method of pricing, is to view your work as art. This takes courage and also lessens your chances of selling anything! Here, you think less of the costs involved and place a figure on your work based on the fact you feel it has, and will increase in, value. You are thinking more like a painter or sculptor. So you may value prints at £250 or whatever. This is a brave photographer who takes this approach as sales become even further apart. Ask yourself, would you spend £100, £200 or more on a framed print from a photographer you have never heard of who is relatively low profile? No? Neither will they. Why? Because they think they can go to Ikea and get a very nice framed print for £20 and then when they redecorate they take it to a charity shop or car boot sale and buy another that fits with the new decor. The English do not value photographs as art in the way the Americans do.

So this all sounds very pessimistic. Why on earth exhibit? Good question. If you are in it just to make money, don’t. However, if you want to invest in your profile or want the world to see what you create and are prepared to take criticism as well as plaudits, it is a lovely thing to do. It does bring kudos and respect from fellow photographers. It is also a starting point. I am sure Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish & Michael Kenna went through these early loss making exhibitions. But because they were prepared to put themselves out there and make the investment in time and money gradually, and because they have real talent, they became more successful. Now Joe has his own, amazing, gallery (one of the few UK photographers who make a success of this) and images by photographers such as Charlie and Joe command good prices and have become collectable in their own right – they have broken the glass ceiling so it can be done. One day someone who runs a ‘better’ gallery may walk in and be impressed with your work and offer to represent you long term (this is the route Michael Kenna has taken – working with galleries for years who display and sell his images all year around as well as holding solo exhibitions on top of these). A publisher may see your work and ask you to do a book. A print manufacturer might be scouting for talent. If we don’t promote ourselves, even at a loss, we will never know. If we really want to make something of our images then we should view an exhibition as an investment in ourselves and go in with our eyes open. This saves us from disappointment.

I hope this helps you if you are considering exhibiting. I am not trying to dissuade you at all. I just want you to know what it is really like. If you accept this it can be a very fulfilling and positive experience and if we make some money too, so much the better.

And to finish, heres another image you can see at the exhibition.

Thinking of Winter

 

 

 

 

What should I charge for my pictures?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by - Photography Business, Photography comment

What should I charge

I get asked this question on a regular basis, so I thought it was time to put up my answer for all to see, to save me typing it each time. This type of information is hard to find as most photographers shy away from revealing anything about current market prices for images. I don’t agree with keeping such information so secret. After all, if a buyer wants an image from a photographer they are not taking business from us. In most cases we won’t have an image which fills the brief. I take the same approach to this as I do to location information and techniques, I like to share information and be helpful, not put up the barriers and protect my own little kingdom. I think the world is a much nicer place when people help each other. In fact, if the market price was better known then companies who buy images would be less able to pull the wool over photographers eyes about the value of their images. The information I do keep confidential relates more to contracts, licensing agreements and so on. But helping keen photographers get a fair price for an image is something I am happy to do.

The first thing to say in answer to this question is that there is no answer. Sorry. There is no ‘price’ that is fixed for images, there are just too many variables and in the end you will have to weigh all of the variables up and quote a figure. Ideally you want to gets  price which is fair to you and is set at a level where the potential customer places the order with you feeling they have got a fair deal too. What you are trying to avoid is being paid a pittance for an image from which the buyer profits hugely at your expense or, conversely, quoting a price which is higher than the buyer is prepared to pay and so you end up with nothing. So, beware. In the vast majority of cases, your image is not worth as much as you think it is. Sorry, but thats a fact. If you lose the sale you end up with nothing. We have to have in mind that usually a buyer can get a similar image from someone else. Few images are unique and most image buyers have an idea of what is ideal for their purpose but won’t pay over the odds for that image if another which is almost right is available at a fairer price. They don’t want to have to shop around because time is money for these people, they have found yours and it fits the bill, but if you want too much for it they will move on to someone else.

It is also vital to say these people work to very tight deadlines and won’t wait three days for you to answer an email or send them a file. they expect you to respond and quote within hours in most cases and to be able to ftp a file to them without hassle in the format they need. When it arrives they expect it to be free of dust spots with no chromatic aberration or over sharpening/saturation. Their standards are very high. If you can’t deliver the image as they need it  it is better to say so straight away. Also, don’t expect payment before you send the file, it almost never works that way. In fact, be prepared to wait several months for payment (welcome to the world of the pro-photographer!). Rarely will you get paid in less than three months and it could be longer. You also have to be prepared to trust the buyer. Our whole industry has to work on trust and you may get let down. We have to send our precious full resolution files off to companies we have never heard of and there is little chance of us ever being completely sure how they are being used. You may have been told  the images was going in to a company newsletter when in fact it is off to China and being printed onto a 100,000 T-Shirts or posters for sale. Happily, though, the vast majority of buyers are honest and only use the image as described and pay in full. You probably won’t get a contract for a single image sale. The only evidence you have of the transaction is the email correspondence. You may get a purchase order, but this is rare. However, in reality, what are you going to do if you don’t get paid. Take legal action? I doubt it. We can’t afford to and often the firm you have sold the image to is on the other side of the world. It is just impractical. We have to work on trust and it usually works out well.

So, what about price then? Firstly, you will get approached from time to time to give images for free. They will tell you that they ‘don’t have a budget’ for buying images for ‘this project’. They will tell you they will give you a credit to your website. They will tell you it will lead to ‘great exposure’ for your images. They will tell you they have other projects coming up and will be in touch to buy images for real money soon. They are lying. I only give my images for free to genuine charities. Other wise I ask them if they are getting paid? If they are getting paid, so should I. The ‘credit link’ to your website is valueless. They have no incentive to remember to do it. If they do put a link in, it will be feint and tiny. No one will notice it. (Ask yourself, how often have you noticed and followed a link beside an image in the press? And if you have, how often have you bought an image from that persons site? Exactly). They will not come back with paid work. You have shown you give images away so they may come back for another freebie but in most cases you will never hear from them again. I urge you, never give your images away for free.

The next type of approach comes often as a result of seeing an image of yours on Flickr. Companies have learned they can trawl Flickr and find great images made by keen photographers who will accept a lower rate than a pro who depends on image sales to pay his mortgage. Thats fair enough in a commercial world. It is very flattering to be approached by someone offering real money for one of your images. The fact they are approaching via a site like Flickr means they are probably after a bargain. For most uses, and by this I mean firms who want to use your shot on their website or in a newsletter, a newspaper or magazine or a smaller firm wanting to use an image of yours for an advert or on packaging or perhaps a hotel wanting to make a print of an image local to them, you will rarely get an order if you quote more than £40 or £50 (that’s GB Pounds) in my experience. Some buyers will walk away if you quote that high. They are looking for a bargain. Bigger companies  and publishers might pay more (and I have made £650 for one image from a London marketing firm, but that was a rare deal). try asking them what their budget for the image is. Don’t be afraid to say you are an amateur and have no idea what to charge but make it clear you want them to feel they have got a good deal but at the same time want a fair price yourself. Most image buyers will give you a hint. If the image is to go on a book cover or on product packaging you can ask for more but in all these negotiations I urge you not to be greedy. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The image sat on your hard drive is making no money and in my mind it is better to walk away with £50 than hold out for £200 and not get a reply to your email. If you really wan tho get the market price and the image is on Flickr then make sure you have Getty licensing switched on on your Flickr account. then you can forward them to Getty who will price the image for you based on the customers usage and they will handle the transaction, but you will just get 20% of the sale fee.

Sometimes firms will offer you a price. If it is fair, take it. It will never sound high enough to you and, indeed, they are after a bargain but if you try and negotiate up they are more likely not to even reply to your email. There is a strong chance they will just move on to the next photographer on their list. They don’t have the time or inclination to mess about. If the offer is obviously derisory then ask for what you think is fair (and again, by fair, I mean fair to them as well as you). They may not reply, but like the guys who want free images, it is better not to be taken for a mug. Just remember, offers over £100 for an image use is rare. Once buyers get to that level they will often prefer to deal with stock companies who have the files in high resolution and give a professional service with no hassle. the direct approaches based on your Flickr stream usually come from firms looking for lower value images and you need to accept a lower fee accordingly.

This is the same philosophy I have about stock photography. Many older pro’s knew a time when they could earn six figure sums from stock photography but have seen this plummet with the advent of micro-stock and other internet based stock sites. They complain vociferously that stock is no way to earn a living. However, if we adapt to the market and realise we can make thousands more images now for selling via stock that those guys working in film could never have done, stock is still a viable way to make a complete or partial living for photographers. The market is now a world wide one too. Access to buyers is so much easier and buyers are buying many more images than they used to, they are just paying a lot less for them. Those images on your hard drive aren’t making any money so I feel it is far better to be making small amounts from them that add up than nothing at all. I get emails from photographers complaining that selling via the Getty/Flickr deal only gives them 20% of the sale price – Getty taking 80% – but I feel that if Getty wasn’t selling those images for me I would be getting 0%. I can’t get in front of the image buyers that Getty can. Those images just wouldn’t sell. As a guide I think you can expect to make £1 per image per month that you have with a site like Getty. get 100 images with them and you could make £100 a month. get 1000 images with ten and you could make £1000 a month. Simple. 20% doesn’t sound so bad when you are getting £12,000 a year from images which are just filling your hard drive, does it? The very difficult part is shooting 1000 images that are so good Getty want them and buyers buy them 🙂

There will be photographers who feel you can ask for more than the figures I have mentioned. There will be some who think the figures are too high. As I said at the outset, there is no right answer to this question. Just remember, your image is probably not unique, these guys want a bargain and the image is usually not worth as much as you would like to think it is and there will always be someone who will do it cheaper. These buyers are not big on negotiation, you often have one email to pitch the price right. Don’t be greedy but be fair to them and you. respond very quickly and don’t give the buyer any hassle.

I hope you get the order because it is a nice feeling to get paid for doing what we love and knowing someone liked our image enough to hand over hard cash.

 

 

 

 

Free downloadable long exposure calculator chart

Posted on August 30, 2011 by - News, Photography Tips

I have just put on the downloads page of my website a free pdf long exposure calculator chart

Just download it, print and laminate it for use in the field.

I hope you find it helpful.

I plan to add some other free downloads so please sign up for my email newsletter for advanced notice of these – just use the form on the right hand side of this page.

if you have any ideas for useful downloads, please drop me a message using the ‘Contact Me’ form on the right.

Top ten tips for photographing seascapes

Posted on August 29, 2011 by - Photography Tips

Landscape photographers love the chance to photograph the sea. We love the wide horizons, big skies and the magnification of the glorious light at dawn and dusk reflected in the water. To make the most of your trips to the coast here are some tips for making great seascape images.

1. Go prepared. Welly boots, while not glamorous, are the best footwear on the shore. They allow you to work in soft mud, lapping waves and rock pools without worrying about getting wet, cold feet. Neoprene lined wellies are more expensive but much more comfortable and warmer than cheaper brands. I have also found seawater rots the adhesives and stitching in modern walking boots. I had a pair of new boots fall apart after a trip to Skye due to me wading about in seawater for two weeks.

2. Check the tides in advance. Often the best time to make seascapes is with a falling tide at sunrise or sunset. The exposed rocks and sand will be wet from the receding tide which reflects the light in the sky and adds much more interest than a drier foreshore with an advancing high tide. To find the tide time for your location enter the name of the nearest harbour or port into Google along with the words ‘tide table BBC’. this will bring up a link for the generally reliable tide tables on the BBC website. If you don’t live in the UK just enter the nearest harbour name and the words’ tide table’ and you should get a link for your country. Being aware of the tide times also helps you be aware of not being cut off from the mainland by a fast rising high tide. Very easy, believe me, when you are engrossed in making images.

3. Check where and when in relation to the location the sun will rise and set to find the best time to visit that location. The best way to do this is to download ‘The Photographers Ephemeris’. This free software uses Google Earth and shows on the map exactly where the sun and moon rise and set in any location on the planet on any day. One of the best bits of software a landscape photographer can have on the computer. You will find it here. There is even a version for the iPhone.

4. Take a towel, lens cloth and lens cleaning fluid. You will find, even in quite calm conditions that your lens and filters start to get coated in salt while making images at the sea. This soon ruins images. Keep an eye on this and clean your glass regularly. I also have a golf towel clipped to my tripod for quickly drying off salt spray from the camera and for draping over the camera if the waves start to get high.

5. Wash you tripod legs in fresh water after a seascapes session. Tripods often get stood in seawater to get the perfect shot, and get coated in abrasive sand from beaches. To preserve your kit, wash it off well with fresh water after the shoot.

6. Get there early. I usually get my best seascapes 30, 45 minutes or more before the sun is due to rise. Trust me, that extra 20 minutes in bed is not worth missing the best light for.

7. Stay late. As with the preceding point, at the end of the day i often get my best images up to an hour after the sun has set. Don’t pack up and go home when the sun dips below the horizon – keep shooting.

8. Get the tripod down low. So often photographers fully extend the tripod legs so the camera is at head height for comfort or out of habit. Get down low for more interesting images with a different perspective.

9. Use ND filters. ND filters from 2 to 10 stops help lengthen exposures and create wonderful effects on moving water and clouds. The 10 stop filters, such as the Lee Filters ‘Big Stopper’ enable me to shoot great seascapes long after the best light has gone thus lengthening the shooting time on location. they also enable great images to be had in poor light and cloudy conditions.

10. Shoot details. it is easy to just shoot the wide seascape before you and to miss some of the beautiful ‘intimate landscapes’ of the shore. Rock patterns, seaweeds, shells and pebbles, patterns in the sand, beach furniture and buildings and so on.

I hope you have found these tips helpful. I would be interested in hearing from you if you have tips to add.

If you would like more help with improving your seascape photography, please use the form on the right to add your email address to my mailing list. You will get advanced notice of all of my future seascape and other workshops before they are announced elsewhere.

What should I charge for my photography?

Posted on August 29, 2011 by - Photography Business

This is a big question for all photographers, pro’s and enthusiasts alike.

The answer is not simple. No one can tell us what the answer is. we have to decide for ourselves. However, there are some things to consider before deciding.

To simplify things, lets take the example of selling prints via our website. this is something many photographers want to do and setting up a website is relatively simple.

First, a sobering fact. few photographers sell more than a few odd prints A YEAR through their personal website. Fact. In fact, for those who pay Clikpic or a similar company for hosting their website and providing the website template, few will even recoup the websites costs. Some will, certainly. (I do), but most won’t. There are tens of thousands of fine photographers out there doing the same thing and the chances of someone finding your site, let alone browsing it long enough to find an image the like so much that they are prepared to send you money for it are slim. Sorry, but that’s a fact.

But lets say you want to give it a go. (And I encourage you to do so. I sell through my website and make a small part of my income through direct print sales but the website has far greater value to me in becoming my online brochure to advertise my style and abilities to other potential customers. For me, that is where the value is – in the work it generates).

So, you spend some time building your website and launch it. But the big question is, ‘what should I charge for prints’?’.

There are several ways of looking at this. If you are to look just at what a print actually costs – say a pound or two for something A4 size, three or four pounds for something a bit bigger and add on a couple of pounds for postage, your direct costs are very low. Lets say, ten pounds all in. So do you double it. 100% is a good mark up, surely?. However, sadly many potential customers are already dropping out at the £20 price point. They can get a landscape or flower photograph from Tesco for less than that, framed and ready to hang. Is yours any better in their eyes? And they still have to buy a frame. Of course, yours is unique, not mass produced, but most buyers don’t see it that way. In reality, £20 is hardly worth all the hassle to you of sending the jpeg to a lab for printing, then making up an receipt, keeping accounts, packing the image up and going to the post office to post off and so on and yet already many buyers just won’t pay it. Start charging £30 or £40 a print and buyers laugh and click off to a site which charges £10 for a similar print (trust me, there are thousands of photographers selling good, not great, images at £10 or less)

You also need to factor in that this price model doesn’t take any account of the thousands of pounds you have paid out for gear and computers as well as software plus the travel expenses in getting to the location perhaps several times to get that wonderful light. It may be nice to get the recognition of selling a print and it may be okay to make a few quid but be under no illusions, you are making a MASSIVE loss selling using this model.

If you do factor in your real costs for gear and travel etc then there is no way to price prints sensibly. You would be charging many hundreds of pounds per print.

This is the model I have been using for the last three years. I am having to re-evaluate my approach at the moment because of the points I have just made.

The alternative is to go exclusive. This is the brave step. If your imagery is VERY good and you have absolute belief in its value as art then you can forget the actual raw material cost of a print and go down the art pricing model.

This takes account, not of cost, but of value. This is where what your images are ‘worth’ comes in. if someone truly loves an image or images of yours, how much do they love them? Do they love them enough to INVEST  in them. To stake some of their hard earned money in something they feel they will treasure for years, pass on to their loved ones, in something which has true value.

Buyers willing to do this are few and far between. If you think getting the £20 a print customers onto your website is hard. Getting buyers who will pay £100, £200 or more for a print is far more difficult.

This is where you need to build a name for yourself, a reputation, and you need to develop your own style. It is no good going to Durdle Door and Bamburgh Castle and making a superb image in great light but which is essentially no different to thousands of other equally technically good images of the same places in great light which are on sale on thousands of other photographers websites using the £20 a print model. There is no reason to buy yours.

If you can build a reputation like Charlie Waite, David Noton or Joe Cornish you can charge hundreds of pounds per print on your name alone. Check out their websites and see what they charge! Those who get such a reputation are as rare as, well, as rare as Charlie Waite. Almost none of us will make it.

However, it is possible with masses of hard work, loads of networking, hundreds of fruitless dawns and withstanding loads of rejection to gradually carve out a lesser reputation than the ‘greats’ but a reputation nonetheless. With this kudos comes value. Your prints will acquire a value and you can then learn what that value is and price to it. If you can charge £100 or more a print then things are becoming more realistic from a business point of view.

Some will add perceived value by releasing limited editions and short print runs. I have doubts about this model in many cases, but that is another blog topic.

You can add value by framing the print, but you have to be prepared to organise this and handle all the variety of demands buyers will start to place on you for certain coloured wood frames of different thicknesses and different mount colours and can you do non-reflective glass and can you send it to my sister in Canada, oh and can you do it in two days because we forgot her anniversary and can you…. Customers at this level are paying much more and so demand much more. Are you prepared to deliver this kind of service? What does delivering this level of service mean to you in terms of cost. Cost in both cash terms and in terms of your time?

I am sorry there are no clear answers here, just facts. Cold, hard, facts. If you do decide to go for premium pricing because you feel your images are truly worthy then you need to back this up with premium service, superb quality prints on archival materials delivered with premium packaging. It is no good sullying the image you are building with shoddy communications and packaging. Everything has to reflect the fine art photographer image you aspire to.

A lot will depend on your needs. Are you just looking for the warm glow of knowing someone likes your image enough to pay you a few bob for it and perhaps earning a few quid each month to keep you in memory cards? Or Are you looking to go semi-pro? Not giving up the day job, but wanting to run a small business alongside your day job to bring in a serious contribution to kit or mortgage? Or is your plan to go pro? become a full time photographer? The answer to this question will help you decide on the pricing route you take.

I wish you well in your decision. Whatever that is, why not consider joining me for my ‘making Money From Your Photography’ workshop where I will help you do just that, whatever model you decide to follow? Get in touch with me for details via the ‘contact us’ page on my website.

Review of Epson R2880 & ColourMunki Calibration System

Posted on August 26, 2011 by - Gear Reviews

I am often asked what printer I use. Until a few months ago the answer was, ‘I don’t use a printer’. ( I do have a HP desk top printer but it is only suitable for document printing ). I have always shied away from the complex matter of profiles, calibrating, papers and inks. It just seemed too much hassle. So much easier to upload the files to Loxley Colour in Glasgow and receive the prints a few days later.

I then did a workshop with Scott Kelby and he covered printing, calibrating, colour managed workflow etc in some detail. Scott mentioned that he used the R2880 and R3880 Epson printers and the ColorMunki calibrator. So all fired up, and feeling for the first time that I knew what I should be doing, I took the plunge and invested in the R2880 and ColorMunki.

The set up for both was quick and painless. The ColorMunki set up involves loading the drivers and software and then running the simple calibration program. While it is one of the more expensive calibrators it is superb. it allows you to calibrate your monitor and if you wish to create your own paper profiles. You simply print a test chart and then swipe each strip of colours on the paper with the calibrator and this builds a bespoke profile for your printer, ink and that particular paper combination. So far I have only used it to calibrate the monitor (and the first time you do it, it makes a huge difference) and the software prompts you to recalibrate regularly (I have it set to prompt me to recalibrate every two weeks, although this is probably overkill – it only takes a couple of minutes so it is no burden).

The drivers for the R2880 load quickly and the printer runs a set up routine when you install the ink cartridges for the first time. One cartridge has to be swapped out depending if you are printing on gloss or matte paper. I don’t understand why both can’t be fitted permanently – something for the Epson engineers to sort out.

It has quite a large footprint so you need some desk space to cope with it. But the output tray and the top paper input support fold away into the printer and seal it up to protect against dust. This also means they don’t intrude into your desk space while you are not using it.

It comes with a roll feed mechanism, so you can buy your favourite papers on the roll and print panoramas. It takes all sizes from small envelopes up to Super A3 which is bigger than A3 and is better suited to the 3:2 aspect ratio of full frame DSLR sensors. Super A3 paper is about 13 x 19 inches in size and the printer prints close to the edge. Prints at this size look stunning and are perfect for framing to hang in most homes. I bought some Hanemhule A4 paper but have hardly used any, when you have seen your prints at Super A3 you won’t want to print A4 or 10 x 8!!!

I have been trialing Epsons Archival Matte paper for my colour prints (and next want to try Hannemhule (or however you spell it) 305gm PhotoRag paper. For my mono prints I have been using the stunning Ilford Gold Silk paper.

It was with trepidation that I set about printing my first image. I sharpened it with Nik softwares excellent output sharpened plugin for Lightroom. The monitor was calibrated with the ColorMunki. I had downloaded my paper profiles from the manufacturers for the R2880. I had set up Lightroom and Photoshop correctly for a colour managed workflow. It was time to press the print button.

Breath held, I waited for the paper to emerge. Grinning, I held the print up by my studio window because I could already see the reproduction of what I had on my screen was close to perfect. I had never seen prints of such quality outside of a high end gallery. Colours were faithful, prints were not too dark as they so often are when getting them back from a lab and mono prints are quite frankly, astounding. The R2880 has three black/grey cartridges and they deliver deep rich black and mono tones, especially on the Ilford paper.

I now have loads of my prints on the walls of my home and studio, gradually replacing the substandard prints from various labs that have been up for a while. I have also been printing for customers, their own images, as it is virtually impossible to get labs to print on anything but standard papers.

The K3 inks are as good as everyone says. They are expensive, although my local supplier delivers for free next day and charges around £7.80 per colour. With nine colours, it is not cheap, but the results are worth it. The printer monitors levels and warns you when a cartridge needs replacing, which is just a one minute job. I have always sent my empty HP cartridges off to charities for recycling but they won’t accept the Epson cartridges, although a student on one of my workshops tells me you can order envelopes from Epson themselves to send empty cartridges back to them for recycling (but no charities benefit from this which is unacceptable in my mind).

At £449.99 from Amazon (which is the best price I could find from a reputable supplier and I get free next day delivery) it is not cheap, but it is well engineered and produces results worth the cost. I am already lusting after the R3880. So I am now able to wholeheartedly recommend the R2880 and the ColourMunki.