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.

There is nothing better about getting together with old friends.  Last night I enjoyed some slices of wonderful pizza and a few beers with some of my best childhood friends at a new Pizza place here in Greensboro, The Corner Slice.  Excellent food at a great price, and you can read about it here.  Half of this group was in town for the High Point Furniture Market, and the rest of us were just out to see our old buddies.  Everyone was asking the typical questions about the important things in life, and soon it was my turn to answer “so how’s business?”  I was trying to finish my bite of pepperoni and black olive before the question was followed  up with a statement of “rolls of film sure made it easier than digital.”  My friend was making the point that because their first born came at a time when digital was still expensive, slow, and  of poor quality, they used 35mm film to capture their son’s early memories. “Catbird”, as we call him, pointed out  that when their second came along they bought their first digital camera, and as a result now have about 20% of the number of pictures that they do of their first child.

It really does not have to be that way.  Everyone points out to the fact that it was easy to drop off a roll and pick up you prints.  Like the roll makes you do it????  Well here is a news flash for you:

• Your old friend “the roll” could hold a maximum of 36 images.
• A 36 exposure roll would normally cost you  around $4.00.
• You never got your roll back, so $4 GONE.

Now let’s look at your new friend, the digital card:

• You can buy a 1G card for $6.00.
• Your 1G card should hold between 150-400 images
• After you have your prints printed, store your files on your computer, and REUSE!

Now days your card is just like a roll of film, just leave it with the store, and pick it up with your prints. There was a risk when cards use to cost $40, heck even if the lab lost it on your second visit you have still saved money. The one down fall is that you are required to move old files to your computer so that they are not printed over and over again, and it really is not a shortfall because it is forcing you to store your images.

All the time and gas money can be saved  by ordering your prints from home.  I know most feel this is too complicated and they just are not comfortable doing this, but I promise if you do it once, you will never view ordering prints as a frustrating experience again.  There are two types of online ordering.  The first is the most common and is the method most of the big photohouses use to sell their services.  Most online companies have you load all of your images so you and the hundreds of friends and family members that want your vacation pictures (roll eyes) can order from them.  This type of uploading takes what seems like forever.  Come home from a few days at Disney and upload your pictures and I can promise that you will not be using your computer on the internet for a while.  Mastercolor has chosen not to go the shareware route, and we use ROES for receiving images from our customer.  The major difference it that your images are uploaded at the end of your order.  Only the images you wanted are uploaded and this cuts down on uploading time.  You can upload through ROES from the disk or card directly, but this is slower than uploading from a created folder on your desk top.  Another advantage to having them in a folder is that it forces you to back-up your images and store them on your computer.  The same number of images typically will upload between 30%-50% faster in ROES compared to “shareware” due to a compression software within the  ROES program.

Don’t make saving your family’s memories seem like a chore. On Roes you can create:

• Trader cards for your kids
• Canvas Gallery Wraps
• Panoramic Prints ( New special pricing starting May 1st)
• Story or Coffee table books
• Greeting Cards

Give us a call and we will walk you through your first ROES upload, it’s easy and it’s fun!

Please visit some of my previous Blogs on suggestions for storing your files:

“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

Mastercolor Labs is lucky to have established a nice market share on the internet, and usually the first question we are asked about becoming a customer is how is the best way to send orders to our lab, and the answer is simple: Remote Order Entry Service.  You will not find a faster uploading software on the internet.  It does not matter if you are ordering a 30 x40 digital photograph, or 1,000 8×10 units for school photography, the compression method the software uses is amazing.  After using the easy cropping tool in the ROES software it crops the image as you have selected and sends it to Mastercolor Labs at 300dpi at the size you requested.  No information is lost and the quality is the same as if Mastercolor was printing straight from your disk.

The ROES software also is perfect for creating Digital Wedding Albums, Canvas Gallery Wraps, Greeting Cards, Digital Proofing, or ordering a few simple standard prints.  All of our services are offered within the ROES Software, and since it is quick and easy, we normally are shipping your order within 1-2 business days.

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

At Mastercolor Labs we see thousands of different Christmas Cards each year, and every year we are asked “which picture should I use for my card.”  My answer is always, use the photos that show what your family is like in their every day life.  Sure everyone wants to look like a Norman Rockwell Painting, but the cards I remember the most are the funny cards with kids laughing, dogs facing the other way, babies crying, and parents looking frustrated.  Remember you are sending these to friends, and they already know AND like you (hopefully), so be yourself. Put you favorite files on your desktop in a folder and download our ROES Software, and start preparing your own greeting card.  Our ROES software allows you to order straight 4×6 or 4×5 prints, slimline cards (4×6 with a 2″ Greeting on the end), 5×8 deluxe custom cards or 5×7 folded cards.  The ROES software is easy to use, but feel free to call us for step by step instructions.  While you are on the ROES program, why not order a couple Giclee Gallery Wrapped prints?  The perfect photographic gift for the loved ones in your life.

Happy Holidays from everyone at Mastercolor Labs!

C.Wright