Just Shoot Me!

[Kirk Gittings]

My head is about ready to explode. I am about 1/3 of the way through reading Dan Margulis's PROFESSIONAL PHOTOSHOP: The Classic Guide to Color Correction.

Man how I miss the days when you just shot the absolute best transparency you possibly could for a client, handed them the film and the invoice and went on your merry way. In those days Pre-Press people did the scanning, color correction and CMYK conversions. Increasingly all that prepress is falling back on the photographer. I have many magazine clients now that have no interest in seeing film and have no interst in seeing files that are not CMYK and ready for press. Hence the read and an ever increasingly steep learning curve. Being a photographer used to mean knowing how to handle a camera and lighting and the darkroom. Magic stuff, Alchemy! Now my a__ aches from sitting in front of a computer most of the time.

Photography has become a desk job.

[tim atherton]

just make sure they are paying well for it.... !

[Marko]

My head is about ready to explode. I am about 1/3 of the way through reading Dan Margulis's PROFESSIONAL PHOTOSHOP: The Classic Guide to Color Correction.

Man how I miss the days when you just shot the absolute best transparency you possibly could for a client, handed them the film and the invoice and went on your merry way. In those days Pre-Press people did the scanning, color correction and CMYK conversions. Increasingly all that prepress is falling back on the photographer. I have many magazine clients now that have no interest in seeing film and have no interst in seeing files that are not CMYK and ready for press. Hence the read and an ever increasingly steep learning curve. Being a photographer used to mean knowing how to handle a camera and lighting and the darkroom. Magic stuff, Alchemy! Now my a__ aches from sitting in front of a computer most of the time.

Photography has become a desk job.

If the client doesn't have their prepress people or does not want to use them, you hire yours and bill them accordingly. Photography is one thing, prepress is something entirely different.

I don't see why would you feel obligated to do it for free only because they want press-ready files.

[Frank Petronio]

Isn't that book years and years old?

If the magazine is too lame to understand or assist you in making proper CMYK conversion and color corrections, it doesn't make sense to overextend yourself beyond doing the basic CMYK conversion. They're going to print the mag to make the ads look good first and foremost. Then the black text. The editorial photos are the third priority, just ahead of the classified ad section ;)

Of course you have large blue skies to contend with. The solution to that is to move back to the Northeast so you don't have those nasty Southwestern out-of-gambut skies...

[David Karp]

I have talked to some pros whose clients won't pay for that stuff. That is part of the business problem facing pros today. There is a lot of price competition by other photographers who are willing to do the extra work to get the job, plus competition from "photographers" who are people who know how to press the button on a digital camera and e-mail the photo to a client. They feel the same way that Kirk feels. They used to make the photos, send them to the lab, and back they came: perfect, beautiful, and ready for the client to use according the their agreement.

[Kirk Gittings]

Frank, There is a brand new edition of the book.

And guys I do charge for it though not enough, because this is new to me, I am floundering my way through it and it takes longer than it would if I knew what I was doing.

Albuquerque is a city with few support services. You end up doing allot yourself. It is the only way to insure that it is done right.

For instance.....how many of you in large cities have had to calibrate your clients monitors? I have to do it all the time.

[Frank Petronio]

The problem is CMYK conversion is a moving target for all but the most "together" magazines. The big weeklies like SI and Time have remote proofing and file prep sepcs down to a T but most places are operating closed loop processes, with about the same level of voodoo and superstition as your first Epson Photo Printer, circa 1997.

[Marko]

And guys I do charge for it though not enough, because this is new to me, I am floundering my way through it and it takes longer than it would if I knew what I was doing.

Albuquerque is a city with few support services. You end up doing allot yourself. It is the only way to insure that it is done right.

Kirk, once you have it in digital form, you have the entire country at your service. What's to stop you from contracting someone in LA or NY? There's plenty of underemployed knowledgeable prepress people here, since the magazines are still in a bind compared to five years ago.


For instance.....how many of you in large cities have had to calibrate your clients monitors? I have to do it all the time.

You'd be surprised. I have to do it every once in a while for the web. I can only imagine how you must feel.

[Walter Calahan]

I always ask for the press profile before committing to doing CMYK. If the client can't provide a profile from their printer, I tell them I'm not responsible for the color. I get that in writing!!!!!!!!

I try to put the fear of God in them about the color, and then recommend that the printer do the CMYK conversion if I can't get the press profile.

I also tell them that post-production pre-press work cost $150 per hour. A contract proof is extra, usually in the $150 range.

Good luck.

[v gese]

While not exactly what Kirk was referring to, many stock agencies now days will accept only digital files for submission and have little or no interest in beautiful perfectly exposed transparencies. One agency that I submitted to for years will no longer accept my 4x5's or even MF transparencies. They will take some 35mm still as these can be easily scanned, but my focus has always been LF. The economics of the stock photo world at work I guess. Have to get a scanner and a big Mac and spend some time on my rear as well.
Vance Gese

[Robert Hall]

Oh Yeah. Just what I would want to do. Spend more time in front of a computer.

I only hope for the professionals sake that digital is in it's infancy.

I make it easy on myself. I only shoot black and white and have no monetary reason to worry about "pre-press"

Best of luck to you, Kirk.

[Kirk Gittings]

There are some really good reasons to remain a true amatuer.

[Marko]

There are some really good reasons to remain a true amatuer.

As a matter of fact, if one could get away without having to pay the bills, or had that matter solved some other way, I see no good reason for not being an amateur.

:)

[PViapiano]

Kirk, as you know, I'm a professional musician here in LA, but what you are saying and complaining about, holds true across all professions that have embraced digital processes.

It used to be that film and TV composers wrote their music at home, on a piano, had it orchestrated and copied for the musicians, hired a studio and recorded the score. Now, because of really low budgets, most (not all) composers have to use synthesizers, samplers and drum machines to record their scores into their computer sequencer and mix it to a digital file to present to the producers.

Most recording studios have closed in town, more musicians are out of work and composers are not fulfilling triple duty.

Think about it...composers must build a studio space, buy all the necessary equipment, learn how to use it, must play all the electronic instruments themselves, engineer it themselves, mix it themselves, etc. This takes up so much time that it is incomprehensible to the average person who puts in a mere 40 hour week.

The producers pay a creative fee, but it in no way makes up for the savings in studio costs, instrument costs, engineering, mixing and mastering costs...the composer must do all of that and absorb it.

I know a lot of composers who make less than $1,000 a week to furnish music for an average TV show.

I know that this post is a little off the beaten track, but I wanted to shed some light on another profession that has been impacted in the same way.

[Merg Ross]

Kirk, your concerns make me glad that I took down my commercial photography shingle before arrival of the digital era.

On assignment for Architectural Record in the old days I would deliver a dozen transparencies and a couple of dozen b&w prints to the San Francisco office. That was my last involvement prior to publication. I was hired and paid for what I did in the field and darkroom. Payment was always timely and any residuals a pleasant surprise.

However, do not despair, perhaps one day you can return to amateur status!

Regards,
Merg

[Marko]

I was hired and paid for what I did in the field and darkroom. Payment was always timely and any residuals a pleasant surprise.

And that's how it should be, digital or not, in photography and any other professional field. That it isn't so anymore is not the fault of digital, it's just a technology, no more and no less. It may have changed the cameras we work with, it may have moved the darkroom from the closet to the computer, or the instruments in Paul's case, but it did not introduce the decline in perceived value of our work nor the increase in demands and expectations.

It is corporate greed that did it, paired with the illusion that anybody could do anything with "just a click or two". It is also the contractors desperate for work who accept less then equitable terms, to put it charitably, in order to secure at least some income.

This is not a healthy state of affairs and it cannot last indefinitely. It simply doesn't pay to either side in the long run. The only solution is to refuse assignments with unrealistic expectations while making clear why.

[Gordon Moat]

The things that use to be done by a service bureau or high end pro lab are increasingly falling towards some photographers. Since I started with CMYK while still in college, I have an easy time with it, though I can understand the frustration. Dan Margulis is one of the better writers to use for texts that guide you through processes, though the best guides I have seen were items given away at printing industry trade shows. Unfortunately unless you want to hurt your head even more, getting deeper into CMYK means learning something about commercial printing, and learning more about paper and presses.

I wish I could give you more encouraging words, though it does get easier as you put this new knowledge to practice. I have tutored several photographers over the last two years in CMYK issues, and I think the tutoring approach works better than trying to figure it out from books and articles. So my suggestion would be to find someone near you that can work one-on-one with you, or as a possible alternative try to find a workshop that really does go deeper into this.

This is one of the big issues I push often on PDN Forums, that photographers will need to learn at least a little about CMYK and pre-press. The attitude amongst some big names in digital is all you need is RGB, then let the graphic designer handle the rest. There are some issues with that; first is that the so called graphic designer might be a temp worker on a deadline, and the other issue is when the RGB to CMYK conversion is done by someone else, and the print turns out not so great, then sh*t rolls down hill until it hits the photographer. I suspect many pros will continue to ignore CMYK, until it becomes a problem. Best of luck, and keep with it; you might end up better off than some competitors.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[Frank Petronio]

You know, I don't miss taping stacks of 0025 Wrattens on a lens just to make a silly "perfect looking" chrome that some art director would judge with some unclaibrated light table against some other uncalibrated chrome, and then complain that the blues weren't printing right.

[Kirk Gittings]

I agree with that sentiment too, Frank, but at least that was behind the camera time as opposed to sit on your a__ time in front of a computer.

[Ed Richards]

> This is not a healthy state of affairs and it cannot last indefinitely.

Or it is the new market place, just as many manufacturing jobs are not going to come back to the US. Kirk - perhaps you need to find a good studio in India to outsource to. Then they can do the pre-press for developing country wages, which you could pay by being freed up to do more assignments.

[Doug Howk]

If I have to sit on my butt all day in front of a computer, I prefer earning a decent wage (my day job is a computer programmer). My impression is that commercial/professional Photographers are becoming marginalized at very time when their expenses for being on the digital rat-race are increasing ( eg, CS3 will be out soon which will probably require computer memory upgrades). My wife works as a graphic designer in a marketing department; and, increasingly, digital photography work is done in-house. Getting "just good enough" images are becoming easier for the novice that it demeans the value of the professional. My suggestion is to find a niche area of photography that digital is unlikely to invade.

[Wayne Crider]

Invoice

Item 1; 4x5 Shot of Mount Rainier............... $1
Item 2; CMYK file and color correction ........ $2500.

Total Due $2501

When they ask about the pricing, ask if it was cheaper when they did the work.

[paulr]

Kirk, as you know, I'm a professional musician here in LA, but what you are saying and complaining about, holds true across all professions that have embraced digital processes.

It's true for designers, too.

Once upon a time, all the prepress stuff was handled by prepress people. This was in pre-digital days as well as digital ones. You'd send a file out, maybe with some color swatches, and the people who knew what they were doing would separate the file, handle conversions, trapping, etc., and then send you a nice match print to sign off on.

Now, with the wonderful and ever-more-complex world of PDF, publications are just sending you the instructions (sometimes pages of them) to prepare a press ready file for them. It seems that the technology has simply allowed the publication to offload a significant chunk of the labor on the customer.

Which I suppose is fine, but it's also sneaky: I don't think the media buyers at places like ad agencies have any idea about any of this stuff. They just see the price of insertion for a certain size ad on a certan page. They don't realize that the price suddenly includes much less service. Someone else's department has to absorb the cost of the several hours prepress time (and the back and forth phone calls and emails trying to decipher the specs and instructions).