Official BeyondUnreal Photography Thread

[DarkED]

Its not the best looking watermark but its hardly the most distracting. Put a 50% opacity on it and it will look better. I think its fine and it will due the job

I decided to do this and I think it works much better now.

[SCREENSHOT]http://gallery.nodanites.com/upload/2012/02/19/20120219160026-f54b0448.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

 

[BillyBadAss]

I decided to do this and I think it works much better now.

[SCREENSHOT]http://gallery.nodanites.com/upload/2012/02/19/20120219160026-f54b0448.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

Why do you insist on such an ugly font though?

 

[shadow_dragon]

Why do you insist on such an ugly font though?

Well... it appears to get noticed!

 

[Rambowjo]

Yea I'd still use a different font, a less silly one. That one really has that "ms comic sans" vibe to it, but maybe it's just me. At least it isn't yelling for attention anymore.

 

[DarkED]

Why do you insist on such an ugly font though?

I decided that we're not trying to be professional photographers so why should I care what professional photographers think? Our partners, clients, and thousands of fans love our work and none of them have complained about the font in our watermark, so why change it?

This is the only place where anyone has ever bitched about the watermark so that must mean something.

 

[Rambowjo]

Well I can't say anything else. The fact that your clients haven't commented on it doesn't really prove anything. All I know is that the watermark is big, obnoxious and looks dumb. But hey, if you don't want more business (since you're not pro), then some ugly watermark is the perfect way to scare off clients.

 

[OO7MIKE]

Sorry guys, I'm going to have to agree with DarkED on a few points. Font is an artistic expression which is always a thing of personal taste. Where a watermark is positioned, how large it is and if color is used at all is personal taste.

Clients don't care about watermarks unless they are trying to print your photo. Clients aren't distracted by the watermark because they are so busy looking at how awesome they look in the photos. Only 3rd party onlookers are able to scrutinize a watermarks. Its very easy when you didn't invest anything into the production of the photos.

Clients will then share the photo on their fb, website, or other web related locations. Clients rarely give credit so a watermark is needed. Posting a photo on the web and not leaving a water mark is like giving your work away for free. Your photo just might go viral, but without a watermark it would be like claiming your the inventor of the iPod. Good luck with that!

Going back to the topic of the font. Yes, its not the prettiest font. Eventually you (DarkED) will want to redo your watermark/logo to reflect your branding. I will suggest hiring a graphic designer or checking out 99 designs (google it) for help on that.

DarkED: This is something you should eventually take care of. It's part of your marketing and your image. BTW: Lowering the opacity helped a lot.

 

[DarkED]

Going back to the topic of the font. Yes, its not the prettiest font. Eventually you (DarkED) will want to redo your watermark/logo to reflect your branding. I will suggest hiring a graphic designer or checking out 99 designs (google it) for help on that.

DarkED: This is something you should eventually take care of. It's part of your marketing and your image. BTW: Lowering the opacity helped a lot.

No, I agree with you. I would hire a graphic designer, but right now every dime of revenue must go either to my living expenses or back into the business in the form of meeting lunches and equipment so we can in turn make more revenue. I'm sure you understand the process

So far I've had to build everything related to this company myself with very little or no help. A proper logo is on my list but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I guess it's finally time for me to learn how to use Inkscape.

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

Well I can't say anything else. The fact that your clients haven't commented on it doesn't really prove anything. All I know is that the watermark is big, obnoxious and looks dumb. But hey, if you don't want more business (since you're not pro), then some ugly watermark is the perfect way to scare off clients.

passive-aggressive useless post is passive-aggressive and useless

 

[Rambowjo]

passive-aggressive useless post is passive-aggressive and useless

I'm just saying what I think. I understand Mike's point though, about the clients not caring too much, but again, 3rd party on lookers will notice the watermark, and they are potential customers. Maybe it's not such a big deal, it's just such a little that's so easy to change, I don't understand why not.

 

[Israphel]

Here are some shots I've just finished processing from a civil ceremony I shot a couple of weeks ago.
It's a tricky place to light with very strong directional light from the south facing windows, and I try to avoid flash during ceremonies, as it can be pretty intrusive. So lots of overexposure and shooting against the light.

It's a beautiful location though...my friend got married here a few years ago, so I had an idea what to expect.

 

[IronMonkey]

It's a tricky place to light with very strong directional light from the south facing windows, and I try to avoid flash during ceremonies, as it can be pretty intrusive.

Making it a capital offence to use camera flash inappropriately is high up on my list of matters to attend to when I rule the world.

<rant>
I was at a Judo competition a couple of weeks ago and there was someone matside using flash during competitions. Apart from the discourtesy to the players, he was wasting his time.

Because of the safety zone, he was at the limit of the built-in flash on a SLR and even if he had managed to change the shutter speed, the best he could hope for was 1/250s and I (now) know that around 1/500s is really the ideal minimum for photographing Judo competitions. I know why he was using the flash - the lighting in the hall was a horrible monochrome yellow (mostly fixable in post) and I was shooting at ISO6400/f2.8 to get 1/500s but that was no excuse for distracting the competitors with the flash.
</rant>

so lots of overexposure and shooting against the light.

Too much bloom! You can fix that in the .ini file.

The bride stands out in the shots without looking as though she's been green-screened on, so job well done.

PS What happened to the calendar plans? Anything planned for 2013?

 

[BillyBadAss]

The wood work looks is doing that thing where it starts to look HDR. Still looks good, but the people look very natural still. I'm not saying you did HDR, but did you to deal with the difficult light situation?

 

[Israphel]

Too much bloom! You can fix that in the .ini file.

PS What happened to the calendar plans? Anything planned for 2013?

The bloom thing....mmm. For landscapes I'm pretty meticulous about getting correct exposure across the histogram, but with weddings I see things totally differently cos it's all about the moment and the atmosphere. Couples never look at the technicalities of a shot in the way a photographer does, they only see what they look like and the atmosphere...and quite often with shots like this, they think that "really bright light bathing everyone" is pretty cool. I honestly don't give it a second thought when it comes to backlit wedding shots.

The calander...I usually put them together around August/September, but I was so busy with wedding work this year, and then my wife and I had loads of work done in the apartment, so it just never happened.
This year though I'm going to try to put time aside for it. I've just booked 15 days in Iceland in August/September, and we're circuiting the whole island, so I'm hoping for shots of icebergs at Jokulsarlon, glaciers, waterfalls, the Westfjords and lots of geothermal landscapes...plus the lava deserts in the highlands.
So, hopefully there'll be plenty of decent shots for the calendar

The wood work looks is doing that thing where it starts to look HDR. Still looks good, but the people look very natural still. I'm not saying you did HDR, but did you to deal with the difficult light situation?

Nope, no HDR, this is one shot single processed. I was shooting into the light, so to stop the people from dropping into shadows, I over-exposed by 1.5 stops (iirc) by setting the exposure compensation dial at +1.5 which blew the windows out, but got light into the entire room.
The light is low winter afternoon light, it's very warm, and I've also given the image some cross processing (at 40% opacity) as well as a thin layer of guassian blur/sharpening - although the latter has no effect on colour or contrast. I do the same processing on pretty much all my wedding shots, and each of the shots I've posted here have the same thing.
The hdr thing must come from a combination of the warm natural light and the very colourful room (which it is).

 

[DarkED]

Israphel, I think those wedding shots look awesome even despite the overexposure.

 

[OO7MIKE]

It could be your monitor calibration DarkEd. They aren't too bad. (but you all know my personal preference on blowing out whites) Israphel pushed it pretty far but I'd hardly call the whites blown. Plus adding a soft layer smoothens out the anything blown and makes it look more pleasing to the eye. Only the windows are blown but thats a given seeing how dark the location is.

Nice job Israphel. The interior shot looks fantastic.

 

[cryptophreak]

I guess it's finally time for me to learn how to use Inkscape.

There is a lot more to branding and identity than knowing how to use graphics tools. That's a bit like saying that knowing how to use a mouse makes you a professional gamer. Mike's suggestion to hire is a sound one.

 

[Israphel]

It could be your monitor calibration DarkEd. They aren't too bad. (but you all know my personal preference on blowing out whites) Israphel pushed it pretty far but I'd hardly call the whites blown. Plus adding a soft layer smoothens out the anything blown and makes it look more pleasing to the eye. Only the windows are blown but thats a given seeing how dark the location is.

Nice job Israphel. The interior shot looks fantastic.

Cheers Mike. The bride just called me earlier and they love them. Meeting them tomorrow to choose albums.

 

[DarkED]

There is a lot more to branding and identity than knowing how to use graphics tools. That's a bit like saying that knowing how to use a mouse makes you a professional gamer.

Sure. There's also a lot more to ...

Building a decent website
Building an email server stack that actually works
Building a photo gallery that works well
Building a stable Linux server to run it all
Optimizing http stack and building a proper cache system so I can make due with a less-powerful and less-expensive virtual machine
Shooting decent photos and learning how to post-process them properly
Building a sell-able company around all of the above
Building good relationships with locals and local business owners
Selling said company successfully to local business owners

... than just saying "I can learn how."

But I did all of that, mostly from scratch, mostly by myself (Google helped.)

I'm sure I can figure it out :tup:

 

[IronMonkey]

If you are just starting with Inkscape then don't forget the Open Clip Art library (http://openclipart.org/). In Fedora/RHEL land it's a parallel install to Inkscape and that's a pity because it's a great addition to Inkscape.

Israphel, I asked my wife (probably a more reliable judge of wedding photos than me) what she thought of the most recent set that you posted and she loved them.