Proofing a Mixbook Book

 I have been using two different printers for photo books for the past several years.  I tend to use Printique (formerly AdoramaPix) for my "serious" books, those where I anticipate wanting full spread images and top quality printed images.  

I also like using Mixbook.  I find it easier to use and less expensive, though the lack of a practical lay flat option and my perception of their print quality keeps me from using them for books where I know I have top notch images.  

Covid-19 has me delving into my archives to create new books of events well in the past.  Mixbook is the right choice for me on these as: 

1. My images back then tended to be a bit off -- no need for big prints.
2. Ease of book creation is more important given potential volume and time constraints.
3. Lower cost encourages more generous allocation of pages for marginal materials.
4. Thinner finished size takes less bookshelf space.

One of the advantages of Mixbook over Printique is the ability to collaborate and review.  This post will delve into that a bit deeper.

Removing Annoying Foreground Fence

 As I have been working on my shots from a family trip to Alaska in 2006 I ran across some interesting shots that were totally ruined by nasty foreground fencing.  All of the images are from an animal park, taken through the fences, also as I was with a tour group I was forced to shoot through the fence.  I captured images with a fence dominating my view but I remembered just seeing the animal.  Rather like the following pair of images.

Making Water Wet

It's been a while since I posted to this blog, by "a while" I mean more than a year.  Lots of reasons, but I'll skip those and get right to the subject of this post: Making Water Wet (in Lightroom).

Why in the world would I need to make water wet, it is that way naturally, isn't it?  Looking at raw images, apparently not always.  Water in a RAW image can look flat and dull.  For that matter sometimes pavement or rocks would look better with a bit of a moist glisten. 

I just picked up a technique courtesy of Scott Kelby in one of his videos that literally can make water (or stones, or pavement) look wet. 

(tl/dr summary) -- Use local adjustment brush and set contrast and clarity to 100 (yes, pin to the max) and brush on the adjustment.

Enlarging Techniques

I just bumped into a nifty page on enlarging techniques published by AdoramaPix.  I think it is worth a read and may come in handy in the future, so I'll link to it:

AdoramaPix: Going Big

Using Adoramapix Referral Link

Opening an AdoramaPix account using a referral link can be confusing, even frustrating, based on the reported experience of some past travelers.  I'm writing this post as a fairly detailed, step-by-step how to page, for someone wanting to order a BarrettPhoto book.

The first step is to follow (click) a referral link to go from my web site to AdoramaPix's where an account can be created.  I include a referral link in the text describing each book and often through other means.

Please note, that I have tried to be detailed and complete, AdoramaPix may change their site at any time.  Also, some people have seen a different first screen.  I believe they always have a Join Us or similar option to create a new account which should lead to the process I outline below.

Navigating the SmugMug Gallery

BarrettPhoto images are primarily shared through our web site hosted on SmugMug.  SmugMug is wonderful and all, but the gallery pages can be a bit confusing.  It has a lot of controls to access various pieces of information.

The image at right shows a typical gallery view with all of the controls as presented on the web site.

This post attempts to clarify what the controls actually due.

EXIF Image Rating

Image ratings are essential to my work flow and management of my Smug Mug photo galleries.  Using that data in a consistent way is important to me.

EXIF is short for EXchangeable Image file Format and can be used for storing quite a bit of text information with or inside of a data file. EXIF typically stores image capture time, identification of camera and lens and many other optional fields.  This posting delves into my use of the Rating field.  Which is really nothing more than a very short integer limited to values of 0 to 5.  Those values are often represented as a count of stars (⭐️) to show a rating.