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My boss found out...

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Member said:
And there's nothing wrong with trying to make a reasonable and
honest $$$ if the company will pay for it either.
Click to expand...
Nobody said it was. I only responded because Shay's "woo hoo" sounded a little condescending towards the opposite.
Member said:
Remember, this isn't like doing a freebie for Nana. :-)
Click to expand...
It's not like doing a wallpaper for Bill Gates either. See my next post for that. :)

Roy.
 
Shay Stephens said:
So if Bill Gates approached you and asked you to provide the
picture that will be the default wallpaper for the next version of
Windows, you would give him the picture for free?
Click to expand...
First of all, there's a difference. I don't know Bill Gates personally, and it stands to reason that Lou knows his boss and has a good working relationship with him.

Secondly, compensation wouldn't be the first thing to come up in my mind if I was asked for a job like this.

And finally, the pictures I take don't fit into the Windows wallpaper paradigm. :)

Roy.
 
Roy van der Woning said:
Nobody said it was. I only responded because Shay's "woo hoo"
sounded a little condescending towards the opposite.
Click to expand...
Nawwwwwwwwww... I'm sure it wasn't like that. :-)

Man, we ought to be able to embed sound files to the messages. They we could hear the tone intended.

I don't think Shay could be condescending even if he tried really hard. He's a humble man. :-)

Hmm... I like the idea of embedding sound files into the messages.

--

Ulysses
 
Member said:
Roy van der Woning said:
Nobody said it was. I only responded because Shay's "woo hoo"
sounded a little condescending towards the opposite.
Click to expand...
Nawwwwwwwwww... I'm sure it wasn't like that. :-)
Click to expand...
Maybe condescending was too strong a word. My English vocab only goes so far. :)

The thing is that you two make it sound like one must be ignorant not to ask compensation for one's pictures if the opportunity arises. My counter was that an opportunity does not make a necessity.

Sure, it doesn't hurt to make a buck on the side. I've turned hobbies into money too on occasion. But I've always been offered that money. While you may not want to come across that way, and while you may have every right to ask for payment, doing so is not always as benificial as you make it seem. Maybe our national culture is different in that respect, but doing a freebie for someone could instill a positive impression into the recipient (for another lack of a better word) that can be much more valuable in the long run than the one-time fee for a couple of pictures.

Besides, when Lou does this gig during office hours, he is already getting paid for it: his wages.

Roy.
 
Lou Gonzalez said:
Lou

http://www.pbase.com/loug
Sony F717, MCON 35, TCON14B, WCON08B
Sunpak 383, Cokin / Hoya Filters, Epson Stylus 890
Shay Stephens said:
That book estimates the average price of this photography project
would be around $775 - $950 for a front cover on an internal house
publication for a corporation with a 5,000 to 25,000 unit
circulation.

That is for using one of the photographers stock photos. You could
get more if this were for a custom image shot on assingment ($1250
  • $3500)
--
Shay

My Sony F707 & F717 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp
My F717 Observations: http://www.shaystephens.com/f717.asp
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
 
In my experience the printer will have a Mac. Our photographer probably has a PC. And we know there are a lot of different flavors of tif files. And at some point the printer will probably save the file in a CMYK format.

In my experience a potential nasty issue is that there can be a huge color shift when saving RGB tifs which originate on a Windows machine in CMYK from a Mac (probably vice versa but I've never gone that way). I think this is due to the fact that the OS's expect the rgb tuple to be in different orders.

I've never seen this problem with JPG files, though it could happen I suppose. So unless I'm sure the printer will use RGB I prefer using JPG files rather than Tiffs.

Have either of you ever encountered this?
 
Member said:
But the worker is deserving of his wages, and I seriously doubt
that photography comes under your job description even by reason of
the clause in your contract (gawwd, they'd have you doing all sorts
of unreasonable things otherwise.... why not have you use your car
and gas to haul products across several states without compensation
or some other nutty thing??).
Click to expand...
I doubt they wouldn't pay you expenses if they'd really send you out on a job like that.

The flipside is that if they didn't include a clause like this, workers could turn every project they were put on into a salary negotiation.
Member said:
enough, or that they'll never pay THAT for a digital image. Well,
guess what? They're not paying for a digital image. They're paying
for a photographer .
Click to expand...
I don't agree. They do pay for the image.

If I were to contract someone to take pictures for me, I'd be interested in the final result. If a butcher did a better job than a photographer, I'd hire the butcher.

I have to agree though that most people underestimate the value of their work. I was asked to design a website for a starter company a few years ago (I had known the founders personally for years). Even with the knowledge and skills I had back then, the job was even less than trivial. I did the whole thing in a few hours. But I had no idea what would be a reasonable price to ask, and frankly, I was amazed when they offered me about $1000 for it.

Roy.
 
Member said:
Ulysses wrote:

Nawwwwwwwwww... I'm sure it wasn't like that. :-)

Man, we ought to be able to embed sound files to the messages. They
we could hear the tone intended.

I don't think Shay could be condescending even if he tried really
hard. He's a humble man. :-)

Hmm... I like the idea of embedding sound files into the messages.

--

Ulysses
Click to expand...
--

I agree inflection can make a big difference; but. . . yeah until you try to communicate that way with someone like myself with a sever hearing loss that has to use lip reading in connection with sound to change the spoken word into speach rather than just noise. No offense — I know it is easy to forget when it doesn't affect you personally.
Jane
 
Ulysses,

Here's a funny but true story which his comments about "phone book" stock made me remember. I think you might enjoy it.

In Anchorage a few years ago (read more than a decade), we got the real phone book. It had a great four color process picture of Anchorage across the water on the front, but a couple of things stood out: (1) the water was BLUE (it was always grey); and (2) the inlet had WAVES (it had a good bore tide but never waves).

Well it turned out the photographer hired to do the shoot did so at low tide. And at low tide the debirs from the 1964 earthquake -- refrigerators, washing machines, and so forth -- were clearly visible, both in person and in the pics.

So rather than reshoot they just airbrushed waves over the refrigerators and colored the water to make it look like Hawaii. Perfect!

Two lessons: don't shoot landscapes at low tide; and seriouls post processing can cure a lot of ills.

DSC
 
I work at Washington State University. My 'contract' is the same. I work in a group called 'Technical Services'. It includes a machine shop, electronics(mine), graphics and a software shop. My shop can charge for jobs done. ($13.50/hr) I would get no extra pay. But it would be a job for the shop. I have taken photos for the group. Technically it would be the Graphics shop that does it. But, the graphics person isn't real comfortable with still photography. Great with video though. The State is a very odd place to work for. An other post was right. I could not bid on a photo job for the University. If somehow I got the job I would have to take time off work to work for myself. They wouldn't like that either. There is a whole conflict of interest thing going on. Any yes, other places I have work have had a similar 'anything else' in the job description. Never really been a problem.
Duke Beattie
717, sl66
Lou Gonzalez said:
Strange as it may seem, my job description does include that
statement. I think most employers include that in their job
descriptions.

I'd put money on the fact that that if you held a job working for
somebody else, that it probably had that clause in it as well.

Anyways I'll be tracking my time and if I'm feeling "used", next
year it will be a different conversation with the boss...

Lou

http://www.pbase.com/loug
Sony F717, MCON 35, TCON14B, WCON08B
Sunpak 383, Cokin / Hoya Filters, Epson Stylus 890
Ulysses said:
"anything else the job requires". Heheheheh... that's not a
contract I'd sign.
pickles said:
I work for a state university too....most employment agreements for
state universities have some wording that says "and anything else
the job requires." That loosely means if you're told/asked to do
something during your work day - you do it - no extra pay. State
institutions also usually don't let employees bid on jobs. If the
university wanted to hire a photographer, the job would be put out
on bids, and a university employee would not be eligible to bid on
the job. State unis also usually don't have a means of paying
overtime or for extra work - their means of compensation is usually
comp time. You give up quite a bit when you sign the contract with
the devil.
Click to expand...
--

Ulysses
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
--
d.c. beattie
http://www.pbase.com/dcbeattie
Are we having fun yet?
 
Roy van der Woning said:
Maybe condescending was too strong a word. My English vocab only
goes so far. :)
Click to expand...
Hahahah... I like your English just fine. You probably have a better working knowledge of it than the average American citizen, I'm sorry to say. :-)
Roy van der Woning said:
The thing is that you two make it sound like one must be ignorant
not to ask compensation for one's pictures if the opportunity
arises. My counter was that an opportunity does not make a
necessity.
Click to expand...
Yes, I understand where you are coming from.
Roy van der Woning said:
Maybe our national
culture is different in that respect, but doing a freebie for
someone could instill a positive impression into the recipient (for
another lack of a better word) that can be much more valuable in
the long run than the one-time fee for a couple of pictures.
Click to expand...
I think the national culture and the nature of capitalism and entrepreneurship here may have a lot to do with our different approaches on the matter, but I do understand what you're saying.

I'll give you an idea of how "freebies" work in my line of work. I have clients for whom we provide services. We charge what would be the national average and do okay for ourselves (not rich, but not starving). Sometimes they need that same service to be delivered to them that DAY rather than wait a few days for delivery of product and/or service. We sometimes "throw it in" since they are large and consistent clients, and we don't mind doing an occasional favor just by way of public relations.

Another freebie is that we several times a year will provide a nice gift for their offices. For example, my wife will prepare a LARGE tray of very large strawberries dipped in chocolate (Yumm!!). We deliver that with a note of thanks for their business. We are now remembered not only for our services, but also for our delicious STRAWBERRIES! It's to the point now where they depend upon us to provide them each year and will remind us! :-)

So we maintain good relations. Oh, in case you were curious:




Roy van der Woning said:
Besides, when Lou does this gig during office hours, he is already
getting paid for it: his wages.
Click to expand...
Here in the U.S., what he is doing is going beyond the call of his job description. It would be perfectly acceptable to even prepare a written contract for this additional work done as a photographer.

This wasn't done in the spirit to make it seem as if he'd missed out on something obvious, nor that he was a fool for not going this route. To the contrary, it was meant to help widen out his approach for a job of this type, which may benefit him for the future. Alternate approaches are what the forum is all about.

Probably it was key to mention that book reference to Lou so that he could see exactly what/why we were approaching it this way.

--

Ulysses
 
Roy van der Woning said:
no idea what would be a reasonable price to ask, and frankly, I was
amazed when they offered me about $1000 for it.
Click to expand...
I think your earlier mention of our approach being partly due to national differences may have a lot of bearing here.

Here in the U.S., it would not be an issue at all to bring up cost/value/pricing in this context, even with the clause in his job contract.

At any rate, he's going to enjoy the shoot one way or the other. I just hope next year he enjoys it a few hundred $$ more. :-)

--

Ulysses
 
If the OS is reading the RGB data as GRB or whatever, then the color shift would be dramatic indeed! I have never encounted such a large color shift myself.

The worst that has happened to me is having photos and spot color go from vibrant to blah, when being converted from RGB to CMYK. Fortunately everyone is so used to printed material, we mentally compensate for the smaller CMYK color gamut. We ooh and ahh over pictures that would look dull compared with seeing it on screen. (Not to mention the big difference between transmissive and reflective color...)

Problems such as you mention, about color shift depending on Mac vs. PC or JPEG-CMYK vs. TIFF-CMYK, are why I believe the printer should handle this for photographers like Lou who are non-experts.

ZipperZ's answer indicates he does catalog photography for a living. As a pro working on pictures for printed output, he should know about color gamut (RGB/CMYK) issues and yes, he should handle his own pre-press to get the results he wants.

I also wonder whether ZipperZ has run into such a dramatic color shift before, and whether JPEG-CMYK is more "stable" in color than TIFF-CMYK. My guess on the latter is that there should be no difference.

-- Patrick
Donald Cooper said:
In my experience the printer will have a Mac. Our photographer
probably has a PC. And we know there are a lot of different flavors
of tif files. And at some point the printer will probably save the
file in a CMYK format.

In my experience a potential nasty issue is that there can be a
huge color shift when saving RGB tifs which originate on a Windows
machine in CMYK from a Mac (probably vice versa but I've never gone
that way). I think this is due to the fact that the OS's expect the
rgb tuple to be in different orders.

I've never seen this problem with JPG files, though it could happen
I suppose. So unless I'm sure the printer will use RGB I prefer
using JPG files rather than Tiffs.

Have either of you ever encountered this?
Click to expand...
 
Sure I would. Penguins are so cute :-)

--rick
Shay Stephens said:
Roy van der Woning said:
I don't see anything wrong with that. Not everybody is interested
in making photography into a business for themselves.
Click to expand...
So if Bill Gates approached you and asked you to provide the
picture that will be the default wallpaper for the next version of
Windows, you would give him the picture for free?

--
Shay

My Sony F707 & F717 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp
My F717 Observations: http://www.shaystephens.com/f717.asp
Click to expand...
 
But don't forget that once you have the $775 - $950 you get to (a) pay 16.5% in self-employment tax plus whatever marginal federal and state taxes are due, and (b) fill out the 1040 long form and Schedule C to account for the income.

Plus I'm assuming that if you're getting paid you'll have to do it on your own time rather than the college's time. If you do enough of this type of thing over the year, it is worth it, but for a one-off project it may not be worth the hassle.

--rick
Lou Gonzalez said:
Lou

http://www.pbase.com/loug
Sony F717, MCON 35, TCON14B, WCON08B
Sunpak 383, Cokin / Hoya Filters, Epson Stylus 890
Shay Stephens said:
That book estimates the average price of this photography project
would be around $775 - $950 for a front cover on an internal house
publication for a corporation with a 5,000 to 25,000 unit
circulation.

That is for using one of the photographers stock photos. You could
get more if this were for a custom image shot on assingment ($1250
  • $3500)
--
Shay

My Sony F707 & F717 Gallery: http://www.shaystephens.com/portfolio.asp
My F717 Observations: http://www.shaystephens.com/f717.asp
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
 
I found a good single-page overview of print issues such as RGB vs. CMYK, converting from 72 PPI to 300 PPI in Photoshop, etc. It is at

http://www.sisf.minoh.osaka.jp/MM/RGB_to_CMYK.htm

The only major point of disagreement I have is that the site says "Images in the .JPG format are not acceptable for color reproduction." They incorrectly add that JPEG can "not be used in color reproduction by your professional publishers because the information needed for clean color separation is gone".

JPEGs can be used for color reproduction. The loss in quality and color information depends on how much compression was done to the JPEG. Usually, JPEGs saved for the web use a lot of compression which does make them unsuitable for high-quality color reproduction.

However, high-quality (low compression) JPEGs can be visually indistinguishable from the original, as shown in my sample pictures at

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=5386854

In conclusion, high-quality JPEGs would be fine for almost all print purposes. The bigger issue is that if the printer wants TIFF or EPS instead, then go along and provide it to them. They be happy and will save 15 seconds by not having to load in the high-quality JPEG and then saving it out themselves as TIFF or EPS or whatever they use internally (grin!).

-- Patrick

PS -- The only other remark I'd make about the website is in the section entitled "How To Adjust the DPI". The text reads "The resolution MUST be 300 pixels/inch. The Document Size will depend on how big you want the picture to be."

They don't explain in this section that your image will be resampled (made bigger or smaller) when you change the Document Size.

For example, if you have an image which is 72 pixels by 72 pixels, at 72 PPI the Document Size's "Width" and "Height" settings will be 1 inch. If you change the "Resolution" from 72 PPI to 300 PPI, Photoshop will hold the print size (1"x1") constant and will resample your photograph to have 300 x 300 pixels. That's a 416% enlargement, which will probably show pixellation even using Bicubic Resampling.

Of course, if you have to take a 72 x 72 pixel picture and fit it into a 1" x 1" print area on a publication using 300 PPI, then you have no choice but to do the 416% enlargement.

However, maybe you want to print it at "actual size" resolution. In such a case, the printed image will be pretty small -- 72/300 or 0.24". Here's how to do this in Photoshop's Image Size dialog with the 72 x 72 pixel original, intended for a publication requesting 300 PPI photos:

In the Image Size dialog, set the "Resolution" to 300 pixels/inch. As mentioned earlier, the Pixel Dimensions will automatically change to 300 x 300. You will have to manually re-set the Pixel Dimensions to 72 x 72 pixels. The Document Size "Width" and "Height" will automatically change to 0.24" x 0.24", which is what you want.

Again, the website is pretty good except for not explaining that resampling can occur -- and can be drastic in the case of the 416% increase.
 
rwh said:
Plus I'm assuming that if you're getting paid you'll have to do it
on your own time rather than the college's time. If you do enough
of this type of thing over the year, it is worth it, but for a
one-off project it may not be worth the hassle.
Click to expand...
Heheheh....

Hassle? What hassle? You pay the tax, and you get a few hundred bucks for taking a couple of shots and prepping it for their use? No hassle in that. You really dislike filling out the form that much? :-)

--

Ulysses
 
Hi,

Well, this has turned out to be quite a thread with shifts of emphasis.

Lou, Patrick, Donald & Zipper,

You may all be interested to read the comments below from someone who has intensive knowledge of magazine and newspaper workflow. I'm still trying to understand the implications.

Lou, whatever happens don't get heavily involved in the colour management process on this occasion as I'm sure that there are others in the process that could and should take over from you. Mind you, perhaps you should print off the images and show other parties as collateral for the work that you're about to do. Good luck! Here's the script:

Magazine & Newsprint Workflow

This workflow begins AFTER all editing processes are complete. If required, upres RGB file in 10% increments to ACTUAL size and 300ppi for magazine, ACTUAL size and 180ppi for newsprint. Then, convert RGB file to CMYK, or Greyscale for B&W image. Make sure that you have setup appropriate printers’ RIP in CMYK/Greyscale setup, or use Photoshop’s’ default SWOP, newsprint or EuroSwop settings if specific dot gain, UCR/GCR and ink limit variants are not available.

Go to SELECTIVE COLOR and reduce Magenta in BLUE by 40%, and in CYAN by 20%. This will prevent RGB blue from turning purplish in CMYK. SAVE as TIF, using IBM PC byte order. (Almost all MACs, except for very old systems, can read IBM PC byte order, but it is not so the other way around). NO COMPRESSION.

Have a Kodak Approval Proof made from this CMYK/greyscale tif file at the line screen of the magazine (i.e., 133, 150, etc.) or newsprint (i.e., 75, 85, etc.), on exact or similar paper, in actual size. Send this approval proof with CMYK/greyscale tiff file. DO NOT SEND desktop inkjet, continuous tone, or other types of prints for reference. I advise using only a service bureau with either the Kodak Approval Proofer or the Polaroid’s PolaProof.

If working with actual printer, get his “setup”, make a custom CMYK and/or Greyscale setup, and CONVERT to CMYK using this setup. If a spirit of cooperation exists, ask for a contract proof. If not, supply printer with Kodak Approval proof in conjunction with TIF file.

Lastly, all time and services, including cost of Kodak Approval proof, are billable items, and should be included on invoice in the same manner that you formerly included film/processing, scanning, couriers, etc. If printers respect anything, it’s the Kodak Approval.

DO NOT transfer unzipped data files by email. Send in binary mode by ftp, or by CD/DVD and courier, or, as last resort, use WinZip or stuffit and send by email.

AVOID SENDING ANY RGB FILES TO CLIENTS. To do so will allow your images to fall to the whims and subjective interpretations of others, including the printer. If you are going to burn CD, make sure it is in ISO Level 1, with limit to file names of 8 + 3. This will ensure true cross platform compatibility. For additional digital advertising standards, see http://www.ddap.org/ .

Hope this is of interest and a contribution in some way.

Best regards,
Phil
Patrick Murphy said:
The worst that has happened to me is having photos and spot color
go from vibrant to blah, when being converted from RGB to CMYK.
Fortunately everyone is so used to printed material, we mentally
compensate for the smaller CMYK color gamut. We ooh and ahh over
pictures that would look dull compared with seeing it on screen.
(Not to mention the big difference between transmissive and
reflective color...)

Problems such as you mention, about color shift depending on Mac
vs. PC or JPEG-CMYK vs. TIFF-CMYK, are why I believe the printer
should handle this for photographers like Lou who are non-experts.

ZipperZ's answer indicates he does catalog photography for a
living. As a pro working on pictures for printed output, he should
know about color gamut (RGB/CMYK) issues and yes, he should handle
his own pre-press to get the results he wants.

I also wonder whether ZipperZ has run into such a dramatic color
shift before, and whether JPEG-CMYK is more "stable" in color than
TIFF-CMYK. My guess on the latter is that there should be no
difference.

-- Patrick
Donald Cooper said:
In my experience the printer will have a Mac. Our photographer
probably has a PC. And we know there are a lot of different flavors
of tif files. And at some point the printer will probably save the
file in a CMYK format.

In my experience a potential nasty issue is that there can be a
huge color shift when saving RGB tifs which originate on a Windows
machine in CMYK from a Mac (probably vice versa but I've never gone
that way). I think this is due to the fact that the OS's expect the
rgb tuple to be in different orders.

I've never seen this problem with JPG files, though it could happen
I suppose. So unless I'm sure the printer will use RGB I prefer
using JPG files rather than Tiffs.

Have either of you ever encountered this?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
-
 
Patrick,

Excellent and complete as always. Before making a few comments, may I ask what you use for screen capture?

With regard to your response:

(1) Yes, the RGB/CMYK should be done by the printer particularly in Lou's case. You may wish to refer to the text sent to me as per 'expert opinion' elsewhere in this thread. With regard to Photoshop Elements, I was really thinking in terms of those who are not aware of the software's inability to do RGB/CMYK conversions. Hence the need for a plug-in.

(2) I'm afraid that my experience with getting satisfactory screen prints has been a tiresome process. As you quite rightly point out, there are technology limitations but it's frustrating when you want a capture to be a certain print size and there is a need to do adjustments in an image editor, which often do not produce ideal results. Hence my question about your experience with 'telling' a printer that 200 dpi is what you want rather than 300dpi. At least when dealing with some screen captures.

Best regards,
Phil
 
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