Related Posts

• 
  Top Ten Things Pure Can't Live Without

  There are thousands of things out there for photographers to consider purchasing.  A lot of them are fantastic.  But for Crystal and I, these are Pure's Top Ten things we CANNOT live without.  

  In no particular order:

  * means that the link is an affiliate link.  At no additional cost to you, if you purchase something from that link, we get a small commission.  We ONLY recommend products we use and love.  NONE of these companies have asked us to write about them or post their products.  In fact, I am sure most of them don't even know who we are.  ;) We are only posting about them, because we use and love their products weekly, if not daily.

  1)  Pixieset.  Delivering clients images is easy and stylish.  We upload to Pixieset, and the client can easily download their sessions or share with family members and friends who might want a photo or two also.  We can set print prices, and we can easily sell prints that way.  Digital images are critical for wedding photography and Pixieset delivers.  Their price is excellent too.  We use the paid version so that we have total control over the settings for our clients and have enough storage, but there are even free options for you to try out first.

   

  2)  A Black Rapid camera strap--*  Having our cameras hanging around our necks was quickly out for long weddings.  Neck and shoulders ached by the end, and it was not practical for shooting two cameras.  Enter the Black Rapid (especially the DUO strap.)  The camera slides along the strap on both sides of the body and hangs on the hip.  Practical and convenient.  Do make sure that you check the D-ring for tightness often.

  

  3)  A Good Camera Bag (or two)--So sometimes we just need a couple of lenses and one camera body (births are a good example of having to travel light and not be a significant presence), and sometimes we need the WHOLE kit.  What bags to Crystal and I use?  For small bags, we love both the JoTote line of bags (we have some that are over six years old and are still in perfect shape, despite being dragged to every wedding stuffed with flashes*, Gary Fong Diffusers*, and triggers and batteries*) and the Copper River Bags.  Copper River Bags are almost bullet proof with thick leather and a more rugged design that works for men or women and have a lovely and unique styling.  (Mine doubles as my purse and has for over 5 years and it still looks almost new, and it is my top travel/vacation camera bag.)  

  For a larger bag, Rachel uses the ThinkTank Airport*.  It is small enough to stand up in the overhead bin, so travel is simple.  Crystal has the slightly larger LowPro that fits a few more flashes and nine lenses.

  4)  Cactus V6 Flash Triggers--*  We have used almost EVERY radio flash trigger on the market.  We have spent thousands and thousands of dollars, so you don't have to.  We moved up from Cactus v2 to Cactus v5, and now we just started moving up to v6, and we are obsessed.  We have used other brands of triggers between each version, thinking that with the higher price tag, we would be getting more reliability.  However, we found we got less reliability compared to the Cactus triggers.  We use a four light wedding reception set up, often a light or two for bridal sessions, and trigger strobes in the studio, so we need reliable triggers.  The V6 allows you to use groups, set flash power from the transmitter, set channels, etc.  They are transceivers, which means you can use them as triggers or receivers as needed.  This is so fantastic.  Another amazing perk is that they work with both Canon and Nikon.  Crystal and I shoot Canon, but sometimes our 2nd shooters, shoot Nikon.  We can pop one of these babies on their cameras, and they can trigger our Canon flashes!  How cool is that?!!

  We were able to get eight triggers for a little over $400.  Fantastic for getting all of our reception lighting and letting both Crystal and I have a trigger or two.  These little babies make us look awesome with our light control.

  

  5) Fong Light Diffusers--*  Particularly the collapsible ones.  We use these on our four flashes at receptions.  They are small and easily carried, excellent for travel.  They throw the light out and if there are color casts on the ceiling the cap keeps the flash from spreading that color to all the wedding guests.  While it does eat power (and by extension, it eats batteries faster), we feel the way it makes out light look is a worthy trade-off. 

  

  6)  Millers--We adore Millers for prints and albums.  They make us look GOOD.  Their turnaround time is so fast you'd swear they were are printing your stuff in your backyard.  The deep matte prints are so beautiful they make my soul ache a little. It is wonderful to see your image prints the way you see it captured in your mind.  Their customer service is top-notch.  Millers is printing done right.

  7)  A good large reflector/diffuser--*  These suckers are not your typical round affairs that are maybe a foot or two tall.  No, these are big oval monsters that are taller than we are.  They unzip and have a fantastic diffusion panel inside that allows you to temper harsh sunlight, which is critical during noon formals for sunny summer weddings.  They also make amazing fill light in the studio, reflect beautifully indoors and out, and are pretty legit impromptu changing booths if Crystal and I each hold one or two around a client.  SO much multitasking.

  

  8)  A great contract--We love the contracts from Rachel Brenke.  Having a good solid contract gives your client an understanding of what to expect from you (managing client expectation is critical to a good experience), and it protects both you and your client from legal issues.  It will outline what you will provide and what your client will give you in return.  It outlines what you will and will not do.  Going to a session or wedding without a contract is about on par to going without clothes.

  9)  Lightroom/Adobe Camera RAW--Post-processing photos is just what happens.  In the film era, you would not hand over your rolls of film to your client and call it a day.  Rather, you would bring them to the darkroom and choose chemicals and processed to develop them.  You would dodge and burn.  You would bring your vision alive even further with your post processes.  It is no different in the digital age.  Processing the RAW files is important.  Making sure you lift the digital haze of your images, correct any possible faults that happened during capture, and then putting your spin on the images is a critical part of being a Photographer.  Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW allow for quick edits, batch processing, and quick export and file renaming.  This is a critical step for the efficient photographer.  (Bonus points for OUR presets to get you from point A to done in record time!)

  10)  Photoshop!--Cloning, healing, and specialized edits require Photoshop.  Lightroom/Camera RAW/Photoshop all go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly.  Editing skin in Lightroom is a tricky process at best.  Removing unwanted items is liable to make a saint curse.  But Photoshop makes short work of all of the above and allows your creative vision to shine through.  And again...we're pretty partial to our actions.  

   

  
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• 
  FREE Google+ Cover Photo Templates

  These last few weeks have been a wild ride.

  Over the last few months, we've been seeing our Facebook interactions dwindle, and emails from our friends and followers increase with sadness on missing out on sales, freebies, webinar and workshop sign ups, and on and on.  It has really been taking a toll on us, emotionally.  It has made it hard to know how to run our business, because things have been so variable and every time we offered anything, people were sad they didn't get a chance at participating.

  And then Dec 4th came and FB made their latest and most dramatic squeeze to their artificial filter yet.  Shortly on the heels of this came the revelations about all of the fraud for ads and click farms and we started to see the writing on the wall.  Facebook has literally lost control of the ship, or just stopped caring about creating a quality community anymore.  It seems like they don't care that they are sailing right into the rocks, but they seemed intent on dragging every small business relying on them right into the shoals with them too.  Their method of monetizing their site with insanely expensive boosts was drastically changing the tone of Facebook from a vibrant give and take community to a hollow and cheap echo chamber of sales pitches.  (Mind you, we've never been against paying, because fair is fair.  But it needs to actually WORK!  Let our friends and customers see what they want to see. We'd love to see a reasonable monthly fee instituted for business pages, akin to website hosting, but allowing the pages to reach ALL their followers.)

  So, we started investigating our options.  We started posting a little on Google+ and were intrigued.  It was pretty quiet over there, to be sure.  But there was potential and we could feel it.  So we started researching.  We found the AMAZING SEO benefits to be had on Google+.  So we felt like, heck, if Facebook is going down as quickly as it seems to be, then getting on Google+ JUST for the SEO alone made sense, even if no one else ever adopted the platform.  Soon we would be relying on people organically finding us on Google more and more.  So we jumped.

  We started talking about it to our friends and followers, because we are very open like that.  If it could help us, maybe it could help others.  As we have watched our friends being hurt by Facebook and the photography industry being ripped apart as people literally sold their souls and gave away the farm for a few views, we felt obligated to share what we were learning.

  And the response was like a match to dry grass.  We still get a little teary thinking about how much everyone has been looking for alternatives.  We DON'T want to all be forced to undercut ourselves and still see businesses that we have put so much into die on the vine.

  So, it's been such a busy week and a half of interacting and helping people get set up and find their footing in this wonderful and brave new world.  But we've been working on these as we have had the time to thank everyone for being willing to see that we all need to work together to save our businesses.  SO, please take these free templates and use them with our thanks.  And if you know others, tell them.  In fact if you know other small business owners, I would say to let them know about the SEO and networking and emerging social benefits of Google+ and maybe even help them make a template for THEIR page.  The more we can get the bakers and plumbers and dress shops of the world over there with us, the more we can create our networks and communities and marketplaces again.  So, now is the time to reach out and help each other.

  There are a total of 7 templates that can be used in Photoshop or Elements! There is also a set of photoshop actions that make it easy to use the templates! All for free!!! All we ask is that you share this post with your friends on Google+ and Twitter and Facebook!

  Just click the image below to download your freebie!

  
• 
  5 Things to Avoid When Editing Photos

  * means that the link is an affiliate link.  At no additional cost to you, if you purchase something from that link, we get a small commission.  We ONLY recommend products we use and love.  NONE of these companies have asked us to write about the or post about their products.  In fact, I am sure most of them don't even know who we are.  ;)  We are only posting about them, because we use and love their producuts!

  Editing photos is magical.  It takes an image that already has your fingerprints all over it, from lens choice, to angles, to lighting, and it gives it that final dusting of you.  It can be absolutely enchanting to watch your vision come alive as you edit, but sometimes as we first start out (and even as we have been doing this awhile), the photo can pass the magically perfect stage and start to veer into over-edited, fake-looking, or just plain wrong.  Let's look at a few things you can avoid to help you keep your editing expressing YOU.

  1)  Selective Color--I know.  I did it as a beginner.  Crystal did it as a beginner.  It's a rite of passage.  But the problem is that it usually brings you right out of the image and shifts the focus away from the image to something that is only part of the image.  The bright blue shirt takes away from the beautiful gaze.  The colorful beach ball takes away from the beachy fun happening on vacation.  Even the piercing blue eyes can overwhelm an image.  Usually the hours of masking don't turn out to really give MORE to the image.  Usually the story told is either strong enough to stand on it's own, or it's not worth the hours of selective coloring.  

  2)  Overcontrasting--A little contrast to an image is like music.  It makes everything in the image richer and more alive.  But once to much is applied the image begins to look overbaked.  The whites lose their texture, the shadows turn into solid black mush and everything looks like it was taken by a cheap Brownie camera.    So, watch the contrast and use it with a gentle hand.  If you need to, walk away in the middle and come back and look with fresh eyes to see if they image is too contrasty.

  3)  Oversharpening-- With the earlier iterations of the digital cameras and digital cameras paired with lenses developed for film cameras there was a LOT of digital haze surrounding images (there still can be to an extent) and it meant that a light unsharp mask layer was often applied.  And of course, with social media, images get web-sised and sharpened abundantly.  And in general, this is a great thing.  It wipes out that mushiness that Facebook can add to an image, and it lifts an image from a slight digital haze.  But like all good things, there can be such thing as too much.  It becomes readily seen when an image is oversharpened, because the sharpening starts to leave artifacts and hair and fibers can start to look really "crunchy" and straw-like.  Also, eyes can get a strangely alien look when they are over sharpened.  So a little sharpening can go a long way.  Be sparing and watchful.  In today's time of increasingly sharp camera bodies and lenses made specifically for the digital medium, images often are very sharp to begin with and don't need a lot of sharpening if the are in focus to begin with.  If an image is out of focus, over sharpening won't help.  

  4)  Over Softening--Just like with sharpening, skin softening can be a fantastic tool.  Sometimes lenses are so sharp that every pore and skin blemish can appear magnified on camera.  So a gentle, judicious skin smoothing and retouching can be fantastic for making a client feel comfortable with their images.  But if you over smooth an image, it can quickly go from lovely to plastic.  A skin without an texture and no lines looks like a doll and really unrealistic.  So watch for that line and dial it back when you smooth skin.  We feel like our totally unique Pure Retouch technique and set is a perfect answer for getting enough smoothing to make a client feel fabulous, but not lose that lovely texture to the skin that gives the subject charm, realism, and vitality.

  5) Adding too much saturation--Vibrant, beautiful images are the goal of many photographers.  A lot of times, especially when shooting RAW, the colorful scenes we see while shooting come back feeling a little flat.  Often that is a combination of needing some contrast and boosting the blacks, but when we first start out, we think we need to crank up the saturation slider.  I'll tell you a secret (lol, just you and me and the rest of the internet now...), even though Pure is know for it's vibrant color, we very very very rarely touch the saturation slider.  It quickly pushes colors out of gamut (what a screen can read and render correctly), and it messes with the reality of the color.  Skin turns red, leaves are blue, shadows turn purple.  The saturation slider should always be approached with caution.

  BONUS: Working on an uncalibrated monitor-- If you are going to edit your images, you need to know what colors your screen is actually showing.  Most screens arrive from the manufacturer with color issues.  In general, most are a lot cooler (more blue/cyan) than they should be.  Macs tend to be closer, but most are not spot on either.  So if you start manipulating the colors and the exposure of your images and then want to print or view them on a different device, a lot of times the colors will surprise you if you are not calibrated.  What you thought was just warming up a cool image, suddenly becomes a vibrantly orange image, because you were correcting the overly cool monitor color.  So, getting a calibration device can really help you to know what your images really look like.  These calibrators also work off an international color standard, so a professional, dedicated print company will use the same profiles, which means you are making sure that your images will print just the way you see them on your screen.  When I send my photos off to Millers I know I will be getting back exactly what I saw on my screen when I sent it in.  While it does cost money to buy a calibrator, a few messed up print orders will quickly eat up any savings you get from not calibrating your monitor.  I personally use ColorMunki by X-Rite*, and Crystal likes Eye-One Display Pro from Xrite*  (Both are fabulous.)  (Another fabulous and cheaper version is the ColorMunki Smile)*. Many of our colleagues also really like the Spyder products* for their calibration needs.  When you have the calibration software you can also run it every few weeks to a month to make sure that as your monitor is used and ages, the calibration does not slip and change.  So, having a calibrator is a fantastic and important investment in photography.                                                                           

  PS!!  Don't forget that our entire store is on sale for 50% off!  You can also purchase our entire store for only $99!  HURRY!  Ends this week!! 
• 
  Blown Highlights and Clipped Blacks

  Editing photos can be fun!  Especially when you are still learning Photoshop, however it is easy to get carried away and not realize that your highlights are too bright or your darks too dark.  This can be a problem while the photo is still in a digital format, but it becomes even more pronounced of an issue when you print your images.

  Your image is made up of shadows and highlights, and when it comes to printing your images you want to remember that 255 is blown (too bright) and anything 0 is clipped (too dark).  What that essentially means is that any detail and texture in either the highlights or shadows is completely gone and it appears like a solid white or black blob.  It is not very attractive and depending on the size and number of prints ordered, it can be a potentially costly mistake.

  There are a few ways to check if this has happened to your photo, but we will just quickly outline one of our favorites ways.

  When you have opened Photoshop, you can use your eye dropper tool (command/ctrl+i) and move it all around on the image and look at the info for that specific pixel.  You can see the info by going up to Window and choosing Info.  Then you will be able to review your RGB data.  (You can also open this window and set dropper points to manage by shift+clicking while using the eye dropper over your desired areas of focus.)

  

   

  Another way is to use the Threshold adjustment option.  You can find that in Photoshop by going up to Window and choosing Adjustment.  Then you can find the Threshold option.  This one is a really nice option as it shows you the entire image and you don't have to move your dropper all over the image. You can set the value where you want.  I like to try and keep my important highlights around 245 or lower and my blacks around 10 or higher, to preserve detail and texture in my printed images.  That is personal preference, and you may find that you like your blacks closer to 0.  A lot of times I will have hair light that will push above 255 and I am totally fine with that.  I like the contrast that it brings to an image. 

  

  

  Notice that when you set your value in the Threshold to check the highlights (245 to 255) it will turn your image black and in white will show you the blown areas of the photos.  The opposite is for clipped photos.  It will make your image white and in black show you where in your image you have clipped blacks. 

  What I love about this feature is that while learning Photoshop, you can open up 2 different threshold layers and set one to 10 and one to 245 (or whatever numbers you want) turn the layers off by clicking the little eye in the layer pallet, and click the background layer and edit your image as you normally would.  Then when you are done, you can turn the layers on individually and see if you clipped any blacks or blew any highlights. You can even run actions!

   

  

  Another way to check your image is by using the Curves or Levels adjustment. 

  Open up a Curves layer and then on the white or black sliders, hold down the Option button (Alt on a PC) and click the white or black sliders (they looks like white or black arrows at the bottom of the adjustment box)  and it will show you where you have clipped or blown highlights and blacks.  

  

  When you click on the black slider, it will turn your image white looking for clipped blacks and will turn it black when looking for highlights.   The really great thing with this is it will show you which color channels are clipping.  So in some areas you might just be losing your red channel, in others your blue (red clips first for highlights and blue for blacks), you can then target fixes for these channels, as needed.

  

  These are just a few methods for checking for lost detail in highlights and shadows.  These are some of our quickest and favorite methods.  

• 
  The Inaugural BLOG LOVE post!

  We've always been big into sharing and communicating with our friends, fans, and customers.  We've done it on Facebook, we've done it on Google+, we've been all over social media.  But our dirty secret was that we just HATED the layout of our old blog.  It was so plain vanilla and boring and ugly.  Ick.  So even though we created content like madwomen, we never owned it.  Well, as you can see, we're changing our ways.  BIG TIME.  

  And it is paying off already.  We're seeing SEO benefits already from planting our flag in our blog, first and foremost.  We're going to own our content and THEN share to social media.  We're keeping our hard work under our own banner.  And we see so many other photographers struggling with blogging.  We want to help.

  So we are instituting a weekly BLOG LOVE.  

  Here are the rules to participate, and we think it will be a win/win:

  1)  Come here and find the weekly BLOG LOVE post.  We are planning to host it every THURSDAY.

  2)  Comment on that post with a link to your blog, and more specifically, a session you would love some blog loving on.  

  3)  Check out others and leave some comments and love for them and others should do the same.

  4)  We will scan through the blogs and pick our top 5 images each week that we want to showcase.  

  5)  We will then link those images up on our site with our reasons for LOVING them and links back to the winning blogs.

  This will help us all find new and inspiring blogs to follow AND getting links to your blog shared here is GREAT for SEO for YOU!  It will help your Google ranking and that will help your clients find you better when they are looking for you.  We want to help!  We want to inspire you to get in there and own your content and blog more.  So let's do this as a group!

  Also, if you write up any blog posts featuring us or our actions, PLEASE link us and let us know!  We would LOVE to link up to your blog with that feature too and help drive your SEO even further.  We are all about trying to help you, and if you're writing about US...then we especially want to make sure you feel our love.

  So, by linking up on this inaugural post, please be aware that if you are chosen, we will be picking one of your images to share on our site (watermarked of course) and we will obviously be linking back to you and giving you all the credit.  We hope you're ok with this!

  Allllrighty then!  Let's do this thing!  Let's reclaim our content and love on our blogs.  xoxoxox

  Don't forget to check out our other blogs too! 

• 
  Why a First Look?

  If you've shot a wedding, or been married, or been to a wedding, or seen a wedding on TV, you probably are aware that the day is pretty busy.  It is filled with so many moments that need to happen on schedule and yet it is also a day that so many people from the couple's lives are there to celebrate with them.  It can be an absolutely confusing day for couples.  On the one hand, they want to be sure that they are doing all of the traditions and getting all of the perfect shots for posterity, but they also want to celebrate with their guests.  It can feel overwhelming to try and achieve the perfect balance.

  This is why we offer a First Look session to our couples.  Usually this session takes place a month or so before the wedding.  It is along the lines of traditional bridal photography, where the bride in all her finery is photographed so that images can be used at the reception and kept for memories.  But we also add in the groom to the shots.  If possible (and desired), we go to the couple's venue at a time when the light is just magical, usually Golden Hour, and we capture the first time the groom sees his bride in her gown, and we provide a more personal, leisurely photography experience for the couple.  It is often a little oasis of time in the hectic wedding preparations where the couple can be together and focus on each other and at the same time have their images made in perfect conditions.  

  This also gives the couple a bit of a break on their wedding day.  There are still a lot of formal portraits of the family and guests to be made, as well as detail shots, candids and a few formal couple portraits, but the pressure is off of the couple to pose for portrait after portrait, in hopes of getting every detail of their wedding captured.  Now, they can focus more on the wedding day and less on the formal portraits.  The day becomes less about posing for pictures and more about their love and those who love them

  The upside for the photographer is that it also alleviates stress.  There are MANY details to be captured, but the photographer knows that the couple has been captured at their best and in the best light, rather than leaving wedding portraits to chance.  Inclement weather, wardrobe malfunctions, harsh overhead sun?  Those won't be as pressing of issues for the photographer or couple.

  We recommend that the session be not closer than 2 weeks from the wedding, since the dress might need a dry-cleaning and the photographer needs time to edit the images for the couple and deliver them and have prints made for the reception.

  Our couples who have chosen First Look sessions are always so positive about the experience.  

  Below are images from a recent First Look Session:

  

  These images were taken on a lovely spring day, when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and the weather was nice.  On their wedding day, the blossoms were mostly gone, and there was a fierce 65 MPH wind, followed by rain that evening.  But there was very little stress about the misbehaving wedding weather, because everyone knew that the portraits were "in the bag" already.  We got some on the wedding day, but when it got uncomfortable, we packed it up with no regrets.  (Edited with Pure Presets 1 Basic Workflow in Lightroom and then finished with Sunny Matte from Pure Matte in Photoshop.)