Free Headshots in Hindsight

The headshot event was a success. That’s the most important thing, I have to say about it, so I’ll say it first. In one day, I happily serviced about 50 people, taking their portrait, so they could use it on LinkedIn, Facebook, with their acting agent or where ever a headshot might come in handy. It took me a while to write this final post about it, simply because I wanted to finish it first. Which I have. All the photos have been retouched and e-mailed out to the participants.

I originally offered 100 free headshots and later raised that number to 120, but I was happy to see that on the day of, there were no enormous lines, no chaos and thus, no catastrophes. Instead, there was a small initial rush of people who had been waiting around, followed by a slow trickle. Much more along the lines of Continue reading

5 Noise Makers in Digital Photography

If you take pictures for yourself or your friends on Facebook, noise might not be a huge factor for you. However, if you sell your images as stock, or to paying clients, you will want to keep it to a minimum. As an image inspector for iStockphoto, I have seen all kinds of images from every type of camera, and I’ve learned that no matter what you use to record your images, there’s always a chance you’ll end up with some noise. In fact, when an image is rejected for inclusion into the collection, noise/artifacts is very often the reason. So here is a short list of some of the most common ways the dreaded artifacts might appear.

Shooting and Working in JPG

When a JPG file is saved, it compresses the data and causes some quality loss. Even if you save at the highest quality setting. If you shoot in JPG, your image is compressed even as it is being saved onto your memory card. Every time you save Continue reading