Add Value and Substance to your Photography with Proofing

Many photographers today are used to burning a disc and handing it over to a client. In general it may seem like the thing to do, but in reality this practice marginalizes our industry. Anybody can burn a disc, Right? This practice is making photographers less professional and less significant. Why? Because you’re not giving your clients anything tangible. You may be giving them a disc of images, but they aren’t user friendly. Yes we are trying to cover our expenses, pay bills and have something leftover to show for our work, but we also need to justify our craft. For example, as Wedding Photographers, we are given the important task of documenting two families coming together. As part of this task, we have the obligation to give our clients something to look back on and enjoy at a family get-togethers etc. Proofs are a start, they are a tangible product that adds value to your services. Today there are several options for proofing that satisfy many budgets, from Weddingprints.com, to DVD’s, to Press-Printed Proofs, to Magazine Proofs and Individual Proofs. Proofs give your customer a beautiful presentation of your work, of their day, and also allows you to increase your sales by having your clients return to you for additional photographs. If you don’t want to deal with the additional work, let LustreColor print and drop ship your orders directly to your customers and keep revenues flowing. Offer value and substance over price, in the long run, you will have your studio name on more coffee tables, giving you another piece of marketing.

How LustreColor saved Christmas

I have been shooting professionally for over 20 years. Yes, the tools used today are different from that of yesteryear, but the holiday panic is still alive and well.  I got an email from LustreColor this past Fall informing me of a new shipping service, instead of sending my LabLinK Plus order back to me, they would ship the order directly to my client for a nominal fee, (for a true finished look, I always have my prints put in folders).  This makes the delivery time much shorter, especially during the holidays.  Phone calls I got on December 14 for prints, made it to their destination without pulling my hair out or having to go to the Post Office and wait in line.                                       Written by Scott Levine        

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

As photographers, our priority should be improving our technique behind the camera. Most photographers are now able to do more to an image than ever before. The realm of color correction is one area that can be a Black Hole. The time saved by having the lab, in my case LustreColor, color and density correct an event or portrait sitting is priceless. In the days of film, the lab was the expert in producing beautiful prints, and they still are. It is definitely enticing to open your photo editing software and start tweaking away, but this can be counterproductive. LustreColor has color corrected web proofing as well as print proofing. Check it out, and save some time to walk the dog or read the kids an extra book.

Balancing Flash with Artificial Light

In the old days, balancing the color temperature of flash with artificial light was less of an issue since both Fuji and Kodak print films did a fine job absorbing a percentage of both florescent (green) and incandescent (orange) light. Digital has given us tremendous control over our images, but it has also given photographers some new challenges. The digital chip is not so forgiving when it comes to mixed light sources. Flash is approximately the same as daylight (5000K-6000K), while Incandescent bulbs are very warm (2500K-3800K) and Florescent light has a green cast. Back to the control we now have with Digital. Most cameras allow you to set the color balance to the type of light you are shooting in. Daylight, Flash, Incandescent, and Florescent. For each of these, it is like having a built in color correcting filter in the camera. The real power is when you add a filter to the front of your flash to create the same color of light as the room you are shooting in. For example. If you are shooting in a room with incandescent lights, and you want to use a high ISO as well as drag the shutter, your color will be more consistent if you set your camera to Incandescent and place a Sto-Fen Gold Omni-Bounce on your flash. This will mimic incandescent light coming from your flash and the result will be a more pleasing background while maintaining good fleshtones. You are effectively creating one type of light source. For a room with Florescent light, you would set your camera to Florecent and use a Sto-Fen Green Omni Bounce. The Sto-Fen products are available for most hot shoe mount flash units. If you are using Lumedyne or similar type strobes, Rosco makes sheets of color correcting gels that will give you the same correction. For Incandescent, you would use a Rosco 3411, for Florecence, you would use a Rosco 3304. It may seem like a hassle, but the idea is that you control as much of your image before you press the shutter so that you have better looking photographs and less post production to deal with.