Photography Q&A

[sue-jim]

We're beginning to have more photographers showing their work in ACEO's - I'm glad to see that! I've always considered photography to be a legitimate art form. We use a camera instead of a brush - but the finished piece of art is every bit as much an expression of our artistic vision as a painting is (I paint, too - I imagine a lot of us here also paint - no different from being skilled in both oils and watercolor, IMHO). Like a painter, we have certain technical skills we learn - and sometimes those can be very frustrating, especially when they involve computers! So I'm starting this thread as a place where we can ask questions and brainstorm solutions - maybe somebody else has already worked through the problem you're stuck on. To start things off, I'll ask my question: I'm trying to get photos ready for putting on some Cafe Press merchandise, and they recommend using PNG files for the best print quality. I use Adobe Photoshop. Previously I have saved files from Photoshop in PNG (and TIFF for printing here) and they worked okay. Yesterday when I saved as PNG formats, Photoshop SAID it was writing PNG but the icon in my files showed as JPG -- and when I tried opening those Photoshop error message said "Could not complete your request because an invalid JPEG marker type is found." Which really ticked me off - whatever marker was there was something Photoshop put there, so why couldn't it open it? And WHY did it save it as a corrupted JPG instead of PNG? I wonder if something happened that corrupted something in my Photoshop program (my daughter was here all last week - she downloaded something bad & I did a system restore to an earlier time that day -- maybe in that?) -- and if I need to uninstall it and reinstall it. Hate to do that! Anybody else have this problem? Any ideas? (maybe from some computer expert :) Sue

[formwithfunction]

Great capture, Kathy! Really does give you flexibility for many captions. -- ~ Charlie imagesbycharlie

[poozybear]

Thanks Charlie! I'm trying to do some greeting cards for the Dazzle shop, but it's really hard to choose between caption/no caption, and then, what kind of caption. And I don't want to have the same image up with ten different captions. Flowers are easy, because you can just use "Thinking of You," or whatever. But with squirrels, I can't decide if I should try humorous, or friendship, or what. I have no idea what is more likely to sell. LOL. Heck, on CP or Zazzle, nothing's going to sell, except to myself. ;) -- Kathy

[formwithfunction]

I have no idea what is more likely to sell. Kathy, I haven't figured that out either, as much as I've tried. You might try a variety of things to see what sells. And I'm with you about not putting a bunch of different captions on the same image. -- ~ Charlie imagesbycharlie

[drawdog5]

You could put up a couple versions (same image, different text) and (if you're at all interested in doing so) let your shop visitors know that you're willing to customize the cards with different text. On Zazzle, there is the option for buyers to do their own customization. On most of my items, I've turned off that option, but I do allow it on the couple of cards I offer. I really don't want folks messing with my artwork, but I figure on cards, they can add text if they want. -- -Ann "Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time."

[mreas]

I have no idea what is more likely to sell. Keep the carrot. Swap the squirrels for soft-core asian p@orn. -- "Mick is in fact quite right..." ~drawdog5

[poozybear]

You are in fact, probably quite right. -- Kathy

[poozybear]

On most of my items, I've turned off that option, but I do allow it on the couple of cards I offer. I've been doing the same thing. I have the customization turned off on everything except greeting cards, because I don't want people messing with my photos. I did discover that you can lock an image, so if you put your copyright info on the back of the card, it looks like you can lock it and prevent someone from removing that in the customization process. I could be wrong about that, but did find that "lock" feature, so assume that's what it's for. -- Kathy

[drawdog5]

Ooooh, I didn't know about the lock option, I'll have to check that out. -- -Ann "Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time."

[poozybear]

I looked into it a little further today (there's a link next to it that explains what it is). Yes, it DOES lock portions and make them unalterable by a buyer. So if you have your logo and copyright info on the back of the card, you can lock it, and even with the customization feature on, the buyer cannot remove it. -- Kathy