Canvas is Timeless
Our gallery wrapped photos on canvas start at just $25 for an 8X10, as you may have noticed this is a
tremendous value. Our standard canvases are stretched on 5-eighths stretcher bar. Our standard procedure is to a mirror your picture so that all of you image is preserved on the surface of the image. For more info on this procedure please click on mirror wrap
When uploading your images for canvas prints larger than 8×10 we recommend a minimum resolution and size of 300 resolution at 4×6 inches. For more information on resolution or if you need help resizing your image in photshop please click on resolution or resizing your image
Of course every canvas print starts with the finest canvas, with excellent white point so as to produce vibrant colors. Our canvas prints meet museum standards when it comes to being archival. The inks we use are also archival and finally, the sealer provides UV protection and water resistances. We appreciate that these represent your cherished memories, for this reason we use the finest materials so that they will be preserved for generations to come.
This is a family owned and operated business. In essence when you entrust us to produce your picture on canvas we see it through every step of the way all the way down to the last staple of which I personally handle. I have to say I love this business. If you ever have a question please feel to give us a call or shoot us an email.
phone 707-364-0770
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Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk Paper: Article and Review
Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk Paper
Photographs are designed to capture the sheer beauty of a moment and Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper does exactly that. The Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper is exceeding expectations and it doesn’t stop at capturing the sheer beauty. The paper’s composition ensures that the beauty leaps off the page.
if you want to know what makes Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper so special, then you should be informed that it’s the bartya. Bartya papers are fiber-based and coated with barium sulphate. The bartya paper is held in high esteem in the world of black and white photography because of its ability to produce creamy whites and velvety blacks.
Ilford’s Accolades:
llford’s Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper has been awarded the prestigious TIPA Award for Best Fine Art Inkjet Paper. The TIPA jury which includes editors and journalists decided to give Ilford the award based on its price, technology, and design.
When the Ilford paper is not winning awards for itself, it’s busy winning awards for those who use it. Gustavo Marx, winner of two Lucie Awards, raved about his excitement with the paper and it’s extensive range of tones.
Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk’s hype doesn’t end with the prestigious TIPA award. Like the Rocky Horror Picture Show or the Snakes On The Plane craze, this paper is revered and has a cult following across the board. Individual bloggers praise it for its traditional look and feel, and Amazon reviewer’s can not believe how incredibly rich the black ink is. The paper even managed to land a positive spot on YouTube.
The Competition
There are a couple of competitors in the market that give the Ilford paper a run for its money. These name brands include the Hahnemuhle Bamboo and Harman. There are constant comparisons between the Ilford and Harman.
But Ilford has a leg-up on the competition with its affordable price. When compared to Harman it has almost equivalent quality but a price tag that is easier on the wallet. In a time of recessions and economic crisis, photographers need to get as much bang for their buck as they can. Ilford provides that:
The Marketing
The marketers of Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk found no need to bring sexy back, because they understood that when it comes to advertising sexy never left. Photographer Sydney Shaffer was hired to take the cover picture that would be displayed as the face of Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk. Shaffer has a portfolio that consist of high quality, racy pictures and delivers a gorgeous photo of a dark haired woman that entices potential Ilford buyers with two P’s: Pigmentation and Pixels.
Because of the ingenuity Ilford put into the creation of this lovely paper, not much marketing was needed. Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk generated its own marketing in Photography magazines across the board. PC Photo Mag featured Ilford as one of the specialty paper must-haves for its Buyers Guide of 2009.
Magazines aren’t the only ones getting the word out. Photographer forums are recommending the paper to newbie photographers looking for an answer to their low-quality printing jobs. Apparently, for any photographer that wants photos that are close to darkroom prints; Ilford is the answer. Even the smell of the paper emits the odor of fixer.
One marketing plus that Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk missed out on was creating the paper without OBA’s. Despite the dreams of nature-loving photographers, Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk is not OBA free. If it’s environmentally conscious paper you’re searching for then you might want to set your sights on Hahnemuhle Bamboo 290 gsm.
The Complaints
I am an expert at finding complaints and bad reviews, but I was unable to locate hardly any when researching Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk. One complaint comes from those who have gotten use to the stiff feel of gloss and semi-gloss paper. Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk actually feels like real paper and those who want to feel something a bit firmer might complain. The complaints are minor; a smudge here and not stiff enough there; but no concrete deal breakers are in place.
Ask an Expert
Here at PicturePhotosoncanvas.com we have been developing relationships with experts related to our industry for years. Some of them supply us with the materials we use in our business, others are colleagues that have an area of expertize such as digitizing art or color profiling ext. Would you Like to Benefit from their knowledge. Maybe you have a question about the differences between two types of art paper, or perhaps your looking for an icc profile for a particular print media, or maybe you need a recommendation on a camera, or possibly your looking for info on how to set up a spray booth.
Whatever your question or need as it relates to our industry we probably have an expert who can assist you. Simply fill out our form bellow and we will match the information with the expert best suited to your needs and have them contact you at your convenience.
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Photoshop Tutorial: How to add Invisible Digital Watermark
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Photoshop: How Invisible Digital to Watermark
Wikipedia describes ‘digital watermarking’ as “is the process of embedding information into a digital signal”. Watermarking can be embedded in audio, video and still images but for the purposes here, we are focusing our attention on adding a digital watermark on a still image or photograph.
There are two types of watermarking. The first and most common is the process of embedding invisible digital information to a file that is transferred, copied or saved along with the image. This means that if someone uses your image without your permission, you have proof that the image is yours, simplifying any recourse. In theory, no print shop or editor would use the image without permission from the owner of the copyright. However, this requires the watermark to be ‘read’, not something every editor or photo processing technician checks before using.
Watermarking should always be the last thing you do to an image before saving it as a finished product or compressing it for use so for this example, we are going to assume that all that any post-production on our image has already been done and we are happy with the finished product.
To add an invisible digital watermark to an image In Photoshop, first you must register with Digimarc Corporation so that you have your own, personal Digimarc I.D. number. Once that is set, open the image you want to register and click on Filter, then Digimarc and Embed Watermark.
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Once the Embed Watermark is selected, a second window pops up.
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In this window, there are several adjustments that you can make to how your watermark will behave once added to the file.
If you select the first parameter, Personalize Digimarc, another window pops open allowing you to enter your Digimarc I.D. Number:
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Select Okay and you go back to the original Embed Watermark window. The next bit of information you can customize is how you want the image classed – by Copyright Year, Image I.D. or by Transaction Number. Generally, copyright year works fine but if you have a specific way of classing your images, use Image I.D. Transaction I.D. refers to a specific job for a client or file name. Again, depending on how you file your images or jobs, this option may work better for you.
Image Attributes is self-explanatory – check off any that apply. Adult content does not filter adult images out at this time; however, in the future it might, protecting our children from inappropriate content.
Target Output is a bit difficult for most of us to classify – it is hard to say exactly where each image will eventually end up and since images can have only one watermark. What the pros do with images might be used for several purposes is to refrain from watermarking the image until just before sending the file to an editor, photo developer or posting the image on the web. This way they can customize the watermark for the specific use.
Watermark Durability refers to the visibility of the watermark once the information is embedded. The lower the durability rating, the cleaner the finished image is for print use. The higher the rating, the more noise can be seen in the image and only appropriate for use on the web.
Here is the image before applying a watermark:
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Same image with a low durability setting:
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And the same image with a high durability setting:
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The difference is hard to see on a computer monitor however, what is evident is an overall fuzziness to the image and a lack to the depth of colors.
To find the right balance between the visibility and the durability or strength of the watermark, slide the rule back and forth. For print use, the lowest possible durability is required whereas for posting on the web, the noise of a high durability setting will not be noticed.
Because there can only be one Digimarc watermark per image, Digimarc suggests experimenting on practice images to find the right level of durability before permanently embedding the information on your original image.
Once the Digimarc watermark is in place, to verify the information is indeed on the file, click on Filter, then Digimarc and finally Read Watermark and the information window will pop up:
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There is no surefire way of safeguarding your images completely – especially on the web. However, invisible watermarking is one way to make your images less desirable for would be creative property thieves!
Return tomorrow for Part Two on how to embed a visible watermark on your images for greater security when a clear image is not required!
Photoshop Laptop & Notebook Review:What to Consider
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I want a Laptop that can run Photoshop like Butter
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Now that laptops are being made more powerful and useful, they can handle Adobe’s Photoshop much better than in past years. Some of the Major players in the Industry right now are HP, Dell/Alienware, IBM - “Lenovo”, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, Toshiba, & Gateway.
What’s Important for a Laptop if it’s going to run Photoshop like butter?
In the past it was about how many Gigahertz (GHz) a computer had, and then it was about the Memory/RAM, and then about the Video Card. Today the most important factors in buying a good Photoshop laptop generally look something like this.
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1. CPU L2 Cache. The L2 Cache is like a pipeline, with bigger pipelines in your processor, more information can go through at once – speeding up the time it takes Photoshop to render effects I recommend looking for a laptop with between a 2-4MB/L2 Cache
2. CPU Dual-Core & FSB. The Front-Side Buss is the speed that the processor can send information through its pipeline, just like a two lane highway at 90 MPH is better than a four lane highway at 30MPH. Ideally a FSB of 1066 is really what to look for, and a FSB of 1333 will churn that butter.
3. Memory. To run Windows Vista well Microsoft recommends at least 1GB Minimum RAM, make sure there’s between 2-4GB of Memory to handle the larger Photoshop files and still have room for the fancy effects afterwards, also make sure the Memory for the laptop is a speed of 667 MHz or higher.
4. Dual Core/45nm Processor. The laptop should be at least a Dual-Core processor, Intel Core 2 Duo and the AMD Athlon 64X2 are currently the leaders in the market, in desktops the 45nm processor can out-perform the Quad-Core 65nm in certain tests, as this starts to come to laptops it’ll quickly become #2 on the list for speed.
5. Hard Drive. No doubt hard drives are extremely important to store all of the Photoshop files, and the space goes quick when files quite often are between 50MB-500MB Files, at this point in time I recommend shooting for 300GB+ or more in a Laptop, the new Solid-State-Drives (SSD) are starting to gain steam with 64GB Models, these Drives are far superior in the speed of opening and saving files, but limiting for Photoshop users because of their lack of space and will only be viable in the next few years when 200-500GB Models are affordably available.
6. Graphics Card. You may wonder why I list the Laptops Graphics card on the bottom of the list, this is simply because Photoshop generally relies more on the RAM/Memory, and Processor much more than the graphics card – this is because graphics cards are designed to render complex moving objects, perform shading and anti-aliasing on the fly, a powerful graphics card will mean more bang for your buck in Gaming, CAD, and 3D Studio Max, whereas Photoshop generally will rely more on L2 Cache, FSB, and Memory.
So, now that we have the details hammered out, let’s talk about the manufacturers,
Dell XPS – Some people like their dells, this personally has not been the case for me, based off Dells targeted market over the past few years, I find that their products have motherboard, overheating, and other mechanical problems much more than their competitors. In addition, one of their target markets are corporations, thus cheapening their computers/laptops to increase profits. Generally their laptops are most expensive than what they’re worth, who wants to pay more and get less. The Dell XPS has an okay 800MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache, and reasonable 4GB 667Mhz DDR2 Memory, and a mediocre 250GB Hard Drive. Their Graphics Card on this Model is only a 256MB GeForce 8600M GT which isn’t the most important for Photoshop, but definitely tells a person that the quality of the laptop isn’t there.
HP Pavilion dv7-1020us – I’ve owned a HP Pavilion dv6000, the predecessor of the dv7 and I loved it, the dv7 is equipped with a powerful GeForce 9600M GT Integrated Video, 320GB Hard Drive, and 4GB DDR2 Memory/RAM with a 1066MHz FSB, and 3MB L2 Cache CPU all wrapped up with a stylish 17” Widescreen Display giving you the screen space you need to work with all of Photoshop’s Toolbars & Workspace. This particular model is even equipped with a BluRay player and two head-phone jacks for multimedia. The only thing I didn’t like about the HP Pavilion after 1 year of use is the built in touchpad, the cursor sticks and the left and right mouse buttons don’t click-in when pressed – which takes some getting used to. Otherwise, this HP Model laptop is solid, I personally would buy it again-and might even put out some cash this year for the new model.
Sony VAIO VGN –FW290JAB – Sony generally creates quality products, and the VGN has some very attractive Specs, Their processor has a 3MB L2 Cache and a Front-Side Bus (FSB) runs at a speed of 1066Mhz, which is a major plus. It’s equipped with 320GB of File Space, and 4GB of ram, it weighs in at 6.9 Pounds. Sony laptops generally have more rich-colored glossy screens because the company plays such a big role in the Television industry, this laptop is equipped with a very slick XBRITE Full HD LCD Display. With other Sony VAIO’s it’s a shame that there’s only 3 USB ports, 1 for Mouse, 1 for External Hard Drive, 1 for Printer, and in the past I didn’t feel wonderful about all the ports being placed on the left and right sides of the laptop with none in the back. 99% of the Pre-Installed software on each VAIO is garbage and wastes disk-space, Memory, and effort to remove, but if you’re looking for performance, under the hood the VGN-FW290JAB is definitely a high power champ.
Toshiba Satellite A205-S5879 – In the past, just like Dell was king of the Desktop, Toshiba created really high-quality laptops that have lasted ages, I know several people who’ve had theirs for 4+ years. There’s quite a difference in the manufacturing quality of the old Toshiba Satellite series and the new, Thos A205 is equipped with a 15.4” Screen, and Intel 1MB L2 Cache, 533Mhz FSB, and 200GB Hard Drive, on the Plus side it does come with 3GB of DDR2 Memory, and unfortunately an Intel GM Video Chipset, definitely a minus compared to NVidia and ATI Graphics Cards. Overall this laptop is quite a bit less expensive than its counter-parts, and its screen size makes it ideal more for travel. It could run some smaller Photoshop quite well, although it’d definitely choke on anything over 150MB, other Toshiba makes like the Qosmio seem much more promising for High-End Photoshop work, although the Satellite series definitely does not fit the bill.
ASUS M50 – Vm-X1. Asus in my experience has always provided high quality hard-ware and I’ve purchased between 10-15 Motherboards from them without ANY issues for the past 6 years, that alone puts them at very high esteem in my opinion. Their M50 Looks like it’s more of a mobile laptop as it only has 250GB File Space, and a 15” Screen, but don’t let that trick you – this thin light laptop packs an extremely powerful punch with In addition to its 1066Mhz FSB / 3MB L2 Cache CPU, and the 4GB DDR2 Memory/Ram… 1024MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS Video Memory. The “GS” is the lower-end GeForce, but it with its ram it deffinately packs a punch, it’ll run alongside Photoshop with quite some power, and is a more viable choice for as a highly mobile laptop.
To touch on the other manufacturers, in the Computer Repair Industry I’ve seen the most problems with Gateway and Dell Laptops, and IBM “Lenovo” looks promising, Alienware was bought out by Dell a few years ago – which makes it hard to rate them due to Dells scaled-back conservative model. And after owning an Acer, it performed alright, but I’ve heard from very technical people that Acer has had some “reputable” problems with their laptops in the past.
To conclude, the best Photoshop Laptops are HP 17”, Sony 17”, and ASUS 15”, and from there it’s preference.
Photoshop tutorial: dpi and Color Profiling
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Photoshop tutorial: dpi and Color Profiling
Anyone beyond the basic snapshot, point n’ shooter has heard of dpi - otherwise known as dots per inch. But how many people know what it actually means or how they affect the overall quality of your photography. And what about color profiling? Color profiling is maybe beyond the amateur photographer but anyone interested in increasing their knowledge and further improving the quality of their post-production images should have at least a basic understanding of how their digital camera ‘sees’ and how a computer then extrapolates that information.
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Dpi stands for ‘dots per square inch’ and is the industry standard for measuring the quality of an image – the higher the number, the greater the detail while the lower the amount, the grainier an image appears. Imagine a picture in an old newspaper and you get the idea of what low dpi looks like. Dots per square inch can be misleading in some applications however so often ‘pixels per square inch’ or ppi instead. Some video camera or computer monitor manufacturers have taken to counting the three layers of color as three separate drops so if the dpi sounds too good to be true, it probably is and ask what the ppi is instead!
In print production, 300 dpi is standard minimum resolution required for an image to reproduce at a high enough quality for magazine or book publication. Newspapers are still plagued by low quality printing and often only require 72 dpi images. For the web, 72 dpi is the most commonly used dpi so that image files are small and load more quickly. If a higher quality image is required, sometimes the image will be 96 or 128 dpi but rarely do you see a greater dpi then that on the web.
Color profiling or space refers to how colors are represented as an abstract mathematical model or, simply, by numbers. In digital photography, RGB is the most commonly used with a further choice of Adobe RGB and sRGB depending on the application. Adobe RGB is the industry standard for print reproduction of images and sRGB is commonly used as the preferred web based color space. CMYK is the print standard for graphic design so often, when working within promotional brochures, business cards and other graphic based settings, images will be switched to CMYK to maintain all aspects of the project on the same color space.
How do you check what the color space and dpi are of an image? The easiest way is to select an image in Adobe Bridge and then look at the metadata (in the default location on the lower, left hand corner) as seen below:
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Here you can clearly see all the pertinent information of an image including the dpi or resolution and color space of the image as well as the dimensions, file size, bit depth, file type and file name.
To lower the dpi of an image for use on the web or shrinking it for easier emailing, in the top navigation bar, click on Image, then Image Size and a window will pop up:
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The math on this image is easy – 300 dots per inch by 2 inches equals 600 total dots per square inch. There are several ways to adjust the size of an image – change the pixel dimensions by either lowering the number of actual pixels or by a percentage or change the document size by changing the physical size of the image or lowering the dpi. If you need to keep the image at the same proportions, make sure Constrain Proportions is checked. Scale Styles and Resample Image should be left in their default modes as seen above.
To quickly change the color space to CMYK for use in a brochure or other graphics project, click on Image, then Mode and then check CMYK Color:
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To convert to the image to the commonly used web color space sGRB, click on Edit, then Convert to Profile:
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The window that pops up should look like the one below:
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From here you can adjust the color profile to many different color spaces – ignore them all but the sRGB shown here:
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Notice you can also change to Working CMYK through this method if needed.
Learning about dpi and color space is important for all photographers - amateur and professional alike. The easiest way to keep your post-processing simple and uncomplicated is to set your camera to Adobe RGB and to the highest image quality possible – it is better to shrink images for emailing or use on the web then to risk wasting an incredible image because it is too small of a file for anything important.
To learn more about dpi, color profiling and how they affect your photography, refer to the manual for your camera and check back here for more tips to come.
Photoshop: Batch Processing
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Photoshop: Batch Processing
Every photographer makes a mistake now and then – over exposing, under exposing and not changing the custom white balance correction are probably the most common. Whether the mistake is caught quickly or a whole series of images are affected, the post-processing can take hours without the right tools. Do you have a ton of images that all need the same adjustments made? What if you need to do something as simple as renaming all the images in a folder? Then you may want to look at the Batch feature in Photoshop. Batch processing runs the same command or action on all the images in a folder, saving time and serious headaches when you are up against a deadline.
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First, to open the Batch window, select File, then click on Automate and finally Batch… like so:
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The next window that pops up should look something like this:
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The first adjustment to be made is to the Set and Action features so you can adjust the process to exactly what you want to change. In basic Batch processing, leave these as they are – more on these features in later tutorials.
Source refers to where the files you want to process are located. This can include a specific Folder, Importing from a digital camera, scanner or PDF document, Opened Files refers to any files that are currently open in the workspace and Bridge will process any selected images in Adobe Bridge. To save time and energy, import images directly from your camera through Batch processing and change the image name to match your filing system rather then import the images first, then changing their name in another step.
The next set of parameters are the classed as processing options. Override Action “Open” Commands is an advanced feature that overrides the Open commands that refer to specific file names rather then batched files. For now, leave it as unselected. Include all Subfolders is important if you have images in various files and subfolders. To turn off the display of color policy warning messages, select Suppress Color Profile Warnings. Again, the Suppress File Open Options Dialogs suppresses dialog boxes for files that are open, useful when working on camera raw image files.
Destination is self-explanatory. None makes the adjustments to the open image but does not save the file to any specific spot. Save and Close saves the file to the original location with the original name, replacing the existing file so be careful choosing this selection – you must be sure you do not need the original file for any reason. The Folder option is the most commonly used as it saves the new file to a specific spot, maintaining the integrity of the unprocessed original image. You can also change its name and/or extension, have the file number start at a specific number and adjust what operating systems are able to read the image.
The last adjustment is let the program know how to handle any errors it may come across while processing the images. You may have it Stop for Errors if it comes across any problems or the system can Log Errors to File as it works through the batch.
Once all the adjustments are made to how the Batch will be processed, click OK and let Photoshop do its magic.
Save time, energy and a few headaches by becoming familiar with all that the Batch feature in Photoshop can do for you and watch for upcoming articles on how to streamline this powerful feature even further!
Photoshop Tutorial CS3: Correcting Underexposed Images
Photoshop Tutorial cs3 Correcting Underexposed Images
In this particular tutorial we will be covering how to fix under exposed pictures that we’ve taken. The image that I have chosen for this tutorial was taken at Yosemite national Park and as you may have noticed has been used in several of my other tutorials. First off, open an image in Photoshop that you would like to correct.
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Then duplicate the layer. The quick command for this is control j. for a Mac it is command j.
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then in the blending mode drop down menu select screen
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Then with that first layer selected duplicate the layer again pc control j
Mac command j.
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Each time you duplicate this layer you will see your image getting lighter, duplicate layers until you reach the desired effect.
Just as a little something extra lets say that the clouds are a bit overexposed by the time you get to the third layer duplication but everything else looks good.
One of the things that I sometimes do is create a layer mask in order to put back some of the contrast that formally existed often times this will be in the sky or clouds.
In the layers palette with the last duplicated layer selected click on the add layer mask.
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that will add a layer mask that looks like this
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in order to use this layer mask you must select it by clicking on it, once you have done this it will have a black line around it.
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Now select a brush with a hardness of about 25 and a brush size of about 35. At this point everything that you brush over on your image with black selected as your foreground color will show through to the layer below it and if you switch that foreground color to white it will bring the top layer back the quick and command to toggle back and forth between these two is the letter X.
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From this image we see that the foreground color is set to white if we hit the X key it would switch to foreground color back to black.Now we just paint back the contrast
So now we can look at a before and after
Before
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After
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We will transform your cherished photo into beautiful canvas art
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