photo editing

Am I a Professional Photographer?

June 24, 2014 by info@3QuartersToday.com

What Do I Need To Be a Professional Photographer?

I love photography and I always seem to have a camera with me. But what is a professional photographer and can I call myself a professional? The answer is no. Even though I did get paid for two photography jobs in last year I can’t call myself a professional. Why? Keep reading and I’ll explain.

Harvest in Nebraska, Combines in the fields — Harvest in Nebraska

Three Things Needed to Become a Professional Photographer

How to transition from a hobbyist photographer to a professional takes guts. Which I don’t have. It also takes tenacity and time. So don’t quit your day job. There are a lot of myths about becoming a professional photographer and once your understand the reality of starting a full time photography business you might think twice.

BUT, if you are still reading here are my top three items you will need to start a photography business. Warning. Some of them are lumped together.

You will need a professional camera. Seriously! A Canon Rebel T6 is a good beginner camera for the serious photography hobbyist, in fact it’s a great camera. But to get the sharpness and clarity like you see in magazines, a full frame camera is needed. Second, education, read, read, read and read some more. Watch videos, take classes.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III 22.3 MP Full Frame CMOS Digital SLR Camera EF 24-105mm How to Become a Professional Photographer: An Essential Guide to Creating a Successful Career in Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras

What is a Professional Photographer?

So what is a professional photographer? In my opinion it is someone who earns their sole income by selling their photography services and prints. They pay taxes, they have insurance, and they rely on photography for their income. Just like any business there are marketing costs for advertising, business cards, and insurance.

There are fewer and fewer true professional photographers in the industry anymore. With the advent of easily accessible digital DSLR Cameras the profession has changed. I’m not here to discuss or debate whether this competition and change is a good or bad thing, just that it has happened.

Trust me I’m a Professional Photographer | Funny t-Shirt I’m A Professional Photographer – Adult Shirt

Many professional photographers have gone to school to learn composition, lighting techniques and studio photography. Many cut their teeth during era of film.

Even during the age of film photography, photographs were edited in the dark room with burning and dodging techniques. Post production work and photo editing is now is done in Lightroom and Photoshop. Photo editing is essential achieve the look and feel the photographer felt when viewing the scene in real life.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop CC + Lightroom) [Prepaid Card]

This photo below was taken over looking Chicago and Lake Michigan at midnight. I didn’t have a tripod with me and set the camera on a park bench for a long exposure shot. The result was crooked and due to the cold I didn’t have time to get the proper white balance in camera. In Lightroom I was able to straighten the horizon and adjust the lighting to what my eye remembered.

True photographers plan their shots, they don’t just happen.

This was a case of “knowing” and planning my edit ahead of time. My goal was a 2:1 panoramic print, so I shot wide to allow myself editing space. I took only two shots like this that night.

Digital darkrooms in the way of photo editing programs have become very available for anyone and software such as Photoshop and Lightroom are tools. When used the right way they enhance photos and the viewer doesn’t even know a photo has been “shopped”.

Photoshop CC Essentials for Photographers: Chelsea & Tony Northrup’s Video Book Lightroom CC Complete Training: Learn the Entire Photographers Workflow in the new Lightroom CC

However like all tools many people use them incorrectly and then photography becomes more digital art. That is fine, if the final work is presented in that fashion. The photo above of the Chicago skyline is a good example of photo enhancement done correctly.

Then Who is a Photographer?

Planning and execution is the difference between someone who is a photographer and a person who just takes pictures.

A photographer is anyone who takes their photography seriously and is always looking at ways to increase their camera skills and techniques. They read books, they read blogs, watch YouTube videos on post production in Lightroom and Photoshop to learn how to get the most out of their camera and their photographs.

If you are like me it’s hard to drive down the road without seeing a photographic opportunity. You’re spouse might just be tired of you saying “Stop, go back, I have to get a photo of that barn” (fence, sunset, cloud, cow, lamp post, etc…you get the picture)

A photographer thinks about their shot “before” they take it, taking into consideration composition, lighting, and cropping aspect ratio. A serious photographer takes their camera off Auto and learns to shoot in Aperture Priority or Manual.

If your goal is to improve your photography, if you find yourself reading every photographic technique article that comes across your Facebook news feed, and if you purposely seek out photographic opportunities to share them with a wide audience then you might be able to call yourself a photographer. It may be a just a serious hobby. But you are a budding photographer.

I Am a Semi-Pro Photographer

That would be where I fit in. I am a serious photographer who has a “normal” nine-to-five job and occasionally gets paid for photographic endeavors? Very occasionally. I don’t advertise, but I post my best photos on several sites and on Facebook. I also sell my photographs on FineArt America and recently on InstaProofs.

Me, I’m a a hobbyist photographer.

But, since many people see that I can take decent landscape photos they also assume I can also take portraits. I can’t, or let’s put it this way, I’m uncomfortable photographing people.

Yet in one month I finally said yes to two people who asked me to photograph events. I photographed my first graduation and my first wedding. So now I can officially call myself a semi-pro. Will I give up my day job? No. But I will shoot graduation again, maybe not another wedding, it took the Mother of the Bride two weeks to convince me to do this one.

More about my first job as a wedding photographer later, overall I enjoyed it. They were a fun couple who could NOT of taken a bad picture if they tried, and the camera loved them. I received many compliments and the images turned out better than I expected.

Do You Take Pictures or are You a Photographer?

Ask yourself these questions.

Do you love taking pictures of things that are dear to your heart and sharing snapshots of time?
Are you always creating images of friends and family during events and gatherings?
Is your phone filled with more selfies and Instagram photos than your DSLR?
Has your camera never left auto mode, or do you know how to shoot in manual?

If so you love to take pictures, and that’s okay. A picture is a snapshot in time that preserves a memory. We should all take pictures, it preserves our history and memories.

How to Photograph Concerts — Huey Lewis and the News

But becoming a professional photographer is so much more!

A professional photographer never stops learning about exposure, composition, and photography techniques. A professional photographer spends just as much time marketing, editing

Next Step in Becoming a Professional Photographer

Find a mentor, a physical person to shadow and photograph together. Work, plan, learn, and plan some more, create a business plan. Learn not only about the craft of photography, but the business side. Don’t undervalue your work. Don’t give your work, or skill away, or sell it for peanuts. Attend seminars, watch YouTube videos, and read books. Yes, books, the hard copy paper object with sheets of paper in between. Take notes in the margins, use it a business guideline.

Many of the books below are written or recommended by top professional photographers such as Ken Rockwell and leading photography websites such as Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography Boot Camp: A Step-By-Step Guide for Professional Wedding and Portrait Photographers The Photographer’s MBA: Everything You Need to Know for Your Photography Business Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book (2015 release)

So Where Do you Fit?

Where do you and your camera fit? I’d like to hear your input on the topic and if your goal is to become a professional photographer, a semi-pro, or if you just want to enjoy the hobby for your own benefit. Leave a comment below.

Correcting White Balance in Snow Photography

January 6, 2014 by info@3QuartersToday.com

Winter in Nebraska can be fickle. We can have a season of blizzards, or just a couple of big snow storms that dump 8-12 inches a few times during the season. This year we have had no big snow storms, just a slight dusting at Christmas time, enough to say we had a white Christmas and nothing more.

The news is full of winter storm watches, bitter cold and above average snow falls from Chicago to New England, but nothing in Nebraska. So I’ve gone back into my archive photography files to get a taste of a snowy winter. The year is 2012 and in February we had a really nice, slow snowfall that coated everything. I went out with a camera I just got for Christmas, my oldest Marine son gave me his Canon Rebel before he deployed, and took photo after photo of the amazing scenery.

I have since started shooting in RAW and editing in Lightroom, so I thought I would rework a photo to see how I can improve on it now.

Winter snow on the plow — 1. Before SOOC

Snow on the plow — 2. After: crop, white balance, edited in Lightroom

Lightroom photo edit: snow on the plow — Click on image to see Lightroom details in editing.

First I cropped the original to a 5×7 and zoomed in a little closer. Then set the white balance in Lightroom by using the eyedropper on the snow, this eliminated the greenish cast. I also increased the highlights, clarity and contrast to give more texture. Below is horizontal crop version where I applied noise reduction. Since this image was originally a JPG shot at 400 ISO I thought it could use some smoothing out.

Which do you like the best, 1,2 or 3?

Winter farm storage — 3. Horizontal crop with Lightroom noise reduction

A Business Card Makes if Official

November 20, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

So if a business card makes your business official, then I guess I’ve taken the leap. I’m not changing jobs, I love working at Hamilton Color Lab, but I am filling in some of the gaps in the cash flow side while supporting and partnering with my place of employment.

Our primary business at Hamilton is professional printing for photographers and commercial graphics for trade shows and displays. When we have time we will edit images and do graphic design, but it’s not our core business. That’s where I can help in the “off hours”.

The same is true of scanning and restoration. Hamilton Color Lab specializes in museum quality scanning and large format reproductions. Often customers call and have many photos they want scanned and digitized, upwards in the hundreds. While the Eversmart scanner at work is amazing in it’s clarity and density reading it’s overkill, and expensive, for someone who just wants digital images to share or wants to print a 4×6.

I love the post production side, as anyone reading this blog can tell. So this Saturday, November 24th, I’m setting up a table at the Holiday Extravaganza Craft show in Elmwood Nebraska.

I will be offering the following services and products:

Photo Cards (area photographs, including “The Barn”)
Senior Photo printing (die-cut rounded corner wallets)
Photo Restoration
Shoebox Scanning
Professional Printing (through Hamilton Color, bring your USB, CD etc)
Collage Wall Designs
Galery Wrapped Photo Canvas
Decorative Wall Groupings
Christmas card designs
Graduation announcement
Senior Collages
How to turn your photos into art

If the initial response has been any indication of success this might just work. I have had two jobs and two people set up a meeting with me next week for a canvas layout, just by announcing this on my personal Facebook page.

Have a project in mind? Send me a message, or drop me an email.

5 Reasons I Shoot my Photos in the RAW

November 2, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

RAW doesn’t mean I don’t wear clothes, RAW is a type of image format a digital camera uses to capture and store photographs. Every camera “takes” a RAW image, but most point and shoot cameras then process that image into the popular JPG format. So what is all the hoopla on RAW vs JPG and why does it matter?

Starting in 2012 I began to shoot RAW, I have my canon rebel set to RAW +jpg. I love getting a shot perfect SOOC, (straight out of camera) it saves time on the post processing side. But even in the film era professional photographers spent hours in the darkroom burning and dodging negatives to get the print quality they desired. Ansel Adams and other photography masters spent a lot of time retouching negatives to get the amazing images that have become iconic.

Even the best photo with the perfect exposure can benefit from a clean “pop” of contrast and sharpening.

Today the RAW image format gives professional and serious amateurs the same options in a virtual “digital darkroom”

1. Photographers excitement: Sometimes the excitement of an event will cause the photographer in you to forget all about settings and metering. I can easily over or underexpose a shot. This happens to me more often than not. THANK goodness for RAW!

2. Wider option of enlarging an image: I take a lot of scenery photos and my camera is only a 10 megapixel, so I need every pixel. The JPEG compression algorithm is lossy . That is, when an image is JPEG-compressed, data is discarded, and the image is permanently degraded. Apply enough JPEG compression and the degradation will become visible. If you want to enlarge your image a lot, JPEG artifacts could be a problem. Because raw files are not compressed, you never have to worry about this.

3. Control my white balance: Ever get that yellowish hue when you take photos inside at night? When shooting in RAW that yellow hue can be removed without the noisy pixelation. The same with the blueish cast that sometime tints the skin on cloudy days.

4. Non destructive editing: Did you know that every time you open a JPG tiny parts of information are lost. When editing RAW files the program only records the edits and creates a new file. Your original is not lost.

Fixing overexposure and flash burn in Lightroom (click for larger image)

5. Higher level of photo quality: In the JPG compression artifacts occur which can throw tiny dots of obtrusive color into unwanted areas. (more on this later) Your camera probably captures 12 to 14 bits of data per pixel, but a JPEG file can only hold eight bits of data per pixel. This means that, when you shoot in JPEG mode, one of the first things your camera does is throw out a bunch of data that it captured. This can also lead to “banding” as evidenced in my previous example.

The digital photography school gives the best definition and explanation of RAW files

A Raw file is…

• not an image file per se (it will require special software to view, though this software is easy to get).
• typically a proprietary format (with the exception of Adobe’s DNG format that isn’t widely used yet).
• at least 8 bits per color – red, green, and blue (12-bits per X,Y location), though most DSLRs record 12-bit color (36-bits per location).
• uncompressed (an 8 megapixel camera will produce a 8 MB Raw file).
• the complete (lossless) data from the camera’s sensor.
• higher in dynamic range (ability to display highlights and shadows).
• lower in contrast (flatter, washed out looking).
• not as sharp.
• not suitable for printing directly from the camera or without post processing.
• read only (all changes are saved in an XMP “sidecar” file or to a JPEG or other image format).
• sometimes admissible in a court as evidence (as opposed to a changeable image format).
• waiting to be processed by your computer.

How to Print RAW Files

Think of RAW camera files kinda like film. It needs to be processed and exposed to be printed in a common format like JPG or TIFF. If you are going to step into the RAW photography world then you will need to use post production software, such as Lightroom or Photoshop. Don’t think negatively of photo editing programs, in the right hands they serve as a tool to get your photo to look as it did when you saw the scene with your eyes.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6 Adobe Lightroom 6 / CC Video Book: Training for Photographers

My favorite program is Lightroom, for reasons for many reasons. I can batch edit groups of photos with the same settings in just minutes instead of hours. I can also metatag, keyword and organize my files and folders for easy searching later. I use Photoshop for those designs which require text, layers and cloning. Individual photo work. For most people Photoshop Elements will be more than you will need and the full Photoshop is overkill.

If you don’t want to commit to buying the stand alone programs you can subscribe to Adobes Creative Cloud program for $10 per month and get both the full version of Photoshop and Lightroom to use as much as you want. The choice is really yours.

There are a myriad of Photoshop tutorial videos on YouTube, but some people really like a hard copy book to hold and make notes in the border.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop CC + Lightroom) [Digital Membership]Adobe Photoshop CS6 – Windows ; no monthly charge Adobe Photoshop Elements 13 The Photoshop Workbook: Professional Retouching and Compositing Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

RAW vs. JPG

Raw vs. JPEG: Which should you shoot and when? (techhive.com)
10 Reasons to Shoot RAW
Adobe expands DNG spec with lossy compression … and why it matters to you (gizmag.com)
‘Shopped? Don’t Sweat the Ingredients and Preparation, Just Enjoy the Meal (petapixel.com)

Taking the Leap, I Have a Logo

October 25, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

3 Quarters Images, is now an offshoot of my photography and editing passion. I’m taking the leap and going to launch a side business as a secondary stream of income. This is in addition to being surrounded by photographs where I work at Hamilton Color Lab in Omaha.

Although I love taking photos, I enjoy the post production side even more. I will be concentrating on helping people make the most of the images they take themselves through digital darkroom techniques. This could be using Lightroom 4, Photoshop, Portrait Professional, or other various editing and enhancing tools.

Some of my services will include scanning, restoration, design services for senior announcements, collages, anniversary gifts and wall groupings. Prints, canvases and prints will, of course, be provided from Hamilton Color Lab.

The official launch of 3 Quarters Images will be at the Elmwood Nebraska craft show, Saturday November 24th at the Josoff Social Hall. I will have examples restoration work, greeting cards for sale, and will be taking submissions for projects.

My dream? To create and generate a stream of income I can continue while I am retired and traveling the United States. Oh to sit on a deck, overlooking a beach and work at something I love. Yup, that’s my dream.

Stay tuned for more and if you have an idea, or want to learn more please feel free to ask.