Exotic Photography - Selecting, Editing and Viewing Your Images
Having successfully completed an image set, where do you go from here? Where's that computer of yours? That's where. To review, edit, select, and view your images. By "view" I mean show them to your client/model. More about that below. Most professionals use Photoshop, but if you are starting out, try free GIMP software. The learning curve isn't so steep, and it is hard to beat the price. Just use your favorite search engine to locate it, download, and install to your machine.
Learning to use software is another skill modern photographers will need to acquire, but software becomes more and more friendly, logical and intuitive each year. Of course, some will never get the knack, and will need to outsource the task. If you become one of them, visit elance.com where you'll find more willing able help than you can ever use.
The important thing is to train your eye to see the image and all of its details. You learn to do this by simply looking at lots and lots of photographs in your exotic niche until you are used to seeing the differences between good and poor photography. You will benefit greatly if I can persuade you to visit museums, buy books or borrow them from the library to learn to distinguish different qualities of work from one another. Of course, I'm sure you won't forget to visit the wealth of excellent material on the web, as well. As I admire some of their work, I stand before some modern day giants in the field of exotic photography.
How to Select and Edit Your Images
Viewing Your Images
By "viewing" the images I mean sharing them with your model or client. There are a number of ways that you can do this. You could order "proof" prints of all of the edited, selected images. You could do this by ordering 4 x 6 images from the lab or your local department or drug store. You could print them yourself, but image output from a PC just can't compete with the quality of today's easy to use local kiosks. Depending on how many images you have, this might get expensive. This is often how it was done in the film days, but now we have the digital approach. You can view the images on your monitor by using the same software that you used to edit your images. Usually you will want to show the model or client the largest images you can, up to full monitor size if possible.
Photographers have used contact sheets for many, many years. Contact sheets got their name because negatives were laid on a sheet of photo paper (thus "contact") with a sheet of glass over the top to hold it all flat. The resulting images were exactly the same size as the negatives. Digital contact sheets are actually sheets of small, thumbnail images. Software such as Photoshop allows you to set the size of the images to be whatever you like. You can even format it as five rows of four images each, or whatever pattern you would like. Then, you could choose to print it out to show your client.
While this is handy to keep track of all of the images, but it's not as useful as the digital tools you have on your computer. If you are not used to them, the small images on the sheets are hard to read. Most of time, photographers use some electronic means to show the images on the monitor (or even a projector if you want to get really fancy). This is almost always faster and less expensive than any other method.
Some software allows you to make a slide show and play back before your client. If this is the case, always start with your favorite, the strongest image. End it with another strong image, probably your second favorite. This works best for me, but if I have to sent it to someone's computer, save it in a movie format like QuickTime which will playback on virtually any personal computer.
Learning to use software is another skill modern photographers will need to acquire, but software becomes more and more friendly, logical and intuitive each year. Of course, some will never get the knack, and will need to outsource the task. If you become one of them, visit elance.com where you'll find more willing able help than you can ever use.
The important thing is to train your eye to see the image and all of its details. You learn to do this by simply looking at lots and lots of photographs in your exotic niche until you are used to seeing the differences between good and poor photography. You will benefit greatly if I can persuade you to visit museums, buy books or borrow them from the library to learn to distinguish different qualities of work from one another. Of course, I'm sure you won't forget to visit the wealth of excellent material on the web, as well. As I admire some of their work, I stand before some modern day giants in the field of exotic photography.
How to Select and Edit Your Images
From within your photography software, line up your images.
Remove those that are too bright or overexposed to be salvaged. You'll find that you can do this rough elimination from a small thumbnail size at a glance.
Look for other technical flaws such as the flash failing to fire, glare from stray reflections, flare from the sun, etc.
Now look at them in more detail in a fuller size, and mark or rename those where the eyes are closed, that are blurry from camera movement, that are out of focus, or where the model's look or posture is awkward.
Don't delete these faulty shots, but create a new folder in which to place them. Call the folder, "rejects". You may find yourself needing to dig around here later. If you lost access to your model, and need to round out a set, it's good to have these to look through. You may be able to fix one or two of them.
Now, in greater detail, look at each photograph and find a reaction to it emotionally. Let the feelings flow. You need to be an artist now. Utilize the right side of the brain for this step. As you first see it, what is your immediate response? Like it? Hate it? Not really sure? Sort the images into different reaction sub folders, or mark them if your software allows it. Now go through them again at their full window size. Take only two or three seconds per image, and no more than that. If you are not sure, move on. After you have given each image a chance, walk away, and try once or twice more. When you do this, you may find a change comes over you. Some of the images will grow on you. You will favor them over other of your 'keepers'. Other of the images will grow tiresome. With practice, you'll get into that right-brain mode more quickly. Remember, though, not to be the artistic judge until you've done with the elimination of the obvious poorer images. With the problem images still in the mix, you may fall in love with an image that is too technically imperfect to be shown professionally.
Now take all of the images that have passed muster to show your client/model. Never agree to show them the mistakes or even the unedited files. By not showing all of your mistakes and problems, you will more easily earn your reputation as a fabulous exotic photographer.
Viewing Your Images
By "viewing" the images I mean sharing them with your model or client. There are a number of ways that you can do this. You could order "proof" prints of all of the edited, selected images. You could do this by ordering 4 x 6 images from the lab or your local department or drug store. You could print them yourself, but image output from a PC just can't compete with the quality of today's easy to use local kiosks. Depending on how many images you have, this might get expensive. This is often how it was done in the film days, but now we have the digital approach. You can view the images on your monitor by using the same software that you used to edit your images. Usually you will want to show the model or client the largest images you can, up to full monitor size if possible.
Photographers have used contact sheets for many, many years. Contact sheets got their name because negatives were laid on a sheet of photo paper (thus "contact") with a sheet of glass over the top to hold it all flat. The resulting images were exactly the same size as the negatives. Digital contact sheets are actually sheets of small, thumbnail images. Software such as Photoshop allows you to set the size of the images to be whatever you like. You can even format it as five rows of four images each, or whatever pattern you would like. Then, you could choose to print it out to show your client.
While this is handy to keep track of all of the images, but it's not as useful as the digital tools you have on your computer. If you are not used to them, the small images on the sheets are hard to read. Most of time, photographers use some electronic means to show the images on the monitor (or even a projector if you want to get really fancy). This is almost always faster and less expensive than any other method.
Some software allows you to make a slide show and play back before your client. If this is the case, always start with your favorite, the strongest image. End it with another strong image, probably your second favorite. This works best for me, but if I have to sent it to someone's computer, save it in a movie format like QuickTime which will playback on virtually any personal computer.