You know I have always heard how life can imitate art.  Never meant much too me since in my mind as an average photographer, any art I created through my favorite hobby of photography was created from real life events or things that I had captured with my camera.  Well my opinion changed this week.  As I was hustling around trying to prepare our August 1st online news letter (sign up for it on the front page of our site), trying to pay all bills that will become due next week, trying to end and reward the winners of our “Sunset” photo contest all my mind could think of was vacation!  Yep, I am outta here for 5 days to visit my aunt & uncle and their generous offer to share the old family house at on of the most beautiful places on this earth, MARTHA’S VINEYARD!  The place where I captured my favorite image of my children to date, where I proposed to my wife at Gay Head , the place where I learned to fear the water like no other, the place where I saw them film JAWS.

Yes life is imitating art.  Shortly after telling a friend of mine that I was headed to the Vineyard, he said with a sly grin, “You have heard about the shark warnings in the area, haven’t you?”  I realized (with that  sudden rush over my body like the one Chief Brody felt when relaxing on State Beach and the first cries of a shark attack whizzed through the air) that yes I was taking my family to the same spot where I watched the movie JAWS being filmed. In 1974 I was pulled around by my grandmother to watch as many scenes being filmed as possible, including “the boy on the raft”.  We are going to the same island I saw the world premier of one of the most famous horror films of all time. Yes, I was going to the Vineyard as shark bait, and did I mention that it just happens to be “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel?  So do I take Mayor Vaughn’s approach and act like nothing is wrong? or do I take the Chief Brody approach and stay out of the water and avoid my family spilling out all over the town dock like the little Kitner boy?  I guess the heat will be the deciding factor, because after record temperatures in both June and July in the Carolinas, I am looking forward to a little Vineyard chill.

If I listen to Chief Brody, one thing is certain, I will have my camera in tow and capture as many images of this beautiful spot as I can.  I will eat Ice Cream, skip stones on light house beach, and think about the 5 generations of my family that have done the same activities before me.  I can not wait for this vacation!  So when life throws you to the sharks, do what I do… take lots of pictures, and have them developed at Mastercolor using our ROES software.

Yesterday I had a good friend of mine stop by our location to pick up a nice order he had placed for Canvas Gallery Wraps of his children. My friend had ordered 29 16×20 or larger to decorate his house with, and after my many grateful thanks, we talked about the pictures he had captured and some of the problems we had in printing them.  When he initially emailed his files to me, many were low resolution, so we had to track them back to the original files.  Others were GREAT shots of his children, but they were shot too tight to allow for the gallery wraps, so we were forced to apply a colored border for the edges of the prints so we did not wrap the subjects of the prints. (see example below)

My friend told me he was excited to hang these prints down at the beach, the same location many of the prints were taken, and I told him to prepare for his future prints and his Christmas Cards.  My buddy is also nice enough to allow Mastercolor to print his Holiday Card each year, and in each year we run into the resolution problems, and the cropping problems so I told him to PREPARE for them.

After my friend left I found myself singing the annoying song from “HOODWINKED”, “Be Prepared” in my head.  This cartoon was a constant at my house two years ago, and my kids pulled it out this past Memorial Weekend when my they took a break from the sun and the quick rain shower one afternoon.   As you can tell from the song title, the theme of this song is to “be prepared”.  So how does this relate to a Blog on a photography website?  Well most of the prints you see displayed at a family’s home are from their summer vacations, or activities that they did outside when the weather was nice.  Of course there is the random “snow” picture or “leaves from Fall ” but the majority of the prints people save and later use are taken in the summer, so BE PREPARED.

Be prepared to use these images later.  Be prepared means backing them up properly (see my earlier blog), but in a nut shell :

1. save your original files twice a month (minimum) from your camera’s card to your computer.
2. Copy those files to a external hard drive,
3. and for the really cautious, burn your files annually to two sets of DVD’s and keep them in separate locations.

I know this sounds over the top, but explain that to another friend of mine who recently lost his hard drive.  His I.T. person compounded the problem and erased what little data there was, and now he is left with only his hard copies.  Which brings up a very valid point, PRINT YOUR PICTURES, and if you do we hope that you will upload your files to Mastercolor using our ROES software.

Be prepared when shooting your images. With digital photography it is so easy to crop when printing so PLEASE, take two steps back before you capture your image, I promise with today’s cameras you will not lose any of your resolution on your print  when increasing your field of capture this little bit.  Taking two steps back when shooting  will allow you to  create the extra space needed when framing, allow for the area needed for a Giclee Canvas Wrap, allow you to position and crop in your Holiday card, and overall create a more eye pleasing photograph.  Please keep in mind these basic tips are not for professionals, just those wanting to shoot like one.

Be Prepared means, TAKE YOUR CAMERA WITH YOU!  If you don’t have a camera to capture the fun memories as they happen, it will be hard to share them later with your friends and family.  Look for our end of the Summer Holiday Card special.  For a limited time you will be able to save 25% on our already low prices on folded cards.  Don’t wait for the seasonal rush, have your cards printed in advance and save on time, frustrations and MONEY!

“Be prepared, be prepared….. unless you gotta sparrrrrreeeeeee”

It is the single most common mistake we see when new photo editors start playing with their images.  Let me start by saying ” I don’t blame them”, whenever you bump up the contrast is makes your image burst of the monitor.  The adjustments to your new file will also “burst” off the page, literally.  One of the biggest short comings in this digital photo world we live in is that your printed matter will never match your monitor perfectly.  As printers we can get very close but nothing will every have the brilliance in illuminated colors like you see in your monitor, and transparencies are the next closest thing.  However, most of us do not have large light boxes on the walls of our home to display our prints.  Let’s get back to the problem at hand:  Adjusting your contrast will really brighten your picture on the screens and give your image that pop and look as to be razor sharp, but what it really has done is made the lighter areas lighter, and the darker areas darker, and the mid tones are forced to go one direction or the other.  The final result with all of this is typically “hot spots” or areas that look pure white, and what has really happened is that when you turned up the contrast you have taken what little digital information there was in the lighter areas and thrown it away, “POOF” they are gone, and once you have saved the file this way, there is no bringing them back, even if you try decreasing the contrast after you have received your unsatisfactory prints. If you have Photo Elements or Photoshop there is a video here showing me editing the same images listed below: http://www.mastercolorcanvas.com/helpfulvideos.html It is really very simple to do this adjustment:

1. Open your original file in Photoshop
2. Go to “Image” on your tool bar and scroll to “Adjustments”
3. Select “Levels” and the histogram of your color balance will appear

Once your “Levels” control panel is open it is simple to make the adjustment that will give your image that extra snap, but yet maintain the “hot” or heavily lit areas of the photograph.  Notice your Histogram looks like a “wave”.  Start by simply moving the triangle under the right side of the histogram to the left so that it is just inside the “wave”, next do the same with the left side triangle, moving it to the right so it is just inside the wave.  The left side of the histogram represents the dark tones of the image and the right side the lighter tones.  After you have done the extremes, move the triangle in the middle to adjust the mid tones.  You can play with moving each and then clicking the “preview” square in the bottom right corner.

The histogram above is not a perfect model, the perfect histogram will resemble  more of a “bell curve”, but the sample above does show that even in a really dark picture you can bring back the detail in most areas that were dark, but yet not “blowing” out the white areas.

If you use this method of correction, I know you will be happier with the results!

“Charles, I am thinking of getting a new digital camera.”  I hear this a lot from friends.  Other times  I have the chance to print an order that they have sent to us and I tell them ” You need to get a new digital camera”.  I guess since I am on the processing side of the photo industry some of my closest friends think I am a Camera expert, well the Camera experts are gone.  You can thank everyone’s thrifty nickel for that.  You now are pretty much stuck buying it from a part time clerk at Walmart, or Costco, or trusting what you read from the discount houses online.  What I do know now is that all the cameras have improved.  A few years ago you could have bought a lemon, but today… I say go with what’s in you budget.

Let’s talk about “point and shoot cameras”, because SLR’s are out of my league and my advice there will always  be “go with Nikons ” cause down the road you will be buying lenses and I like Nikon Lenses the most. So what to look for in a point and shoot?

And after you take all these wonderful pictures, please send them to Mastercolor for processing.

C Wright

One of my favorite parts of owning a small business is having the chance to work with Friends.  I love having the chance to buy from my friends and I love the opportunity to supply to my friends.  A friendly face can make a difficult business decision that much easier.  My friend Joe Michel built this website 13 years ago.  Well at least he built the original, and since has reconstructed it many times to update our technology through his company, www.itworxonline.com.  He has me “tweeting” on Twitter.com, I’m now on Facebook communicating with old friends and new business relationships, I’m linked in at linkedin.com, and we are ready to start hosting contests and share photo images through Flickr.com.  And you know what? It scares the life out of my chartering into new waters, but I have a friend by my side leading my through it, and that makes me feel better.

I also enjoy the other side of this friend/business relationship.  Every year I see friends scrambling to get their families “perfect card” together for the Holidays.  Everyone has to have the best Holiday Card you know.  Looking at familiar faces growing up on the Christmas Cards in front of me, the cards Mastercolor printed really gives me great joy.  I wish everyone would come in early November rather than December 15th, but hey, take what they give ya.

Most recently I have had the chance to work with some very old friends of mine:

Brian Rightsell and his wife Kelly and their company, www.kellyrightsell.com.  Brian has been a friend of mine since long before our days at Page High School, and I am excited to be a part of his business plan now. We do some printing for Brian and Kelly in various formats, and it is fun to see their creative designs and listen to their ideas.  Heck, Brian is the one who pushed me into developing MastercolorCanvas.com that will be used by those only looking for gallery wrapped canvases, a product that is exploding in our industry.  Kelly’s love of children and all their spirit can really  add to your child’s room.

Little Boys Make Noise

I also get the chance to  produce for Nancy B. Westfall.  There is not much I can say more about “B” other than I have always loved her like a little sister.  From our days at Greensboro Day School, to best friends at the University of Georgia, and then she even followed me to New York City (you know how little sisters follow), and here I am now reproducing her beautiful artwork for her and watching her business grow.  Look at her work at www.squishme.com, her talent and creative spirit can really add some “fun” to your home decor.  Check out her popular print:

Yeah work is not always the best thing in life, but it sure makes it better when you get to experience it with friends.

C. Wright

Well Mastercolor and it’s 33 year old body is moving in with the new generation.  We recently signed up on Twitter, and joined Facebbok a few months back.  It’s hard to see & track where this is helping our business, but we do have people from time to time say the found us through these internet networks.  On Facebook we have run a number of Internet specials on Canvas Gallery Wraps, and we will be offering more on assorted digital prints, so sign up to follow Mastercolor on both Twitter and Facebook.  Let us know your thoughts and what you would like to see as specials.

It seems whatever digital camera you buy, there will be an editing software included.  Many of these softwares will also point you on the direction to where you can host your images, or have them printed.  Wonder why they give this away free?????  Because, if you chose the easy route of locking into their software, you have done exactly that, locked yourself in unless you save your files on your computer or external storage.

Most us these storage sites or printing houses store your files for free, but then only let you access the images in a much smaller format UNLESS you are buying from them.  We run into this issue constantly when we are printing Holiday Cards, Giclee Prints or even simple digital prints or enlargements.  I am not saying to avoid these services, but make certain you back up your files so that you have a copy of them at their original files size, and not the 900k file that they are quick to share.

• Whenever I am clearing my card I simply transfer my files to a new folder on my desktop, a folder that I either tittle by the event that I just took or by the date of the transfer.  Storing files by date can really help find an image down the road when you need it.  Folders that contain your files at their original resolution as jpegs or tiff files can easily be uploaded to our ROES Software.  Then when your files are transfered to us through the ROES software, we will receive them at the digital print size requested @ 300dpi.  Use the ROES software to order Giclee Prints (Gallery Wrapped or flat art work), folded note cards, or any size digital photograph ranging from 30″x40″ down to simple wallets.

• Once you have your files on your desk top in your new folder, save them to your Hard Drive in a Master Folder, and the master folder can be divided into sub folders named by the month they were created.  Once the year ends, put all these files in a Yearly folder.  I know this sounds simple, but one of the most frequently asked questions we receive at Mastercolor is what is the best way to store my files?

• Always back-up your files, either to to CD or DVD, and also to an external hard drive.  Can you tell I am paranoid about losing my files?  You would be amazed by the number of customers Mastercolor has had that come in ready to build a photo album of all their children’s memories, or order a portrait, but only have the 900k files they downloaded from their free hosting site or they have lost them due to a “dead computer”, or that they just do not know where their files are saved.  They ask how we can help, and the only thing we can offer is our sympathy.

Please back-up your files.

C.Wright