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Holidays... CLOSED
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Sat-Sun... CLOSED Holidays... CLOSED |
| P H O T O G R A P H Y T I P S F O R C A R D S |
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We suggest you follow these tips when choosing pictures or taking photographs for your cards. We will, however do our best with any printed photograph. We recommend professionally processed 35mm prints or high resolution digital images for your cards. Your announcements, invitations, and holiday cards are likely to become cherished momentos. Sharply focused, fairly up-close but not too close, glossy color photographs produce the best opportunity for a beautiful crisp image for your photo cards. We suggest you send several of your favorite photographs and we will use the one(s) best suited to the design you have chosen. Your original photographs will be returned to you with your order.
It is best for the subject of the photograph to be in front of a plain, light colored, or simple background. Light colored clothing, blankets, and backgrounds allow the subject of the photo to show up best. For portrait style and baby photos, a white or off white sheet or comforter thrown over the back of the couch or hung from the wall works great. Look carefully at what is behind the subject in the photograph. Try to avoid unsightly objects, like kitchen clutter, roads, cars (unless it's part of the subject), utility lines, lots of other people, etc. Too much color, pattern, or clutter behind the subject will detract from the finished card. However, we can crop the background out of your photo if needed and approved by you. Candid photos look wonderful in front of a natural setting (i.e. the ocean, trees, water, etc.). Your photos should be clear with good focus, and not blurry. Lighting is very important. If you are indoors, use natural light from windows, overhead lights and lamps, and your camera's flash to insure that you have enough light. Dark photos and harsh shadows on the subject can be lightened but will not maintain the quality of the image. Outdoor photos also look great taken both in natural sunlight and when taken with the fill in flash on your camera. In certain situations, the fill in flash makes the subject stand out and minimizes shadowing on the face caused by the sun. To include multiple subjects in the same photo, make sure they are close together. The closer subjects are together not only allows for a closer shot of them, it is also more appealing to look at. If the subjects are too far apart, they appear to be in competition for the eye of the beholder. The most important thing to remember when photographing a baby is to make sure you have good lighting. Natural lighting, lamps, and your camera's flash will work well to make sure that your baby is lit from all angles. You especially want to be sure to have good lighting around the head so that you minimize shadowing on the face and hair. Use a little baby lotion or Vaseline on any obviously dry areas of the baby's face. Dress your baby in just a diaper or light colored, minimally patterned clothing and position the baby on a light colored blanket. Photos can be taken on the floor or bed on top of a blanket or sheet. For an interesting effect, you can wrinkle up the blanket around your baby. Photos taken on top of a blanket placed in the bouncy seat or in a carseat also work well. Just be sure that the baby doesn't slide down and end up "scrunched up." For babies that are laying down, try taking photos at both a 45 and 90 degree angle from the baby. For babies laying on the tummy, be sure that the head is turned completely to the side. Remember that we can give a photo a sepia toned or black and white finish to help even out a baby's uneven skin tones, if needed. Here are some suggestions for multiple babies! If you have twins, you can send separate but similar poses of the babies. If you have triplets, you can do the same or send a group shot. If you have quadruplets or more, send a photograph with all the babies together. An "aerial shot" of multiples, facing up, with their heads together in a spiral type formation is sweet. Or you may have a design idea of your own! If you are using a print photograph, you should send us the actual print and let us scan it professionally. This insures the highest quality image for your cards. Your original photos will be returned with your order. If you are using a digital camera, be sure to use the best resolution setting on your digital camera. The output produced by a digital camera on the best setting works very well. You can e-mail us the image or send it to us on disk. Digital photographs should be between 1280 x 960 and 2400 x 1600, or larger, in size in order to retain good resolution when printing your cards. This is about 1.3 (or greater) megapixels. We've had very good results in the 1472 x 1104 range, though slightly lower also sometimes works well. Although images smaller than 1280 x 960 dots look good on your computer screen, they will produce poor pictures with jagged edges and possibly with pixels showing. This is especially true once the images are cropped, edited, and resized. JPEG files with minimum or no compression work the best, although we can accept most of the major file formats including BMP, TIF and GIF. |
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All information contained herein is the property of MillerPrints.com, a department of Miller Printing Studio. No portion of this page may be used, reproduced, modified, adapted, published, translated, distributed, performed or displayed in any means without written permission from the author. Miller Printing Studio · 6245 Goodwin Road · Pinson, AL 35126
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