Photo Success Secrets for You and Your Photographer

Posing & Posture

• We highly suggest you use a professional photographer as opposed to taking the photos yourself. They know how to make you look your best. And when it comes to building an image, it's worth the investment. Here are a few pointers that will help us maintain high quality standards through the design and print processes.
• Look directly into the lens. This will help you connect with your prospects on an emotional level. You'll come across looking personable and trustworthy.
• Insist that your photographer take the photo at eye level. This pose provides a subliminal message of "seeing eye-to-eye" with your prospects. It also avoids the problem of foreshortening, which tends to make you look heavier.
• If you want to be leaning on your name, use a white prop. Please have your arm square to the camera (i.e. your hand shouldn't be closer to the camera than your elbow). Make sure all your fingers are showing.
• Please adjust the height of the support you lean on so it's natural and comfortable for you. In most cases, the idea is NOT to support your weight on the object, but rather to have a level surface on which to place your hands or arms. A surface that is too low will force your body to lean too much toward the camera and make you appear to slouch or slump. It's OK to lean toward the camera a little — in fact it often adds an energetic feel — but too much of a lean will usually look unnatural.

Apparel

• Wear solid contrasting colors if possible. (ie. navy, red, burgandy, black, etc.) They'll reproduce the best. Since we'll be cutting you out from the white background and printing your Slogo on white paper, avoid wearing extremely light colors.
• Also avoid fine patterns such as plaid, tweed, or men's dress shirts with thin stripes. The reason? We must turn your photo into dot patterns for printing and computer use. Often, these dot patterns combine with the fine patterns in clothing and create obtrusive "moiré" patterns. Take our word for it, you don't want moiré patterns in your marketing materials.

Format

If you want to achieve the best results possible and maximize your investment in your personal marketing campaign, don't omit these next few important considerations.

• Seek out a photographer that offers "medium format" film. That's 2-1/4" (2.25 inches) positive transparency film. It's similar to a positive 35 mm slide, only larger. This will enable us to capture excellent clarity and resolution in the scanning process.
• FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY: If digital photography is your best option, we recommend that you still go to a professional photographer who uses a studio grade digital camera [i.e. 5 MegaPixels or more] and proper lighting. Please send us the original [RAW] digital files on CD or ZIP disk in a ".TIFF" or ".EPS" format. Please do NOT send us printed digital photos as they do not scan well. We do like to have a printed proof of the electronic files to aid us in color calibrating you photos to our press.
• USE A WHITE BACKGROUND. Since we'll be removing your image from the photograph background and placing you into a Slogo, it's imperative your photographer uses a white background. We'll still need to trim out the "light gray" areas, but it looks far more natural than if we trim you out of a dark colored background.
• Also, avoid using any type of filter on the camera like "soft edge" filters.

Retouching & Color Correction

Once we've scanned in your photo, we will automatically look for ways to subtley improve your image through digital retouching techniques. Generally, we look to smooth excessive wrinkles in clothing, slightly brighten and color correct teeth, color correct flesh tone, etc. In some instances, we can even change the color of your clothing to better match or accent your Slogo.

Examples

The best way to illustrate to your photographer what you need is to show them. Take a copy of your catalog and printed samples we've sent you, to the photo shoot, or have them look through our web site at examples you would like to mimic.

Most of all, have fun! Look confident, personable, energetic and happy. It will show through in the end.