Help from this forum to get photos out there

[srobb]

Well, hopefully I can find some real help here. Living now in a small town it is harder to try and get your stuff out there in front of people. I know little about HTML, or any of that other stuff. But I have decided that a web site is something I may need to look into more seriously. I know Old Timer talked to me about his and I think he said it only costs like $99 per year. I have tried programs like Web Easy, but still had problems getting anything put together. Guess now I have another forum to hang around on.

[Peter_AUS]

srobb,

What are you trying to do with your website, what audience are you targetting. To get a domain name, use Godaddy.com. If you want to discuss website hosting, drop me an email with what you want.

[srobb]

Peter, right now I am simply looking for a way to get my stuff some recognition. I am a working stiff that is hoping his hobby will at least turn into a paying side job/hobby. I have talked with Old Timer and like the set up he has on his site. Don't remember right off who he is hosted with.

Basically I would like a site with the home page, of course, and maybe 3-4 other pages to use as galleries. I remember seeing your price things to others before and thought yours seemed pretty reasonable from what I have seen from other hosting sites. I am just trying to find the best bang for my not so many bucks. ;)

[opus]

I think a big question for some people ... (at least it came up at a professional conference I attended) ... is how to feel rather sure that your pix are protected from theft. And if there is no guaranteed way to ensure that, then a discussion about how relatively safe our images are online (or not). Or why not to care. Whatever the end result, I think there are a lot of fears out there by people who want to show their best work but also want to protect it.

[srobb]

And that is one of my big concerns, kelly. I do know from visiting their site that the one Old Timer uses has that protection built in. Another thing I like about them is that it is a site set up where you sell your work directly from there and they take care of all that work. They have a control page where you can keep track of things like what you are selling and who your customers are. Now I just need to start getting out and getting a bunch of good shots to put on one.

[Peter_AUS]

srobb,

Yes protecting images is an important thing to be concerned about, but unless you get them out there, and displaying them locally in gallery or shop then nothing will happen in regards to furthering your development and income.

There are many ways to try and protect images, but nothing is infalliable, if someone wants an image they will get it, unless you put them in a flash movie and that is pretty hard to get images off of.

[Lara]

Peter! I totally missed your new mod position. Congrats my friend.

I'm sure with your guidance a lot of things that this forum can use will come to fruition.

[Peter_AUS]

Not so new Lara, has been for about 18 months now. But I will forgive you for not noticing it before. Catch you later.

[Lara]

Dang, I'm really losing it.

[srobb]

srobb,

Yes protecting images is an important thing to be concerned about, but unless you get them out there, and displaying them locally in gallery or shop then nothing will happen in regards to furthering your development and income.

There are many ways to try and protect images, but nothing is infalliable, if someone wants an image they will get it, unless you put them in a flash movie and that is pretty hard to get images off of.

The one Old Timer is using is printshop.com. I do know from experimenting that if you right click them, you get a message about them being protected and not able to be downloaded. That was one of the things I tried since that is a concern. I like the idea of using a site like that so that I don't have to worry as much about that part of the business.

[Peter_AUS]

OK so you right click on the image and get a message. Try doing File/Save As and then see if your images are protected. I think you will find that you can actually download the image with the page into an image directory.

As I said nothing is safe if it is on the web, unless you do something like Flash with the images, then you generally have safe images.

[Mig]

Images can be extracted from Flash as well. Your best bet is to display at the minimum quality you can get away with so that prints are unusable - it won't stop people from using your images on their own sites, etc, but as Peter said, that's a risk of the web.

I'm talking here only about the pictures that are displayed on the site - any professional print ordering company should be protecting the full res images that are used for the prints.

Danielle

[srobb]

That is what printshop does, Danielle. All of the high res images are stored on a secure server separate from everything else.

Peter, what about if the thumbnails are low res and also have a watermark/copyright on them? Would that be enough to deter someone from trying to take them? Or let's go in another direction. What if I was looking at my own personal web site with title page and 3-4 others for galleries. Could that still be set up where people could order prints? That would mean I would have to take care of that part of the business, but that would not be too bad.

I am doing this from memory , but I think what printshop was offering was 500MB of space for $99 a year. I may have to look at their site again to get all the other specifics.

[Peter_AUS]

Yes you could do that with your images low res with copywright on them as well, there are lots of people that do that.

What about smugmug.com or cafepress.com as options as well.

http://www.smugmug.com/pro/

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/

As further options.

The thing is, that if you print them yourself and look after all the business side of things, you have complete control of the final product.

Remember, make money, tax deductions for all equipment used, this can be very beneficial in the long term, yes a bit costly to setup, but if you are serious about it, then get serious. Leaving it up to other places to produce the end product doesn't leave you with control of final product.

Just my thoughts, as many have/are thinking along the same lines for their own businesses.

And this discussion really isn't about "What would you like from this forum", so I might prune this thread to a new thread if that isn't a problem with you.

[srobb]

Not a problem with me, Peter, but you had me wondering there if I was going a little bonkers. Saw this thread and the title and thought, now I know I didn't start a thread. I have thought about all this all weekend and you are right. I would rather take care of everything myself. I have already gotten into the habit of saving receipts for film, developing, food and gas on photo trips, etc. I am just thinking what I really want is my own site and domain name that I can hopefully set up where people can order prints from it if they want.

I want to discuss that with you, but it may be something that I wait to do until early next year. I know I still need to build up a better portfolio that I can put on a site.

[Peter_AUS]

Yes you do and getting the right domain name is the bigen. Obtaining one isn't a problem as I mentioned before Godaddy.com is what I use and recommend. A good photo printer to consider if you want up to A4 size is an Epson R800 or if you want to go to A3+ size, about 4 A4 size papers, but really about 3/4 of the size in reality, just giving sizes to visual, then the Epson R1800. Using Archival paper, Matte, Premium Glossy Photo Paper you would get long lasting images that can be framed under glass and in Albums.

The USA had deals on the printers and the paper is resonably cheap there compared to here. Working out the costs here, for A3+, each print would be around $10-15Aus cost an A4 would be around $3Aus and 6 x 4 would be around $0.80Aus maybe.

When you are ready drop me a line and we can discuss what you need and the best avenues avaliable.

[srobb]

Thanks much, Peter. I will have to sit down and give it some thought for awhile. If I do this, it may be sometime early next year. Right now I have my eyes set on a teleconverter. (must be budget conscious you know. ;) )

[srobb]

I now have my teleconverter so now I will be giving this some thought. I know my domain name I want is not taken, at least not yet. Did a search for it on Yahoo anyway and it came up as available.

I am working on a proposal to the local tourism board to make some photo notecards that they can sell. Hopefully that will work out and give me a little extra income to work with.

Just a question on printers; is it really cheaper than having a lab do them? I have seen a lot of talk on that subject and some of the folks here I respect a lot feel they can do better with a lab. Of course some of them also are the ones that use mainly printers.

[Peter_AUS]

The printer question is always a hard one to answer as all views are subjective. If you can find a lab that does them well, listens and works with you then my personal view is that they will always do a better job and lasting job as well.

Unless you buy a good fairly expensive printer, use the correct archival inks and paper then you will do a fair job and the photos might last a while. If you use say something like an Epson R800/1800 printer with pigmented archival inks and use Archival papers then you will get great results and photos that you can frame, place in photo books, cards presentations, art works etc and be happy and reasonably sure that you can look at those works in probably 50-100 years as long as they are looked after like you would anything else you have. There are many wedding photographers that use these printers for all their work.

The thing that people find the hardest is getting the output from the monitor to printer looking the same and that is where trial and error comes into a bit. Unless you have a calibrated monitor and use correct inks and paper and printer profiles, you will probably chase your tail a bit getting the results you want.

Cost overall of an A3+ photo works out to about $10 - $15 US depending on the photo and the inks used.

Biggest thing that people seem to concentrate on is getting cheaper inks, given that they are using a premium printer. The R800/1800 cartridges hold about 13 mls of usable ink in them according to what I have read. When you replace a cartridge (they are individual ones), they use up a % of other inks during the priming with the new cartridge as well as the others. So ink doesn't seem to last as long.

Also inkjet printers are subject to clogging of print heads and that is another thing that people complain about.

The biggest advantage is you get to see your work instantly instead of waiting for it from the labs and then seeing it isn't quite right, and having to do it again and wait.

I personally think for me, having my own printer is a plus.

[gahspidy]

Interesting, but common discussion. I, too , have been looking into a means of allowing visitors to my site be able to easily buy a print if they like. People usually like to buy on a whim and having a "buy" button or shopping cart is far better for sales than having someone contact you through email if they want more info, which is what I am currently doing. I am going to look into paypals basic service with shopping cart and see what works.
As for printing, from my experience ( and I have been doing my own printing now for a couple of years) it is best to have control over your final print by doing it yourself. You need only to use quality profiles for the paper you choose ( most paper companies these days offer profiles for the popular printers) and have a well adjusted monitor. If you are going to be serious about the quality of your prints as well, then I would recommend the Epson 2400. The others that Peter suggested are very good , but do not give you the benfit of being able to print on many different types of paper and thickness, and most importantly, are not as good as the 2400 for b&w prints. I had been using the 2200 for a while and then made the change to the 2400 when it came out. I reviewed it in PR reviews and so you can check that out for more info if you like.
You also might want to consider getting into cutting your own mattes for your prints. I find it easier to sell a matted print than a loose one. It is much cheaper to do it yourself also