Sending Images At Full Resolution

It is that time of year again, the holidays are upon us and that means I will often be working with whatever pics people can get their hands on. That usually means compressed low resolution images sent from a friend of a friend or downloaded right off of facebook.  It also  means celebrating pets that have passed on using whatever photos are available. I always do my best to create something wonderful with whatever images people can send. If something just will not work I will tell my clients that. When I can I will encourage folks to send again and try different menu options.

What Clients Need to know about sending phone pics:

• Texting your image to my e-mail is going to auto-crunch your image and reduce the file size.  Try to use an actual e-mail ap to send your image to me.

• The auto send or share feature on most phones sends low resolution pics for speed.

• Most phones these days take great high resolution images.

• There is a way to send at full resolution and a google search for "send full resolution images from my: insert name-brand phone ", will yield a plethora of tutorials.

• There is no way to auto fix a low resolution image, it will pixelate like crazy when enlarged. Using the smudge tool a good artist can smooth out the jagged pixelation that occurs. It is time consuming, and requires smoothing and smudging every single pixel. 

Today I am posting a Video tutorial I found on-line that may help iphone users send us their images at full resolution. This fellow walks you through it with a lovely British accent.

 

What You Need to think about as a Digital Artist:
I always tell my Photoshop students that you learn ten times as much trying to create something from low res. poor quality images than you do by working with stunning photos at full resolution. Any hack can take a stunning high resolution photograph and make it even prettier, the challenge is working with lower quality images. With that said I too prefer a minimum of 500KB and I love it when I can get my hands on an image that is at least 1mb.

Tips For Other Digital Artists:
• If you plan to stick to your image size requirements when working with clients plan to do half the pet portrait volume you could be doing.
• Always give help and tips when trying to get good images from your clients, but be prepared if they can not follow through.
• Know that sometimes all a client will have is a photo that was e-mailed from a pal at low resolution and asking their loved one to jump through hoops for the original image at actual size might just spoil the gift giving surprise.
• Your clients are not dumb, they are often very busy professionals and probably have not ever needed a full resolution image before. Many people are on their 3rd or 4rth phones and you never know, they may have a brand new phone that they are still learning about.
• Respect your client's time and know that at the end of the day your flexibility and skill at working with all types of images will pay off in the amount you will learn about Photoshop and in your ability to build great relationships with your clients.

Something Completely Different

And Now For Something Completely Different ...
A Dog In The Grass!

"Stewert" ( see all proofs)
© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

"Stewert" ( see all proofs)
© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

 

Sometimes people send me a photograph that is a little different and it is always fun to break away from the standard classic portrait layout. This original photograph is stunning for a million reasons ... I will just list my top 5 reasons:
• Image Quality: Client sent original large high resolution version ... full of rich yummy detail. They did not grab a web quality image off of facebook.
• Mood:  There is a story here, has Stewert been playing hard? Maybe he is just a lazy boy? There are lots of stories the viewer can make up.
• Angle: ... I think someone ended up with grass stains on their jeans after this photo shoot. They shot this at doggy ground level. If you do not end up with mud, grass stains and slobber all over you after a photo shoot then you are not really digging in to the process.
• Lighting: ... great lighting here, the sun is not too harsh, but there is plenty of natural light.
• Composition: I love the fact that the dog is the largest thing in the photo. Too often people will center their subject and then get 5 yards away from them to shoot the photo. If the pup is the size of a pea on your photograph once I enlarge them there will be very little detail to work with. Get up close to your subject, who cares if an ear goes off the edge?

Pet Photography Tips: Get Up Close!

Bacon Kitty Original photo

Bacon from yesterday's post had a great photo to work with.  Check it out above, Bacon fills the entire frame.  The best photo to send me here at Art Paw is one that is shot up close. If your camera has a zoom feature then use it. Below I will post a variety of kitty photos and show you what happens when we enlarge them.
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Tortoise shell Kitty

The photo above is cute, but the kitty is very small and shot from far away. Check the image below to see what kind of detail we have to work with once we enlarge the photo.

Tortoise shell Kitty Enlarged

The camera caught the overall scene but very little detail. I would have a hard time working with this image.

Now compare the photo above with the image below of a tabby that was shot up close.

Tabby Kitty....
Wow, look at the detail in the enlarged photograph above!

Interesting shot of a black kitty. I like this photo a lot, but it will not work well in a pet portrait, the kitty is just way too small to show much detail. See what happens below when I enlarge it.

I can not even see this cute cat's nose, there is very little detail here.

So get up close to your pet. If you have to  you can have someone hold them in their lap, I can erase the human, but I can not create detail I can not see, and when I do it is total guess-work.

Pet Photography Tips: Multiple Pets

Here at Art Paw I can create one single canvas portrait of multiple pets and they do not have to be in the same photograph for me to place them together. With that said, it is very important that the photos sent in work well together. Many people understand this and yet too often people think any 2 photos will do the trick.  Below I am going to post good and bad examples of pups that could be added to a single project. In reality only one doggy duo is for an actual client project. The other images were taken from a stock photo site and yet they are good "bad" examples of the types of pics people do send us.

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BAD COMBO #1 ( above)

The pup to the left was shot at eye level, while the pup to the right was shot from above, this will look goofy once I erase the background and add them to the same layout.

BAD COMBO #2 ( above)

The pup to the left is lounging and the pup to the right is working out, these shots would be very hard to combine in a portrait that would make any sense.

GOOD COMBO #1 ( above)

Beemer and Oscar are both lounging and shot at eye level, they are even lounging like perfect bookends. These photos will work great together in one portrait layout.

GOOD COMBO #2 ( above)

Beemer and Oscar are both lounging here and yet sitting up slightly. These images are going to work great in one layout. These pups are for a new commission and I can not wait to get started on it. Not only are the poses great the original images sent over are high in resolution ... a double bonus!

Photo Tips for when you can shoot for your project:

• Shoot your pets in similar poses. 

• If possible shoot in similar lighting ( not 100% necessary)

• Shoot your pets on the same day and review your photos to check for consistency

*Often we are working with images of pets that have passed and in these cases we just want the very best well focused images we can get. I always do my best to work with any images sent in. The guidelines here are for people that have the ability to shoot new photographs for their project.

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We are starting to get holiday orders in and now is the time to think about Christmas! I will be adding new photo tips to the blog each week, so check back.

Challenges For Pet Portrait Artists

Ask any pet portrait artist what their number one challenge is and they will tell you getting high quality photographs from their clients. Ask any digital pet portrait artist and they will tell you the same thing and they will specify getting a "high resolution image" is almost impossible. I have created a video with FAQ's about how to send us a photo at the proper resolution, and my assistant Lola is starring in it as the questioner ...  check it out below.



We have so much available to us with technology and I know most of my clients have pretty decent digital cameras, heck even an inexpensive point and shoot can produce photographs at a size of at least 500K.  So what goes wrong and why do 9 out of 10 clients have trouble sending high res. images?

Here is my top 5 List of why some client images are so tiny in resolution:

• Some e-mail programs will auto-crunch your image when you send it without you even knowing it. If you think this may be happening you can upload your pics directly to us here: http://artpaw.com/uploadorder.html
• Some clients upload all their pics to facebook as a storage solution, not realizing that facebook will auto-crunch the yummy resolution right out of their photos so that the images load quickly on the web. They look great on your monitor and you never know that the file size has been reduced until you download it for printing.
• Some clients use the Kodak site to store their images and then send us a small web version from their main gallery. Know that Kodak still has the high resolution version that you can access and this page on their site will explain how to access your original files: http://gallerystudio.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/471
• Some images are tiny to start with because they are cell phone images. Most cellphones take really tiny resolution images because you can store more on your phone that way.
• Some clients send images from their free Flickr accounts. You must have a pro account at flickr to access your original high resolution version of your photos. You can learn more here: http://www.flickr.com/help/photos/#89

Taking Good Pet Photos

Today's Art Dog Vlog is about taking good pet photos to send to us here at Art Paw. Today I am a little long winded and I cover a few photo tips on working with your dog or cat. I talk about equipment a bit and try to really drive home the point that a cell phone is not a camera.

Thanks for watching guys. I still have a shout out going to any of the Dogs Rule Fat Book artists that want to be interviewed. I'll try to contact a few of you next week by phone to see if I have any more artist interviews still to do. These little video interviews are great promotional tools and get a lot of eyes over at Youtube.