The Photo Canvas Blog

By Scott Wyden Kivowitz

If you have been trying to sell more printed photographs to clients but have been unsuccessful, consider adopting a new approach — one that takes guesswork out of the equation and allows your customers to easily visualize the beauty of your work — hanging in their home. Whether you are trying to sell canvas gallery wraps or framed photographs, the strategies in this article work the same.

In the past, you’ve most likely relied on your clients’ abilities to “imagine” your photographs hanging on their walls. The problem with this approach is that many people do not possess an imagination vivid enough — or a sense of space and proportion reliable enough — to do that “imagining” effectively or confidently. The resulting lack of “vision” naturally leads to indecision and little or no motivation to buy.

To sell more prints, you’ll need to go above and beyond the call of duty. You’ll need to “fill in the blanks” for them. By employing the following approach, you’ll awaken your clients’ vision, enabling them to confidently commit to their print purchases.

Step 1: The Scene

Option A: Photograph a living room or other interior scene that is clean and elegant and features an empty wall prominently.

Option B: Purchase a photograph of a similar scene at a stock photography site such as iStockPhoto. Here’s one by Shenki.

Step 2: The Template

Now that you have a photograph of a beautiful room with an empty wall, it is time to create a template for prints. I suggest two templates:

Template A: First, I recommend a template for showing canvas prints. This one is very simple because, viewed head-on, it’s not necessary to create the wrapped edges. The easiest way to simulate the floating gallery wrap effect that is so magical is to add a very subtle drop shadow.

Template B: The second template is trickier. To simulate a framed print, you want to create an empty picture frame that is elegant. You could return to your stock photo site and purchase a picture frame template, or find a Photoshop tutorial on how to create your own.

Somewhere in the template, you can optionally add a price, or text that includes language such as “Want this photograph on your wall?” Even without text, having your client’s photograph hanging on a wall will subliminally make an impact.

Remember, once you have your templates created, you never have to recreate them.

Step 3: The Print

Take your favorite photograph from your client’s session and place it inside of your new template, whether a framed or canvas print. Save the image with the photograph hanging above a couch, for example, and keep it with the session’s photographs that you plan to upload for proofing.

Step 4: Include

Hopefully the proofing solution you are using for your clients has a place where you can insert custom HTML content. Once the gallery is uploaded and ready for viewing, add the new hanging photo image to the top of the proofing gallery, making sure it’s the first thing the client will see when visiting the gallery.

Alternative Approach

If you don’t have the time or inclination to create your own templates, here’s an alternative approach: There are iPad apps available that can easily create mockups. They’re not cheap, but may offer more versatility than the templates you create on your own.

For example, Shoot And Sell can help take the guesswork out of large sales for photographers by allowing them to show their clients exactly what their images will look like on their own walls, at the right size, all on the iPad in the palm of their hand. The app lets you take a picture from your client’s room and easily make a mockup that they will relate to. There are also in-app purchases available for stock photographs.

As you can see, there are numerous options for creating realistic mockups. Bring the vision to life for your clients. It’s a sure-fire way to sell more prints.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz is a NJ photographer and the Community & Blog Wrangler at Photocrati, developer of WordPress photography themes, teaching other photographers how to increase business with their website.

Ready to sell more canvas prints? Discover Artistic Photo Canvas and APC ProZone benefits.

Want a reprint of a gallery wrapped, frame-ready or unstretched canvas print you’ve previously ordered from Artistic Photo Canvas — but don’t want to start a new order from scratch? No problem! You can get stunning APC reprints while bypassing the entire canvas configuration process. It’s fast and easy to do!

Here’s how: Log in to your APC account by clicking the “My Account” link at the top of any page at artisticphotocanvas.com.

Figure 1 – Logging in to your Artistic Photo Canvas account

Click on “My Orders” in the navigation bar running down the left side of your account “Dashboard.” You’ll see all of the previous you’ve orders placed using this account since July 5, 2011. Browse through the list until you find the order(s) that contain(s) the canvas you want reprinted. To double-check you’ve got the right previous order from which you want a reprint, click on the “View Order” link to the right of any order listed. (Not the right order? Simply click on “My Orders” again and navigate to a different one.)

Figure 2 – Viewing your previous orders via the “My Orders” link

If you scroll down, you’ll see the canvas(es) that were part of the selected order. Here you can confirm that the size, style, options and image are the ones you were looking for. If you want to reorder one or more of the canvases on this order, scroll up and click on the “Reorder” link near the top of the page. (To get reprints from more than one order, simply click on the “My Account” link at the top of the page and then “My Orders” again in the left-hand navigation pane and repeat the “Reorder” process.)

Figure 3 – Confirming previous order details and using the “Reorder” link

After clicking on “Reorder,” you will advance to the Shopping Cart, where all canvases from previous orders you’ve selected for “Reprint” will have been added to your cart, exactly as you previously configured them. If your previous order(s) contained more than one canvas and you don’t want to reprint all of them, you can easily delete any canvas you don’t want to reorder by clicking the “X” to the right of it. [fig. 4]

Voila! Having confirmed your reprint details, you’re now ready to proceed through the checkout process. Ready to try it? Get started.

Prize Alert! …Read on to see how you could win one of five signed copies of Doug Sahlin’s latest book, Digital SLR Settings & Shortcuts for Dummies.

By Doug Sahlin

The goal of every serious photographer is to create the most compelling image possible; an image that viewers give more than just a casual glance. Here are 10.5 ways to achieve this goal:

1. Pick the low hanging fruit first: When you see a scene or object worth photographing, take the first picture that comes to your mind. Then slow down and analyze what you’ve got. Move around until you see the composition that best captures your vision and take another picture. Repeat as needed.

2. Simplify: Some photographers try to include too much information in a photograph. When you compose a photograph, see what’s in the viewfinder. If what you see is confusing, zoom in to remove some of the elements. Cut to the chase and simplify the image. Less is more.

3. Wait for the light: Sometimes you’re in the right place at the wrong time. If the light is harsh (also known as “Sucky Light”), wait a few minutes for clouds to diffuse the sunlight, or come back when the light is better.

4. Do something different: Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When you see an object or scene that you want to photograph, don’t photograph it in the same way you usually do. If you normally use a wide-angle lens, switch to a telephoto lens or switch to a different vantage point. Break out of your rut and stretch the envelope.

5. Photograph a shape: Many photographers photograph objects like trees, buildings or cars. Instead of photographing a tree, look for an interesting shape that just happens to be a tree. You don’t have to photograph the entire object. Sometimes you find an interesting shape within an object. You can find interesting shapes everywhere.

6. Look for patterns: Instead of photographing a forest or a group of flowers, look for an interesting pattern, or look for a break in a pattern. Continue reading…

By Chris Stampar

Hey everyone! Hope you all got home safely from Photoshop World. It was a hectic week but I know we all had a blast. For those of you that stayed home, thanks once again for tuning into our coverage here on the The Photo Canvas Blog. We really appreciate it and hope it’s been helpful!

After my sessions with Joe Mcnally Thursday morning I headed to hear a series of talks on social media and blogging. The first was a session called “Tweeting With Authority” by Rod Harlan, wherein he discussed various aspects of how Twitter functions – as well as third party resources. The first key discussion point was understanding that Twitter is all about dialogue. It’s not a one-way street; the beauty of the network comes from the interaction between vast ranges of individuals. You have to engage with your audience, and the more you do so the more connected you and your audience will feel. If you work to create a truly personal and beneficial relationship between you and your followers, then you will see the benefits that Twitter has to offer at their greatest potential.

One of Rod’s personal tips was to only use 115-120 of the 140 available characters on Twitter to allow space for people to retweet your post or add their own small thought. He also suggested that if you’re lacking substantive or interesting material to tweet about, search through sites like Delicious or StuffToTweet to find neat links to share with your followers. Rod also mentioned several useful third party applications like CoTweet, which allows you to give several people access to the account, SocialOomph that will allow you to schedule tweets, and Untweeps which helps you manage who is following you so you can block spam.

Directly following this session was a panel discussion hosted by Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, and Richard Harrington entitled “Blogging for Photographers.” Here Scott and the gang provided some very useful, concise pointers on blogging that I’d like to share. Firstly, its important to understand the power you stand to gain from blogging. Traditionally, sharing information with wide audiences was restricted to a small group of privileged individuals who had access to large publishing companies. However, with a blog, you now become your own publisher! You are free to share what you want, when you want, with whoever you want for virtually no cost. This is a tremendous opportunity for yourself or your business that the world has literally never experienced before. Take advantage of it!

Once you get your blog up and running there are a couple important things to keep in mind. First is consistency. Make a plan. Decide on a reasonable schedule for how many times a week (three is a good starting place) you can absolutely commit yourself to posting, and stick to it. Readers like to have consistency because it gives them something to anticipate, and hence a reason to keep coming back to your site. Also make sure to try and add a photo to every post you make to keep things interesting. Even if you don’t have photos laying around to post, you can easily find royalty/license free images online, or even spend a couple bucks to grab some from iStockPhoto.

Most importantly, remember to be yourself. Find your own unique tone, style, or voice, be consistent, and in due time you can have a successful blog. Continue reading…

By Chris Stampar

Joe McNally is the master of all things flash, so there was no way I could miss his speed light session at Photoshop World on Thursday morning. Joe’s first class focused on getting the most out of one light, and the results are truly amazing. Often people think that to produce beautifully lit photos you need some seriously expensive studio equipment. But that’s no longer the case; a small investment into a single speed light and some very cheap, or even DIY light modifiers, can go a long way.

The first thing Joe pointed out were the three essentials of light: quality, color, and direction. In terms of quality, are we going to use a large, soft light source like an octabank, or will we only fire the bare bulb for harsh lighting effects? More importantly, what effect will that decision have on the mood or feeling of the photo?

Next is color. Are you looking for daylight balanced flash for a natural look, or will you add a gel to give a colorful flare to your photos? Color is critical, and understanding color symbolism, or the mood that certain colors elicit, is even more beneficial.

And lastly, direction. Where will you place your light source and how will this affect your exposure, story, feeling, even composition?

Joe of course also offered a couple of technical tips to boot. First, the closer the light source is to your subject, the bigger it is relative to the subject, and the softer the light will be. It’s also important to understand the difference between exposure compensation and flash compensation. Changing your camera’s exposure comp is a “global change” and will affect all aspects of the photo including the ambient light and the effect the flash has on your overall exposure. Changing your flash compensation however, only alters the amount of light that comes from the flash and not the overall exposure of the picture.

Lastly, using flash is all about experimentation. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just learn from them! Continue reading…

By Chris Stampar

I attended Scott Kelby‘s session on Portrait Retouching at Photoshop World. As you could probably guess, it was awesome. Scott is one of the best teachers around. He’s got such a relaxed and humorous yet informative teaching style.

Here are some of the best tips I gleaned from the session:

Scott puts a lot of emphasis on a model’s eyes, and showed an easy way to remove red blood vessels in the eyes in Photoshop. First, choose a small soft brush, set it to 20% opacity, then sample the color directly next to the vein and just paint over it. That simple. Just always make sure you resample next to the vein you want to remove for the most accurate and realistic retouch. And if you think that the resulting texture is a little too unrealistic in the eye, just go to the filter menu, choose add noise, and brush in a little monochromatic noise into the retouched area of the eye for added realism.

Another great tip for enhancing the eyes is to add an extra catchlight that looks like a soft reflection. Take your Elliptical tool and draw a small oval. Then cut out of chunk of the oval so you end up with a “crescent moon” shaped selection. Fill the selection with white, add a small blur to it in the filter menu, and set the blending mode to soft light. Position the shape appropriately in the eye, and now you have a nice kicker light effect to add a little pop to the photo.

Moreover, Scott pointed out that you should start every retouch by first removing all blemishes on the subject before you try any other retouching techniques. This will lead to the best results after further retouching. Continue reading…

By Chris Stampar

The first class I attended at Photoshop World was hosted by RC Concepcion and discussed how photographers can easily get their photos on the web without having to know any technical code. RC focused on some basic tips and ideas of website development as well as free resources on the web. For instance, you can create a full slideshow of your images for free by uploading photos to a set on Flickr, then clicking the “share” button in that set and copy and pasting the HTML code provided for you. You can then embed this full-fledged slideshow anywhere on the web for free, and only with the click of your mouse. No coding necessary! You can also easily leverage Flickr to generate traffic to your website/blog by tagging your photos with relevant tags (city, state, subject, camera, etc.) and including a link to your site in the caption. How easy is that!?

If you would like to get a little more technical, the Google Chrome web browser includes some great development tools free of charge. Say you’re previewing your website in Chrome, but would like to know what an element would look like if it were slightly larger. Instead of going into the files on your computer, changing settings, and re-uploading just to test something, you can preview any changes right in the browser. Simply right click on any element on your site and select “Inspect Element.” A new window will appear with the source code of your site. Click the element you want to change and Google will highlight where the code is for that specific object. You can then change any of it’s properties like width or height and you’ll see those changes instantly in browser. This is a non-destructive, non-permanent way to quickly preview small changes before digging into to your website files and having to re-upload. My little tip is that you can also do this in Firefox with the free FireBug extension. Continue reading…

By Lew Bedell

I remember a few months ago a particular piece of art making its way through production here at Artistic Photo Canvas that caught everyone’s eye and created something of a buzz. It was a digital “fine art” painting that was beautiful, contemporary, and truly striking. We knew the artist was exceptionally gifted. What we didn’t know at the time was that the origin of the piece was a digital photograph.

The photographer/artist that created “Chiara Bride” (shown here) – which, incidentally, made for a truly stunning stretched canvas print – was Melissa Gallo. It turns out that we’d unknowingly created something of a mutual admiration society because Melissa called our offices a few weeks ago to let us know that she was just blown away by the customer service she recieved and the quality of our work compared to other labs she’d tried. She was thrilled to have found both a medium and a vendor that finally showed her work it in it’s best light.

I later learned that Melissa was creating a webinar to teach her photo painting techniques to others. As you might imagine, I’ve seen a huge number of “photo paintings,” but I’ve never seen anyone who’s work so resembles a “real” oil painting. In fact, until Melissa told me, I had no clue that her art was the result of digitally painting photographs. I was on board for this webinar. I’m really looking forward to seeing exactly how she does it. I told her I would definitely give her webinar a plug on our blog. (It would really be a joy to see more digital art of that calibre coming through APC!)

Melissa’s webinar, “Turn Your Photo into a Classical Oil Painting,” will be hosted by Marathon Press and conducted live on December 7, 2010 from 8PM – 9PM Eastern. The cost is $34.00. Purchasers of the webinar will have permanent access to the taped version to review again and again. Click here to see more of Melissa’s photo paintings. After seeing the the exceptional results she achieves with her approach, I think you’ll agree that this webinar sounds like a great investment.

I asked Melissa if she’d share her thoughts with our readers about the trend of transforming photos into paintings and her upcoming webinar…

What is your experience with traditional painting and what attracted you to the digital medium?

“I was a paperback romance illustrator for 22 years-back in the day when there were no computers! Using acrylics, I worked in a very tight realistic style. It was tedious and hard work. A painting would take me a month to complete, working with a brush that came to a point of one single hair. I could not make mistakes-what I put down on canvas was final and there was no “undo.” By the time my last child was born and I had put my husband through veterinary school with my work, I was ready to quit. I had had it! I vowed I would never paint again! Then several years ago I fell into photography and started a photography business. One day, while flipping through a Photoshop magazine, I saw what I thought to be a traditionally painted oil painting, that they claimed had been done digitally. That painting transformed me. I couldn’t believe it and I had to find out how it was done. I delved first in Photoshop and then found Corel Painter – and I was hooked! It was SO wonderfully easy and fun – and mistakes could be done away with the tap of a key.”

How would you describe the differences between “autopaint” and “filter” techniques and a “true” digital painting for photographs?

“There is a TREMENDOUS difference between auto painting/filter techniques and true painting! First of all, I do not like auto painting at all! You are not doing the painting – the computer is. This is not what we are trying to achieve. Instead, we are hoping to facilitate the art of painting using the computer. When we paint, our brains interpret what we are seeing based on our own physiological makeup and all of our experience. If you leave it to the computer, then the computer will do the interpreting for you – without the element of human emotion. That is why a painting can be so moving and magical – it is not “generated” – it is thought over, fought over and imbued with our feelings… Why would you leave your painting process to anyone – or anything – else? I want to demonstrate how we use a photograph as a basis only for our painting – but then take off from there.”

What types of photographs make good candidates for digital painting?

Continue reading…

“And the sign said anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! What gives you the right?”
– Five Man Electrical Band

By Bob Lussier, Photographer

One of my favorite genres of photography is Urban Exploration (Urbex). I love shooting and viewing images of old forgotten places and urban decay.

My corner of the world was built in the 19th century along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. It was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution in America. In its wake it left behind, seemingly, countless old mill buildings that have been struggling for over half a century to find new purpose.

The majority of my Urbex work has centered around these historic treasures, prompting several of my regular readers to ask, “how do you get access?”

I’ve threatened all of the questioners with a blog post on the issue, so I’m thrilled to write this one for Artistic Photo Canvas.

Is it Urbex if you have permission?

In its strictest sense, Urbex evokes images of skulking through the dark, hopping fences and dodging security guards, all in the name of adventure and capturing awesomely gorgeous and gritty images. But that’s breaking and entering and that is illegal. I would NEVER do such a thing (cough, cough).

With all due respect to the 5 Man Electrical Band, trespassing is trespassing. There is risk in ignoring the “No Trespassing” signs. While getting past them legally may not bring out your photographic Indiana Jones, it will certainly lead to a stress-free shoot. It will also help build your reputation and open more doors for you. I mean that in a very literal sense.

My initial foray into the mills lead to additional introductions and additional photo shoots.

Find the owner.

Finding property owners can require a bit of detective work. Leverage your own contacts in town. Chances are you know someone who knows someone who is associated with the property. Contact the local historical society. Is the property for sale? If so, contact the real estate agent. Diligence pays off here.

Just ask.

When you find the owner, just ask. You may be surprised at people’s willingness to allow you to shoot their property.

My buildings, the mills (yes, I consider them mine), were begging to be photographed in HDR. News of the pending demolition of a set of smokestacks and boiler house at the old Wood Mill site in Lawrence, MA prompted me to contact the developer. After a couple of emails and a game of phone tag, I was introduced to the developer’s project manager. He was receptive to my request and helped clear the way.

Continue reading…

On the heels of Photoshop World Las Vegas and our successful first-ever conference event – APC’s HDR Walkshop with Brian Matiash – the timing couldn’t be better to share with you the final chapter in Brian’s phenomenal HDR Best Practices Guide. Get ready to learn from a master… and enjoy!

By Brian Matiash, Photographer

We’ve had quite the journey thus far.  By now, you have rocked it out in the field and captured some fantastic brackets. You’ve also nailed down your image management process, ensuring that you know exactly which images you will be tone-mapping. This leaves us with our final phase. The last stop. I admit it’s bold to say that every digital image you take will see some sort of technical refinement but it’s the truth. Barring strict photojournalistic ethics, just about every image you share, in one way or another, will be refined to taste.

The term most commonly used to describe this refining phase is called ‘Post Processing’. It’s also typically referred to simply as ‘Post’, as will be the case for the rest of this Guide. The craftsmanship of your final results rests squarely on your ability to utilize and navigate through the tools that you have at your disposal. In most cases, people usually make core adjustments to an image: the exposure level, contrast, and saturation. HDR imaging brings it to a whole new level because before you can even start adjusting any of those values, you first have to derive your tone-mapped image.

If you think about it, your brackets are the paint on your easel. The quality of these brackets will directly affect the color and quality of what you can paint with.  Hopefully, the first two parts of this Best Practices Guide have helped ensure you get the best possible brackets. An optimal series of brackets will contain detail ranging from the highlight areas (typically found in the darkest bracket images) through the mid-tones (the normal exposures) and onto the shadows (the brightest bracket images). Reviewing these brackets while still in the field is integral to ensure that you get the correct details in all of your exposures before leaving the scene.

You’ve seen me use the term ‘tone-mapping’ here and you’ve likely read it on other websites.  For the sake of thoroughness, let me quickly and loosely define the term as it is a critical step in the HDR process.  In actuality, just about every LCD and printer that you are currently using cannot accurately display all of the data in an HDR image. There is simply too much information in the highlight and shadow areas for your screen to output. To mitigate that limitation, algorithms have been created to ‘tone-map’ the HDR image into a range that your screen and printer can handle. This process of scaling the HDR image down is done at a pixel-by-pixel level and, as a result, you really want to make sure that the pixels found in all of your brackets contain enough exposure detail so that the entire scene is represented accurately.

Continue reading…