Article © 2018 by Jenna Caplette, with tips from the staff of
F-11 Photo & The Print Refinery™
You’ve captured some great digital images. Now what? Here are the next steps you should take:
First, save the images from your camera to your hard drive. Its best to use a card reader to download pictures from your camera’s memory card. If you have to use the camera itself, be sure the batteries are new, fully charged, or use an AC adapter. Then, save your images to your computer’s hard drive or other media. Don’t put a card with edited images back into the camera.
To extend the life of the memory card you just popped back in to your camera, here are some basic tips:
• Always turn the camera off before inserting or removing the card.
• Never remove a card from the camera or turn the camera off while it’s accessing the images.
• Never force a card into a slot.
• Protect your card from dirt, static and moisture. There are some great, safe, storage options available.
• Use only the camera you are shooting with—not the computer or another camera—to format the card after you’ve successfully downloaded and saved the images to your computer. Do format instead of using delete all.
At least twenty percent of digital images that have been taken have been already lost because they weren’t properly saved, backed up and printed. Ideally, you should have three copies of every image you take. One on the computer hard drive where you can access it and use it, one on archival media stored in a dark, dry place, and a third stored far enough away from your home so that in the event of a natural disaster, your images are still safe.
One of the easiest ways to take care of the off-site storage is to use a Cloud service. You can utilize a free photo sharing site like that offered by Bozeman’s F-11 Photo & The Print Refinery™ or something like Drop Box to accomplish the same thing. Make sure you can upload files in their original size, that you can access them when you want to and you can easily download them. Make sure that you keep your contact information up to date, as most services require you to log in from time to time so they know you still want your images.
Choose your best images and have prints made. Don’t wait until you’ve had time to come up with the perfect version. Let yourself enjoy sharing them while your memory of taking the shots is still fresh.
If you don’t use software that helps organize your images for you like Adobe Lightroom or Apple Photos, think through how you’ll look for them. Create a system for naming folders that makes sense to you and that will continue to make sense twenty folders—or twenty years down the line. For a visit to a friend’s ranch from this month, this year, you might name that “ranchvisit2018_02.” When you have a system like this, you’ll be able to find the images you are looking for. If you use discs, label them the same way. Remember to make incremental back ups of everything, including edited and unedited files. Don’t just store them on the hard drive.
To recap these basics: take care of your memory card. Organize your image files on your computer. Download your images and immediately make back ups. If you use discs as part of your backup plan, make sure they are archival quality, not cheapies that will rot. M-disc is currently the most archival product made.
Getting organized can be a challenging process but once you have a system, the task of downloading and editing images becomes far less daunting.
Stuff happens. When it does, having proper back ups and printed images makes all the difference.
Archive the Art Cave
Save the school year and your sanity!
Wednesday is the day my grade schoolers come home with a week’s worth of completed assignments. I hate Wednesdays. That’s not true; I love to see their work, talk about what they’ve been up to, and get a glimpse inside their school-brains. But after that I’m left with a stack of guilt. I can weed out the spelling tests and math homework but it’s tough deciding which stories and drawings to keep. The more I save, the less confident I am that I’ll ever really look back on all of them. This conundrum occurs weekly. By the end of the year, I have one large drawer-full and at least one unwieldy stack of each child’s projects. We refer to that section of the office as the Art Cave because they rarely see the light of day after entering. I can’t store these forever but I’m not about to throw them out. So how do I archive the art cave?
I don’t put them in scrapbooks if that’s what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t make it past page two. If you’re on that level, my hat’s off to you. I digitize them and, here’s the important part, store them in an organized, backed-up vault. If that sounds daunting, let me put in other words; I take pics of them with my iPhone. Here’s the process:
I still save a few of the actual projects, but after digitizing them, most can go away. Yes, in the garbage. I know it’s difficult. But I need that space to store the children who will be home all day long once school’s out.
Garage Sale Gold
It’s that time of year again! I can already smell the must. Yard sales are popping up around the neighborhood. I’m not much of a picker; I have plenty of my own old stuff already. But I can’t pass up a great old camera or photo trinket. I’ve probably made more bad buys than good but since even the non-working ones look good on my shelf, it’s a win-win. Here are some things I’ve picked up along the way that might help you avoid rummage sale remorse.
And finally, know that you may not find much. In the context of most household sales, camera equipment usually claims coveted prices and even though sellers want to get rid of them, they tend to over-value. Negotiating is key and usually part of the fun. But walking away, especially from a stubborn seller, can be just as satisfying.
How to discover the shutterbug inside a six-year-old.
How to discover the shutterbug inside a six-year-old. Like most grade school aged children, mine own tablets and can swipe my phone faster than a New York City pickpocket. But they rarely use the devices’ cameras. The most recent photo in either child’s camera roll? A series of 38 selfies with a blurry dog-looking thing from over four months ago. Other parents I’ve surveyed tell me this evidence is typical. We assume they haven’t yet developed an interest in photography. When they do, the device with a camera is ready and waiting.
But if you’ve ever handed an actual camera to a kindergartner, for example, you know there’s more to it. And the older the camera, the better. One with a viewfinder and no screen really gets the gears turning. After they realize what it is (and that there are no games on it), the purpose sinks in. They discover a different tool that invokes a whole different curiosity.
Here’s how I spawned the shutterbug inside a six-year-old boy. I’d keep an old digital camera handy and anytime we left the house, I’d set it in the back seat. He couldn’t not pick it up and within a couple weeks he was taking it out of the house of his own accord. Sure, that was usually when his other device was off limits, but I say any interest counts. Sometimes, he’d take 38 pics of the seatback out of boredom. But often he’d take real pictures. And he got better fast. I’d watch as he would stop, compose, capture, and retake until he found an angle he liked. The results were far more thoughtful than anything he’d shot with an iPad. I didn’t try to explain the menu or functions unless he asked so he discovered most on his own and now frequently uses exposure compensation to improve a shot.
Since then, I’ve let him wrangle my DSLR, complete with a gigantic vertical grip attached. It’s obviously cumbersome but he knows what he’s doing and, more importantly, why he’s doing it. The pictures he takes are important to him and although most are viewed on his device and shared between family, a select few have found fame on his older brother’s blog. I think we’ll venture into printing soon.
I’m not surprised that he’s become a pretty good photographer. I’m surprised that maybe he already was. Sometimes all it takes is the right tool.
Fb/Insta
How to discover the shutterbug inside a six-year-old.
#kidsneedcameras #youngphotog #camerakiddo
Five Ways To Fauxlaroid
Five Ways To Fauxlaroid
Mine was a Polaroid® One-Step. A black plastic behemoth with a shutter button the size of my whole thumb. And that was the smallest part. Things were big in the ‘90s but this whole thing was obtuse compared to the refined 35mm cameras it sat next to. And while 35mm counterparts were capturing sleek, wide images with a 3:2 ratio that could yield beautiful color prints of all sizes, this thing would spit out one squarish frame of mud. But then came the magic. The print would develop in my hand. Checkmate. That’s how Polaroid cemented itself in our hearts as instantly as it captured each emotion. For all the science behind the technology, it was the magic that we’d come to love.
If you didn’t go for Polaroid back in the day, don’t worry. You can rediscover the format or recreate the iconic look easily.
First, there’s The Impossible Project, a movement to resurrect the Polaroid film factory and sell refurbished Polaroid cameras to an enamored following. You can buy Impossible® film and cameras manufactured to near-original specs right now.
There’s also a new original Polaroid from Polaroid Originals® (these company names are uncanny). The OneStep2® is a slightly more compact, an updated version of the iconic OneStep that still uses the familiar 600-type film. No frills, all retro.
And, while not Polaroids by design, the Fujifilm® Instax® line has successfully cornered the instant market since its introduction a decade ago. There are original, square, and mini formats, a complete line of cameras, and an instant printer to liberate images from your device.
Speaking of devices, did you know there’s a Polaroid smartphone? It doesn’t make polaroid pictures so we won’t get into it. But for any device, there is, of course, an app for that. The Polaroid® Instant Mobile App lets you snap or import a pic and apply the timeless Polaroid format complete with captions scribbled on the border. Available for Android, iOS, and Mac. Unlike actual Polaroids, you can share as many copies as you’d like.
Of course, for the trillions upon trillions of digital images captured via other means that will never know the familiar frame of the beloved Polaroid, we call upon the magic of Photoshop. Easy as:
Actual dimensions, for you purists: https://support.polaroidoriginals.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012363647-Polaroid-Originals-photo-dimensions
A batch action for, for you power users, (credit: Maximilian Janicke via Deviant Art): https://rawimage.deviantart.com/art/Polaroid-GENERATOR-V2-118854065
Finally, for the absolute easiest way to fauxlaroid any image, order polaroid-style prints from any device online or in-store with us! That’s right, any selfie or mobile snapshot can be output with the same iconic white border just like the real thing.
#instantlove #instantstyle #polaroid #fauxlaroid
Action Photography Tips + Tricks by Photo Instructor/ Digital Imaging Guru
Action Photography Tips + Tricks by Photo Instructor/ Digital Imaging Guru
Article © 2018 by Jenna Caplette, with the expert assistance of Kathy Eyster, a member of the instructional staff at Bozeman’s F-11 Photo & The Print Refinery™.
Here’s the deal with photographing action: if you don’t get it right, you can’t fix it later with Photoshop. Out of focus is out of focus. Use these practical tips to get great action photos even with a point and shoot camera from photo instructor and digital imaging guru Kathy Eyster:
• Choose the “sports” mode or a similar setting that uses a fast shutter speed.
• Shoot in “continuous” shooting or “burst” mode. You’ll get as many frames as your camera can take for as long as you hold the button down, increasing your odds of getting a great picture. Your flash usually won’t fire in these modes, so this may not stop action in low-light situations.
• Photographing the action closest to you will give you the best shots.
• Use a technique called “focus lock.” Imagine you’re at a race and you want to photograph your sister crossing the finish line. The finish line isn’t going to move. Set your camera up and frame the shot that you want to get using the finish line as your point of focus. Hold the shutter button halfway down and then shoot just as your sister crosses the line. This allows the camera to pre-focus
on the spot where the action will be giving you a crisp, clear image.
• Anticipate the action and start shooting ahead of time.
• Try a technique called “panning.” Follow your subject with your camera, keeping the subject in the same spot in the frame. Your subject should be traveling left or right or vice-versa, rather than moving toward you or away from you. When a cross-country skier glides by, focus on the skier and press the shutter in continuous shooting mode. The skier will be sharp and the background blurry, expressing speed.
A large part of action photography is timing, which requires observation and strategy. The more you know about the pattern of activity, the better your images will be. However, it’s difficult to both watch an event and photograph it. If you decide to photograph, prepare to take a lot of pictures. Pack a spare battery and an extra memory card so you don’t run out of power or space on your memory card before the event ends. You’ll take hundreds of pictures and you’ll get a few you like. Toss the bad images, celebrate the good ones. Print. Repeat.
Be sure to visit Eyster’s helpful website for more tips you can use every day: Kathy Eyster Blog
How to Create a Killer Slideshow Your Family Will Enjoy
Gather your family, grab some popcorn and have a box of tissues ready. Creating a beautiful, impactful slideshow is a fun project for anyone who loves photography! But deciding which photos to include, and how to sequence pictures for maximum impact, can be a time-consuming challenge. As you choose and arrange photos for a slideshow, imagine you’re writing a story. But instead of using words to tell the story, you’re using pictures to tell your story. Look through your photo library and try to find the following eight types of pictures. As you make your selections, ask yourself, “does each of these photos work together to tell the story? So now let’s dive in and learn how to create a slideshow that will make your family cry – tears of joy!
Pro tip: consider dividing photos up into chapters or themes. This will make the task of sequencing much more intuitive. As you group photos together, the best sequence for maximum emotional impact will become clear. Just make sure to bring a box of Kleenex when you debut your slideshow to your family!
Now that you’ve learned the eight types of photos to include in an album or slideshow, you’re ready to tackle creating a slideshow for your family.
Managing Digital Images on Memory Cards and Files
Article © 2018 by Jenna Caplette, with tips from the staff of
F-11 Photo & The Print Refinery™
You’ve captured some great digital images. Now what? Here are the next steps you should take:
First, save the images from your camera to your hard drive. Its best to use a card reader to download pictures from your camera’s memory card. If you have to use the camera itself, be sure the batteries are new, fully charged, or use an AC adapter. Then, save your images to your computer’s hard drive or other media. Don’t put a card with edited images back into the camera.
To extend the life of the memory card you just popped back in to your camera, here are some basic tips:
• Always turn the camera off before inserting or removing the card.
• Never remove a card from the camera or turn the camera off while it’s accessing the images.
• Never force a card into a slot.
• Protect your card from dirt, static and moisture. There are some great, safe, storage options available.
• Use only the camera you are shooting with—not the computer or another camera—to format the card after you’ve successfully downloaded and saved the images to your computer. Do format instead of using delete all.
At least twenty percent of digital images that have been taken have been already lost because they weren’t properly saved, backed up and printed. Ideally, you should have three copies of every image you take. One on the computer hard drive where you can access it and use it, one on archival media stored in a dark, dry place, and a third stored far enough away from your home so that in the event of a natural disaster, your images are still safe.
One of the easiest ways to take care of the off-site storage is to use a Cloud service. You can utilize a free photo sharing site like that offered by Bozeman’s F-11 Photo & The Print Refinery™ or something like Drop Box to accomplish the same thing. Make sure you can upload files in their original size, that you can access them when you want to and you can easily download them. Make sure that you keep your contact information up to date, as most services require you to log in from time to time so they know you still want your images.
Choose your best images and have prints made. Don’t wait until you’ve had time to come up with the perfect version. Let yourself enjoy sharing them while your memory of taking the shots is still fresh.
If you don’t use software that helps organize your images for you like Adobe Lightroom or Apple Photos, think through how you’ll look for them. Create a system for naming folders that makes sense to you and that will continue to make sense twenty folders—or twenty years down the line. For a visit to a friend’s ranch from this month, this year, you might name that “ranchvisit2018_02.” When you have a system like this, you’ll be able to find the images you are looking for. If you use discs, label them the same way. Remember to make incremental back ups of everything, including edited and unedited files. Don’t just store them on the hard drive.
To recap these basics: take care of your memory card. Organize your image files on your computer. Download your images and immediately make back ups. If you use discs as part of your backup plan, make sure they are archival quality, not cheapies that will rot. M-disc is currently the most archival product made.
Getting organized can be a challenging process but once you have a system, the task of downloading and editing images becomes far less daunting.
Stuff happens. When it does, having proper back ups and printed images makes all the difference.
Take back your photo collection once an for all!
This is the year you’re going to take back your photo collection
You’re going to conquer those boxes of photos before they fade away forever. You’re ready to future proof your old photo collection and organize your digital image archive, you’ve come to the right place. The right time is now. And we’re here to help (or just do it for you).
Three steps to taming the analog anarchy
1. Reduce
The first step is to weed out what you can’t keep. Remove duplicates, damaged prints, and non-photographic memorabilia. Throw them away. If there are trophies, drawings, newspaper scraps, etc that you’re not ready to throw away, place them in a different box to go through later.
2. Organize
Sort negatives, slides and prints into separate collections. Keep only the negatives that you’re prepared to print or scan. Keep albums that are complete and in good condition. If the inside pages are yellowing or cracking or have excess exposed adhesive, remove the prints and dispose of the empty albums.
Group prints by size and then sort chronologically. If you’ll be storing them again, you want to be able to label boxes or sections by time period. If you’ve saved negatives and slides, group them the same way, in envelopes or negative sleeves.
3. Save
Now is the time to consider scanning prints, slides and negatives that you want to archive or share. A good home scanner costs $200 to $800 and takes 30 to 90 seconds to scan a print, not including set up, cleaning, and post-processing like editing and saving. This is where our batch-scanning services shine. Our experts handle everything for you, often for less that it would cost to purchasing your own scanner. Either way, with the benefit of proper sorting and organization, you can now handle the scanning in manageable chunks. Be sure to save your scanned images in at least two places, one of which is in the cloud, which we’ll discuss next.
Clarifying the cloud
Where to store your digital images
Your digital photos should be organized in the same method as your hardcopies: chronologically. I prefer to name folders like this:
YYYY-MM-DD And Location or Event
They should all be stored on one drive that’s large enough to hold everything AND backed up to the cloud. For all but the most avid photographers, 1TB is adequate. That much storage costs $9.99 a month at any of the top three cloud storage services. Here’s how each one of them handles photos:
Taken in steps, even the most unwieldy photo collection, can be dealt with pretty painlessly. But if all or any part of this stresses you out, don’t fret. We handle all of this, very well, quite often, for people just like you. We’d love to organize, scan, archive, upload, and unlock a lifetime of memories for you and your family too!
Share-worthy shots for the holidays
The pictures we take during the holidays can be a bit mundane. We snap a couple of the family around the dinner table and a few during gift opening. But do you share those pictures? Do you look at them later? This year, get guaranteed share-worthy shots. Aim to capture the making-of moments and the craziness leading up to the actual holiday events. With a keen eye, you’ll be sharing photos over Christmas dinner instead of snapping the same old grins.
Insider Tip: Stage the scene by laying out albums and prints from holidays past. Capture new photos of the smiles they bring. Boom. You just started a new tradition.
Common holiday photo fails and where to point your camera instead:
THE INFAMOUS FAMILY SHOT
FAIL: We all line up for the firing squad and painfully hold a pose long enough for 41 clicks where everyone’s eyes are open in exactly none of them. Babies cry. Your brother’s rude gestures go unnoticed… for now. No one ever sees the photo.
WIN: Same as before except you also prop your phone up in the corner, out of frame, to video the whole ordeal. Maybe in time lapse if your photo sessions tend to run a little long. You know your family; bloopers are guaranteed. And this one, everyone wants to see.
THE BIG DINNER
FAIL: Everyone sits down. Half of us already have mouths full of food when you stand up to snap a few shots of togetherness. Mom is still in the kitchen. You can’t see your sister behind the turkey. Three cousins hide under the table. No one ever sees the photo.
WIN: Head into the kitchen 30 minutes before and start snapping. Heartwarming? Possibly. Hell broken loose? Maybe. Blackmail material for Easter? Hopefully. Who knows what really goes on in there? Now you do!
THE DECOR
FAIL: The tree is up and the house it lit. You wait until dusk to get the perfect shot and… what? The lights are too bright and the sky is too dark. It looks like a glowing blob in a sea of black. Try again tomorrow? Not likely.
WIN: Don’t wait until the decorations are up. If dad’s putting lights on the roof, there’s a 100% chance of a golden photo opportunity. It might be corny, heartwarming, hilarious, or just good documentation for the medics. Either way, you’ll get something worth sharing. Back inside, you know what happens when mom unpacks the ornaments you made in grade school: She cries. First photograph it. Next hug. Later, share. Cry, hug, repeat.
The good stuff happens where no one’s looking. Shoot behind-the-scenes and you’ll have the shots worth sharing. Happy Holidays!
What the HEIF Happened to JPG?
Apple’s latest bombshell is a whole new image format and you may already be using it. HEIF stands for High Efficiency Image File and it replaces the JPG format in iOS 11.
Where did this come from?
Apple adopted it as a better way to save ever more complex images from iPhones, beginning with iOS 11. But they didn’t invent it. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) did in 2015 and since it’s a universal standard, there will be lots of support for it. Photoshop® is already compatible.
Newer Apple devices already use HEIF and quietly convert to jpg when sharing with a platform that might not support it, like when attaching to an email. As for your old jpgs, they’ll stay that way. You’ll never need to convert them or use them differently than you do now.
Four Big Advantages
So, does this change everything?
Not at all. Existing formats like jpg, tif, gif, png and others aren’t going away. Each has strengths that will continue to suit their uses in a variety of capture and publishing platforms. When it comes to printing and sharing, we have no beef with HEIF either. Ordering high quality photo products from our website or in our store is just as easy as it is with a jpeg. If you do need to change a HEIF file to JPG, websites like aconvert.com can do it for free.
So, HEIF is here. But there’s nothing to fear. Mamma won’t take your jpg away.
If you have questions about saving, storing and printing your images, call us! Our experts are here to help.