Back In The Saddle Again & One Way Cool Website!

Hi Gang,

I promised I would get back on the bloging wagon again so today I’ve climbed back in the saddle and off we go.  I have to tell the reason for the slowdown was really because of all the traveling LaDawn and I have been doing over the past 4 years. I appreciate all the calls and emails to LaDawn concerning my health. I’m feeling GREAT!

We have been traveling for up to 7 months of the year enjoying the world’s wonderful sights, sounds and experiences.  That’s our Spain itinerary from 2014 – what a trip that was!  I know that sounds like a lot of time traveling and lots of folks think we’re crazy for being gone so long and often, but we LOVE it!

OK you ask, “Why so much travel? Are still shooting any more?” To that I answer a resounding,YES! But, in all honesty, a lot less wedding/portrait photography.  I’m still shooting for my VIP clients – now what does that mean? I’ve been in this business for many years and have built up a great many loyal clients. 

LaDawn likes to say that my “client reach” is not very broad but it is very deep as I have been photographing the same families for many, many years and they are still calling me for weddings and important events – a good thing!

As you become closer to that magic age of Medicare, and dare I say retirement, you wonder how it’s going to change your life. Well, I could never get used to the idea of a complete retirement because as a self-employed business owner I always have an iron-or-two still in the fire.

Yes, I was still shooting for many past clients – all the Bar/Bat Mitzvah kids I have photographed over the pass twenty plus years are now getting married.  Yep, the image on the right - I photographed her Bat Mitvah many years earlier.

I along with our good friend Randy Fraley, took up the responsibilities of producing PhotoPro Expo, the biggest, best and most successful photography convention in the midwest! We’ve got great plans for 2017 – I’ll keep you posted.

So like I said earlier, I figure I’ll always have an-iron-in-the-fire till the day I die.  That’s all good – it keeps the mind and body active.  And I have to tell you that I love it all.  Add to that all the travel and we still have a pretty full schedule for our lives. So that said, let’s get back to work.

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Exporting JPEGS but What Compression Ratio – Oh My!

OK, before I share some of our photographic travel experiences with you – I’ve taken over 150,000 photos over the last four years and have enjoyed each press of the shutter.

Over these next several weeks I’d like to share with you some of our stories, our images, and our experiences these past few years but before I begin I want to tell you about a very cool website I stumbled across the other day.

So how many of you guys and girls out there really know or care about what the optimum compression ratio is to use when you export JPEGs? Well… I run into that same delemma myself.  I’m working on a task and  need to export 400 images over to my client for a small project. The images won’t be any larger than 20x10.  Exporting at FULL RES can give me a folder that could easily be over a GIG in size.  That sure won’t work for my DropBox account.

So, just how far can I crunch those JPEGs down and still have them look acceptable? After doing some extensive search the answer I can up with was 50% at 240dpi. Yep, 50% at 240dpi – that’s a BIG crunch of the pixels you say.  But I say, “How do they look after that kind of crunch?”  The answer to me is “Just fine!”.

OK, how did I reach that conclusion? Check this super informative post over at Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog [link]  Ahhh.. the website therin lies the solution.  To be honest, I have never seen a more thorough explanation of what so many of us take for granted.

Jeffrey’s interactive DEMO – I pulled the image above from that DEMO - showing how JPEG compression affects the final image is unsurpassed in it’s presentation.  You simply mouse over the compression settings on his DEMO images and see the result of that compression setting in real time – amazing! Again, check it out right here – way cool info! Also, don’t miss his Resources at the bottom of the post.

Another very good source of info on the subject can be found at Graeme Cookson’s website Shutha – Free Training For Professionals right here.  He goes into even more explanation about the result of compression on your image.  Between both sites you should be able to come to your own best solution for crunching your JPEGs - depending on your application.  Enjoy the read – DAZ.

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Hey gang, I’m going to let that be it for tady.  I really wanted to let this post be more of an intro as to what I plan to post over the next several weeks.  Although the posts will be  more photo-centric, I plan to spin them with my own photograpgic backstory including the where’s, why’s, and how’s of all the images.  I hope you enjoy the journey.

All the Best,

“Back In The Saddle Again” David