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… you heard me.

Before you lay down the cash on your next lens consider purchasing something that will make your images look better.

The device pictured above is one of the many monitor calibrators that are out there today. I included a picture of the ColorMunki by X-Rite and it is my personal favorite. The ColorMunki is affordable (under $400) and not only allows you to calibrate your monitor, your projector and even your printer as well. This is great because you are ensuring that your images are accurate from capture (use a gray card) to your screen and finally to the print. What you see is definitely what you get.

So why am I stressing a monitor calibrator over getting that new camera or lens that you have been drooling over? Simple. I want your past, present and future images to look good. Chances are that your monitor is not properly calibrated so all the images that you have been editing on it are probably way off from what their true colors should be. They may look good to you on the screen but wait until you get a print back of one!

Here’s the nitty gritty details on why you should calibrate your monitor:
All computer monitors are not created equal. The settings and colors are pretty out of whack by default. The big problem comes down to when you are editing your pictures. Say you used a gray card and took a properly exposed image using an accurate white balance setting… Great. However, you may get back to your computer and the image will appear too cold or too warm. Definitely not how you saw it on your camera’s LCD… So you have no worries and make the image warmer or cooler and then send it off to print.

When you get the print back it is totally screwy and the colors are WAY too cool or WAY too warm. Must be your camera right? Time to get a new one… WRONG!

It is because your monitor was fooling you into thinking your image was incorrect. You over compensated when you shouldn’t have and the only way you can tell is in your print.

A monitor calibrator ensures that this does not happen anymore. All you have to do is re-calibrate your screen every month and you should be all set and on your way to better looking pictures.

A monitor calibrator will prevent your images from looking like crap! See, back in the film days, your photo lab would process and develop your film for you. They were your post-processors and you didn’t have to do a thing. With digital, WE are each on our own. Now if you don’t have a monitor calibrator then you have not been

Today’s article is more advice than anything else. One thing I wish I knew when starting my photography business was “LESS IS MORE.” Now, what do I mean by this?

I always tended to show more images to my clients then what was really good for the both of us…

You are really doing both of yourselves a favor when you show less images. On one side, YOU don’t have to finish editing as many images and that means you can save yourself time which is huge. You can also take that extra time and do a real nice job on the images that you DO show. Now YOUR CLIENT doesn’t have as many images to choose from and it makes it easier for them to pick their favorites. Do them the favor of not having them juggle between two similar faces or poses. Get it done before the viewing session and your clients will spend more time buying and less time choosing.

You are also shooting yourself in the foot if you aren’t doing viewing sessions…. I will save that for another time though. That’s all I have to say for today.

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy and be inLIGHTin’ed.

As photographers, there is a lot that goes into making an image look good in post-processing and The Internet is a great way to showcase these images. Unfortunately, many photographers end up posting their stunning images on the web only for them to look like garbage. Here are some helpful tips on how you can keep the “wow” factor of your images alive so the world can see what you are seeing.

1.) CHANGE YOUR COLORSPACE: Many forums tell you that you should set your camera up to shoot in AdobeRGB so your camera can capture a wider gamut of color which is 110% true. I tend to shoot in AdobeRGB myself and send my images over from Lightroom into Photoshop as 16bit ProPhoto RGB files for even more colors. However, when I save my image to the web, I always make sure that I drop my file down to 8 bits (in Photoshop: Image > Mode > 8 bits/channel) and convert my colorspace to sRGB (in Photoshop: Edit > Convert to Profile… > sRGB). The reason for dropping down to 8 bits is that you don’t need that extra overhead in your files when showing them online. Remember, the internet is a fast paced world so no one wants to take forever and a day to sit and wait for an image to load your website. The reason for converting over to sRGB is a much more essential thing to do. See, just like anything, the internet has standards. However, that doesn’t mean that every web browser follows them exactly. For example, Mozilla Firefox looks at each image file and checks the colorspace and it can read either AdobeRGB or sRGB. Internet Explorer is special in the fact that it just assumes that all files are in sRGB and if they are not, then IE displays them as such…

This means that when you look at your AdobeRGB image in IE then you will see the colors are off kilter and the image looks yucky. Saving in sRGB just ensures that everyone can play nicely no matter what web browser a viewer is using.

2.) RESIZE THE IMAGE: A lot of people who know HTML tend to upload the full sized image to their website or blog and then use their HTML programming skills to shrink the image to fit. An example of how this may be done is:

< .img src="fileLocation.jpg" width="33.33%" height="33.33%" .>

However, the browser still has to load that large file and then it has to resize the file in the web site to 33.33% of the original. Not all browsers may handle this properly so you may end up with a real long and thin image or a short and stumpy one that is skewed. By actually saving a new file that is re-sized to fit your content window, you will notice smaller file sizes and will not have to worry about how the browser may mess with your image.

3.) SHARPEN FOR THE WEB: This is a real biggie to get your files to pop. Sharpening is something that can easily be overdone but it is something that must be done at various image sizes. Therefore, when you shrink your huge 12 or 21mp image down to 700px or so, you will need to then re-sharpen. Remember, a little goes a long way. What you are looking for is a point where you start to see a black rim around your subject and then back it off a pinch to where the edge is not as pronounced.

4.) SAVE FOR THE WEB: In Photoshop, select File > Save For Web & Devices. A new pop up window shows up and gives you the ability to optimize and tweak your image for a proper balance between image quality and file size. This can be done by moving the Quality Slider until you see a file size that is manageable. In this age of high speed internet, a 150-200kb are nothing to load.