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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Power Tools That Rev Up Your Revenue
by Michael J. Ayers
Studio Photography & Design
July, 2003
Time is money for most of us. And with so many digital products and services available today proclaimimg how they can save us time and money, we've all got our own list of power tools we can't, or would rather not, live without. My five favorites are: custom white balance, histograms, Eventpix.com, Fujifilm Studiomaster Pro, and Fuji Pictrography 4500.
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Here in my studio "Drawing Room," I have a great view - three big windows and four computer monitors! My Fujifilm Pictrography 4500 stands on the far right.
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1. CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE. My camera of choice is Fujifilm's Finepix S2 Pro. It's lightweight, fast, user friendly, accurate, and gives me spectacular skin tones. Why such great color? Fujifilm claims it's because they create color, start to finish, from capture to final prints. At any rate, one of the S2 Pro's unique features is its ability to set up two custom white balance settings and save them within the camera's memory.
This digital tool saves me hours of studio time because every subsequent image in similar lighting conditions is perfectly color balanced and needs no correction in Adobe Photoshop. I place my studio's white balance characteristics into one of the camera's memory spots and leave the other white balance memory for whatever lighting condition I'm working with at the time. I generally use Tamron's 28-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens so I can zoom right into a small white balance card I keep stuck on the back of my flash with Velcro.
2. HISTOGRAMS. At one of my recent photography courses, a student asked me how much I should use my light meter. I jokingly answered, "What's a light meter?" My point being: why use a light meter when the S2 Pro lets you display histograms for each image on the LCD panel on the back of the camera body?
This tool is powerful because it lets me check the exact exposure information for any captured image just after the shutter is released. Most imagemakers are familiar with "levels" in Photoshop and how to fully adjust an image in all three RGB channels, including lightening, darkening, and saturation, in both input and output.
The historgrams on the back of the camera allow you to preview what you'll see later in Adobe Photoshop, letting you know right away if an image is over- or under-exposed. This data alone can save you a dozen hours a week in image-adjustment time.
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By pressing Command/Control-L in Photoshop, these histograms show up on the screen, ready for adjusting. But having the same info on the back of the Fujifilm S2 Pro mean you'll have few adjustments later.
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3. WWW.EVENTPIX.COM Are you ready to market yourself in cyberspace? A few years ago, while searching for an online photographic ordering website that would work best for me, I came across Eventpix.com. For a minimal fee upfront per upload, the site allows 1,000 images per event and sends all orders securely back to me with no surcharges.
The site is fast and easy to use on any computer, and I now receive orders from clients all over the continent, many of whom would never have seen the photos otherwise! During my busy wedding season, everytime I go online I increase my revenue without having to set up appointments or make phone calls!
This power of this tool is simple: Upload, set prices, check email, accept payment, and process orders.
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Eventpix.com allows consumers easy and fast access to our studio's images. Every time I open my email, it's payday!
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4. FUJIFILM STUDIOMASTER PRO. My pro lab, H&H Color Lab in Raytown, Missouri, uses a host of digital printing equipment, including Fujifilm's Frontier printers. So by using Studiomaster Pro software on my studio's computer, I can effectively operate the lab and its printers. I can control everything about my images, including quantity, size, cropping, color balance, overlays, borders, black & white, retouching, and even "smart" album pages! Studiomaster Pro has special features that allow me to be more efficient and save money. I can upload an order on a Monday morning and have the prints back on a Wednesday from H&H without rush charges!
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5. FUJIFILM PICTROGRAPHY 4500. About a dozen years ago, Fujifilm invented a system for making photo-quality prints without inks - just distilled water. This invention became the Pictrography 3500 and the Pictrography 4500, two self-contained, Mac- and PC-compatible, studio-priced printers.
The beauty of my 4500 is that it fills a gap between online printing and my color lab. So if I have a family in my studio for a protrait session, I can print a quick contact sheet on the Pictro and take orders on the spot. Or make glossy black & white publicity portraits for a busy executive, and have him out the door in minutes with archive-quality prints - without using a darkroom. And because I'm the only game in town with a 4500, it's quite profitable. Of course, Eventpix.com is more profitable when family members are scattered all over the country. And nothing beats H&H for my final prints and enlargements.
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With digital capture, too many of us live behind a computer. By refining your workflow with these and other tools, you may find yourself in a studio that's more efficient and recession-proof, with happier clients, and more time for yourself.
Now, that's power!
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