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Proofing Your Prints

Lesson 131 from: Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Brooke Shaden

Proofing Your Prints

Lesson 131 from: Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Brooke Shaden

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Lesson Info

131. Proofing Your Prints

Next Lesson: Bad Vs. Good Prints

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

19:06
2

Storytelling & Ideas

27:34
3

Universal Symbols in Stories

03:19
4

Create Interactive Characters

02:16
5

The Story is in The Details

04:13
6

Giving Your Audience Feelings

05:49
7

Guided Daydream Exercise

04:20
8

Elements of Imagery

02:19
9

The Death Scenario

01:47
10

Associations with Objects

03:01
11

Three Writing Exercises

06:39
12

Connection Through Art

30:35
13

Break Through Imposter Syndrome

07:40
14

Layering Inspiration

23:13
15

Creating an Original Narrative

07:42
16

Analyze an Image

04:12
17

Translate Emotion into Images

04:31
18

Finding Parts in Images

06:02
19

Finding Your Target Audience

04:05
20

Where Do You Want Your Images to Live?

12:01
21

Create a Series That Targets Your Audience

32:43
22

Formatting Your Work

06:08
23

Additional Materials to Attract Clients

07:24
24

Which Social Media Platforms Will be Useful?

04:17
25

How to Make Money from Your Target Audience

11:27
26

Circle of Focus

07:55
27

The Pillars of Branding

06:18
28

Planning Your Photoshoot

09:05
29

Choose Every Element for The Series

07:38
30

Write a Descriptive Paragraph

09:37
31

Sketch Your Ideas

17:27
32

Choose Your Gear

02:50
33

How to Utilize Costumes, Props & Locations

26:18
34

What Tells a Story in a Series?

13:06
35

Set Design Overview

01:43
36

Color Theory

19:50
37

Lighting for the Scene

12:05
38

Props, Wardrobe & Time Period for Set Design

06:00
39

Locations

04:31
40

Subject Within the Scene

07:26
41

Set Design Arrangement

05:46
42

Fine Art Compositing

03:46
43

Plan The Composite Before Shooting

10:29
44

Checklist for Composite Shooting

18:52
45

Analyze Composite Mistakes

12:11
46

Shoot: Black Backdrop for White Clothing

10:42
47

Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing

08:36
48

Shoot: Black Backdrop for Accessories

08:17
49

Shoot: Miniature Scene

09:59
50

Editing Workflow Overview

01:57
51

Add Fabric to Make a Big Dress

08:35
52

Edit Details of Images

08:09
53

Add Smoke & Texture

10:47
54

Blend Multiple Images Into One Composite

24:58
55

Put Subject Into a Miniature Scenario

17:55
56

Location Scouting & Test Photoshoot

22:10
57

Self Portrait Test Shoots

22:30
58

Shoot for Edit

04:21
59

Shoot Extra Stock Images

10:01
60

Practice the Shoot

25:07
61

Introduction to Shooting Photo Series

03:33
62

Shoot: Vine Image

10:40
63

Shoot: Sand Image

09:50
64

Shoot: End Table Image

04:59
65

Shoot: Bed Image

06:18
66

Shoot: Wall Paper Image

05:54
67

Shoot: Chair Image

08:02
68

Shoot: Mirror Image

06:57
69

Shoot: Moss Image

05:48
70

Shoot: Tree Image

07:33
71

Shoot: Fish Tank Image

04:09
72

Shoot: Feather Image

09:00
73

View Photo Series for Cohesion & Advanced Compositing

07:35
74

Edit Multiple Images to Show Cohesion

36:55
75

Edit Images with Advanced Compositing

29:33
76

Decide How to Start the Composite

09:35
77

Organize Final Images

21:37
78

Choosing Images for Your Portfolio

08:19
79

Order the Images in Your Portfolio

16:28
80

Why do Some Images Sell More Than Others?

16:03
81

Analyze Student Portfolio Image Order

11:42
82

Framing, Sizing, Editioning & Pricing

02:19
83

Determine Sizes for Prints

16:44
84

How to Choose Paper

13:56
85

How to Choose Editions

07:18
86

Pricing Strategies

18:59
87

How to Present Your Images

13:26
88

Example Pricing Exercise

09:39
89

Print Examples

08:23
90

Licensing, Commissions & Contracts

04:44
91

How to Keep Licensing Organized

06:07
92

How to Prepare Files for Licensing

07:28
93

Pricing Your Licensed Images

12:33
94

Contract Terms for Licensing

12:07
95

Where to Sell Images

04:55
96

Commission Pricing Structure

08:23
97

Contract for Commissions

12:17
98

Questions for a Commission Shoot

08:45
99

Working with Galleries

08:58
100

Benefits of Galleries

07:39
101

Contracts for Galleries

10:32
102

How to Find Galleries

05:22
103

Choose Images to Show

08:53
104

Hanging the Images

03:38
105

Importance of Proofing Prints

08:04
106

Interview with Soren Christensen Gallery

21:59
107

Press Package Overview

04:35
108

Artist Statement for Your Series

18:20
109

Write Your 'About Me' Page

09:04
110

Importance of Your Headshot

03:55
111

Create a Leave Behind & Elevator Pitch

20:19
112

Writing For Fine Art

04:44
113

Define Your Writing Style

14:49
114

Find Your Genre

06:41
115

What Sets You Apart?

02:25
116

Write to Different Audiences

05:10
117

Write for Blogging

39:57
118

Speak About Your Work

14:21
119

Branding for Video

07:37
120

Clearly Define Video Talking Points

14:27
121

Types of Video Content

31:45
122

Interview Practice

13:22
123

Diversifying Social Media Content

22:32
124

Create an Intentional Social Media Persona

24:48
125

Monetize Your Social Media Presence

18:46
126

Social Media Posting Plan

04:01
127

Choose Networks to Use & Invest

02:57
128

Presentation of Final Images

19:13
129

Printing Your Series

09:16
130

How to Work With a Print Lab

13:39
131

Proofing Your Prints

10:11
132

Bad Vs. Good Prints

03:32
133

Find Confidence to Print

10:50
134

Why Critique?

06:55
135

Critiquing Your Own Portfolio

10:39
136

Critique of Brooke's Series

16:18
137

Critique of Student Series

40:07
138

Yours is a Story Worth Telling

02:09

Lesson Info

Proofing Your Prints

I caution you against large prints to start. They're very difficult to handle. It's really easy to lose resolution, to have that resolution distort, and stretch pixels too much and it'll be too soft, it'll be kinda muddy looking, so that's a little bit difficult. Ease of sale: are you in a region where people buy really big prints, or are you not? And if you're not, really think about where you're gonna put those gosh darn prints. 'Cause I have so many big prints in my house just rolled up, I have no idea what to do with them, I need a whole other house just to store my prints that didn't sell that are really really big. So think about that. Now, proofing your prints. What you're gonna think about is lighting, are you wearing gloves, do you have paper to cover the prints, compressed air is a really good thing to have. I like to have compressed air, and the reason why is 'cause you can just blow it on the print and get all the little dust and specks off instead of trying to wipe them aw...

ay or touch them. Make sure that they're tightly packed. So while we're talking about proofing, let's get a print out here and let's see if we can just pop one out, see how it goes. Yay! Oh, hello. Okay, so the print that I chose to do here is going to be this one, with the vines, for a number of reasons. I chose this print because I thought it was the most likely to go poorly, and I thought, "Let's just go with that." Because this is going to be the one that I would worry about most. So why am I going to worry about this one more than any other? There are a number of reasons. I still think, like, for example, this print could print very poorly. It's really dark. Really dark. And it's meant to be. The one with the feathers could print really poorly, 'cause it's really dark. But the reason why I chose this one specifically, is because it has a lot of darkness around the edges where you can just barely see some detail up in here, and that's a really sensitive zone to get right when you're printing. I've seen tons of prints that come out way too dark, you can't see any detail, some that come out so light that you start to lose color and things like that. It doesn't look very good. So I chose this one for how dark and light it was, because our subject has a good amount of contrast on her, and I want to make sure that she pops. But the other thing is that it has one very particular color in this image, and I want to make sure that this color is right. Because if you know me, I do not like green in my images. And this was a stretch for me to do. I couldn't even do it on this one. I changed it purple, 'cause I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I did one and I was like, "No more green. We're done with the green here." And so I kept this one green and I didn't keep the other one, and I kept this a very particular green. I changed the color of that green, what felt like 50 times. Because I was so paranoid that I wouldn't like it. So when it comes to printing it, I want to make absolutely certain that it is just that exact type of green that I want. So that was my thought process in choosing this one. Now all of these have a lot of darkness, and probably any of them could have worked as a test print, but this is gonna be a really good one for us to start with. And we printed a couple the other day, didn't we? Do we have those handy? And I want to show you just some of the process that we've been going through, when it comes to prints. So, I don't know if you guys can see this fairly well, but let me just show you. This was one that we did. It's crazy dark, right? And it's so dark that it's sort of just crunching the colors, so there's just a blue strip here, instead of the floor board that's in there, and we've got this really magenta circle happening here. It was really bad. But, this one was not my least favorite, let me just say that. There were some that were worse. And then this one was just slightly lighter, but you can see just tons of contrast on it. Here it is. This is the most terrible thing I've ever witnessed in my art career. Not really, but it's really bad. And this was lightening too much. And because of that process of making it come out lighter, it also lost the color, it lost any impact that it has, and she looks totally just blended into that scene, like she's not supposed to. And then we have just a couple more. We did a lot, can you tell? There's that one, and then it's just varying levels of darkness. And different printers are going to produce different results. The person working the printer is going to produce different results. And that's important to remember. So if you're going to some place to get your prints done and frequently you're thinking, "These just are not coming out right." Remember that it could also be the printer, the person doing the printing, that you're not jiving with, and you might need to try somebody else. So we're gonna see if Casey and I jive today. Good luck. Yeah, hope it goes well. Okay, a couple other things that you're gonna want to think about when you're proofing. One of them is going to be the lighting that you're under. So right now, we're under very white lights, and that's pretty good for proofing. So I can sort of get a true sense of color because it's white light, but earlier, for example, we were under blue lights, or at least some in the background. That wouldn't be good for this situation because you don't want any color cast coming in. The other thing that I'm wary of is only checking it in one light source. So instead of only looking at it in this space, under this light, I would love to just put the blinds up, see how the natural light comes in and how that affects it, and just see how that goes. The other thing that I want to do when I'm printing is to really think about the angle that I'm holding it at. For example, if I hold it straight up and I let the light hit it directly, that'll look different than if I hold it down at an angle. And a really good thing to do is instead of just holding it in one way versus the other, it's a great idea to start to shift it, just lay it down, and see if you can see any dents or scratches as you look at it at eye level, which I love to do. Because you can really really see if anything weird is going on here. And there is one image that I had printed from these that are hanging that had a bit of a scuff on it, and I can't remember which one it was now, but it stood out immediately to me when I picked it up. Of course I can't see it now, but there was one that just had a scuff. And I would have to reprint that, if there was a scuff on it. I feel like I should be able to make a scuff. There we go, I made a scuff. That was a little sad to do, wasn't it? I know. Now, I don't know if you guys can see this. Probably at home, you can't see it that well. But can you see right there, where I made that line? And you can see it depending on which way it's tilted and, so it's good to just really proof it. Really proof it. Don't just look at it once and be like, "Yeah that looks fine. I can see the detail in the shadows." 'Cause it's not only about that. It's about really angling it and seeing exactly what we've done. One day I swear, I'm just gonna like... This is how I'm gonna start signing my prints from now on. Right, right? Is it good? Do you like it? Okay. So, that's why it's really important that you handle your prints with care, that you use gloves, for example. I always have sweaty palms, which seems irrelevant. But my hands get dirty easily, and so I touch things and it rubs off on the prints. And you just want to make sure that, in everything that you do with your prints, you're treating this like it's worth $1 million. 'Cause one day it might be, you never know. I want to make sure that when I'm giving a print to a client, it doesn't have a dent, it doesn't have a scratch, and you can even see that just through the process of holding this right now, can you see the dents that are occurring in the bottom of this? I don't know what the right lighting is for you guys to see, but you can see a little bit. And of course I'm not handling them nicely, I've just been like this, talking to you guys 'cause I have this issue where I can't stop moving my hands. But that's already creating issues that would not allow me to sell this image, this print. So that's what I'm considering. How is it looking? Oh, it's coming. Oh, I'm a little scared about this one. (laughing) We'll see how it goes. Okay, let's look at more proofing here, if we can see that. So what I'm looking for are scratches, dents, missing ink, shifted pixels. Do you remember that picture that I showed you guys before where I printed and my pixels were way shifted off? Oh my gosh, worst day of my life. Scuffs and debris. Okay, so specifically missing ink is one that could really trip you up if you're not used to looking for that, and what I mean by that is this: when I get my images printed, because it's such a thick sort of cottony paper, some of the paper sometimes comes off in the printer and it will sort of sprinkle on to the ink, and sort of sit on there, and it's really easy to mistake a piece of dust for missing ink, when you're printing. So you want to really make sure that if you see a little white speck, that it does come off and that it's not just missing ink completely. Because somebody will notice if you don't notice.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Guided Daydream & Writing Exercises Workbook (Lessons 1-11)
Creating an Original Narrative Workbook (Lessons 12-18)
Finding Your Target Audience Workbook (Lessons 19-27)
Planning Your Series Workbook (Lessons 28-34)
Set Design Workbook (Lessons 35-41)
Compositing Workflow Checklist (Lessons 42-49)
Editing Workflow Checklist (Lessons 50-55)
Location Scouting Workbook (Lessons 56-60)
Stock Image Downloads for Practice (Lessons 61-72)
Organizing Your Portfolio Workbook (Lessons 77-81)
Pricing & Editioning Your Work Workbook (Lessons 82-89)
Writing Contracts & Licensing Images Workbook (Lessons 90-98)
Gallery Best Practices (Lessons 99-106)
Pitch Package Workbook (Lessons 107-111)
Writing Your Brand Workbook (Lessons 112-117)
Marketing Workbook (Lessons 118-122)
Social Media Workbook (Lessons 123-127)
Printing Methods Checklist (Lessons 128-133)
Self Critique Workbook (Lessons 134-137)
Bonus Materials Guide
Syllabus
Image Edit Videos

Ratings and Reviews

April S.
 

I tuned in for most of Brooke's lessons in this course and watched some of them more than once as they were rebroadcast. First I want to say that Brooke is a very good instructor. Her easy-going, friendly, down-to-earth, somewhat quirky manner cannot be mistaken for unprofessional. She is very prepared, she speaks well (not a bunch of hemming and hawing), she is thoughtful, she is thorough, she is very relatable and at ease, and she is definitely professional in her presentation. I really thought when I first tuned in that it would mostly be background noise while I was at work, sound to keep me company. Not because I didn't like Brooke but I really didn't think I was into fine art photography nor did I think I cared about the business side of things much. Not now anyhow. I was really wrong. Brooke sparked a deep interest in me to delve into fine art photography, to consider creating images for myself, from my imagination. In fact, I realized that this was something I'd been thinking about for a couple of years though I hadn't put a name to it (the idea of creating pre-conceived images based on my own creative goals). I gleaned many little treasures from her about image sizes, working with printers, different types of paper, selling, interacting with galleries, and so much more. I may not need all of what she taught right now because I'm definitely headed in another direction at the moment, but she planted ideas and information in my head that I know will be useful at some point. Things I may not have thought of on my own, but that seed is in my head now so when the time comes, I'll know. I'd really like to buy her course but at the moment, with the holidays right around the corner, it's not in my personal budget. I'm grateful to have caught the live and rebroadcast lessons though, and her course is on my list to own. I think it's a great reference to be consulted over and over again, not watched once and forgotten. Kudos Brooke for really putting together an excellent course.

Ron Landis
 

I'm retired now, but spent decades in the people and training business. Brooke is extraordinary! Even though this course is extremely well organized and she's left nothing unattended, she moves through it with friendly conversational manners and without a sense of it being stilted. It's as though we are all her friends, not students, as she shares her heart and passion with us. What a joy it is to listen to her. And what a clear, unambiguous command of her subject. Wow! She explains it with such ease using explanations and techniques that won't overwhelm artists just starting their portfolio or the Photoshop-squeamish among us; but despite its simplicity her resulting art is breathtaking and beyond original. I wish more of my professors at school were as engaging. This was by far my best buy at Creative Live yet.

Angel Ricci
 

When the title says comprehensive, it means comprehensive! I loved every part of this course. It's inspirational, motivating, and insightful towards creating art work. Even if you are not necessarily considering a fine art specialty, the concepts discussed in this course are applicable to many areas! I find this super useful as a videographer and photographer and look to apply all of these exercises and concepts for my personal and business work moving forward. It is lengthy, but you will not regret a single minute. Brooke Shaden is an amazing artist and educator. I recommend keeping up with her work, presentations, and any future courses that may come in the future.

Student Work

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