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Making it look Sexy


tryska

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first off - i love "tryksta"! that's the best version anyone's come up with yet..

anywho, i understand what you're saying - i guess i should explain exactly what it is i need them for - we're updating the website, and ideally i wanted these 3 shots as the entrypoint.....well actually what i had in mind is the picture of the cheese kind of taking over the screen, and then shooting off into it's site entry, and the wine doing the same (very powerpoint presentation) and then revamping from there. I'm trying to rescue the site from the 90s. from there it goes to the main content of the site (which isn't much as it stands, but until we get a new back-end app it's how it is. and this update is preparing for that new back-end actually)

so basically i just need 2 slides.

altho i still want the olives - haven't figured what to do with them, but i can always use them as gifs in banners and whatnot.

and i actually agree with you on PSP - one of my favorite home-use apps from my desktop publishing/graphic design days.

i prefer "candid" shots myself, but the people that pay the bills will most likely prefer the slick "marketing" style shots.

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Have you used PSP 8.1 yet? I think you'll find that the product is no longer in the category of "home-use apps." It's pretty damn powerful. Were PhotoShop not so entrenched as the standard, you might see some professional migration at this point.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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So this is going to be for a splash screen?

That may very well chase off more customers than it would attract. I would work on convincing them that they would be better off spending the time and resources on developing the backend. Splash pages have really fallen out of favor, and the majority of people who are confronted with them tend to either click past them, or find another site.

Those pics would be great for some other marketing thing, but once you bounce a pic down to usable size at 72 pixels per inch, you might as well go with a shot from a webcam.

Screw it. It's a Butterball.
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I have had good success using Roxio Photosuite 5. It certainly does not compare to Photoshop in any way shape or form, but it does allow for a wide range of editing for, exposure, sharpness, saturation, tint, among many other editing and organizing features. For the less than $50.00 price range I've been very happy.

But, I don't take pictures of food to earn income, but for a home boy, it works good in this crib. :biggrin:

woodburner, not Ansel Adams

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Back to "how are you going to seduce your audience?" if I may (I know zilch about photography): even if the audience is wholesalers, I think it's good to show both the package and the food. As in, whole wheel of cheese and cut wedge; jar of olives and some out in a dish. And while you don't want the cheese sweating, you want it more reflective than normal, if it's not a usually-shiny type. That is, a runny Brie is fine as it is, but a dull-surfaced aged gouda will just suck up the light and look horrible. Ditto the olives -- oil them a bit so they don't absorb all the light.

Just my 2¢ :raz:

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The only reason to shoot this yourself would be if there's something unique you want to communicate.

If all you're looking to do is have a photo of cheese or wine on a splash page, you can go to any of a hundred stock-photography sites like http://www.indexstock.com and search for wine, olives, or cheese, and you'll find thousands of photos you can buy that have been taken by professional photographers (many of whom have shot for the major food magazines and catalog retailers) and will look beautiful on the Web. You'd need a lot of expensive equipment, training, and experience to approach the quality you can get in two seconds from a stock image.

Do you have something unique you want to communicate? If so what?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Don't forget Photoshop Elements 2.0. It gives you 90% of the full Photoshop package, but for less than $100 bucks. The advertising agencies I've worked with have all used Photoshop, the full version. But those were highly trained graphic designers who'd spend years learning the ins and outs of Photoshop. PS Elements gives you near total control over photo processing with a relatively minor learning curve.

The other option is a trade-out. I'm a big fan of trade-outs. For example, I have a deal with a really good web designer to put my website together in exchange for writing a brochure for one of his clients. I have another deal with an award-winning catalog photograher to do some shots for an upcoming article in exchange for a good home-cooked meal and sharpening his knives (in addition to photo credits in a major magazine). You should be able to find a good local photographer -- one skilled in catalog or food photography, ask around at a couple of ad agencies -- and make a deal for cash and food products.

Food styling is a bitch. I did a shoot several years ago where we went through several cases of cup-a-soup to get the right shot. I was the ad weasel, not the photographer, but I learned a lot that day. I've also done pizza shoots where we had -- literally -- several dozen pizzas in the oven so we could get the right "pull" shot -- you know the one where the slice is being pulled off the pie with several strings of cheese clinging to the pizza below.

I guess the bottom line is that if you're dealing with anything other than a straight static shot, hire a pro and bribe him with cheese and olives. It might be cheaper than you think.

Chad Ward

An Edge in the Kitchen

William Morrow Cookbooks

www.chadwrites.com

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If this is for a Web site you may find that the most important skills here are not photography skills but image postprocessing and manipulation skills. Effective Web graphics are often less about the quality of photography and more about the ability to combine relatively low resolution images into a compelling montage that communicates as much as possible with a few simple visual elements.

Have a look at the home page for http://calphalon.com/ and you'll see the effectiveness of image manipulation of simple photographs. It didn't take a genius of a photographer to shoot the pans. The real work was in creating the graphic.

Ellen Shapiro

www.byellen.com

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calphalon has some cool graphics...very creative.

fatguy i was thinking about this stuff last night on the long commute back home

1. why not use stock photography? - i mean there's nothing specific i need to communicate with the pictures - just "we sell wine and we we sell cheese - click on the wine for wine, click on the cheese for cheese", so it would be easier. I wasn't sure what the ramifications were of ripping someone else's photograph tho.

2. the splashscreen heavy effects on the front-end side isn't necessary - people just need the front page as a portal for the back-end. no point in runnign them through graphics to get there. I still want the pics tho.

can i use stock photography pics and tweak them how i want? it will be much less of a headache that way.

and no i haven't actually used PSP since v2.0 that came free with an html book i got in the late 90s. it's still on my old 486 tho, and i still prefer manipulating graphics with it. most of the companies i've worked for have been microsoft/corel shops so i've never used it for work stuff.

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1. why not use stock photography? - i mean there's nothing specific i need to communicate with the pictures - just "we sell wine and we we sell cheese - click on the wine for wine, click on the cheese for cheese", so it would be easier. I wasn't sure what the ramifications were of ripping someone else's photograph tho.

The simple answer is, don't rip off the photograph -- buy or license it. That's what stock photography is for. For limited usage you won't pay more than a $100 or so for a decent shot. Of course, you may see your shot turn up somewhere else because stock houses can and do license the photograph to many users (up to a point). That's a consideration to keep in mind when deciding whether to license a photo or buy it outright.

Chad

Chad Ward

An Edge in the Kitchen

William Morrow Cookbooks

www.chadwrites.com

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by rip i meant someone else's work - i should have said riff, i think - i didn't mean jsut out and out steal - but yeah it was the licensing thing i was concerned about - i don't know that i want to run the risk of seeign the same picture elsewhere.

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So, I posted this inquiry in another thread, but it was the wrong thread, so it was deleted before I had a chance to read the responses.

Here is the question.

I enjoy it when people post photos of their meals at restaurants. However, I never feel comfortable pulling out my camera in a restaurant, so I do not reciprocate.

Anyone have any thoughts about restaurant photography etiquette?

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So, I posted this inquiry in another thread, but it was the wrong thread, so it was deleted before I had a chance to read the responses.

i read them, and they weren't worth much. :rolleyes:

i think one needs to employ some common sense in this situation. don't use a flash, if at all possible. otherwise, be aware of your surroundings, and how your flashes are effecting those around you. i think every situtation is dynamic, and there's no concrete "right" or "wrong" way of looking at it.

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