ALEX BUNTIN PHOTO: Blog

Clara's Portrait Session in Downtown Fresno

(ALEX BUNTIN PHOTO) — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 01:34:49 GMT

I had the pleasure of meeting this independent, caring, and funny professional Nurse earlier this month, and shooting some fun portraits here in Fresno. Clara was just looking for some new, trendy portraits of herself, and to get her mind off of work by doing something she enjoyed. She had dabbled in photography herself recently, but found she liked being in front of the camera more than being behind it. Here are the results of our fun afternoon shooting some urban portraits in downtown Fresno, CA!

Best Photoshop Settings for High Quality Edits

(ALEX BUNTIN PHOTO) — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 20:06:43 GMT

This article will walk you through how to set up Adobe Photoshop to get the highest quality files and the highest quality photo edits.

First let’s talk about our settings in Photoshop; specifically, the color settings. To adjust color settings in Photoshop, go to Edit -> Color Settings. When the dialogue box pops up, click the ‘More Options‘ button on the right to display all of your options. Make a note of your original settings (or save them as a preset by clicking the ‘save’ button on the right) in case you’d like to revert to them later. Next, change your settings to match these, paying special attention to the highlighted areas. (Note: Wondering about Color Space? I won’t get into the details of what a ‘color space’ is, suffice for now to say that ProPhoto RGB gives us more to work with than sRGB or Adobe RGB while we edit our photos in Photoshop. Screens and printers, however, cannot use this color space effectively, so before we print or upload, we’ll need to convert our images to sRGB).

COLOR SETTINGS

Now any time you open a file in Photoshop (File -> Open) that isn’t already in the ProPhoto RGB color space, Photoshop will bring up a dialogue box asking you what to do. Do this:

CONVERT

Select “covert document’s colors to the workshop space” and click “OK.”

Your document will open up and you’re ready to work! Make sure you do all of your work on separate layers (to create a new layer, go to Layer -> New Layer). This ensures your background layer is preserved it’s original state, so you can go back to it later if necessary. Keeping your work on separate layers allows for greater flexibility in your workflow and is always a good idea if you have enough storage space on your hard drives. In this example, the retouching was done on many layers, but then all of the retouching layers were merged together into one layer to reduce the file size of the final master file. The original layer remains untouched, as always. The downside of merging your retouching layers into one layer is that you can’t go back later and make little tweaks to each adjustment or retouch layer. The only upside is that your files will be smaller. When possible, it’s better to preserve all of the separate layers in your mater files.

SEPARATE LAYERS

If saving file space is a concern, and you are okay with the flexibility tradeoff of merging layers, go ahead merge them. To merge layers together, shift click or control click to select multiple layers, and then go to Layer -> Merge Layers in the menu (shortcut: Cntrl/command + E).

When you’re done with all of your retouching, it’s time to save your master file. Go to File -> Save As. First select the location where you’d like to save your master file, and then select the file type. Save your master file as Photoshop file(.PSD) as shown in this example:

SAVE AS

Now we’ll create a copy of that master file that we can use to make derivatives. Go to File -> Save As and save another copy of your mater file so we can use it risk-free. Give this file another name or an extension you’ll recognize later, and so it saves as a separate file from the ‘original’ Master file. We simply need an exact ‘copy’ of our Master so we can use it to safely make other files from.

Good. Now that your Master file is safe and sound and we’re working on a copy, let’s use the master copy to create a JPEG file that we can upload to the internet, send via email, etc. (Note: It’s very important that you convert your color profile to sRBG before saving a JPEG intended for standard uses like the web, etc. The ProPhoto color space we are working our Master files in is not suitable for normal purposes, so we must first convert to sRGB. Remember: Never skip step two!).

We’ll do this in 4 steps: Flatten, Convert Color, Resize, Save.

1. Go to Layer -> Flatten Image. You’ll notice all of your layers merge into one layer.

2. Go to Edit -> Convert to Profile. In the “Destination Space” drop-down box, select “sRBG IEC61966-2.1″ and click “OK.”

3. Go to File -> Automate -> Fit Image and enter 900 into both the width and height boxes. This will resize your image, making sure that the longest side is no more than 900 pixels long (or whatever other value you enter into both the width and height boxes). Note: You can tick the “Don’t Enlarge” button to keep from accidentally upsizing a small file.

4. Go to File -> Save As. In the dialogue box that appears, select where you’d like to save your file, and then select “JPEG” (.jpg) as your file type, and click “Save.”

You’re done! Go to File -> Close to close your master file copy. Photoshop will ask you if you would like to save your changes. Click “No.”

Want to speed up this process? You can create an Action within Photoshop to do these steps for you automatically! Stay tuned for a tutorial video on how to create your own Actions.

Glamor Model Photo Shoot: Hannah Orbik

(ALEX BUNTIN PHOTO) — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 19:55:35 GMT

I recently decided to start making slideshows from my shoots and uploading them to YouTube as a bonus for my clients who want them. Here are some photos from my last couple of portfolio shoots with amateur model Hannah Orbik. You can find more photos of Hannah at alexbuntin.com/hannahorbik

Getting Started with Stock Photography

(ALEX BUNTIN PHOTO) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 01:35:55 GMT

What is stock photography?

Stock photography refers to photography that has been created on speculation of later making a sale. The photographs are still marketed to buyers who need use of those photographs, typically for advertising and marketing purposes. These photographs are licensed based on one of two licensing models; royalty-free or rights-managed.

Stock photo by Alex Buntin

Stock Photo by Alex Buntin.

Royalty-Free vs. Rights-Managed

‘Royalty-free’ simply means that once the image is licensed, the licensee can use that image in an unlimited quantity and placement and for an unlimited term. In other words, the user has worldwide rights to that image for both physical and digital media, forever. You retain the copyright, but the licensee can pretty much do whatever they want with the image (as long as it isn’t pornographic or defamatory, usually).

Rights-managed means that the terms of usage set with the licensee are specific. These terms are usually customized to fit the licensee’s needs. For example, you might license an image to be used only in a print brochure, at a specific size, in a run of less than 10,000. Any additional usage the licensee might require later would then need to be negotiated separately.

The controversy surrounding microstock:

Is microstock a sustainable business model for photographers? Many photographers don’t think so. Clearly there are those who have made it work for them, but it’s the exception to make a full time income from microstock, not the rule. Many photographers believe that participating in the microstock industry undercuts the photography market in general. How do you feel about selling royalty-free rights to your images for as little as 10-20 cents each? What are some pros? What are some cons? What are some alternative options?

The sustainable royalty-free stock movement

These agencies, sometimes called ‘midstock’ agencies, pay higher compensation to photographers, but still operate on the royalty-free model. These licenses tend to cost the buyer upwards of a couple hundred dollars (sometimes less for web-only licenses), and a high percentage of that fee goes to the photographer. Many photographers are choose to go only this route. Others choose to put their less desirable image up for sale with microstock agencies, and put their higher quality images up for sale on higher paying sites or with traditional agencies. Two companies that fit this model are Stocksy and 500px Prime

Traditional stock agencies:

These agencies, sometimes called ‘macrostock’ agencies, are serious business. If you are an experienced photography with a vast, well-organized, and keyworded library of images, consider contacting a traditional agency. Examples are Getty Images and Alamy. More agencies can be found in the 2014 Photographer's Market.

Marketing your own stock

Sites like www.Zenfolio.com and www.S mugMug.com offer ways to license your work on a royalty-free commercial basis through your website. They also allow you to set your own price for these licenses. The downside? You have to market your work yourself and drive traffic to your website, or nobody will know your images exist. So, you should be into marketing (or have someone on staff who is) if you are going to go this route.

Regardless of where you build a website, you can always show your work online and let potential buyers know that they need to contact you in order to get an estimate for licensing an image based on the specific usage they need. You can professional software tools like FotoQuote to generate an ‘industry standard’ rights managed usage license and demand top-dollar for your work

Your business, or your hobby?

A lot of photographers market their work in the microstock industry simply because they enjoy photography (or perhaps they are a professional) and they just want to make a few extra bucks on the side by uploading a few images here and there in their spare time. On the other end of the spectrum, some photographers earn a substantial with stock photography as their career focus. Where do you fall on this spectrum? If you are interested in making stock photography part or all of your career, just like with any business, you should be very careful about tracking your expenses and income to enable you to better focus your resources and efforts as your business progresses.